(mine)

Over the winter I got antsy, better enough to want to improve the home I was stuck in all season, but not yet well enough to actually do much of anything about it.  I obsessively paged through stacks of decorating and renovation books from the library.  I think I was driving Steve crazy, coming to him with all of these little projects I wanted us to do.  He’s of the opinion that we should finish up the 3 or 4 very large projects that we’ve stalled out in the middle of before starting any additional projects, big or small.  Very reasonable and rational, but I think we all know that when it comes to projects, that’s just not the way I roll.  It got to the point where his response would just be a look.  Not quite the look, but a look for sure.

But spring is here now and I am well again.  After a few false starts, where all I managed was putting on my painting clothes and wearing them around the house for a while, I finally got back up on the ladder again.  Figuratively and literally.  As any petite home improver will tell you, the ladder is your most valuable tool.  Especially when your 5′ self is trying to paint an 11′ wall.

A little home improvement series for you…

Many changes happening here at the moment.  This is Steve’s current project.  When you live in an area where the warm season is short and very buggy, a screened in porch is a wonderful asset.  It’s one of the things that we really liked about this house when we first looked at it.  It’s a lovely feature, but in bad shape.  All of the paint is peeling.  All, all (!) of the screens have holes.  Many of them are just missing, as cleverly illustrated by our neighbor’s cat.  Some of the frames were somewhat intact.  Some were just completely missing, the pieces of some were gathered off of the lawn below.  All of the pictures here, with the exception of the last one, are from autumn, when we first went out to really assess what needed doing.  This is a big project.  There are around 30 screens that need refinishing, rebuilding or to be built from scratch.  I’m in charge of picking paint colors, subject to his approval and taping things off.  Otherwise this one has been pretty much all on him.

General swing instructions here.

‘I Love You Raspberry Cheesecake-Mousse’ (raw, dairy free)- hers are ever so much prettier then mine!

Galen’s sweater pattern (shown in several pictures here both inside out and backwards).

Yarn for both Galen’s sweater and Teddy’s sweater (color: honey).

Teddy’s sweater and both sets of pants were improvised.

Fabric: random striped canvas found at a yard sale by my Mother-in-Law.

Teddy

Birthday Crown

before:

after:

This currently may well be my favorite space in the house.  Yes, the bathroom.  It’s just so calm and serene and (very important) everything is where it’s supposed to be.  No clutter.  Sun-shiny views of snow covered forests, offset by lush greenery inside.  Plus, unlike many of the other rooms in the house, it’s the right color.  While there may not be right and wrong colors in general, there are right and wrong colors for me and this one falls quite comfortably in the “right” category.

Paint Details:

Ceiling- Imagine .01

Doors and trim- Imagine .04

Walls- Water .02

All by Yolo Colorhouse.  The ceiling is a warm bright white.  The trim is a linen white that gives everything a classic, old-fashioned feel.  The wall color is extremely difficult to capture accurately, especially since it changes throughout the day, but it’s somewhere around the intersection of blue, green and grey; lovely and mellow and calm.

  The original exhaust fan in the bathroom was broken.  Since moisture and potential mold growth are a huge issue for us, replacing it was a high priority.  I finally settled on a Ventamatic NewVent light/vent combination fixture.  From their site; “The factory is 100 percent powered by wind generated power, 95 percent of all waste products are recycled and the packaging is of recycled cardboard.”  Sold.

Some other little fixes: we added in a towel bar and toilet paper holder.  I’m not really sure how the family of five living here before us didn’t have a towel bar, but there you go.  I didn’t want to spend the money to replace the light fixture above the sink, so I rigged it up to support a vintage tinted glass shade instead (a $6 investment).  A little basket from another part of the house corrals washcloths and hand towels.  Window wise I found the huge picture window, looking out over the woods, very peaceful, but the little one next to the sink faces the front yard and driveway.  I don’t even really think you can see into it from the outside.  But somehow from the inside, it felt less private then it should.  I liked the idea of these lacy window films, but worried about the safety of the materials used to make them and had no desire to pay $86 dollars to cover half of one small window.  One day I thought of some cotton lace I had leftover from another project.  With my tiny embroidery scissors I clipped the lace, following the edge of the pattern.  A little sewing, a bit of ribbon trim at the top (also from my stash) and a tension rod (less then $3), finished it off.  Much less expensive and perfectly safe.

  I’m still feeling a bit wish-washy about the plant holder.  I just made it a couple weekends ago and it doesn’t look quite how I pictured it, but I think it’s growing on me.

