The Wits

Awkward Moments and Choosing A Shade of Benjamin Moore Gray

by Annie Posted on October 4, 2012

I’m at a standstill with the 2 dressers we’re making over. Greg has some big projects/deadlines at work which has kept him away. I’ve heard phrases like “my brain is broken” and “I’m too busy to think” (?) and for weeks I’ve seen my poor husband look mighty stressed.

However, we’re basically at a point on one of the pieces that is what we refer to as “his area.” I don’t dare touch that part because he is much better working with the putty (a true talent and more complicated than wood filler) and we can’t afford for me to screw it up. I’ve been trying to get the grain pattern out of the drawer fronts all week, coats of wood filler and primer day after day without much progress so we’re bringing out the big guns and puttying the entire fronts for a smooth, even, non-grainy look. And I have ruined portions of projects before due to my lacking skill and impatience. Maybe moreso impatience. (Greg says I didn’t but I’m hard on myself and he’ll eventually admit it set the project back a day or two which drives me crazy.) Hence, “his area.” The other piece is waiting for the supplies to arrive. We splurged so I’m hoping it pays off.

We’ll get back on that this weekend. And raking. The wind showed up in Minnesota, as did the cooler temperatures, so we’ve got a ton of leaves from the dozen adult trees around the property. It’s going to be a bit challenging to collect the leaves in the backyard where the new grass is…it will probably pull right out. Maybe we’ll just let them blow away, right into the neighbor’s yard. We didn’t get to rake last year’s leaves until spring when we started on the backyard because we didn’t move in until mid-December. The only house on the lane with leaves still everywhere through winter and a wet mess to clean in the spring. Oh well, it’s over.

No shame and that is Henry's head. This is the living room as of today, October 4th, 2012.

dining room — I couldn't be bothered to put the vacuum or dog toys away. I hate that chandelier.

Until then, I’m going gangbusters on a project for the living room. One I thought would not be happening this fast. Mounting the tv and hiding the cables in the wall. Sounds all complicated but is pretty straightforward when you review the steps. All we need to do is go get or order the articulating mount and these cable plates (we did consider the plates with the fancy organization but they are about $35/piece and these are around $4/piece). Then I realized that we probably want to have the wall painted before this which began the search for the perfect Benjamin Moore gray paint.

I’ve had my heart set on a shade of gray before we even had a house. Gray is a neutral and I think it will please both myself and potential buyers when we put the house on the market. With new trim eventually. I’ve been keeping track of Benjamin Moore colors through other blogger projects and Pinterest because not only is Ben Moore a quality product (not affiliated with them although we wish) but it’s also at our local hardware store in this small town which is amazing. Do you remember those sample fans I picked up at a garage sale months ago for super cheap? Well, me neither until today. They are coming in quite handy. I plan, Greg doesn’t know this yet, to pick up some samples, put them on the wall, then pick “the one” soon. If money weren’t a thang, I’d have roughly 100 samples on the wall. (It’s hard to avoid saying 50 shades of gray like that naughty book that was everywhere recently when talking about actual shades of gray paint.)

I’m also kind of kicking myself for selling our mid-century credenza a few months ago (even though it paid off the Sallie Mae student loan-I was raising the roof as I said that). That style is popular right now and you will pay through the nose, even and especially on craigslist, for such a piece. When we bought ours-with a matching nightstand-we paid $60 for the two. No joke. I’m trying to find a credenza a little smaller in scale than the last one though and anything I find is either sold immediately or way over what we’re willing to pay. The tv is sitting on our coffee table and a plastic tote has been our new coffee table for months. High class living right there. Embarrassing.

Anyway, with the paint and tv mounted on the wall (we’ve never had that and it seems so…umm, with the times, I guess) plus a storage piece (mid-century credenza/buffet/dresser/lowboy/whatnot), I’d feel a ton better about living like vagrants in our own house for the last 9 months. It would be awesome to attain a portion of design and decor in the house, you know, since I like that stuff, instead of having a place void of our touches. We’ve been making do with the bare essentials in the house, most money going to furniture refinishing and yard projects, not to much furniture for ourselves. We have a couch, lamp, side table and dining table with exactly 2 chairs. It is sad. It’s not like I want to fill the place either. We are minimal livers but we’ve been uber-minimal for a long time. I think it has scared clients and people that show up here through craigslist. I often find myself sharing my ideas with strangers that come by because I feel guilty and that an explanation is needed so we don’t look like weirdos. I think that scares people more. I’ve reenacted moments like those to Greg, really playing up my awkward need for acceptance and understanding, it usually ends with me grabbing the person’s leg, laying on the floor while screaming “we’re not weirdos” as they drag me across the floor trying to get to the door. 9 out of 10 people ask what the large hole in the wall with the “stairs to nowhere” is all about (the new attic entry that’s not finished). I tend to get tongue-tied/can’t find the words and come off more moron than design genius. I’d rather show than tell.

