Happy, Happy Color: Hallway

Spring, oh spring where are you?  We miss you!  The frogs are calling ever so slowly and the American woodcock are taking a break from their spring mating displays....all waiting for warmer temperatures.  As we wait too, and the gray, cold lingers, we are wrapping up the interior painting.  The downstairs hallway was in serious need of a makeover.  It looked like winter in that hallway!

We, of course, wanted to make it light, bright and inspiring so we went with a lighter shade of green than the sunroom.  Since this is a dark hallway, the bright paint helped lighten the space immensely.

After drying, the paint took on a less yellow hue and remained a fantastic, light green.  You may also notice the stairs on the right.  Yes, we painted them too!

Prior to painting, a hideous permanently adhered linoleum covered the wood and we started to try to take the linoleum off and quickly questioned our sanity.  The scraping took so long, we would have had days wrapped up this project, which is not how we want to continue to spend our time!  So, Steve decided to bust out the sander, give the linoleum a serious rub-down, priming and finally paint.  We love it.

Now, we just have the new bathroom wall addition left and the original bath renovation.  The hang up on this project is the wiring....it's super complex in this area and buried beneath plaster.  Poor Steve.

The contrasting colors everywhere makes us happy though!

A Most Wonderful Time of The Year

Time to explore the wonders of vernal (spring) pools!

Here's the basic scoop (italics) from the Ohio Environmental Council's Website:

Vernal pools are dynamic, seasonal wetlands that dot Ohio’s natural landscape. Vernal pools fill up annually but typically dry out during some part of the year. These small wetlands fill with spring rain and snow melt, blossom with life, and host a cacophony of sounds and a plethora of life forms every spring, only to disappear into the forest floor every autumn. 

With some true nature lover friends we visited two areas of vernal pools - Sawmill Wetlands and Gahanna State Nature Preserve.  

Below is one of the many vernal pool at Gahanna Woods. While it proved to be still a bit too early to hear the singing of Spring Peepers or witness the activity of the salamanders we'd hoped to see we still had a great time and plan to get out again soon and often to witness the annual awakening of these magical places!

*Update 3/11 - The chorus frogs started singing yesterday!  A few spring peepers offered up their calls, but the western chorus frogs were definitely dominant.  The eastern bluebirds sang up quite the song and flitted in  and out of the nest boxes all day.  Spring is coming...

Happy, Happy Color: Knitting

Happy March everyone!  It's always so exciting to flip the calendar, especially heading into spring.  To start the day cheery, here's two fun knitting projects underway.  First, an easy-peasy stripy blanket to bust Jennifer's yarn stash.  I admit, I also love handmade blankets and collect colorful ones whenever I find them so why not make them too? The yellow based granny square one I picked up for $2 or $3 at a thrift store and Steve's grandmother crocheted the one on the back of our couch.  The pattern for this thick, ribbed blanket is in Ann Budd's, Knitting Green.  It really is oh so very easy and is perfect opposite my other project...

socks!  I am using another Ann Budd book: Getting Started Knitting Socks for my first socks.  My very first sock I knit I ripped out because I knit the toe very wrong.  Only after I knit the thing did my mistake in the pattern directions make sense.  Now I can't believe I read the pattern the way I did!  I decided to just start over since they were a bit larger than I wanted too.  This sock is shaping up perfect.  I'm at the heel turn right now so I have to pay a bit more attention than I do for the blanket....see complementary projects. Perfect!

We hope everyone enjoys a great weekend!