There's just something about springtime that makes me want to fix things up around here. This is the time of year that I love to wash the windows and curtains, rake up all the left over debris that landed in our yard during the blizzard winds of winter, and clean out the garage. Not that I just love doing those things ;o) but having them done is well worth all the hard work that makes it all happen. But, since the weather is still not acting very spring-like, I decided to finish up an inside project that I had wanted to do this winter and just hadn't gotten around to yet.
Although the sun is shining out my living room window, and we have even planted our tomato and dahlia seeds for the girls' 4H projects, it is still just a bit too chilly out there to get me motivated to pull the rake out of the corner of the garage. So, this weekend we pulled all the furniture into the middle of the living room and started the process of preparing the walls for a new coat of paint. Now, if you read about my painting adventure last fall when we redecorated the dining room, you know that we live in a rather small house on a lake . . . but it is not a fancy "lakefront home." It is a cute little double-wide manufactured home (known as "Hoosier Huts" here in northern Indiana), that is set across the road from the lake with a charming wooded area in our back yard, a cornfield on one side and our really LARGE garage on the other side. So, I have a few challenges to work with, but these days I think we should all be grateful to have a house at all, so I'm not complaining!
Because this is a "Hoosier Hut" (if you know what I mean!), we have those strips along the walls where the edges of the wallboard come together - so I got out my little thingy that I can wedge in between the wall and the strip, and yanked all those yucky, ugly things out of there. Then, I got out a can of joint compound and slapped a bunch of it on all of those cracks in the wall and smoothed it all down as much as possible. Let it all dry overnight, and then took my sanding blocks and tackled those blotchy patches of gray. We had a respirator out in the garage, so my sweet hubby insisted that I wear it while I was sanding all that stuff off the wall. I looked like a martian (well, at least I looked like some depictions I've seen of martians), and there was gray dust flying all over the living room. Got it done, and then we vacuumed up all the dust with the shop vac.
Then it was finally time to start painting! I had chosen a shade of brownish gray that matches the border that I picked out, to complement the border that I put in the dining room. It is rather a dark shade for such a small house, but the other day when we were at Grandma and Grandpa's house, I saw their recent paint job using a dark green. It was beautiful! But they only put it on one wall, so I'm still not sure I want the whole room painted that darkish shade of brown / gray. It is really a pretty color but it just might be too much for the entire room. I'm thinking of just painting the bottom half of the walls in the darker color, and then getting a lighter shade of the same color for the top half, with the border in between. I think I need to be kind of creative to fix up this little house!
Once I get this project finished, and if the weather warms up in the next week or so, I am so ready to get going on some yard projects. One of the things that I want to try this spring is learning about rose bushes and planting a couple out here. We have great soil (we are right in the middle of farm country, with that corn field right on the west end of our house) so I just need to do a little research to see what else rose bushes need. We're also planning on a small vegetable garden, and I'm really looking forward to creating a few perennial garden areas around our house. I had perennial gardens all around our house in Michigan that I had worked on for almost 20 years, but now I'm starting all over with my gardening adventures. We have some shade and some sun, so that will be a new gardening experience for me. In our yard in Michigan, we had almost all shade so I got to be quite familiar with the plants that would do well in the shade.
But until then, I've definitely got plenty to keep me busy with painting the living room. If I can save up a little bit here and there, we might even be able to replace the carpeting later this summer. You know, I guess you don't have to live in a mansion to fix up your little corner of the world. And since this is where we live right now, I'm pretty sure that it's a good thing to bring some sunshine into our home. I just keep reminding myself when I think about everything that our girls don't have . . . . I grew up in a house smaller than this one, and I survived! I guess they will, too ;o)
Have a great Monday!
~~ Nina
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