Out with the Old and in with the Older!

When we moved into this house, I knew I wanted to find an old farm sink to replace the one that was there. I knew just the place to get that farm sink too! A few weeks prior to this photo I had made the trip to Andalusia, Alabama to Sweet Gum Bottom Antiques and picked up my farm sink....and a few other goodies :-). We'll get to those goodies later.

Anyway, this house was my best friends grandmas house.....and I'm pretty sure this sink was the original sink. I am also pretty sure that everyone in her family was bathed in this sink at some point and time.....or so they tell me. The sink had to go. It had done its time

Apparently it was more ready to go than I realized.....

As I was washing dishes one afternoon, I turned the hot water faucet off and it BLEW off the sink! Hot water was gushing out everywhere! I grabbed a tea pitcher and stuck over the water so it wouldn't go everywhere. My husband went to turn off the water and hmmm.....there was no emergency shut off valve. Gotta love old houses. He had to shut the water off at the main supply. It is REALLY awesome to have a husband that can fix anything and do anything....because within 45 minutes he had installed new shut off valves under the sink. He is awesome!

The handle had literally just corroded off. It had no threading left at all.

You can see how corroded it was. We went ahead and ripped it all out!

I wasn't good at photographing the new sink install.....because I was busy trying to get it in. My husband had to go in on nights that particular night so we didn't have but about an hour and half to get it all done. He had to cut the back splash out to get the new sink in. A lot of work to do in a short period of time.

So here is the new sink today. I absolutely LOOOOVE it!

I haven't done anything in the yard yet....it's hard to dig holes when you are 6 months pregnant. I am getting areas ready to make flower beds in the spring. We do have some things to start out with....

the Confederate Rose is loaded with blooms

We have several pecan trees........ 

...and have been picking up pecans by the buckets full.

I'm not sure what kind of rose this is. Is is a low bushy shrub...pretty large size. The buds are fairly small. It is really pretty though.

The bush is loaded with buds.

We also have several sasanquas and camellias. The sasanquas are also loaded with blooms.

Hopefully they will be blooming soon!

I am going to link up with Tootsie for Fertilizer Friday.....I don't have much to show for now but it's a start!

Roughin' Things Up

It's been so long since I have done a blog post I forgot how to use this new interface! Guess I need to start blogging more!

Well the house has come a loooong way since I took these pictures, so I will try to catch you up!

The first thing I wanted to do when we moved in was paint the cabinets....

They were a dark stain, and I just couldn't live with it. The living room walls are knotty pine and it opens to the kitchen. It was wood overload and I needed to break it up!

I decided to keep the existing cabinet pulls...they aren't exactly my favorite pulls in the world, but they will do for now.

We took out that old bar that was under the window (next photo)....

remember this one.......and it REALLY opened it up!

I wanted to paint the cabinets a blue color. I decided to use Annie Sloan chalk paint in Provence. I had not seen it on anything in person, just in photos. So I was really hoping that it was going to be what I wanted after spending all that money on it. If you have ever used her paint you know it is NOT cheap!

This is the actual paint swatch

This is after two coats of JUST paint. It looks really pale in this photo...it must have been the lighting. I bought the antiquing wax and regular wax to put on the cabinets. I tried in on the left cabinets in the photo above and HATED it!!! First of all it took way too long and my first child would have been born before I got through waxing all those cabinets, and second of all the antique wax was hideously ugly.  Ugly as in it looked like my house had caught on fire and the cabinets were covered in ashes. UGLY!

I couldn't live with that look so I scrubbed it all off and painted over it.  

It was still in progress when I took this photo

After I got my two coats on and they were completely dry, my awesome husband went around with sand paper and roughed the edges up for me. He did a pretty good job. I helped for about 5 minutes, then we determined that he was a better "antiquer" than me!

So while he roughed them up, I swept up all that dust. Luckily we hadn't moved in yet because that was a DUSTY mess!

You can see the difference here....the top cabinets have been "roughed up" and the lower ones have not been touched yet. After we finished this up, I sealed the cabinet with Minwax polyurethane.

That made them a richer shade of blue....which looks really good!

 The top coat made it closer to the shade on the paint swatch.

Next to go would be that sink!!!!! I will share that debacle with ya'll later in the week!

Settling In

Ya'll don't fall out in the floor.......I'm sure some of you see this in your blog feed and thought I had fell off the face of the earth. I know it has been a looooong time since I did a post. Numerous reasons I haven't been posting.........in no particular order:

1) Moving is hard work

2) Unpacking is hard work

3) I'm having a baby with the most amazing man in the world ( the amazing man is NOT hard work)

4) Baking a baby is hard work (atleast the tired part of the first trimester)

5) Moving, unpacking and baking a baby is hard work all at the same time, but the amazing man makes it so much better :-)

So as you can see I have a lot going on. A lot of wonderful, amazing things. 

