Before/After: Dining Room

Found this old picture from about two weeks after we moved in; before I had added the chair railing and window panes to the wall, or painted, or added crown molding or even had any furniture.

In the attic

So, with the price of food going up and with backyard chicken raising becoming more popular in Sacramento Rachel and I have begun considering starting our own chicken farm.

However, with all of the cats in the neighborhood which could do harm to our little birdies, we were thinking of using some unused space in the attic. So, this weekend, I built a chicken coop:

 

I used leftover wood from my parent's old entertainment center and $30 worth of hardware cloth. 

Just kidding. 

It's actually a mouse proof storage bin for our ginormous Christmas Tree. This thing takes up serious space: 3 rubbermaid containers (which will go in the garage) a duffel, and 2 large IKEA bags. 

DIY: Succulent centerpiece

Full disclosure, I didn't invent this idea, I got it from an Etsy crafter "Haunt PDX" who sells this for $65:

 

Being a crafty kind of guy, I got a piece of wood from my parents woodpile (the largest piece they had) and squared it on the table saw to give it some angles. Then, used a forstner bit to drill out the area where the succulents will go. Sanded it a bit, primed it and then painted it. 

To come up with this:

 

One of the reasons I think it's so cool is because it has this rugged/outdoorsy feel to it but the gloss white paint means it's a bit more sophisticated. The wall detail in our dining room is fairly traditional but the over-sized print and the carved out white log holding five succulents isn't. Yin. Yang.

Bathroom faucet done

Took longer than anticipated (as always), but got the bathroom faucet virtually done this afternoon.

Before:

 

After: 

Looks like we bought at the right time

These graphs from Zillow are kind of silly, but nevertheless, I like where this is headed. Our home value is in orange, the little dollar sign shows when we bought it. I think that large jump in value happened after I did this. :)

What have I done?

some progress...

Tore out the rose bushes on the side yard (don't worry donated them to my mom to replant) and though its not really noticeable in this picture (or the previous) the tree was growing/planted at a steep angle. I straightened it a lot by simply pulling on it and then packing the soil down so that it wouldnt fall over again. In a few weeks I'll pull it again and maybe reinforce it with a stake.


Were thinking of doing something simple such as a river rock path like this for now to roll out the garbage/recycling cans to the street that goes to the driveway. And a river rock divider to separate our area from the neighbors'.

the side yard

 

Unfortunately, the "after" photo is still to come...

Dining Room Status

Note: we took back the upholstered captain's chairs, we weren't totally sold on them. Still looking for their replacements.

Built in bookshelf is done:

Rachel had boxes of books she's accumulated over the years and has always wanted a "library" of sorts. One of the first big projects (after getting a live-able Master Bedroom) was building this built in bookshelf. Having the books at eye level is really cool and makes us feel that were living in a bookstore or library. 

I made everything without any kinds of plans, just perused some photos online of what we wanted it to look like. I've never built cabinets, cabinet doors or the like prior to this. In the end, it came out costing about $500 in wood, paint and other materials.

Just a reminder of how it all went down: 

And finally:

Big art is cool