And what is that around our toilet you ask?  That, my friends, is our Squtty Potty.  Yeah, I actually typed those words together.  And I’m going to say more about it.  The way I see it, I have 3 young boys at home and a little girl who thinks that everything they say is brilliant, hysterical and well worth repeating.  In other words…I’m pretty much immune to any kind of embarrassment about potty talk.  And this is important, so someone has got to talk about it.  The theory goes, and this is supported by much scientific research, that human beings are meant to squat to eliminate.  It is amazing the number of problems that can be improved, prevented or cured with this one simple lifestyle modification.  Those of you who remember my Healing Home series, know that I am serious about creating a house the encourages health and wellness on all levels.  We have gut issues, there’s no getting around that.  Leaky gut, IBS, Celiac Disease, crazy food allergies, family history of stomach cancer, you name it.  I’m supposed to be going in for an assessment for possible Crohn’s Disease.  The combination of Elhers-Danlos and carrying/birthing lots of large babies means that I have all sorts of issues with prolapsed pelvic organs.  Not to mention the extra need to quickly and efficiently eliminate toxins from our bodies.  None of this is particularly pleasant to talk about, but there isn’t any way for other people to get help unless someone puts the information out there.  All of these things and more (hemorrhoids, anal fissures, constipation, colon cancer to name a few) can be helped or prevented with this one simple measure.  So, yeah, someone has got to say something because people are suffering and they don’t have to.  What’s more, we are raising generation after generation that are developing problems and in pain when they don’t have to be.  And I want more then that for my family.  Who knew I felt so passionately about such a thing?  Certainly not I.  Until I tried it.  And I can honestly say, it makes a big difference in our quality of life.  *Stepping off my strange soapbox now.*  For more information you can do your own searches on the web or check out the wealth of info on the Squatty Potty site.  For such a serious, yet taboo subject, those guys have quite the sense of humor.  Ours is the Squatty Tao Bamboo, which is actually on sale right now.  Call me crazy, but I actually like the way it looks in the room.  I think the bamboo adds an appealing, earthy element that breaks up all the white with a bit of warmth.  It’s a nice touch.  The kids all think it’s fabulous, as they no longer have to sit uncomfortably with dangling legs.  And it stays tucked out of the way, under the toilet for anyone who doesn’t wish to use it.

I think that about wraps up the bathroom tour.  Oh, except for Hector!  Hector the luna moth, named by Elijah (congrats to the .02% of you who actually got that joke).  That’s obviously an old picture, as we haven’t seen Hector in many months, but all summer long he took his daytime rest on our bathroom window.  I especially appreciated his efforts to color coordinate.

There is still a lot I want to do in this space.  A bit of custom built storage.  I might add some artwork, I might not.  There is still a vintage medicine cabinet up in the attic waiting to be fixed up and installed.  Steve wants to replace the floor some day but that is a long way down the line.  I’d love to replace the switch plates with something like this, but I’ve yet to find an excuse for spending nearly $30 on switch plates.  Steve is entirely convinced that there is no such excuse and so we live on with the plastic ones.  But it’s better.  Much better and time to move on to other more pressing projects.

~the view from my window this morning~

Let’s pretend that since I last posted that I just carried along with my semi-idyllic bed rest, reading to little ones and playing games and keeping spirits up.  Not that I ended up in two different hospitals with consultations with countless doctors at both and in between.  Let’s pretend that I’m not still recovering from the general anesthesia and  surgery for something other then the surgery that I am still, as of yet, trying to avoid.  Let’s pretend that I, who never so much as takes cough syrup aren’t on a barrage of medicines that when I’m not in too much pain, knock me out for hours on end or that I wake up crying, for reasons no one, including me understand, before falling back to sleep again.  That the vivid dreams I have during these times aren’t impossible to distinguish from reality.  Let’s pretend that I don’t have another consult for yet more potential surgeries.  Let’s pretend that there are actually days when I’m lucid enough to enjoy my family, that attempting to knit 1/4 of a row or lifting a hardbound book doesn’t exhaust me.  Let’s pretend that I haven’t lost 12 pounds in 2 weeks because between the pain and the pills I just can’t convince myself to eat.  Let’s pretend that on top of it all everyone else in the house, including the main caretaker aren’t in various stages of a nasty cold.  Let’s pretend that none of that is true because I’m having an ok-ish day.  I don’t want to tempt fate by declaring I feel nearly human, but I’ve managed to drop one pill from my regiment (for now) and this is the first day in a while that I’ve felt like my mind and my body are at least a little bit my own.  And so I want to think and talk of anything else…any pretty little everyday thing.