Anywhosal, the gray paint will cover the living and dining rooms since it’s an open concept so it’s kind of a big deal, to me, to get the right color.

Do you like gray? Any favorites? Any other color suggestions?

Yard, Dresser and Weekend Update

by Annie Posted on October 1, 2012

Whoa, it’s October. Like the month with Halloween, Breast Cancer Awareness and Columbus Day. True story. When I was in first grade we celebrated Columbus Day with fun activities involving pretending we were on the Nina, Pinta or Santa Maria (the ships) on the playground with funny paper hats. The teachers-the people I trusted- also told us to celebrate the holiday, the queen herself would be coming by. And in first grade and being a huge royal fan, I was an ecstatic child. Can’t tell you how crushed I was when it turned out to be one of the teachers dressed as the queen the following day. Still not over it.

But anyway, my favorite month is over-September-and we’re rushing through fall and into winter. Only not really at all because the weather is glorious here in southern Minnesota. In the 70’s, a few times in the 80’s, and it makes me believe we won’t have snow in the forecast this month like we’ve had every single October we’ve lived here (4 years). Snow on Halloween is as crushing as believing the queen is coming and getting an impostor.

Also true is that the leaves are brilliant and beautiful this year. One letdown has been how blah and muddy-looking the leaves have been the last 4 years or how quickly they fall from the trees. They are still up and looking simply mahvelous. I’m sure we are one good wind away. Until that burst comes, I’m glancing out our large, front window every chance I get. I think I’ve looked at the vibrant reddish-orange leaves across the street more than the tv.

I desperately wanted to have a dresser to show you today. The project had the making of a super easy transformation. Then came the bleeding. The stain someone had used on the tall chest of drawers and not us. Of course it appeared once we put a coat of heavy chalk paint on it. At $46 with shipping for a quart of the stuff (which we love), it was not a pleasant experience realizing we only had 1/4 of the can left to do the whole thing after priming. The drawer fronts have been done for nearly a week with no bleeding issues. You supposedly don’t need to prime or sand or really prepare furniture with chalk paint (even though we do). This one oddly required primer after we sanded and filled the entire body (for repairs). It’s been kind of a bummer though. So much for a quick makeover. Well, as quick as a piece can be fixed with water and veneer damage.

What we didn’t expect was about 5 coats of primer on the body. Each of those times we’ve allowed it a day to set so it’s taken 5 days just for the priming. I should mention we don’t normally prime a piece but you’ll see why at the reveal.

yard update — Almost a month after ripping up most of the yard for regrading and adding tile, there is grass again.

I have an update on the yard. The grass is…well, it’s somewhat there. Let me put it this way, we’ll be working on it some more in spring.

We also finished painting the fence. That was just an ~~annoying~~ time-consuming task we did when we had time to kill between coats of primer. The fence was left by the previous owner. We took it down when we ~~ruined the arbor~~ removed the set up in the backyard, have been storing the 36 feet of picket fence behind the garden shed and since we can’t afford the fence of our dreams, we decided to paint it white and slap the 3 pieces up by the property line (so the next door student renters are not visited as often by our dog). Plus we’re waiting for the utility lines to be marked.

Greg and I sat down yesterday to plot the October house renovation plans. Some exciting things will be going on in the house. Yes! And I’m pretty excited about another dresser we’ve been working on besides the priming problem from hell. I’d say it’s one of the most “redesigned” pieces we have done to date. Something I envisioned when our friend showed it to us in his garage and then gave it,as in for free, to us. If all turns out as planned the style will be the opposite of what you see above or vastly different.

Oh, and we stopped by a garage sale in town over the weekend. Just happened to be that the home owner was moving and in need of repair on her antique Duncan Phyfe-esque table. She said it had been damaged going on 20 or 30 years, just sitting in pieces in the garage. Greg assessed the damage, brought it home, glued it back together and reinforced it with some screws (with permission) and brought it back the same day charging just $20. Easy stuff. They are going to pass along our info to their pals who could use our help repairing their antique furniture. Funny how we walked into a garage sale and came out with a job, then a recommendation and helped to make someone’s day. She said she should have garage sales more often. Unexpected and nice.

