Curb Appeal

Warning- long post.

When we bought our (now) beautiful house it was in need of a lot of love.

Below are pictures from when we were looking at the house:

 

Lots of tall bushes, a rickety gate, and a very boring porch. The good news is that there was a porch- something that both Tim and I love. In the second picture you can see that the bushes pretty much engulfed that porch. They had to go. For several reasons. First of all, they encroached on the walkway to the front door. Second of all, they made the house look much smaller than it is. Most importantly, for the first year we lived here, the front door was our main point of entry and I was terrified I would come home late one night and someone would be lying in wait for me behind the bushes. Scary...I know.

 

The bushes along the driveway had to be trimmed back as they scratched our cars.

 

The last picture shows the bushes in front of the nursery window. To give you a point if reference, the top of the bushes were even with the top of my head. Not even kidding. They covered up most of the window so that when you were looking out all you could  see was green.

 

Last May, my amazing husband took out his machete and hacked away at the bushes. Unfortunately for him, we had just found out we were pregnant, so I couldn't help him with the heavy lifting. Strategic, aren't I?

 

After several days of back breaking work he had conquered the bushes and you could actually see the house. We planted a few meager plants that promptly died in the summer heat and then, like I said, we were expecting a baby so we ignored the front of our house until this Spring.

 

Now we have this:

 

 

 

 

Much better, no? Don't worry about the hose- I still have to find a cute storage box. I actually took these pictures about a month ago and the plants have about doubled in size since then. This front flower bed has always been a bit of a head scratcher. Its a huge space. I think we decided to just put in a ground cover that can tolerate shade- stay tuned.

 

In front of the nursery window we planted a blossoming cherry tree and knock out roses among some annuals.

 

On the left hand side we have ferns, hydrangeas,

 

impatiens,

monkey grass,

 

 

and Aurelia. 

 

 

The monkey grass is a transplant from my parents' house that they were going to throw out. So, score! Free plants! Plus, I think it seems very happy in its new home.

 

I cannot emphasize how much the curb appeal has improved on our house just by tearing out those man eating bushes. Let's do a side by side before and after, shall we?

 

 

 

 

I love our house :). 

 







Announcements

A lot of fun stuff is happening over here at The Texas Cottage!

I'm writing today to announce several fun projects that are currently in the works. The first and biggest is that we are redoing our deck!

Here is a picture from before we moved in:

Besides some landscaping, not much has changed in the 1 1/2 years we have lived here.

The deck has always bothered us. Its actually a large space, but see how it is divided into 3 sections? The awkward space makes it difficult to arrange furniture or move our grill around. Also, the taller portions of the deck are about 3-4 feet off the ground. That, coupled with our 6 foot fence means that when we stand on our deck we can see into our neighbors' backyards...awkward.

Anyway, those are the problems and my amazing husband is fixing them. Here is the plan:
1. Lower the right section of the deck so it is level with the middle section.
2. Expand the middle section so it comes out as far as the right section.
3. Knock out the left section of deck and expand to create a paver patio with a pergola above.
4. Hide the utility boxes.


Additionally, but not quite as exciting, I am redoing two of our inside closets- our hall closet and what used to be my second closet. So here is the deal. Our master bedroom is actually smaller and has smaller closets than the nursery. We chose to use it as our master because it has an attached bath. Strange, I know that the bedroom with the attached bath would be smaller. Oh the joys of living in an older home. One of those joys is teeny closets. So, when we moved in, both the hubs and I had one closet in our bedroom and one closet in what used to be the office and is now the nursery. Flash forward about a year when I nesting and had pregnancy brain. I decided it made more sense to switch my second closet with the hall closet. It actually made no sense and I had to shove all of the stuff we kept in our hall closet into a smaller space resulting in this hot mess:

Don't judge me too harshly. Like I said, I was pregnant. Apparently I got tired before I finished because I never got around to moving my shoes. Anyway, this had quickly evolved into one of those comedic closets you see on TV where everything falls out when you open the door.

The hall closet where I had moved my clothes was barely better:

Stay tuned for these stunning transformations! The hubs is already about halfway finished- a real feat I might add during the Texas summer!

Napa Packing List

I mentioned several days ago that we found time to go on a little family vacation. We actually took a long weekend and snuck off to Napa Valley.

When we travel, we rarely check bags. In college, we were both fortunate enough to study abroad and backpacking our way through Europe taught us how little we really need while traveling. For instance, the three of us were able to fit 5 days worth of clothes in a small roller suitcase and duffle bag for our trip to Napa.

I wanted to share how I plan my outfits while packing in order to travel with less.

I apologize in advance for the terrible pictures, my camera and I must have taken an awkward pill. Thanks for being patient as I am still new to blogging.

