Pinteresting!

Though we don’t have any impressive updates from this past weekend (I was visiting friends in NYC and Hoboken, and Ryan was hard at work on school and work projects), I invite those interested to take a peek at my inspiration board on Pinterest by clicking here.

Pinterest basically allows you to "pin" images you come across on the web or that you have in digital form.  The great thing is that for those images pulled from the web, the pin also maintains the original website information so that you can look back to find how-tos, sources, recipes, etc.  I’m kinda obsessed! 

So, I'm starting to use it as a digital version of my inspiration binder.  I’ve also started one for the wedding.  I could think of lots of other ways to use Pinterest – holiday gift ideas and personal wish lists come to mind.

Things I'm also obsessed with and came across thanks to Pinterest include: this sea urchin print from Tableau Encyclopedique et Methodique des Trois Regnes de la Nature, Paris 1791-1796.

Wonder if it is high resolution enough to print up on a nice printer and frame?  It would go so well with the color palette and other sea urchins I have in the kitchen.

Mountains: Moved

We had a terribly productive weekend, and it felt great to again roam the familiar aisles of Home Depot and work on the house. Our achy Monday morning muscles were a fair tradeoff for a clean yard and 75% complete baseboard trim – but more of that in a bit!

Saturday was Project Get the Damn Tree Out of the Yard.

We ended up renting a (very large) chainsaw from Home Depot. Along with the saw, our rental also included gas, oil and this charming outfit for Ryan. Safety first!

We found a taker in Ipswich who will haul away all the wood larger than 4” in diameter cut in 18” lengths, so Ryan jumped into tree limb removal while I pulled out the veggie garden and our annual plantings.

After many runs up to the town transfer station, we had a neat wood pile and the backyard cleared.

We’d intended also to mow the lawn and weed-wack the sea grass, but both machines were on the skitz. I used the manually-powered little mower my parents picked up for us in Vermont, which worked pretty well. Unfortunately, we’d let the lawn grow so long (shame, shame) the Caitlin-powered mower had some substantial ground to make up, let alone the generous spray of sawdust. But we did what we could.

Ryan also spent some time on our sideboard design.

We’ve decided to paint it a slate blue with a dark wood top and paint the trimmed out columns white. Ryan also had the fantastic idea of using boat cleats for drawer and door pulls. Love this. We’re thinking we’ll go chrome rather than the other option of brass. I’m struggling a bit with this, as I am a gold sorta girl (please see my engagement ring), but the brass feels dated and I think the chrome will go nicely with the slate blue and grey walls. Not to mention the formal china we’ve selected is silver edged and will also look fantastic with the chrome accents.

At 9:01 on Sunday morning, the compound miter saw, table saw and compressor were turned on (you’re welcome, neighbors).





Ryan began installing a two-piece baseboard in the nook and worked out from there.

I followed behind patching nail holes and filling in corners with wood putty.








In addition to baseboard galore, Ryan also trimmed in the bathroom, mudroom, and front doors. Hooray! This place is really starting to look like a finished space!

While we worked inside, Tela luxuriated in the sawdust from the previous day’s activities. What. A. Weirdo.

At the end of the day, I returned to the nook, sanded the wood putty, and painted the trim with primer to get a peek at how the final product will look. It is be-yond.

We also plan to add a quarter-round piece to the very bottom of the baseboard trim, which will help in finishing the baseboard at the (somewhat bumpy) flooring.

Towards the end of the day, my parents came by to lend a hand and join us for dinner. After a quick tour of the project, Dad busied himself fixing the lawn mower and weed wacker and Mom turned her attention to planting tulip bulbs. Ryan and I chose white and yellow blooms and were expecting a cute little row of tulips somewhere in the yard come spring. After finishing her work, Mom informed me that she planted 95 bulbs! Can’t wait to see the show next spring!

There’s the Phantom Gardener caught in the act. She says to dig a hole about 6 inches deep and suggested planting the bulbs in clumps of 3 or 4 so that the tulips will grow in little clusters.

After addressing our small mechanics issues, Dad also continued with the fall yard clean-up, helped Ryan cut down the sea grass and generally spiffed up the place. He also informed us that contrary to our belief that the sawdust might improve the poor quality of our soil, cellulose (fancy word for wood pulp) takes forever to breakdown and so, we (okay, mostly Dad) raked up as much of the remaining tree carnage as possible.