For Christmas this year we couldn’t really think of anything much that the kids needed or really anything that would enrich their lives.  At least nothing that couldn’t be used as stocking stuffers (i.e. art supplies).  And I am still very much on my not wanting to bring random stuff into the house for no reason kick.  So instead of several little gifts, we decided to give one big gift for everyone.  Steve built an ice rink in the front yard, and we updated ice skate for those who needed them.  Building an ice rink is a long, slow process, much more so then you might think, with layer upon layer added over the course of many days, but worth the effort I think.

These pictures are from just after Christmas.  It was really the first official time skating for the younger two, while the other two zoomed in circles around them.  Such a fun first.  I’m so glad I was able to be there.

1 & 2 There are paper snowflakes everywhere

3 why yes, that is a horseflake

4 & 5 gift making

6 & 7 and wrapping

8 late night knitting with coconut sugar cookies

9 sending off their first order

10 the kids had stamps out while I was addressing Christmas cards so I added some sweet little blue birds to the back of the envelopes

11 & 12 Golden Goose and Fairy trees seen while out and about.

13 nut butter caramel and red raspberry leaf and nettle chai

14 dreidel

15 late night knitting with orange

16 nativity by Iain

17 the enchanting Winter in White by Robert Sabuda

18 making music (why yes, those are more snowflakes on the floor behind him)

19 Crafts Through the Year

20 & 21 we made Swedish straw stars

22 & 23 while she made an empty yarn cone into a Christmas tree

24 We made a whole mobile of ballerina snowflakes.  They twirl and drift about gracefully and it’s like just before intermission at the Nutcracker. template here

It seems like every year we have the same conversations….mostly repeatedly explaining to Elijah why a 20′ tree will not fit in our house….no matter how we angle it.  And no, we can’t just put a hole in the ceiling.  But this year, for the first time ever, we actually have a room, with cathedral ceilings, high enough to fit a very big try.  Very big by our standards anyway.  And for that he is just gleefully giddy.  It’s not 20′, but I think it will have to be quite big enough.  A full ten feet tall and quite large around.  What else to say of a tree that require 2 people on ladders just to string lights?  Little Rosebud says she keeps forgetting about the angel tree topper because the tree is so tall that you can’t see it from the dinning room where we spend most of our day.

Both here and at home.  A new banner, new color scheme, things moving about, still quite a lot of tweaking to be done here.  Furniture is shifting all over the house, yet again, and I’m trying to set up another temporary crafting spot to help me through all of the last minute holiday/birthday crafting.  Elijah’s cacti collection is thriving in it’s new spot on my weaving bench.  Things are still being set up.  There are no less then 3 quilts in progress here right now.  I hung the decorative plates that my Mother-in-law sent.  My kitchen window sill is getting a wee bit crowded.  Every time I turn around someone is setting another something there to root.  Remember our celery from back in October?  Look how big it’s gotten now!  And the one from the following week…and the one from the week after that…

~July of 2011, when we first came to see the property.~

This is where I’ve spent so much of the last several months.  I think it may be the dearest spot on earth.  In the summer time the hummingbirds are often about, sometimes 3 or more at a time.  They call to each other from different parts of the garden.  Have you ever heard a hummingbird before?  They make the most adorable little squeak!  The hummingbirds are long gone now.  Only the hardiest of my greens are still going strong through regular frosts.  I’m looking back now over a season of growth and dreaming of next year.

~July 2012~

So much has changed here.  And it is still very much a work in progress.  What started out as a completely overgrown 19 x 22 plot is now a 22 x 50 space, all freshly fenced in.  Planting this year was far from methodical.  Basically whatever was ready to be planted went into whatever space I had managed to clear.  We were still building new beds well into autumn.

Outside the garden, off to the side there is actually a beautiful stone wall.  It had become so overgrown that you couldn’t see it at all.  When you live in the woods you have to decide where the cultivated land stops and the wilderness starts, otherwise you end up with tree branches knocking into your windows.  That wall is our line on this side.  The day after these photos were taken we started clearing it out.

All kinds of gardening methods are represented here.  There are some container plants; some planted in pots others in objects found around the yard.  There are traditional beds.  There are raised beds.  There are spots were we experimented with lasagna gardening.  There are beds quickly made out of old pallets, layered plantings, a bit of everything.

