Mudroom Light Fixture

The beautiful glass light fixture in our mudroom was cracked when we bought the house.  Big surprise!  ;-)  Actually, I was surprised that there were even glass fixtures at all in the mudroom and hallway.  Every other one was broken, I think.  Anyway....

K brought home a same-size and same-era fixture and we decided it would be okay to replace the original fixture with this "new" one-- which was salvaged from a 1950s kitchen she just remodeled.

"New" on the left, and the original fixture on the right

They're both pretty, really heavy glass, similar look.  As much as I hate getting rid of original things from this house-- this fixture was already really broken.  At least we got to see what it looked like and were able to find something similar with which to replace it.

Fence Post Progress

After the busy holiday long weekend, with family visiting and a lot of prep for the fence-- K got all of the remaining fence posts ready for the wooden fence!
Wednesday and Thursday were both really hot days, in the low 90s, but she worked right through it.  On Wednesday, I was able to help her set a few posts during the kiddo's nap, but she kept going after and did at least 20 more.  In addition to the posts her father got set over the weekend, we now have them all set up and ready for the boards.

Cement bags and poles waiting

Fences, Limestone, and Lithographs

It's been a fun 4th of July weekend, so far.  K's dad, sister, and our niece are visiting until Tuesday (the 4th.)  K's dad wanted to help us with our new fence, and today they got a ton of work done.

Over the past couple weeks, K and the guys who work for her have mapped out and mostly dug the post holes for our new fence.  But today K and her dad got like 10 posts actually measured and cemented in.  They did all the tricky ones, she said-- so after these, the rest will go in really quickly.

Bill, my father-in-law, was working really hard in the heat all day today.  For a long time this afternoon, he was digging on the side of the house where the fence will end at the path coming from our mudroom door.  I took a break from the kids and he showed me how he was running into a bunch of old stone and rebar about a foot under our "sidewalk."  The stone was chipping away, but of course he couldn't get past that rebar without a saw.

He showed me a cool rectangle stone that he dug up, and he had noticed that it had a really smooth top.  As I looked closer.... I noticed that it had writing on it.  I ran inside to grab a wet cloth, then wiped the dirt off it as carefully as I could.

There is careful etching in about 10 fonts on this stone... laying out the pattern for a Cashier's Check.
Unfortunately, through either the shovel chipping at it or just its original condition, there are chips missing in parts that could've probably provided some identifying information.  But, still.... what a cool find.

I had only a slight idea of what this was-- that it would've been used for printing.  But I would've expected the text to be reversed.  So that when it was printed the text on the paper would be correct.  I did a bit of searching online and quickly found that I was correct-- this is a lithographic stone, used for printing.  Some stones that I saw online had the text reversed and some had it the correct/forward way.

The stone is 8.5" long by 6.5" wide by almost 4" tall.  Pretty, white limestone, and lots of dirt on the sides.  Really cool....

K's dad unearthed more stones that were stacked up beneath our cement stairs and then the blacktop sidewalk leading to the alley.  Could these be more printing stones...?  He said they looked like stairs underneath our stairs.  We may not find out, though-- they got the post set and filled in the hole with cement.  I guess those stones will be left for another 50+ years for some future owner to discover....

Almost-Complete Bedroom

Our bedroom is one of my favorite places in the house.  It's so calm because there is very little in it.  Four pieces of furniture -- bed, bench, and two nightstands.  And I love all those pieces, so it looks so simple and lovely to me.  Our bed frame is from Ikea.  The nightstands are from Target and I love them because they look so much like the ones I really wanted from West Elm.  But these nightstands saved us $300! The bench is also from Target, and was a wedding gift my my sister and brother-in-law.

The bedside lamps are from JC Penney, the Jonathon Adler collection.  The navy blue curtains are from... Bed, Bath & Beyond, I think?  We've had them for quite a few years now.  The gray and green bedding is from West Elm.  The new decorative pillow was my gift to K for our 2-year wedding anniversary, and it's from Etsy.

I think of this room as complete, but there is nothing on the walls!  We should probably get some art and photos in the room, and we've talked about it quite a few times, but it's just so simple and relaxing in there right now without anything...  I'm not sure I want to change it.

Complete Bathroom

Our bathroom....  is done!  We have a tub.  We have a huge shower.  We have a new vanity with two sinks and a big, mirrored medicine cabinet.  K is so relieved, and we both love this room. Baby V is also thrilled about the tub.

Storage on the left

Deep tub with storage ledge and spacious niche

 

Shower Tile

K has made huge progress on the bathroom tile in the last few days.  Most of the tile wall behind the vanity and the tile in the shower is in. 

Vanity wall

I chose a marble tile for inside the niche, and K wasn't sure about it.  But now that it's installed with the aluminum edging, I think she likes it.  I really like it-- there are little hints of purple and blue and yellow in the stone and I think it coordinates with the floor tile and the wall paint.

After K cleaned up for the day, we showed Baby V the nightlight on the ceiling fan and let him crawl around and explore the room.  <3

Looking at the blue nightlight on the ceiling fan

Bold Bathroom

We're going really bold with our main floor bathroom.  We're using a vibrant green-blue paint and some interesting floor tile.  It's really fun!

The paint is similar to our blue kitchen paint, but more green.  The two colors actually look really nice together.  This Swedish seaweed soap was sort of my inspiration for the color-- I have always loved this package.

For the floor tile... I had my eye on this pattern for a while.  K and I talked about going bold with either a fun wallpaper or a bold tile on the floor.  The bathroom is fairly small, so it seemed possible to splurge on something fun in there.  And the pinwheel floor tile was what we decided on.

We decided to stay with white tile on the vanity wall and in the shower.  K decided she wanted the vanity wall to be all tile, and we chose to have them stacked instead of staggered, like she did with the tile in the kitchen.  On the vanity wall we chose a fairly basic subway tile.  And in the shower we have a larger subway tile.  K made the call to use aluminum edging with the tile, too.

She's been working on this non-stop.  She took a bit of time off work so that she could "knock this out."  The tiling is hard work, physically, but I know it's been satisfying for her to see the changes happening each day.