Peter's blog

Easy Entertaining with Dining Room Furniture

 With our July summer vacations out of the way, Jess and I have more time to spend around the house with our friends.  With our large dining space, we can host great get-togethers on a regular basis.  Hosting dinner parties can be stressful if you think about what you are going to serve too much.  We have a couple of tricks that make dinners easy and worry free.

Tips for Tiling

 Making a new home your own sometimes involves updating existing features and remodeling others.  As Laura posted in her blog last month, my wife Jessamyn and I decided to make some changes to our downstairs bathroom.  As the main guest bathroom, it gets a lot of foot traffic.  We wanted it to have a ‘beachy’ feel without being overly 1980’s or reminding us of a Tiki Bar.  In selecting a tile, we went with a sandy, neutral color.  Laura advised us to avoid anything peachy to avoid clashing with the rest of the design elements.  Having tiled a bathroom floor myself in the past, I wanted to go with an expert contractor would be more able to handle any road blocks, particularly because all of my bathroom experience involves having to unexpectedly replace a floor and other fun surprises.

Tips for Assembling Your Own Chicken Coop

Fortunately for our quickly-growing baby chickens, the parts to assemble their coop arrived in the mail this week!  Since our chickens will be outside, we needed to pick out a coop with some shelter during the winter and enough room for them to wander about in.  

"Urban" poultry farming has been a rising trend for the past three years, making it easier to find the supplies you need for your chickens in your local city or town.  Check your local feed store like Southern States or home improvement store like Lowe's to see if they carry any DIY chicken coop kits.  If you can't find what you want from a local source, the internet has plenty of options from everything to plans for coops, DIY kits that you can assemble yourself, and completely assembled coops.  

Springtime Improvements for Your Lawn

Last year, it became apparent that we needed some additional parking space at the house.  We added a side patio to our single car driveway & a walkway to our deck.  Getting all of the machines to pour the concrete in and out of the yard really tore up our beautiful lawn.  With spring upon us, it was time to put some work into the front yard.

Averting Disaster: How to Fix a Hole in Your Wall

 One of the last room’s in the house to decorate is the guest room upstairs.  This guest room will serve a dual purpose as a library since we needed a home for our remaining bookcases.  Further on down the road, this will be our first child’s room.   However, our plans for this room were interrupted by a small repair issue earlier this year.  Our rambunctious nieces and nephews got into some type of wrestling match and knocked a hole in the wall!  One of the children fell into the wall precisely between two beams, which is the weakest part of the wall.  Fortunately, my father can fix anything.  Here are some step by step instructions to fix a dent or a hole in your wall.  

DIY Easy Burlap Curtains

Our test of using colored burlap to add style and texture to our house started last week when we created a table runner to see how we would like the look.  The burlap accents are beautiful and add a nice color and texture combination to the house, so we decided to go forward with our plans to make new curtains from the same material.  For the curtains, we picked a light cream colored burlap material.  The lighter color adds warmth and light to the room while still providing privacy.

Using Burlap to Add a Rustic Feel to Our Modern Dining Room Furniture

In the last blog post by Laura Redd, she talked about how our space would be improved by some simple window treatments and other finishing touches.  We took her suggestions to heart and decided to make our own curtains and table runners for several rooms in the house.  When we had our house warming party a few months ago, the event planner (Melissa Lewkowicz with Events by Design) decorated our house with colored burlap to give the space a comfortable rustic feel.  We loved the look and decided to use colored burlap on a single table runner to see how it looked.

Outdoor Home Projects on a Sunny Weekend

With autumn quickly coming to a close here in North Carolina, Jess and I had to race against the clock to get our yard ready for winter.  With rain in sight for several days, we finally got a chance to work on our deck this past weekend while the sun was still shining.  When we moved into our new home, the deck extending from the back door was a little rugged and not stained or weather treated at all.  It looked to be a few years old, so it had already seen some wear and tear from sitting through several winters without any protection.

Outdoor Improvements for Fall

As the fall approaches, we are turning our eye towards the exterior of the house – the lawn, the driveway and other renovations that may be needed before the winter weather sets in.  Our house is large with 4 bedrooms, but the driveway and garage are suitable for only a single car.  With our active social life, we regularly have several friends and their cars over for visits, and the single car driveway just isn’t cutting it.

Fixing Up Our Craft Furniture Tables

Other than storage capabilities, the most important part of a work room or craft room for me is the available work surface.  Jess and I both have a lot of projects, and one table is not enough to really provide workable space.  We also have my nieces and nephews over sometimes for various activities, and Jessamyn has her friend Katie over for scrapbooking.  In short, we need at least two tables, if not more.