The three beds above (two of which were already in existence when we moved in, as seen above and one that we built), are outside of the main garden space, near to the house, next to the herb garden.  Two of them were gardens to Iain and Elijah this year.  We ate some of their turnips just this morning.  It was an in between time when I took this photo, with many seedlings too small to be seen and a swath mature plants waiting to be harvested.

~Early Autumn 2012~

Each of the children had their own small plot to tend.  Little Rosebud found a pack of 3 year old ‘Cinderella’ pumpkin seeds and insisted on planting them.  The vines grew lush and full, but the chipmunks ate every pumpkin just as soon as it started to show.

Our “orchard” is an orchard no more.  For various reasons we had to move everything and it’s all out back with the kitchen garden now.  This idea caused a lot of internal turmoil for me at first, but really I think it’s for the best.  I’m with the trees so much more now.  It’s easier to water and keep an eye on it all.  Gardening, simplified.  It does, however, mean that we have to be much more creative with our use of space.

We now have what amounts to an Orchard Walk, along one side of the garden in the area near the wall that we cleared.  All of the trees are here, under planted with some strawberries that I’m hoping won’t deplete their nutrients too much.  Before and between the boxed in trees reside high bush blueberries and a lone rhubarb plant.

See the wall and everything off to the side now?  These photos were taken right before our first heavy frost of the season.

~November of 2012~

I’m so excited to see what next year will bring.

                                           before                                                and in progress

First, a note about the “before” pictures.  The thing of it is…they disappeared.  I don’t know how.  I am absolutely certain that I took them.  Several somewhat blurry ones featured Little Rosebud in her new (at the time) birthday poncho, dancing around her future room, as well as some other clear and more serviceable ones.  Only, they don’t seem to exist anymore.  And I know I’m not just going crazy because the before pictures from this post, taken that same day, are missing as well.

Below is the only picture I could dig up, taken the first time we looked at the house.  You can also get a glimpse of it in the first photo of the post I linked to above.

And now:

Not done really, because the bed is just about the only thing in it, but a big change from what we started with.

The floor is a local wide plank white pine, finished with AFM Safecoat Naturals Oil Wax Finish.  The ceiling and trim have been painted with Yolo Colorhouse‘s Imagine .04.  The walls are Yolo’s Grain .01.

We made the executive decision that Màiri Rose should stay on the 1st floor with us, until we are ready to move up, but that Galen could move into his room whenever he pleased.

Only things haven’t quite worked out as planned.  Because, as it turns out, the four year old that was all ready to be a great big boy with his own room has grown into a 6 year old that isn’t real certain that he wants that room to be on an entirely different floor from mama.  He was very excited about the room being done in theory, but now that it’s actually done he’s feeling rather lonesome.  The other day he looked at me with a quivering lip and said, “if I want you to cuddle me, you have to do it through the vent!”  Oh dear.  I’m really not sure what the solution is on this one, as our bedroom, which will be right across from his some day, is no where near done.  I don’t know if we should take apart his bed and bring it all back down to the main living area where he never got any sleep, or take him into our room, with us, in a situation where no one will sleep, or what. And I also know that this isn’t really just about the room, but a whole bunch of changes for him in this crazy and sometimes scary business of growing up that’s leaving him feeling vulnerable.

He’s on the cusp of so many big things, things he’s been excited for and lusting after.  Things that define being big in his mind.  I can see that he’s panicking a little about whether or not he really is ready to leave the world of being little behind.  Growing up isn’t always easy.  Sometimes the internal struggle is heartbreaking to watch.  I hope that with time he learns that we’re in no rush and he needn’t be either.  That he can be our little boy as long as he likes and still have the advantages of growing older as well.  But he seems to innately know that he’s on a threshold of sorts and he feels it more acutely than my other children did.  All the Waldorf mamas out there are now nodding their heads sagely and saying, “Ah, the seven year change…”.  It’s curious and amazing and sometimes hard.  I don’t fuss about how to handle it (apart from the practical logistics) because I’m more than happy to give him whatever he seems to need.  The hard part is watching him grapple with his own personal journey and knowing that all I can do is sit back and watch and be there when called upon.  At the same time I know this is going to be an incredible catalyst for him and I’m really awed by the honor of getting to share this time with him.

The room is pretty anyway.  And it will be all ready and waiting for him when the time is right.