Reclaiming the backyard and other yardwork

Our backyard has suffered from the same neglect that our front yard.  One of the worst areas is along our side fence line.  At some point it was a nice garden bed but it had become overgrown with vibes weeds and junk bushes.  We took advantage of the great weather and cleaned most of the junk plants out.  We will rebuild the planting bed in the spring.  The few hours we spend cutting gained us about 40 or so square feet of usable space.

Before

After

Cassie likes to garden to have both flowers and fresh vegetables.  However the soil here is pure sand making growing difficult.  Luckily we have a lot of trees rhat drop their leaves on our properly.  Instead of bagging the leaves and having them hauled to the landfill we turned them into a compost pile.  We are also adding in our kitchen scraps.  In the spring we will have a nice rich dirt perfect for vegetables with no cash outlay.

Drew.

The Forgotten Wardrobe project introduction

The family we bought our house from in PA were great people.  They left a bunch of items behind that they had no use for in their new home and instead of hitting the dumpster they offered them to us.  One of the pieces the left was an old small simple wardrobe.  It had been painted white at some point in its life and the bottoms of the legs have seen better days.  The rest of the piece is still in good shape under the paint.  Its been an off and on project for the past 2 years.  It is fully living up to its name of The Forgotten Wardrobe

What I started with two layers of white paint and a lot of dust

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Bottle opener and cap catcher

In our shed there are quite a few old fence boards that have this great weathered look to them.  I decided to turn one of them into a bottle opener and catcher for a yet to be built bar area.

Christmas time at 404

Its that time of year where the stockings are hung by the fireplace with care.

Sadly we were not able to cut our own tree this year but we do have a real Christmas tree.  We are still in love with the color change we made in the living room and with the stockings on the mantel around the fireplace the only thing missing now is a real fire.  Maybe next year.

On black Friday Home Depot had a really good sale on poinsettias so we picked up a pair.  To dress them up a little  we grabbed some sticks from the yard and hit them with a little white spray paint.  We have them in our dining room over the fireplace.

 

Out side we didn't get too crazy.  Just some lights around the front step columns bush and tree.  Also had to have snoopy and his dog house.

Last night we attended a Reindeer bike ride around a local neighborhood to tour everyone's Christmas lights. A bunch of the riders got into the spirit with lights, ugly sweaters and all manner of decorations.  It was quite the ride with a great turn out and a pit stop for hot chocolate and s'mores.

From Drew and Cassie at Restomod @ 404 we wish you and yours happy holidays, a Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year.

The things you find

The weather was near perfect this weekend with temperatures in the low 60s.  So Cassie and I took advantage and did quite a bit of yard work.  While raking leaves to turn into compost we found some cool surprises that had been hidden.

On our fence we found a very cool 3 pot holder with pots.  We plan on moving it closer to the house in the spring using it again.  Possibly as an herb tower off our back door.

Just in time for Christmas we also unearthed some coal.  Not sure what we are going to do with it yet we are open to any and all ideas.

~Drew

Timrod Park Neighborhood Christmas tree.

The Timrod Park Neighborhood Association had their Christmas Tree Lighting last night.  There was coffee, hot chocolate and cookies for every one in attendance.  Its events like this that make living in this neighborhood what it is.  Stay tuned for a full page on what makes the Timrod Park Neighborhood special.

Drew

Dinning room chair refresh.

In preparation for Thanksgiving we decided to bring our dining room chairs up to date.  While we were still in PA we got a great deal on a big solid wood dining room table and chairs form a local consignment shop.  The only down side were the coverings on the chairs.  They had been redone in the late 70s or so and just didn't fit our style.

We pulled the old fabric and pads off the chairs and cut new foam pads and fabric to replace them. 

Now they fit in with our style and don't look nearly as dated.

I hope your Thanksgiving table is filled with love kindness and good food,

Drew

Gone Coastal Cool phase 2

In preparation for family coming down for Thanksgiving we have been a little under the gun to get the house ready.  We have finished painting the living room, our office and our staircase/upstairs hallway along with getting bedrooms set up for guests.

We continued with the Coastal Cool collection from HGTV home and Sherwin Williams.  For the office we chose to kill the builders beige with Restful green walls and Eider white trim.

For our staircase and second floor hallway we opted for Comfort gray and Eider white.  