Let's take a look at our house BEFORE we moved in....of course it looks NOTHING like this now. 

The house is an old house, and sits on several acres. It was my best friends grandmas house. I ate many a dinner in this house. Never thought that I would eventually live here with the love of my life and raise my first child here.

This is the living room (above). It has knotty pine paneling, and hard wood floors. All original to the house. My first plan was to paint the knotty pine walls....but I opted out of that. Once you paint them, you can never go back. So for now, they are au natural!

The living room is long and narrow. I removed all the old draperies and blinds. They were old and had seen their better days.

This is the view of the kitchen from the living room...it was a wee bit dated.

The cabinets were dark, it was gloomy. It wasn't me.

The kitchen is pretty small so the old owners added this bar so they would have more counter space. Beside the fact that I hated it, and had a plan for the space.....and it blocked valuable cabinet space.

See that stove...it's GAS and weLOOOOVE  IT!!!!! If you cook on gas you know what I am talking about. I can NEVER go back to electric.

Here is the view from the kitchen sink looking back into the living room.

When we moved in....I didn't know I was pregnant. I had big plans for this room. One of those big plans being to paint it!!!! Well....needless to say it won't get painted now until we find out what we are having. Daddy is hoping it stays blue.

This room was the original dining room and the cabinets were added for  storage. Trust me when I tell you that they are FULL!

This is our bathroom....and it is the only bathroom. I do miss my tub....BUT I think about everything else I have....and who needs a tub!

This is the third bedroom and yes that is an electrical panel on the wall. It is a PAIN to try to cover up!!!!

This is the master bedroom. Every room (even the bathroom) has a ceiling fan. I loooove ceiling fans so that was good for me. I originally HATED the sight of this fan. It is the UGLIEST fan in the history of fans. BUT.....it is the most AWESOME fan ever. It has 5 settings...and should you ever have a need to turn it on 5....you will probably end up in Oz. That thing can put out some air!!!!! We leave it on 2...and it works better on 2 than most fans on high. So ugly fan stays.....it is far more functional than any other fan you could buy today.

All the wood floors are original to the house. I absolutely love them and they are in excellent shape. I think they were covered with carpet for a long time.

The house looks totally different now. We have done a lot of work, and we have a lot more we want to do.

We have HUGE yard. There are already some huge azaleas, camellias, gardenia, wisteria, and pecan trees. I have a really good foundation to start with in the garden. I am waiting for it to cool off a bit before I start. I want to at least start making flower beds so come Fall I will be ready to plant.

We have a huge blueberry and fig tree. I made blueberry and fig preserves. They were running out of our ears we had so many. Not to mention all the bags we have in the freezer.

It is just a beautiful, old, simple, little country house. I couldn't ask for more. I have all I have ever wanted. An amazing man, a good job, a little house in the country and soon a sweet precious baby.

It is so NICE to have a man that helps you around the house, knows how to fix things, wants to do things and fix the yard up, help you garden, and helps you around the house...I know I said that twice...but it is soooo nice. It sure makes life easier. I was used to doing EVERYTHING by myself for so many years. I have had to get used to having someone who wants to do for me.

I have had the best pregnancy so far. I haven't been sick at all. No morning sickness, nothing. Amazing. I am sooo thankful for that too! I breezed through the first trimester. We'll see how the other two go  :-)

Flyin' High

Most of you have been following my blog for a while....so you know I have been looking for a job in my field (design, architecture, project management) for quite some time. Well, 4 years and 4 months to be exact. I have had jobs since then....but they were what I call "filler" jobs. They were just jobs. Nothing that I wanted to do the rest of my life.

After many years, I FINALLY got the job of a lifetime!!!!! I interviewed Friday and they had me start today! So now I work for one of the largest aircraft manufacturers in the world. They manufacture all types of commercial, private, and military aircrafts. It is amazing!!!!!! The opportunity of a lifetime. I am amazed at the diversity of people that are in my location. They are from all over the world. Matter of fact, there are very few people from Alabama that even work there. I am extremely thankful to be there. God answers prayers in his own time. He has definitely been good to me. Besides my job being totally kick a$$, I only work half a day on Fridays!!!!! More gardening time for me!!

Time for a tour a the Dirt Queen's garden. This is not my garden...this is my moms. I will have my own garden in about 2 weeks!!! I cannot tell ya'll how excited I am to move!!!! I will have a big yard to landscape. I have it all planned out in my head. When I get in, I can finally get some pictures and share my plans with ya'll :-)

Now....on to our tour....

This is the BIGGEST daylily I have ever seen. It is about the size of a dinner plate!

She just expanded this flower bed this year. All those lovely stakes are to keep the dog out.

I am counting down the days until I can dig in my own dirt again!!!!