THE CAVENDER DIARY

One of the first things we meant to do was build a deck directly off the back door of the house.  There’s a 3 foot drop , and it needs to be a level walk-out extending the living room square footage by double. I have visions of alfresco summer dinner parties surrounded by fireflies, strings of rodeo lights and a candle lit light fixture dangling over the table from a branch with a rope and a pulley……..(AAAhhhhh , someday)  Now somehow we thought this project would cost about 15% less than everyone else did.  Solution…do it ourselves. Jamie even bought a book. And ya know what?…….It’s a pretty big freaking ordeal to build your own 15 X 20 deck. Looks like we will have to wait a while…So in the meantime, Jamie dug up the odd lilies and other assorted  unattractive plants from both sides of the existing 8X8 patio and replaced them with rosemary (heaven) desert sage, furry red grass, and some yellow flowering things we can’t identify.

Pretty Awesome, right? I think the river rocks are my favorite part…we are keeping Home Depot in business with all our river rock purchasing……The sage was all soft “sagey” green when we got it , and in just a few days it was covered in those little purple flowers. All the new plantings are pretty drought tolerant, and the lambs-ear was already there…so we know it can take neglect we will give it.

So a few days later we were at the Walls-Mart to buy a new cheap dog bed. We seem to be going through an awful lot of dog beds lately, could be the teething Doberman, or the fact that we keep buying them at Wall Mart……..or a little of both. Anyway, on our way out the door, I spotted this dark brown patio set with khaki cushions and a great X detail on the backs…..and the price, unbelievably $150. Did we buy it? Of course not. I wanted to go home and find something better on the internets. And about 45 minutes later we were back at Wally World getting “Big Shirley” to help us load the unassembled set. Nothing as stylish, and as reasonably priced out there folks.

It’s not perfect, and we don’t plan on having it forever……but for the price. WOWZA!!! Suddenly, it’s not so terrible sitting outside in the evenings while Harley amuses herself with three-fourths of a frisbee in the yard. Now remember that 4 months ago this side of the garage was puke-green too…it’s all just coming together so  soothing and grown-up. The star was a last-minute addition, picked up at the farmers market while we were buying plants for the other flower bed….cost you ask? 30 clams…..

Of course , one project leads to another…and I just couldn’t look and the “prison yard” light fixture next to the back door much longer. No tunneling out of the yard with this thing shining down.

My favorite part is the electrical tape X .....

I had always planned on replacing it with the same one on the front patio….Only one small problem, Pottery Barn has them on backorder until late August. Good thing I am familiar with eBay…..I found 1, and it was waaaaay cheaper than ol’ PB was asking.   5 days and a five-minute install later ( yeah, I’m that good) it looks like this …..

Way. more. much. better…. The chocolate-brown outdoor rug was on clearance at Target (second greatest store in the world, after Ikea) and while we were there I found 4 brownish outdoor aluminum dining chairs for 12 bucks each… they are being stored in the garage for now…….because I still haven’t let go of my vision of outdoor dinner parties on our enormous wooden deck…..and I plan on being ready.

Being away from home certainly makes us appreciate our little house.

We took a short trip this past week, and coming home and driving up the alley into our driveway instantly made me smile.

Last weekend before we left, I tweaked the back of the garage by installing a new galvanized barn light and touching up the vanilla-cream paint; and Jamie gave the garage door 2 new coats of Chocolate paint. (The first 2 were flat and we decided that the eggshell finish looked a little more….. polished)

Here’s the view coming up the back.

Back Driveway

I know!

It looks great.

The new paint, the fence, and those river rocks around the Mexican razor grass…

I don’t know which detail I like the most.

Here’s what the back of the house looked like when we moved in…. obviously, before the fence went up.

But you get a good idea of the “pea-soup” color half the house was……

Why would anyone have a satellite dish right next to a TV antenna? Amazing? Those were the first 2 things to go. Jamie just reminded me that on Day 1 he climbed up on the roof and removed both of them just so I would stop bitching . Eventually I will paint the chimney to match the rest of the house…..but not in this 100 degree heat.

And here’s our warm, charming, slightly smaller than I wanted, barn light. (There’s a small light sensor on top, so it turns on at dusk)

Small light sensor on top, so it turns on at dusk

Maybe someday I’ll find a bigger vintage one with paint chipping off.

This one was only $26 on Amazon, and I love it way more than the builder-grade bullshit spotlight that was there.

I think it gives the garage and “old service station” vibe… even more with the vintage Coke machine and tin sign collection inside.

Every little personal detail we add just makes this place feel more like home.

Our home.

Please allow me to share with you the Awesomeness that is the front of our house .

Just for a refresher, here is the original house picture from the Trulia listing just over a year ago….

