return of the plants

It's October and that can only mean one thing... indoor plant overload.  I cannot possibly save all of my summertime backyard beauties so I gather up as many of my succulents and zone 9-11 plants as I can and find nice sunny spots for them inside.  Plant love. 

the cutest dog in the world

black & brown

Feeling completely inspired by brown and black today.  Thank you pinterest and birds in my backyard.

what is this? a post about the basement!

You may have forgotten that we were remodelling our basement since we started this project in January of 2010 and I haven't posted anything about it since October 22, 2011!!   Things did come to a grinding halt down there last Fall once we finished everything except the floor.  Way back on February 1, 2011, I posted about the flooring we were planning to install and it's finally happening this weekend...19 months later. The Trafficmaster Allure Ultra in Rustic Maple is going down.

Here are a few pictures to jog your memory of the longest home improvement project ever...


our 1970s basement was full of mold when we bought the house... yuck...

here is that same space during the remodel - this was April of 2011...

and here we are today FINALLY tackling the floor...

It's time to get to work!  The box says it's the easiest floor ever - we'll see about that.

summertime

How can it be August 31st already? 

what's new at the ranch? a pool side bar!

Last year Mark was offered a 10 foot concrete bar top for FREE. It wasn't the easiest thing he has ever carted home but somehow it made it to our house in one piece. Upon seeing it, our neighbor was convinced that this top was meant to be a pool side bar.  Ten months later...we made it happen!  This concrete beauty, poured Nov. 1, 1957 according to the marking on the underside, came from a Chicago high rise condo that was getting a kitchen facelift with some Silestone.  Keeping with the look of everything else by the pool, we used cedar and stacked stone to create one kick ass bar.  Once the main bar was built, a back bar was added as well as some electrical and lighting.  A mountain of pea gravel and some square pavers were delivered to our driveway so we could make a small patio area.  Yep, more shoveling... it just never gets old around here.  Tagret came thru with some super clearance priced bar height chairs that may not be as pretty as my Bend furniture yet function perfectly.  In case you were wondering why you haven't seen me in a while, it's because I'm at the bar.  Come on over!

Thanks to our dear friend and Lottie for being such lovely models for the bar at night photo.  Lottie does manage to get in as many photos as she possible can. 

so many dogs to photograph