The Past Week

by Annie Posted on September 24, 2012

Before I get all ranty about the past week really testing my patience, I’ll just put one sentence per instance of those tests. Semi-ranty but not a 2000 word post. Feel free to tell me what’s getting your goat.

1) Just this past Saturday did the whole domain transfer issue get resolved (something that was to take “a few days” took 3 weeks) after 8 emails, 4 phone calls (the company doesn’t have support on the weekends and doesn’t answer the phone during their working hours) and a few poorly rated surveys got the job done.

2) The city-wide garage sale Saturday (the one I jabbered about on our Facebook page…took a few hours to make a schedule) was almost a complete bust-we could have passed on the few items we picked up and slept in.

3) I now get to start the process of switching hosts for both blogs (hooray…said no one ever on this topic).

4) I’m still unable to post on my 3 year old food blog, although the site is up, and my busy, bro-in-law is graciously checking that out for me.

5) Something is wrong with our new mac which makes my days rough-emailing people back, researching, finding supplies, updating ads, etc. takes 5 times longer than it used to…I daydream about taking it out back and going all Office Space on it.

6) The temps have been lower than expected so the grass is coming up in small patches slowly and might just be done for the season (wahwah).

7) Greg has been asked and given more duties outside of his position which means he’ll be away even more which really sucks on both the house reno and furniture salvaging projects (there’s more to this but I can’t share yet).

8 ) Our allergies are out of control, as in, we don’t want to move some evenings and parts of the weekend so we haven’t.

9) We’ve had a number of people contact us about one piece or another but back out.

10) One of our sweet family cats, in Indiana, passed away unexpectedly, Iz or Izzy.

That was the worst part. I rescued him and his sis, Sophie, from a guy who was going to cruelly kill them with a shotgun. I tried to bring them to college with us my senior year (even though cats weren’t allowed). The maintenance guy found them and my parents kindly took them in and they’ve been with the family for almost 8 years. Iz Bo Biz, as I called him, was allergic to fleas and had masses so he was laid to rest. We’ll miss you, buddy.

But some happier news is that we have a dresser that barely took any fixing. Those are rare around here. Look for it soon. Even though the temps have been low, they are on the rise and it’s beautiful fall weather which I love. The picket fence left by the previous owner is starting to look better with some white paint although it takes both of us home to get all the drips so it’s slow going. No wonder Tom Sawyer tricked people into doing it.

More things are in our etsy shop that I finished in the last week. Sometimes I put off taking the pictures because it’s a long process that requires the right lighting, settings, background, etc.-one I don’t feel particularly good at it or enjoy to a point of satisfaction. That’s just me. Practicing that side of the business. Food is much easier to shoot. Don’t know why I feel like that since both just sit there. Some food requires a quick shot too so maybe I’m crazy. Not that I’m taking groundbreaking, breathtaking food photos these days since I have better (things that pay the bills) items to photograph. Most dishes get the ol’ Instagram shot now. Sometimes I long for those old food photography days when they were better and complimented. Improving each week and then I just stopped when we moved in the house. If I keep this up, it will be 2000 words.

Finally, we are searching for another dog to adopt. The time has come, our love is big, the house is already a mess and if it’s a puppy, potty training will be easier on us this time around if it’s not in the dead of winter. Lesson learned with Henry. But in about a month (or less) there could be snow on the ground so I could be full of it. That part about snow made me spit up a lil’ bit in my mouth. Ugh. I get a wee melancholy when winter/winter-like weather hits. It comes too soon and lasts too long around here.

Overall things could be much worse.

The Family Auction

by Annie Posted on September 18, 2012

Over the weekend my grandpa’s belongings were sold at auction. He passed away somewhat suddenly in February, about a month after receiving a lung cancer diagnosis, going from his energetic and peppy self to a bedridden man in a matter of weeks. He passed away in his home, the one he and my grandma designed and built, surrounded by loved ones. We saw him take his last breath and watched a great soul leave this earth. Buried on Valentine’s Day. A day I never liked anyway.

I’ve had a rough time trying to cope and wrap my mind around all of this, especially since I hadn’t gone back to say goodbye but to try to find help. Not admitting to myself that one of the men I most admire and love would be gone. Greg also felt a strong connection and bond, two guys with like minds, and often thinks of him. An influential thinker and stinker. Ornery, ornery man. Greg reminds me of him.

