A/C Cover DIY: Or How to Accessorize a Giant Eye-Sore

Nearly everyone has some sort of A/C or heating unit. If you live in a house, then you probably have one sitting somewhere in the back or side. I've never paid them much attention, since all houses have one somewhere, that is until we bought our house. The layout of our house is a little strange, because we have a circular driveway in the back. Because of this, our back door functions as our front door. Which means, the back of our house is fully visible when we park and come into the house.

This also means that the giant air compressor sits right where we, and everyone who comes to our house, parks and enters our house.

And I think it's ugly.

If you had one sitting in the front of your house, right by the front door, you might feel a bit self-conscious about it too. And that's how I felt.

So, thanks to some Pinspiration, I devised a plan to make ours a little easier on the eyes. It is a part of my grand master plan to make the entire back of our house, and yard, and porch quite pretty. One of these days.

Here are the before shots, from forever ago.

Ick. So devoid of charm...but don't worry. I have a plan.

AND after our mini-makeover:

 This is what you see now when you drive up to our house.

Better, no?

We still need to hang shutters, and I would like to add a window box. And did I mention landscaping?!

There is hope yet, for the giant box that is the back of our house.

And, it's embarrassing how long we have had the supplies to do this- yet another "in progress" that we can check off the list! I'm loving this New Year's Resolution. And the early stages of nesting. It's pretty fantastic.

Swing, swing, swing from the tangles of...

Our pecan tree.

I swapped for this swing:

Gave it a little spray paint, and now it the beginnings of our pecan tree playground.

I hope to add a tree swing, tire swing & climbing ladder soon.


And did I mention, the weather is perfect here in Georgia?!

A Mailbox DIY

We woke up on Christmas morning to an obliterated mailbox, thanks to an evidently very intoxicated driver. David brought the remains to me while I was still in bed, proclaiming, "It's a Christmas miracle!" I did really hate our old mail box. It was a plastic box stuck on a piece of wood. Not exactly charming.

I knew exactly what I wanted to replace it with...except that I didn't want to spend $70 on a copper mail box plus the cost of the post. So, I decided to buy a basic white one that looked like this for $17 instead:

And spray paint it with copper paint. I'm pretty excited about how it turned out!

 Side one (with our picket fence in the background! More photos of that coming soon!):

Side two. Sorry for the sun ; ) :

There you have it. Not quite perfect, but I'm loving the charm! (And the $40+ that I saved.)

I will inevitably be asked what kind of spray paint I used. It was from Lowe's. It cost $7. And it was copper. = )

A New Year and a New Project...or two.

We had a wonderful Christmas and Hanukkah and enjoyed time with dear friends and family, as well as homemade eggnog, fondue, latkes, and herb de provence butter cookies, amongst other things. And as is tradition, we are ringing in the New Year with a new project. (Our New Year's project of 2011 was our Master Bed)

I asked for a white picket fence for Christmas, and I must have been pretty good this year, because Santa (white beard and all) is helping us install one. What we originally thought would be a one day project has turned into five and counting...But all that remains is building a gate for our driveway and then painting (which the elves are working on as I type).

There were many reasons for deciding to install a fence in our front yard. The first of which being the safety of Dmitri & Damon. Since our house sits very close to a busy road, we knew when we bought our house that a fence would be a necessity to keep little feet from chasing after something into the road. However, since we only had one immobile baby at the time, and not two little ones on the loose, it hasn't been a high priority until now. Dmitri can now open all of the exterior doors on his own, and so this upped the priority very quickly! We also feel that this would be a concern for any potential buyers or renters who have young children too.

Lesser considerations for the install included our desire to add some English cottage charm and curb appeal to our home, both for our own enjoyment as well as for re-sale purposes. And Pinterest only fed my obsession.

Some photos of the fun...

Dmitri loves riding his tricycle...now in the front yard.

 Damon checks out the fence.

 Playing in the red clay from the fence post holes.

 Dmitri loves to help. Even if the shovel is twice his size.

 Hauling away the dirt.

 

Exhausted after a hard day's work.

Happy New Year! 

One Year Housiversary

On this day one year ago, we were handed this key to our house...

It's hard to believe that it has been a year. On the one hand, we have come a long way. But, we also have a long, long way to go.

I'm looking forward to another year of making our farmhouse our home!

The house as it was then...

 

And today:

I wonder what it will look like next year.....

All Things Green

I planted my little garden this morning with the help of Dmitri and Damon. Nothing elaborate, but I am incredibly hopeful that it will go better than last year's garden. (Which did not produce, hardly at all.) Obviously, I cannot do the same thing and expect the same results. Some changes I made this year are, I decided to plant a raised bed, add compost to my soil, space the plants further apart, and plant less.

I planted two heirloom tomatoes, one cherry tomato, and one yellow bell pepper plant. I get asked a lot, how I do all that I do. Now, I definitely don't have it all together. However, one thing that enables me to get work done is my Ergo. I can't imagine life without it. Damon loves it; I love it. Pure happiness.

Gardening in the Ergo.

And no, this is not an ad for Ergo. I only wish I were receiving compensation for this, but I'm not. ; ) 

 

I also got a sweet  basil plant. Grow little plants...!

In other green-related projects:

I am determined that our backyard will no longer be a bed of weeds, but will be a lush grassy yard. Literally, we have no grass. But hopefully, that is about to change...

 weeds. and dirt.

We Round-Uped the yard...perhaps not the most green option. And now we have this:

Mostly dead weeds.

Next up, we will be tilling and seeding. I really hope it goes as planned! Wish us some luck.

Have you been getting into spring and getting outside more? Right now, I am hating being inside...hence the lack of indoor projects at the moment. I'll save those for a rainy day. For now, I'm going to rock on the porch with my boys and play in the dead weeds.

Curb Appeal: Front Door Makeover

When we bought our house, it kind of looked like a big grey box. See:

However, I felt that it had so much potential to be a cute, warm, cottage. Lately, we have been so focused on the inside (oh yeah, and having a baby!), that the outside has not gotten much attention.. But with the warmer weather, I have been looking for any reason to be outside. And working on outside projects seems to be the perfect excuse.

We started our outside makeover by adding black shutters, several months ago. The front door, the first thing you notice when you enter our house, was not setting the mood that I wanted to resonate through the rest of the house. And as much as I liked our screen door, it felt a little, blah. So the front door got a quick, but bright makeover this past week.

Before:

  

After:

A bigger picture:

 The window box got some spring love too:

 Verbena:

There is still so much I would like to do with the porch and flower beds. But I'm excited to be making a little progress! 

I linked up to The Weekend Wrap Up Party! 

Front of the House Make-over: Sneak Peak

When we bought our house, we were drawn to the structure of the old farm house. It had a special cottage charm. Except,  without the charm...

Pretty blase. Yet, so much potential . We have dreams of a white picket fence, a porch swing, tulips, and a goat on the roof (just kidding on the last one.). We are slowly making progress. The first step was adding shutters to the windows...so here is a sneak peak of the beginnings of what we have planned for our big face lift. And when you're 110 years old, that's some pretty major surgery.

Sneak Peak...

 My window box...

Much more to come!