We had a delicious dinner in the nook after all our hard work. Note to all: Ryan and I are happy to host any visitors who come ready to work and also bring a steak and bottle of Chianti.

And finally, I'll leave you with some more glamour shots of a downstairs that is really starting to look like real, put-together rooms... weird!  Please excuse the Tela photo bombs.

Engagement Session

Since the subjects of our upcoming nuptials and wedding planning have been sneaking in from time to time, I thought I'd share a few images from our Engagement Session with fantastic photographer Ryan Richardson.

We're thrilled with Ryan's work and look forward to having him document the Big Day next May. If anyone's looking for an affordable - and talented - wedding photographer, check him out!

But enough of that. What's on deck for next weekend? Get that Darn Tree out of our yard.

Big Tree Fall Hard

Remember this?

Well, with a borrowed chainsaw we were able to clean up the downed limb after about three months of living with the limb in the backyard.

But there was still the issue of the rotting, ugly, dead spruce which with winter a-comin’ was again threatening our wee house, yard and pergola and has also been acting as a squirrel highway to our roof, and was also home to a squirrel nest, we were told.

Saturday we didn’t end up getting any more work done on the house, but that’s because we had some guests over to finish the work we’d started last spring.

My lovely co-worker Janet’s husband Matt is a talented rock climber and by day, a Tree Guy (technical term). We struck a deal with Matt who came over to help us take the rest of the tree down, and we agreed to handle the clean-up.

It really was dinner and a movie. 

Especially since along with their good company and cute puppy Booker, they brought venison hunted from the woods of Dogtown (a neighborhood of Gloucester) and freshly foraged Chicken of the Woods.

We prepared these to Matt’s instructions and sautéed them in a bit of butter… they were absolutely de-lish. Slightly earthy, sweeter than I expected, and something that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. And though I’m not yet empowered (or educated) enough to take to the trails and make myself a foraged feast of mushrooms and the like, I certainly am inspired!

And so, now we have another downed tree in our wee yard to clean up (which will likely not happen until the end of the month as our social butterfly lineup continues this weekend with a trip to NEK for peak foliage, a wedding the following weekend in the Berkshires for some southern peak foliage, and finally a weekend jaunt to NYC). Matt told us that although our other downed tree, the juniper that Dad and Ryan took down (foolishly unsupervised) last spring can stay outside and take the moisture because of the “weird toxins” in its heartwood, the spruce will turn to punk if we don’t deal with it soon.

Anyone need some free firewood?

Seriously.

The Time-Money Continuum

Oh hey.  We’re still here.  Hope you didn’t give up on us.

Ryan and I have a theory about our “little” project and it goes something like this – all our plans are possible (and will eventually get done), but how quickly it does get done relies heavily on those pesky requirements of time and money.

After our first summer working on the house went something like this: work five days-demo-medicate sore muscles with beer-repeat, we promised ourselves to “Take Back Summer” in 2011.  And we did. 

Lest we burn ourselves out too quickly, this summer we made room for a couple visits to Vermont, The Cape, and even Crane Beach!  Not to mention a bit of wedding planning that has had me rather preoccupied (next to my home inspiration binder I now have a larger, and even more exciting wedding binder)! 

We also spent more time outside working on the Wee House’s wee yard and wee vegetable garden, did a lot of purging and organizing of the barn (nearly empty now), fixed our steps (which Ryan is awfully proud of using the sawzall on), and got ourselves a couple used bikes to cruise around town.

That all said… now that fall is upon us, we are very much looking forward to getting back at it. Our major projects to finish up phase one of the first floor include:

• Trim in kitchen, nook, front room
• Finish chalkboard project
• Touch up walls in front room
• Touch up floors
• Trim out new stairs, paint
• Add sheetrock wall in stairwell, paint
• Build built-in and sideboard in front room
• Wire for entertainment system
• Install gas fireplace
• Build dining room table (we have a salvaged door we plan to use)
• Install pendant light above dining room table
• Window treatments for kitchen, nook, front room
• Finish furnishing front room

It’s a lot… but not really.  But there is one high-ticket item on the list (the gas fireplace), which I am really really hoping to have done for Christmas.

So don’t give up on us!  We’re excited to put back on the work clothes and get cracking again… but this weekend only on Saturday, because Sunday we have our engagement photo shoot (What!?  It was part of our package!).