When we moved into this first house of ours last December, I imagined my grandparents pulling up in an RV, parking in the two gravel spots alongside the drive. Us discussing the plans we have for the house and sharing what we do and where we are in our new lives 600 miles from them. My grandpa a wise, travel enthusiast. Then everything changed. I still think about that when I look at those parking spots. That and the video house tour I made a few weeks after the diagnosis-having to do several takes because I’d begin to cry and I didn’t want my grandparents to see that being, what I wanted, a message of hope, to fight and thrive. A show of support from far away. How I wanted them to have more of a connection to where we live and our daily lives since moving away from most family 4 years ago. A pang of regret and hurt on that subject in me. Although I find comfort in asking him what we should do with the house and imagine him watching/listening, always giving his support from afar, his common spirit in designing and building as he did with their house. When we started working on the backyard I found a marble, which I took as a nod from grandpa saying he is here, since we played the marble game aggravation together, a rivalry, pact and bond that couldn’t separate us.

Greg and I were unable to go back home near Ft. Wayne, Indiana for the auction. It was a difficult weekend thinking about those pieces of my grandpa’s life going to someone else. His farm equipment, his machinery, his hobbies-my grandpa ever the tinkerer and engineer, creating tools and objects that would benefit all of humankind if they had been available to the public. A fun spirit, friend to all and charismatic to the max. I am relieved for my grandma who has been stressed about the auction and organization of the household. She has peace of mind now and for that, we’re grateful.

I couldn’t help thinking about how, to an extent, that’s what Greg and I do, gather pieces once owned by someone who has passed or no longer needs it, someone with a life full of stories. We try to show as much respect for these pieces and this house by caring for them, salvaging the items and rooms so that they can continue a legacy, both ours and of owners past. Someone who may have loved or loved to despise that object-an object perhaps turned into something of comfort and fondness although disliked.

I hope those that purchased the objects that surrounded my grandpa for so many years appreciate and care for them, obtaining use while sustaining and honoring. Like my grandpa cared for them. My parents kindly picked up my grandpa’s lathe for Greg and I to use someday. We are so happy to have it for both our business and hobbies.

When we go back for Christmas and stay with my grandma, I’m sure we’ll feel the absence from one of the few places on earth I consider my happiest place. I can’t imagine how she copes after 61 years of marriage.

the basement — Greg playing pool with grandpa

That said, it could be the last Christmas at the house because grandma could be moving to a place with less upkeep. I knew this might happen and again, I want what is best for grandma. For months I’ve been trying to figure out how to keep the house in the family. To not be able to drive down that long lane, to not be welcome in the house and on the property is unfathomable and would inflict a pain I just don’t want to experience. Imagining another family changing something sends me into a tizzy.

Then again, that’s what happens. That’s what we’ve done. It’s with that thought I start to give and accept the idea but only if it goes to a wonderful, deserving family who will maintain every bit of it. A family that might change the space but keep the integrity so that it can house many deserving families well into the future. Safe and sound. Maybe one day I could go near the area and smile with only purely pleasant thoughts. But I don’t imagine that for some time if ever.

I’ve visited and lived in that house for a period of my young life. Everything happy is there. That’s where I was surrounded by family-aunts, uncles, cousins, great-aunts/uncles during weekly gatherings, some conflicts but always love. That’s where the family videos were made and so many memories come from. Bittersweet today.

summer 1984 — Me, age 2, at grandma and grandpas

I’ve tried to figure out how to purchase the house. Frantic and serious. Hoping it lands in the family. Of course it would be a stretch and we are not able to do that and won’t be when it comes time. But oh, how I wish.

Have you experienced this?

Two Reveals: Antique Cabinet and Vintage Side Table

by Annie Posted on September 14, 2012

Didn’t quite know where to begin with these two. Thought I’d just put the pictures up and talk a bit about how these salvaged pieces came to their finished state. Both are in our etsy shop looking for homes.

The cabinet above was in rough shape (the one from that great local lady who sold us a bunch of her antique furniture stored in her barn-she said she brought this guy with her from her St. Paul apartment when she was younger) and that’s putting it mildly. You can see in the before picture (sorry it’s cut off…wish I could say it was editing issues but it was purely me) that the doors and other parts were broken, there was water damage, a smell and lots of dents and bangs to substantial levels. Scraping and sanding those layers of paint off, I admit, were the hardest so far of all our salvaged pieces.

