E's Room Finale {Beware: long rambles!}

Finally, a post all about E's room makeover. It was the first room that we've painted... and even though there are more rooms that I want to paint, that just hasn't happened yet. 

A little at a time. A little at a time :)

Anyways, the main reason that we needed to paint E's room was because it was very much a boy's room before. Those dinosaurs may have only been on one wall, but oy! I believe they are painted with chalkboard paint, and if you look closely enough, you can still see their outlines after being painted, but there's enough stuff on the wall now, that you would probably never notice.

I chose the almost-white-cream-color because I love the idea of white walls, but I know that with the cherry wood trim and cabinets in this house, I doubt I could ever pull it off. This cream is the next best thing! I cannot wait to use it in other rooms to brighten things up! (the main color in the house, which included two walls in E's room, is a much more yellowish/tannish/beige... I want to get rid of it!).

You can see above that the walls used to be a dark brown below the bright green. I chose a aqua-ish blue. Much to my dismay, there are three bedrooms in this house that have chair rails. Now, I love the idea of chair rails, but they only put it on two of the walls in those three bedrooms. If I'm going to do chair rails, they'll go on all of the walls or none of the walls. So.... now we have the joy of trying to match detail and color. I wish the previous owner would have left some information on their trim purchases!!

But enough about paint... you remember the wall art from a previous post... 

... and that I hung a quilt on a wall... and painted my old bed...

... and I painted a rummage sale shelf.

Well, here is E's new desk/vanity! It used to be mine when I was little... and it used to my mom's before that. When I was little Mom painted it white with yellow tops and blue horse stencils. When I was in middle school, I repainted them white with some blue/pink/purple sponge details on the top. It was time for another refresher! The main color is a shade away from the walls, and the pink is a fun pop! I first found the spray paint for the handles and then matched the paint for the top and bottom to that. (Same story with the dresser below).

 The chair came from a thrift store. It was a dollar. I originally passed on it, but then I told my mom about it, and she went and bought it for me, ha! I painted it black when I had it in my old apartment. But, to make it fit perfectly in E's room, I painted it a shade away from the blue paint on the bottom half of the walls.

 Here's the dresser, and you can see where we need to find the chair rails still! The mirror was a wedding present that I spray painted the same as the bed. 

Overall, I love E's room!!! Now, it's time to start thinking of Gus-Gus's room... only a few months left!

Dan's DIY: Compost Bin

Dan's first major project for our new home was to make a compost pile! 

The previous owners of this large yard never had a garden, but we are definitely looking forward to having one next summer. In preparation for that, we decided to start composting. 

Side note: This past winter, Dan purchased and read this book - a book with all the info you need about composting (bonus: it's written by an engineer... a tidbit that Dan, who has an engineering degree, appreciated, ha!). 

Anyways, this is one of the quickest and easiest compost "bins" that you could ever make. There are some flaws in the design, which I will touch on as we go along, but in reality, this structure is working just fine for us for now. 

Materials needed: a few stakes, chicken wire fencing, wire (either some you have on hand or sometimes the chicken fencing comes with wire when you buy it), and some general tools

How to: pound the stakes into the ground... place the fencing around the stakes... wire the fencing to the stakes... and wire the ends of the fencing together.

Not the most detailed of instructions, but you get the picture ;)

The flaws: we don't have hardly any shade in our yard, and you want to keep compost piles damp. We put some old burlap over our compost pile in order to keep the sun from sucking up all the moisture. However, the fencing is not very strong, so it has crumbled a bit already. This however, does help us reach the bottom of the pile when we are turning it with a potato fork (turning the compost is also a big part of creating good compost).

The positives: Evelyn loves the wagon rides we take to drop off the scraps bowl every few days. We put any type of kitchen scraps into our compost pile. It is common for gardeners to be a little selective of the types of food they allow in their compost - such as no meat - but as long as the compost pile stays moist and gets turned, the inner temperature of your compost pile is hot enough to decompose just about any type of food or vegetation... so that's what we're going for!

I know some worry about critters digging in their compost piles in search of good eats. Others worry about the smell. For these reasons, we put our pile in the very far corner of our yard - as far away from our neighbors as possible (if you remember, we don't have neighbors to the west or the north).

We'll, of course, let you know how our first summer of composting goes and if it will be ready to be tilled into our new garden this fall! Cross your fingers that it's ready in time :)