So, do you remember when I ripped the carpet off of our stairs, oh about three months ago? Well, that's how they've looked that whole time. I think I was a little ambitious with the whole painting the outside of the house thing. Now that we are done, we can return our attention to more exciting projects. If you have learned anything from me remember, don't ever paint your house. It sucks so bad. Just hire someone and send me a thank you note.

 

Ok, on to the stairs. After ripping off the carpet and all those pokey things (tack strips and staples galore) that come with it we were left with some pretty gross steps. They have over spray from when our walls were textured and primer all over them. Since they are going to be covered with beautiful wood I could care less about how they look. What we could not care less about is the fact that they were not level. They all seemed to slope slightly to the left. We also needed to remove the bull nose to the stairs before we can cut and attach the stair skirts. So to address those problems it made sense to completely remove the stair treads.

 

 

We removed every other one so that we still had something to stand on. Once they were up, we took all the old nails out of them and ripped the ends off so they would be flush with the risers. That was the easy part. Putting them back was a different story. I put some shims under the treads before setting the tread in place, then laid our level on top of the stairs and adjusted the shims until things were more level. Once the bubble was centered I just screwed the treads down to keep everything secure. Loose stairs are bad, mmmkay. I was a little surprised at how much crap was under the bottom stair. One bolt, four size D batteries, and a bunch of wood.

 

 

You can see the shims under the stairs a little better here. And if it looks like only some of the noses are cut off, it's just because I ripped off the back on some of the steps. One in particular was missing a sizeable piece in the back.

 

 

Sadly one sad step could not handle the thought of being removed and leveled. He cracked under pressure. Terrible, I know. This was an easy enough fix. We just picked up a 2"x12" board and had the width cut for us at Home Depot. Once we were back home, I measured the depth and riped it down to size just like all the other treads.

 

 

They feel nice and sturdy, although a little shallow for the time being. The next step is to cut stair skirts that run along the sides of the stairs. Those will cover any gaps or damage in the drywall.

 

Ok, now lets hope that it doesn't take another three months until the next step. Are you "working" on anything at this kind of break neck speed?

 

Nikki

 

Oh tiny backyard, why have you taken us so long to finish? Recently after hanging out at Matt's brother Nate's place Matt was feeling a little envious of all the progress they've made in their back yard. It's probably four times bigger, and this is only their second summer there. So in an effort to up his game, I came home to some new landscaping last weekend.

These retaining wall bricks to be exact! It still needs a little work, but it looks infinitely better than all that rock mulch that we put here after digging up our entire yard! We also picked up some feather grass to pretty up the exposed foundation of the garage. speaking of stepping up one's game, I need to put the last two pieces on my DIY lattice.

While we were picking up the grass we also found a nice Sumac to put opposite the cherry tree we planted this spring. One evening while on a walk we saw some trees like this in another townhouse's back yard and fell in love. What I liked most was how the bottom of the trees were open and the canopy was light and airy. I texted a picture to Nate (he is the tree expert in the family, literally) and this is what he suggested. I can't wait for it to get taller though. Grow faster tree!

Oh, remember that hanging plant display I fell in love with at CB2? I didn't get any of those lovely glass pieces yet, but I did add some colorful hanging pots to my exsisting collection of Ikea pots. I picked them up from the clearance section at Anthropologie for $9 each. The only thing I did to them was drill a hole in the bottom for drainage, they already had a flattened back side with a hole to hang them from. I figure I can just keep adding cute little hanging pots over the years to get an eclectic little assortment. I'd love to just cluster a bunch together.

Speaking of hanging plants, look at this beautiful air plant I recently acquired. Matt's youngest brother Chandler bought the glass tear drop thing for me as a birthday present while we were in Durango at Urban Homestead. They had a cluster of different sized glass vessels and air plants, but I loved this one the most.

I had a much smaller air plant before, but Barbara murdured it. She must have thought it was a cat toy and I found it shoved under the couch dead. Matt keeps teasing me that I'm going to kill this one too, but then I remind him that 1. it wasn't my fault and 2. this one is too big for Barbara to shove under the couch.

Even with summer winding down, we're still planting stuff. Oh, and speaking of planting stuff, I'm hoping to get some bulbs to plant in our yard from the tulip capitol of the world while we're there on vacation soon. I will be sure to share that with you.

Nikki

 

The 2014 Ikea catalogue arrived last week and the new Stockholm Collection is amazing! So many pretty things..... but my favorite thing (and Matt's also) are these new dining chairs! They need to be in our lives ASAP! We were thinking they would be great for the dining room (big shocker there).

 

Currently we have a tall square table that extends to be a rectangle and two pleather benches that the cats love poking their sharp claws into. Here's a really old picture to help jog your memory. This also is helping me to realize that I need to update my home tour picures, but that is for another day. We have decided that a round table would probably be better for the space, and I'm pretty over the whole bar hight table thing. Sadly the Stockholm dining table is a long rectangle, so we'll have to find something else to our liking for this plan to materialize.

 

 

The chairs are not the only pretties that I am coveting right now, this mirror is gorgeous! I feel like I would've obligated to set something on the larger lip on the bottom, but I'm not sure what.

 

 

I also love this glass cabinet! I don't think we have room for it anywhere, nor is Matt a fan, but I still love it! I plan to live vicariously through the people that do end up with one in their home, just a fair warning.

 

 

I really want to get my hands on this flat woven rug. I think two of them would be perfect to put under our bed. With our drafty windows and a size able corner of our room walls being exposed, the floor on my side of the bed is noticeably colder than everywhere else. This would make dragging myself out of bed on those cold winter mornings slightly more tolerable.

There's also a little peak of one of the fabrics in the collection! I actually bought some on Monday because I loved it so much. Those yellow circles have a nice watercolor look to them, and we have been desperately needing some window treatments in the kitchen.

 

 

They're not full curtains, they don't even fill up the whole window. Ideally we would like to get some sort of roller shade that you can still see through, but I thought these would frame the window nicely.

 

 

I used the Deka curtain wire to hang them, and simply sewed four small hems around the fabric. Easy peasy.

 

Have you gotten your Ikea catalogue yet? What's you ew favorite thing?

 

Nikki Kelly