But as soon as I saw it in that barn I knew what I wanted to do. No lie. Leftover milk paint from the empire dresser and I had just found a great website for fabric, Tonic Living, and knew the panels on these doors needed a little somethin’ somethin’. We’ve done grasscloth wallpaper on the drawer fronts of a client dresser plus another wallpaper on the back of a bookcase and have always wanted to try fabric…with the help of Mod Podge.

After lots of wood putty, more sanding, we cut off portions of the legs that had the water damage, added new concealed hinges, door stops and knobs, moved the top back since it wasn’t flush and just a bunch of small things to make the cabinet shine.

But it is milk paint so it’s not shiny-it has started to chip in some great places like it tends to do. Milk paint has been around for a long time (we’re talking caves, people). One of my favorite milk paint users-now with her own line-Miss Mustard Seed says it best: “it’s made of milk powder, lime, and pigment, so it’s all natural and behaves very different from its more modern counterparts like latex and acrylics. It comes in a powder form and you mix it with warm water prior to use. It provides a beautiful matte finish that shows amazing variances in the color.” I describe it as a chalkboard-like finish which I thought was a great fit for the older piece, leaving some of the character.

But the table was pretty easy. Found it at a local garage sale at the end of July. We decided to remove the shelf, fill most of the blemishes and paint it gray since we have mucho left from my gray phase. I originally wanted stripes for a French look with dusty blush pink and gray but the pink ended up cotton candy and overall the stripes looked more like circus time.

So, I took the lace idea I intended to use on a dresser and put it into play on the table after a few coats of paint.

I ordered the French lace on ebay last winter. I wanted an edgier, more sophisticated style of lace and this scallop, coral look had me at hello.

Simple tape job to hold it in place and an easy hand with the off-white spray paint then voila, lace design drawer front. I was inspired by this one from Kara Paslay (love her work). Added gray and white striped matte paper to line the drawer and a new, off-white, ceramic knob in my collection of hardware. Cough cough hoarder.

There the two are. Now we’re on to two other dressers.

6 Months of Yardwork and Our Staycation

by Annie Posted on September 11, 2012

Ah, a sigh of relief after a relaxing vacation. Just kidding. It wasn’t very relaxing but still quite nice. And it was a staycation, a vacation where you don’t go anywhere which normally makes me cringe but thought I’d use the term anyway. As some of you readers already know, we completed the backyard project of regrading and adding tile to help the water issue in the basement. This meant tilling up part of the backyard directly behind the house (not the new stuff we just grew…it’s a big backyard) and the side of the house.

Above all, this means we are finished with outdoor projects this season. Nothing else until spring, big project-wise. Henry has a problem staying in our yard when the neighbors are out-he’s a social butterfly, a 60 lb. sheepdog butterfly so we’re reusing the cutesy fence until we can get a better one in the spring. Painting and getting that up is on our plate for next weekend (sorry to say probably no Junk Bonanza this year for us)…then the following weekend, I can’t wait, are the Cannon Falls (MN) city-wide garage sales! After that, garage “saling” is pretty much over for the season.

I’m getting ahead of myself. Back to what I was saying about the vacation…we didn’t get to plant anything, make the paver walkway or put in the rain barrel and chain last week like I mentioned in the last post. That’s ok with me.

Some before shots….

What it looks like today…

after — To regrade this part of the yard, we took the dirt and moved it towards the house to create a slope so that the rain water would go away from the house and not in the basement. Under the dirt, by the patio, is tile to reroute the water to the street which is connected to all the downspouts in the back and side of the house and garage. Just need the grass to grow. See the pics below for more of the steps on how we got to this point.

*I’ll share the after photos when the grass has filled in…if it in fact does. Want to see more of our yardwork over the last 6 months? Check out this link about repairing the window well, this one to see how we worked on the yard by the garage and behind it (ie the other section of the backyard), or check out the posts in the category ‘backyard’ here.

This concludes nearly 6 months of outdoor work just to get the space to a blank slate without rocks, lumps, roots, dead plants, dying trees, dying limbs, lots of broken and/or tacky yard decorations, a very low clothesline in a very bad spot, and cutesy fences/arbors that made the space seem tiny. All gone. It feels pretty good to have that done and know that what awaits are our personal touches. (Haha, I said personal touches and almost made it through without thinking dirty thoughts. 30 has made me more mature.)

