Giving the Bedroom Some Love

It's been a slow-going process, but the bedroom is taking shape. We've painted the walls, bought some actual furniture, and hung some curtains. While it's still a ways away from being complete, it definitely is better than it was, and it feels comfy (and that's what counts). 

We took an experimental approach to the paint by going with two primary colors in addition to the trim. While strolling through Lowes's paint department, I happened on a brochure that was combining two colors in one room. The green and brown example instantly struck a chord with me, and so that's what we ran with.

We're still deciding on what to do with the headboard. It's good quality, but the light oak color clashes with the darker wood we selected for our end tables. We're thinking about either going with an upholstered or rod-iron headboard. Since we added the curtains, I think we're leaning toward a rod-iron look which could blend nicely with the night stands.

We purchased the night stands from World Market. We searched high and low for a set of two, going all over Des Moines to almost every major furniture store in the area. The ones we liked at the various stores were either way out of our price-range or were über cheap looking. The ones at World Market were in our price range and they looked great.

We bought a set of dressers from World Market as well. Once again, they were on the cheaper side but felt like they were well made and built with good quality materials. They also came from the same set as the night stands. They definitely dress the room up, and they're ten times better than the temporary Pamida dresser we've been using for the last eight years. The dressers make me feel like an adult, oddly enough.

So this is our work in progress. We need to make a decision on our headboard, and I want to figure out what to do about the carpet and other wall decorations. It's coming along.

Seaport Paint

Steph and I have been busy with a number of small projects this week, everything from the office that will forever be in a constant state of fixing to attempting to reupholster a couple of chairs we found on the side of the street (Yes, I know. We've become those people). I'll be sure to document our attempts at the chair.  On Wednesday, I had the afternoon off, and I was given the go-ahead to buy some more paint. This time for the bathroom and our bedroom. We're thinking of trying something experimental with the bedroom, and we'll need to complete some tests before we're ready to actually paint the room. The bathroom, on the other hand, was ready to go. Just an FYI, here's what it looked like when we bought the house.

I've actually been really happy with the quality and shape of the bathroom. The shower, sink, and toilet (after I installed a new valve for the flusher) all work really well, and there is plenty of storage in the cabinet underneath the sink. The color just was really bland and didn't help to make the room stand out on its own.

We get some really good light in the room, and even though it's a smaller room we wanted to go with a darker color to make it have its own personality from the hallway, We also thought the beige-ish tile and white trim would complement a darker color nicely. After some time spent in the paint section of Lowes, we ended up purchasing a Valspar, Allen Roth color called Seaport. Here's what the room looks like now. 

There is a slight greenish hue, which works perfectly with our towels, and blue hue work well with the white trim. We also for the first time in our married lives have put up "art" in our bathroom: San Francisco ocean waves and Paris. 

Mowing for Reel

Homeownership normally comes with owning some sort of yard, and something we didn't even think about as we bought our house was needing lawn tools. Thankfully, because Steph's aunt and uncle had recently moved into a condo where their lawn was taken care of, they were super generous and lent us some of the basics we needed, namely a lawn mower, weed eater, a couple of rakes, and a wheel barrow. Though all of these tools are fantastic, I was having some trouble with starting up the lawn mower.

Lawn-Boy II

I spent the better part of a morning starting the mower up, letting it run for a couple of minutes, and continually trying and retrying to mow all for it to die on me over and over again. It was quite exasperating, and instead of trying to figure out what was mechanically wrong with the mower, we decided to drop some extra cash and buy a new one. 

With me being technically and mechanically deficient, I was leaning toward buying an electric mower that required little upkeep, but many of the reviews I read said that many of the cheaper electric mowers that required either an extension cord or a battery were either cumbersome or lacked sufficient "umph" power.  The one mower that did catch my eye, however, was a push reel mower; the kind that have been in use for well over one-hundred years.

Both Steph and I were skeptical at first, but the price seemed right and most reel mowers I searched for online generally came with positive reviews. I thought it was worth a shot, and if it didn't work, we could always return the thing. 

After two weeks of mowing with the new mower, I'm convinced it was the right purchase. It's extremely light, quiet, portable, and actually does a good job. It does have some flaws where it can jam up on the smallest of twigs and will sometimes miss small chunks of grass. In this case I treat it like a vacuum cleaner and go back and forth to dislodge debris and go over missed spots. Nonetheless, I don't have to spend a dime on gas and the only upkeep is sharpening the blades every summer.

In other words, it's the perfect, pretentious tool for the mechanically deficient.

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