Here are the clothes I brought and how I like to lay them out when packing:

You'll notice that my clothes are all pretty neutral with the same accent color- turquoise. The best advice I have heard for packing light is to bring clothes that are all along the same color scheme. That way, you don't need a lot of extra accessories to coordinate outfits.

I also like laying my clothes out by outfit to ensure that each item I bring will coordinate with other items to make an outfit. Too many times I have just packed random tops and bottoms and ended up at my destination with a bunch of pieces that did't work together.

Another reason that I like my whole suitcase to match color wise is so that I have the option of mixing and matching pieces depending on my mood and the weather. It also allows me to just pack one bottom to coordinate with multiple tops.

For example:

See how both tops work with the one pair of white shorts?

Actually, all of my tops would  work with any of the bottoms.

I also brought a black maxi dress.

Simple, comfy- why would I not? The necklace in the picture above is one of my new favorite things. They are called Chewbeads and are made for babies and moms. My teething infant loves them and it was so great to have something accessible for him to chew on the plane.

Several things to note- It was pretty warm while we were in Napa this May. However, when we've been before in March it was cold and rainy. For that trip I packed several warmer items. Also, our experience is that Napa is pretty laid back. I usually wear to dinner what I wear during the day and we have yet to go somewhere where something nicer than jeans and a cute top was required.

Happy traveling!

Linen Closet

Huzzah! I am so excited to announce that I have finally finished organizing my linen closet. Warning- this is a long post.

Our linen closet was definitely one of those places in our home that I avoided because the chaos drove me crazy. I just shoved stuff in when I had to.  

Here is a progress shot after I half-heartedly tried to organize it a little while ago:

The two biggest improvements for this closet were adding a fifth shelf and a new overhead light. My fabulous husband made both of them for me :).

Here is a picture of the new light:

I'm going to write a whole post about how we transformed our hall way ceiling, but I wanted to include this picture to emphasize how adding light into your home can make a huge impact. Before, this portion of the hallway had no light. I couldn't even see what was going on in the linen closet; which did not help the chaos within. Now that I can actually see what is going on in the linen closet, I can see what we have in there.

The second biggest change was the addition of another shelf:

Before, for whatever reason, the shelves had stopped belly-button height. This left a lot of wasted space at the bottom, especially because the space is so narrow I was unable to find some sort of storage system to fit.

When starting an organization project, I like looking through Pinterest for inspiration. Seeing pictures of what others have done not only inspires me, but it also helps me visualize the outcome. Here is my favorite example of a linen closet:

Source

 

See how this linen closet has a similar shape to mine? It also includes many of the same items. Both of these are important when finding inspiration for an organizational project. Fortunately, I did not need any space in my closet for toiletries, so I had a little extra space to work with.

 

My first step was to empty the closet and sort everything into piles.

 

 

 

I know it looks crazy, but it made sense to me.

 

I then cropped all of my shelf liners to size.

 

 

See how they flop over the side of the shelf in the picture above? When we moved in I was so busy unpacking I just threw them in there. Now that I had everything off the shelves I just felt like it made the whole space look sloppy.

 

Next, I had the hubs add hooks to the back of the door.

 

 

My inspiration photo used rods, but our closet does not have enough space between the door and the shelves to allow for rods, so I decided hooks would work just as well. I picked these up from Target last weekend. I think they were under $5.

 

 

 

Simple and cheap. That's the way I roll.

 

When I was looking at all of my piles of things to put back in the closet I realized that we did not need to keep everything  I had in there. For instance- do I really need to keep my college dorm room bedding with matching pillow that I don't even like any more? Or my childhood bedding that has been used to shreds? After purging I ended up with 2 garbage bags full to donate. I was so excited I loaded up my car and drove to the closest Goodwill drop off that minute.

 

Once I put everything back, there was a lot more breathing room. Here is the after shot:

 

 

Sorry I can't get the whole thing in one picture- our hallway is a little narrow.

 

Several things- firstly, adding hooks to the door was amazing. It's like getting a whole extra shelf. Never underestimate the impact of adding storage to the back of doors. Secondly, I love labels. I used Martha Stewart for Avery self adhesive book plates.

 

 

It's so wonderful having things labeled. When showing my husband the space after I was done, he walked up and said, "Great! Here are our blankets." No more him having to asking me where everything is in the house!

 

 

I'm so excited to have this done! Now I can reach for a towel without pillows tumbling down on top of me!

 

Laundry Time

Hello everyone! I hope you enjoyed reading about our breakfast nook. Today I am going to scooch across to our laundry area which also lives in our kitchen, right across from the breakfast nook.

Here's a before shot for ya:

 

 

Before I go much further I have to admit that I used to hate this space. It is front and center in our kitchen, not to mention smack dab behind our back door. You can see the door in the picture above. Needless to say, this is a high traffic area as we use this door to go to the garage and our back yard.