Not bad actually….it was good enough to spark our interest in the rest of the house. Although, I’m still not sure why the Colonial light fixture was pressed up against the mailbox…….

And here’s a pic from today …

It’s all in the details, people…..the chocolate paint on the trim (pay no attention to the green downspout, we haven’t made it to that side of the house yet) , The Mandarin orange door with the new brushed stainless hardware, the under eaves lights, the cedar on the posts that makes them look sturdy enough to actually hold up the roof. And just look at that cedar ceiling on the porch!!!!

Here’s a quick before shot of the ceiling….why would anyone paint a house “pea-soup green”?

Here is the bitchin’ after…( AFTER…… several trips to Home Depot ) These are 6 foot cedar fence slats cut down to 43 inches. My 2 favorite tools are the chop saw and the nail gun…….

The posts were covered in cedar planks to look thicker and more modern, we weren’t really diggin’ the country home spindles. At first, they were 4 inches ( simply because the cedar came cut that size ). But the wood was just oooh-so-slightly too small to stretch completely around the posts. So now they are about 6 x 5. LOVE Them!!!!!!!

Here’s a great shot of the front from just a few minutes ago….

A couple of hours on the ladder should be enough to finish the paint….and then shutters. It’s starting to hit the 100 degree mark and I’m not sure how much more outside work we will be tackling in the next few months. We will most likely be focusing our efforts on projects in the air conditioning until September…..

With a 3 day holiday weekend, and no rain in the forcast…we set out to continue the new trim color to the front of our house…I was still touching up when the sun set last night …..and this morning I can see a few spots I have to hit again……but overall it looks amazing and we are both pretty excited. While I was focusing on the trim, Jamie gave the front door a few coats of “Pumpkin” and we both knew instantly that it was a “No-Go”……kinda looked like neon gunshot-safety orange. The second color is called “Mandrin”, and although still bright…we both love it. It is set off by the brown very nicely.

The posts still need to be covered in cedar, and then stained the same color as the fence….Did I mention that we finally picked a stain color for the fence? Well we did…..a brown that is pretty similar to our house trim, maybe a little redder…”Russet”…I know, I know, all our colors have food names. It was supposed to be semi-transperent…….but it really isn’t. Jamie sprayed/brushed the front of the fence…and we may pay someone to do the rest. Apparently our year old cedar is very dry and sucked up stain pretty quickly.

Doesn’t it look great??!! Our carpenter wanted $1600 to paint the eaves and garage, of course he would have been done in a weekend……but it has only cost about $200 in paint and supplies for us to do it ourselves….and we will be done before the real heat of the summer.

Now, I just need to attach cedar to the ceiling of the patio and too surround the columns, and I have designed some modern looking shutters that will mimic the look of the fence……and finish painting the trim on the last quarter of the house too……I’ll post some new pics as soon as I reattach the lights under the eaves….I sprayed them rather than brush…so they won’t be stuck together when we have to change bulbs. I know, pretty clever……

About 8 months ago Jamie picked up 3 brown, and 1 black, paint samples and did a few test spots on the side of the garage door. We knew that we didn’t want the “Exorcist Pea Soup” green trim that came on the house, but we weren’t quite sure what we did want .  Black was actually the first choice,  but after living with the 4 test spots for several months, we both knew it was the warm brown…….”Bear Rug” is the proper name.

That's "Bear Rug' in the upper left....

Here’s the before, with everything painted green….I know the previous owner thought it was a good idea to paint the garage green to match the trim……but he was so wrong. It should be the same color of the house ( a kind of vanilla cream ) , and soon it will be.

Here is the garage door with just one coat of Bear Rug. Don’t worry, I painted the outside door opener brown on the second coat. I’ll post more pictures once we finnish painting the rest of the garage “Vanilla” and the eaves brown.

I Absolutely love it ! We picked up a paint sprayer at Home Depot  today because we just can’t wait to paint the entire rest of the trim Bear Rug. I also ordered a galvanized  barn light to replace the builder grade light fixture currently above the garage door.

Last Week we had the possibility of the first overnight guest in months, so we took the dog kennel out of the guest room and made the bed. I used the new red/black pillows from the outlet and one of the bullion decorative throw pillows that were a Christmas gift from some dear friends. Then I put down the Red Navajo rug Jamie brought back from an El Paso trip a few weeks ago………and ya know what? It’s not a bad-looking little room. I desperately need to warm up those gloss white walls with some khaki paint….and, of course,  curtains. 

It’s almost a shame to fill it back up with a dog cage……..

One year ago today, we got the keys to Cavender and drove over immediately after work to find that TXU had forgotten to connect the power and we would have to paint in the dark all weekend until Oncore could connect us Monday morning………I tried telling them that my wife was in an iron lung and needed electricity immediately, but they didn’t fall for it…….they did however credit me $120 for my trouble …..and their mistake.