Between Two Pheasants...

As if the exciting news couldn't get more exciting, we found out that Jesus could actually spend more time on our house than originally planned. He's in between jobs which means he can spend more time on our house. Check out the progress he made in just one week! West side window:  Back of the house after power-washed

For Valentine's Day, the Handyman and I agreed that we would  treat ourselves to a nice dinner (and a babysitter--thanks Gramma) and get roses that wouldn't die in 5 days. For a while now, I've wanted to plant rose bushes in the little strip of grass between the sidewalk and curb. Fun fact: this little space has a name, actually a bunch of names. According to Wikipedia, it's called a  road verge ,  besidewalk ,  boulevard ,  city grass ,  devil strip ,  government grass ,  hellstrip ,  island strip ,  nature strip ,  neutral ground , out lawn ,  parking strip ,  parkway ,  planting strip ,  road reserve ,  sidewalk buffer ,  tree belt ,  tree lawn ,  utility strip , or just a  verge. Our neighbor on the West, a certain well-known swim instructor, also has rose bushes and mulch in his hellstrip (heehee). Here's the before pic:

You know when you're waiting for something, and waiting, and waiting, and then finally you get to do it. It's bigger than your birthday or Christmas or a trip to an ice palace. Okay, maybe not that last one, but what if you had to wait TWO whole years for your birthday. That would suck, but then it would be amazing when you actually had your birthday. Well, 730 days after moving in, we are getting our HOUSE PAINTED!!!! It's so exciting! It's so expensive! It's so exciting! It's so expesive! Okay, well there is a little mixed emotion here because picking out paint that you're supposed to love for a decade or more is hard. Like, really hard. Maybe even harder than picking your child's name? Okay, maybe not. But, the time is finally here and we have to get down to business. Actually, Jesus is getting busy (heehee) on the house. He's going to work on it slowly...on the weekends...which is good because it gives me more time to think about colors. Today,...

One of my absolute favorite, favorite, FAVORITE things about this house are the floors. I may or may not have given them the #1 reason why we bought this house. LOVE them. They are lovely, classic, the perfect color, but boy did they need to be refinished when we bought the house. Although we didn't want to spend MORE money on the house before we even moved in, I felt that it was worth it to get the floors refinished before move in day. TOTALLY WORTH IT! Can you imagine trying to move two children and all of our stuff out of the house, enduring the smell of poly, moving everything back, etc.? Not just no, but H-E-L-L NO. In all of the major walkways/walk-throughs the finish was completely worn off and the wood had turned gray. Here's a pic of the baby's room before. You can see the lighter gray-tone to the floor in the yellow circle.

Exciting times around the Pheasant's house! We have made a few small improvements here and there over the past few weeks while we prepare for a MAJOR upgrade. Major. Get ready! I digressssss.... I think the hardest thing about living in an old home is making your modern life (and things) fit. One small improvement was to the mudroom. I found the shelf at Potterybarn back in November and there was good and bad news. The bad news is that it was back-ordered for 7 weeks. The good news is that I used coupons and FREE shipping to get the shelf at a 50% discount. I love this little space to drop our coats, purses, and the baby carrier. I also finally got around to ordering a new hallway light for upstairs from my FAVORITE store, School House Electric. We swapped the shade that came with the house with this super cool gray-striped one. Big improvement! About the shade from the School House website: An exact replica from the classic Schoolhouse era of the 1900’s to the 1950’s. Th...