Before

After

With the living room we opted to do something a little different.  The fireplace wall has really nice wood planks the give a lot of character so we wanted to make them and the fireplace the feature wall but we also wanted to tie the rest of the room and our furniture together as well.  Luckily the walls are split by a chair rail all the way around the room so we used it as a divider line.  The lower walls and the wood planks got Curio gray, the upper walls got Lemongrass finally the trim and fireplace were painted Eider white.

The living room how the previous owners had it.

After

Small projects

Some times it's the little details that make all the difference.

 In our dining room the previous owners had installed an industrial style light fixture over the table.  Even with a high Lumen bulb the room was still very dark.  With 9 foot ceilings it just wasn't the right application.  We opted to move a wrought iron chandelier from another room to the dining room to both give a little more light and make the room feel a little more welcoming .

Before

After

While not a simple project adding the vent hood above our stove have been a huge improvement to our house.  Now we can vent out the cooking smells and gases instead of having them fill the house.  We had the vent hood in our Erie PA home and decided to take it out and being in to SC as it is a nice high CFM GE Profile hood and it matches out stove.  

Gone Coastal, Cool that is, phase 1

The paint colors in our house is a mix of builders beige and some very interesting choices.  I am not a designer or a decorator by any stretch so finding what colors go with what is always a challenge.  Luckily HGTV and Sherwin-Willams have taken a lot of the guess work out of it with their HGTV Home paint collection.  They have a few different color palettes that have 20 different colors to pick from.  We opted to use the Coastal Cool collection.

Our first project was painting our guest bathroom.  It was a very dark orange color that made the space feel small and dark.  We opted to use the Watery color to make it a lot more inviting and brighter.

Before

After

The next area we painted was our mudroom and pat of the kitchen.  We have some very nice wood planks on the walls that were begging for a little love.  The whole area was white that while making the room open and bright it felt a little muddled.  We chose the Sea Salt color for the walls and Eider White for the doors and trim.

Before

After

Stay tuned for a full review of the HGTV Home paint by Sherwin-Williams and the rest of our color choices.

~Drew

Dutch door to coffee table project.

One of our first major projects to the house involved removing the old back door.  At some point before our ownership the wooded back door was cut in half to make Dutch style door were the top and bottom sing independently of each other.  Over the years the frame as settled out of square and the door no longer closed well and there was a large gap between the top and bottom sections.  We opted to replace the door with a simple steel and foam door that has an opening window in it.  That left us with the Dutch door left over.  After trying to sell it for about a month I decided to take the saw to it and turn it into a coffee table.

The door after it had been removed,

I decided to split the lower part of the door in half  to use as the legs/sides of the table.

For the lower shelf of the table I used part of a shipping crate we used to move a painting from PA to SC.  I attached two pieces to the the legs then built an open shelf between the two.

Finally I screwed the top part of the door to the assembled legs and shelf.

I opted to leave the hinges dead bolt and the latch on the upper part of the door for now.  I still need to paint the shelf at some point.

Thank you for reading my DIY Dutch door to coffee table build.  If you have any questions please drop me a comment. Drew

Curb appeal phase 1

When we bought our home the previous owners had really let the landscape around the home go.  While are no where near done with adding some much needed curb appeal we have finished our phase 1.

Staring point form the listing

The front yard lacked much needed character and interest.  The brick path leading to the front door was almost fully over grown with grass.  The tree in the front yard needed to be pruned and the grass was in very poor shape.

First I cleared the grass from the walk way, then Cassie made up a few flower pots and we trimmed the limbs off the tree so it was no longer crowding the small front porch.  Later we removed the large bush that was planted on the left side.  The final touch on phase one was adding the American Flag out front.

Phase 2 will be redoing the brick path, removing more the the bushes in the front, and getting a mailbox that is not plastic.  We would also like to add some flower boxes under the first floor windows and a front flower garden bed.  Those will be spring projects.

Welcome

Welcome to Restomod at 404.  The concept of restomoding is mostly in the world of classic cars.  You take the timeless lines of a classic car but put in modern technology to make them faster, stop quicker, handle better and safer.  Along with my soon to be wife that is the route we plan on taking with our 1950 Colonial Revival home in Florence SC.  Infusing classic style and craftsman ship with modern comfort and convince.