Guest Room/Man Cave

This weekend is Bayou Country Superfest!!! Two days, 10 country artists, 80,000 people, 1 stadium.... Let's hope we make it out alive. Since Nick and Abby are coming to stay with us for the concert I decided to do a little work on the Guest Room/ Man Cave. The two don't normally go together, but we're working on that. The back room almost instantly became the Man Cave because of the walls. Most of the house is covered with cypress paneling, but the back room has Pecky Cypress paneling. To me it was just more wood, and when I mentioned painting it in front of the house inspector he nearly killed me. Apparently it's very special wood, and has sort of become the theme of this blog. According to Dogtrot General Store:
       "Pecky Cypress refers to cypress lumber, whether tidewater or sinker, that has holes throughout it. It is rare, since it only occurs in occasional logs, and cannot be discovered until the log is cut. It only forms from the inside out in a circular pattern following the tree's rings. When milled, the pattern of pecky holes is random, and only lumber cut from the inside of the log will contain the pecky. Like all cypress, pecky is beautiful and durable. It has all the properties of regular cypress, including rot resistance and insect resistance."
 This also makes it very expensive... hence the no painting.

 {pecky cypress}

So, Man Cave it is. And a perfect location for the Moore family fish pictures that we have inherited. Fish. Wood. Powertools. Argh, argh, argh. I think Tim Allen would be proud.
Now getting the pictures actually hung, straight, aligned and perfectly evenly spaced, let's just say, it took a little longer than expected and the T-squares and levels were brought out because someone didn't trust my eye...

 {fishies}

They made it up and look perfect. I hope Nick and Abby enjoy their weekend in the Man Cave. We are off to test out Travis' new crawfish boiler than two awesome girls bought him for his birthday, and to get this Memorial Weekend started. Hopefully I will have a picture of me and Keith Urban to post next time :)

The Weekend

This past weekend we spent in Alexandria to celebrate Rachel and Michel's engagement. Congrats guys!! It was a good little trip, but by Saturday night we were both saying we were anxious to get home so we could fiddle and tinker with our projects. We loaded up on some plants from Forest Hill (squash, cucumber, lavender and cilantro!) and some supplies at Home Depot, including this can of wonder:

{can-o-wonder}

This fancy little can turned our almost-gone BBQ into something that looks like it didn't sit outside for a few too many hurricanes. We tested it out that night and deemed it a success.

{No rust here!}

{Isn't she pretty?}

At the same time I picked out a color for the chalk board and we rummaged around to find a good piece of wood to be the back board. It will be complete before you come Julie!

{getting closer...}

Tonight as we were walking home from the running club the evening storm was rolling in and the wind picked up. It was just starting to rain as we got home, so we nabbed a few blackberries from the neighbor's yard for dessert and watched the rain fall into our buckets for tomorrow afternoon's watering. Free dinner, free beer, AND free water. What a night.

Plenty of Projects

Today was my idea of a typical southern afternoon in the spring: As I was outside taking some pictures for the blog I heard the thunder rolling in. Just as I finished up and got inside the downpour came and the air instantly turned from muggy hot to perfectly chilled. I opened every window and door in the house, then sat on the porch and watched the lighting from my dry nook. It was perfect. All I needed was a glass of sweet tea.

{downpour}

Last week I picked up the window frame at Habitat ReStore - I can't seem to decide on what color I want to spray paint it, so it remains bare and sitting in the spare bedroom.

{future chalkboard - green or blue?}

We got a huge score when Travis picked up an old cabinet/dresser piece sitting on the side of the road in Spanish Town. FREE! It is in need of some serious work, being that half the doors are broken off, but the old fashioned key-hole and knobs had me sold. A cabinet and TV stand maybe? That's if we ever break down and buy a TV and cable....

{keyhole & knobs}

{Potential}

And just a little update, we have an eggplant!!! I go outside and check this guy every day, and I'm already trying to figure out exactly how I will cook it.

{baby eggplant}

Goodbye 505

We finally rented the apartment!!! This means no more paying rent AND a house payment - huge sigh of relief. The only small downside to not paying for two residences is our free internet from the State Museum. Now we have to actually call the cable guy and have them come install internet in our house - and we have to pay for it .... wha wha wha. So in the mean time my internet access is limited to Barnes and Noble on my breaks and trips to Travis' office in the evening.
Our last night of having the apartment we took a few pictures to remember how much we've upgraded (no more lattice!!) Sadly the purple and gold dining (for two) table didn't make it out of the apartment. The new renter bargained with us and we let it go. I think we came out on top though.

 {Lattice and the 3/4 light}

 {goodbye 505}

In other news, we took a trip to the Habitat ReStore last week and got some house goodies. Remember the fan blades  that were warped and sad? We dug through a pile of them and found a set of 5 match ones, got them home and nothing fit. I guess that's what you get for paying $2.00 huh? Other things we found were: an awesome window frame that I am hoping to turn into a chalk board for the kitchen, underground landscape piping, paint brushes, a cord that Travis had been searching for, and some caulk. Let's hope most of those work out better than the fan blades.

Tomorrow is my day off, so we'll see if we can get some crafty projects going to brighten up the wood. Maybe something like this? And maybe even a little wedding planning??

Spring!

After a few too many days of nasty, humid, grey-skyed-ness it's finally bright and sunny out. I think our potted veggies were just as happy about it as me, as I'm trying to soak in some sun before heading to work.

{veggies!}

Our tomatoes are growing!! I know this probably doesn't seem terribly exciting to most, but last year we had a big gorgeous tomato plant with tons of flowers but never any tomatoes. I guess the bees couldn't find their way under the staircase... Now we have four plants all with little tomatoes. I guess those wood bees could be doing some good after all. We've also got two kinds of peppers, two blueberry bushes, an eggplant, mint that seems to want to own the whole backyard, and of course, our orange tree! I'm still not quite sure how the eggplant is going to work out, but it's got some good size buds. Tips anyone?
With only a couple of each plant we'll probably manage eating all of the crop, but I'm hoping we have extras to freeze just so I can use these awesome freezer labels. Someday....