We’ve Got Concrete

Things to Come

(My husband’s sketch of the retaining wall)

Work Day No. 1

They’re here bright and early with the mini excavator. My husband says we’ll have a wall in 5 days.

Inspirational Awesomeness

Fellow old-house renovator Jenn Ski is also doing some work on her front yard and walkway. She’s designed a front walk that is a series of circles:

So, so cool. I heart her style. Did you know she also has an Etsy shop? Because I love Etsy and cool things, here is a favorite from her Etsy shop:

New Stuff Soon…

After a short hiatus this summer, some changes are finally coming to White Rock Ranch. We are doing the retaining wall this week! I know. I can’t believe it either. This project, like all renovation projects, will happen in several phases. So take a look at this before:

White Rock Ranch - Before

I took that picture in the summer of 2006 when we were having the inspection done before we closed on the house. Those drapes, window decals, and hedges are long gone now. Oh, and the sidewalk is gone, too! We have a leaf moat where it was previously located. What is a leaf moat you ask? It’s a shallow ditch where a sidewalk used to be that your husband fills with leaves instead of bagging them. It’s probably good for the environment but it’s not attractive. I won’t miss it when it’s gone, but I do wonder what on earth we’ll do with all of the leaves. This tree alone can inundate our entire front yard with leaves and acorns:

Texas Live Oak

We have a gaggle of obese squirrels living in our yard thanks to all of the trees. We also have a mini oak forest growing around the live oak in the backyard where we didn’t pick up the acorns last year and those fatty fat squirrels couldn’t eat them all. Maybe I should make acorn wreaths this fall.

More Birdies…

Time for another Etsy favorite! I’ve already featured whitneysmith but she’s so supremely talented that I have to share another piece.

Apologies

I have been super lazy about updating this blog. Oops. I could blame it on the suffocating heat that we’ve been experiencing (records highs of 108, 110, etc. ) I could also blame it on my hobbies, which is a pretty valid excuse. But the truth is that not much is going on at White Rock Ranch these days.  We surveyed the front yard a couple of weeks ago to plan for the stone retaining wall that we’re going to have built in the fall. That was kind of exciting. We used some fancy laser surveying equipment that my husband borrowed from his company. It made the job go fast and I really didn’t have to do much beyond providing moral support.

I also imagined how the wall will look when all is said and done.

For Your Amusement

A “before” picture of our hall bathroom:

Very grandma, right? Take note of the floral embroidered shower curtain and towels, the battenburg lace curtain, and the shiny, shell motif wallpaper. My favorite design element has to be the picture above the toilet because being in the bathroom always make me think of skiing.

The Evils of Wallpaper/Picking a Paint Color

Since we bought our White Rock Ranch in 2006, I have painted the living room, dining room, master, and hallway four times. I’m pretty wishy-washy when it comes to color. I know what I like when I see it, but committing to a look is hard for me. I want it all!

We had some drywall work done this spring – a lot of drywall work, actually, starting with the study. Removing the wallpaper was on our to do list and when we finally got around it – disaster. I’d already removed wallpaper in the hall bath and guest room and most of it peeled right off. The study was not so easy. The wallpaper had been glued directly to the unpainted drywall (why?!?!) so we really hacked up the wall in getting it off. Floating the walls was not something we wanted to take on so we called in the professionals.

In addition to floating the walls, we had them do the ceilings. The original ceilings had a retro swirl pattern. I didn’t mind it, but my husband hated it passionately so we had them do a knockdown texture on the walls and ceilings. It hides a lot of the amatuer patch jobs that had been done over the years (including the ones I did to repair the millions of holes the electricians made when we had the house rewired). Our drywall crew also finished some drywall projects we’d left half-done because they were frustrating, like the column in the kitchen and the linen closet in the hall bath. The drywallers spent a week at our house and I was ready to paint as soon as the walls were dry.

After five trips to Lowes and about ten paint samples, I settled on a color that is one shade darker than the color I’d originally painted the house. It’s called Smoked Oyster and it looks good with everything except our couch, which is a very similar color. That couch has been on my hit list for a while now so its days are numbered.

So how do you choose a paint color? My advice is to go ahead and buy those samples (and use primer!).  There were several colors I was sure were perfect until I put them on the wall.  For those of you with a 1950s house, there are a lot of resources to help make style decisions. I recently found a blog post about mid-century paint colors that linked to this cool Sherwin Williams site about “Suburban Modern” paint. A lot of the classic 1950s colors are represented in this palette:

The most important thing for us was having a strong neutral paint. We wanted a color that could go with a lot of other colors, but we didn’t want it to blend in like a beige wall would. I’m very happy with the end result. Pictures coming soon.

Happy 4th!!!!!

If you’re in Dallas, there will be fireworks at Fair Park…