Garage sale find just in time (the hand seeder sucked)

When we moved in, the yard was overgrown and behind in maintenance for oh, say 20 plus years and weedy, think Grey Gardens-esque. It now has grass as far as the eye can see and is much more open and fresh. You just want to run up and down the yard like a weirdo with a few whirls and twirls thrown in (that ends in pain with me hurting myself)…but you’d be stuck in the mud at the moment. True story.

root digging, rock removing, stump removing fun — Root digging, rock/stump removing fun

digging — Digging the trench for the tile after regrading and cleaning out the debris from the dirt.

We’re patiently (not me so much) waiting to see if the grass sprouts. It looks a mess and is ridiculously hard to water. We can run only one sprinkler or hose at a time. Come on, rain!

And yes, we did it ourselves (mostly Greg on this one). Some people we talked to made it sound like we were crazy to tackle all this on our own. Like we hear with a lot of projects. It’s called we’re poor, cheap and we like doing it. Greg knows what he’s doing ~~all~~ most of the time and what he doesn’t I seem to somehow. Go team Witkamp!

He says he wishes he could do this kind of work all the time. He also says he wants to be a spaceman. That’s Greg. We enjoy being together so much that we wish we could afford to renovate houses (some say “flip”) along with the furniture salvaging business full-time.

We worked on some furniture over this staycation. (I’ll show and tell in another post.) An awesome, free, vintage couch was on the curb so we grabbed that guy up. I have yet to dip my foot in the upholstery pond and in true Annie fashion (it’s actually the opposite of what I would do and I don’t know why I’m saying otherwise), I want to tackle this couch for my first run. It is a horrible idea, I know. I’m also considering taking it to someone who knows what they are doing or at least getting a quote. But you see how well it fits in our only vehicle. Like a glove. The one OJ Simpson had tried on in court anyway (ahem). I’d like to see the couch in our place with a newly painted body and snazzy fabric. Haven’t a clue what to put on the 7 foot beast.

We went to a steam and gas engine show/flea market around Labor Day but didn’t come home with anything. It was pretty well picked over by the time we arrived. We also missed the big event in town, Defeat of Jesse James Days. Not the traffic. Running errands definitely proved tricky but we just avoided crowded streets.

Garage sales were everywhere this past weekend and we did grab a few things that will end up in the store and for our own use. Like that grass seeder and clothing that yours truly will actually wear this fall. I’m into fall. Fall is my buddy. Best season ever. To live in a place that has fall-like weather all year long is a dream.

And yes, my 30th birthday was great. We didn’t do what we thought by taking a trip to see home reno showrooms and the like but we had sushi, watched a movie and had a wonderful time after a long day outside. Thank you to family and friends for those birthday wishes!

But, and if you follow our facebook page you might know, this staycation was not without its problems. Greg’s paycheck was delayed a day throwing off the budget for the yard (the first time in 4 years of course), my other blog (the food and recipe one) went down on Labor Day and I didn’t know for 4 days (still working on that issue which involves transferring my domain to a new account, getting a new host-for this blog too- and a bunch of fun things we get to address with that this week). For some reason getting this post up has taken 10 times longer and it no likey me adding pictures. Making for a long afternoon.

The USPS (I’ve had hundreds of problems with them) broke one of the gifts my parents sent me for my birthday. The carrier (not our normal one I know because she was on vacation too) wedged the large box in the mail slot so that when we opened the screen door (not touching it at all), it shook lose and fell 5 feet to the ground. All but one mug was broken so we called and called and got nowhere because they couldn’t be sure they weren’t already broken…no, I bet that stupid placement of them wedged in a slot too small and the 5 foot drop had nothing to do with it. There was a step right next to the slot where rational people would have placed the package-steps where packages are always put, at the front or back door. Doh. I’m drinking from the uninjured mug right now and singing “you’re a survivor, you’re gonna make it” like Beyonce. Until I dropped it. Kidding, today I’m kidding.

I can’t wait to share the cabinet and side table makeovers finally finished over the break. Next time. Please excuse any facebook page rants about transitioning from one web host to another or general wordpress/technical aspects of blogging complaints. I am human. Greg’s a spaceman. Henry is a huge butterfly. Those are the lessons of the day.

Laboring on Labor Day

by Annie Posted on September 3, 2012

Haha so I lied and can’t stay away from updating what we’ve been doing in the back yard…the final hoorah and good go until we can’t do any other outdoor work in late fall/winter here in Minnesota. It hurts (so good), 2/3 of the yard is gone and we’re about to begin digging trenches for the tile so we don’t have water issues (hopefully) downstairs any longer. I keep sharing all this and some other things on our facebook page. Check in to see the pictures of the process so far.

Happy Labor Day! We’re definitely laboring.