 

To give you some perspective, here is a shot of the other side of the door:

 



 

 

However, over time I have come to appreciate the space for several reasons:

 

1. We are so blessed to just have a space in our home to do laundry. Now that we have a baby I am constantly doing laundry. I can't imagine having to load up my baby boy and laundry to go to the Laundromat every time I had to do laundry.

 

2. When I was in high school, we lived in a lovely home built in the1930s. The problem was that the washer and dryer were out in the garage. Actually, not in the garage, the laundry area was in a lean-to against the garage. And guess what? When it rained the space flooded. Plus, the lot was big, so the garage must have been at least 100 feet away. It was actually a very nice home, but for whatever reason the house had not been updated to include a laundry area. What I'm trying to get at is my mom used to trudge out to the garage in all sorts of conditions with her laundry basket in tow just so we could have clean socks. The woman is dedicated. With that in mind, I think I can stand having our laundry area in the kitchen just so long as it is in the house.

 

3. Lastly, I have a new appreciation for the location of our washer/dryer. Now that our baby boy is here I don't want to take my eyes off his chubby cheeks for one minute. Having the laundry area in the center of things allows me to wash our clothes without taking my eyes off of him.

 

Now then, here is an after shot for you:

 

By far, the biggest change to the space was also the cheapest- paint. It is amazing  just how much cleaner the space looks once we covered up all the scuff marks and painted the wood white. The pictures do not do it justice. The second biggest improvement is the shelf my husband built me. It so kindly covers up the hoses and outlets that are a necessity of washers and dryers.

Here is a close up of my storage rack:

It is just a simple 3 drawer rack from container store that I jazzed up with some leftover fabric to hide the chaos inside. The labels match the ones I have in the pantry and the jar is full of dog bones for our spoiled pup.

In addition to fun pictures, I also keep this piggy bank on my laundry shelf. He serves two purposes. The first, I can quickly pour pocket change into him before our pants go through the wash. The second, he lives right by the back door, so when I know I am going somewhere that has parking meters, I can quickly grab some change without always having to cart it around in my purse. I still haven't decided if I want to spray paint him or leave him as is.


Before  we moved in, I had big plans to build doors to cover the laundry area. But you know what?

 

 

Our dryer sticks out just enough so that there is no room to build doors. My next thought was to make curtains to hide the space, but I decided that they would be too visually imposing in the small space.

 

I hope you enjoyed my laundry tour! I still have big plans to add in some art and maybe a drying rack. There are so many fun laundry ideas floating around the web these days that the possibilities abound! Thanks for stopping by!

How do you like to make laundry day fun?



 



Breakfast Nook

Hello! I apologize for not posting in a while. We went out of town for a few days and I had to get my feet back on the ground.

My mom found me the most beautiful orchid and I thought while I was showing it I might as well share our breakfast nook. You will find the space right off of our kitchen.

Here is a shot of the area before we moved in.

Lovely brown wood, no?  This space is part of our kitchen. The kitchen is by far the room we have done the most to and I will get around to showing the whole room one of these days.

Here is the breakfast nook as it looks now.

The first steps we took were to paint the wood white and the walls this lovely neutral gray. The color is Behr's Silver Sateen for anyone asking.

Then we had to lose the dinky pendant light the previous owner had and replaced it with this light fixture. We found this light at our favorite consignment store for 30 bucks. He was originally brass so we just put our spray painting skills to work and turned him black. Sometimes I think I want to put a drum shade on him, but I can't decide if it would overwhelm the space.

The Texas flags are prints from a local artist my husband had before we got married. They are in barn wood frames and we think they work well in the space.

As far as the table goes, this is a pretty small space and we have toyed around with several different table locations. We rarely eat at this table so we opted to push it against the wall to make room for our barstools. Also, we like having a table in the space, because we can turn it into a serving station when we entertain.

Here is a shot from our most recent shindig where we pulled the table out and used it as a drink station.

Our back door is just to the right and you can see our little key rack on the wall. The rack is comprised of three little turtles that I bought at Anthropologie several years ago.



Lets step closer to look at the table, shall we?

How about that orchid, huh? Thanks, mom!

The two picture frames are from Target and the S&P shakers are from Anthropologie. My napkin holder is a super cute wooden rooster. Sorry, I've had him too long to remember where he is from.

Remember this bucket from my Home Goods run?

Well my husband is a hot-sauce-loving kind of guy. So I stocked the bucket full of hot sauce and put him front and center on the table. Now the hubs always knows where his Tabasco is.

Another orchid pic.

Anyway, we love our little breakfast nook and I hope you do too! Thanks for stopping by!