Renovate Fox Ridge: The Pre-Epic-Project-Prep-Day

Today was a very productive day up at Fox Ridge, but sadly there is little to show for all of our work thus far. We did all of the required shopping runs, picking up the odds and ends on our mile-long shopping list, in the optimistic hope that we'll actually manage to remember everything required to complete our projects. I'm pretty sure this has never actually happened in the history of Do-It-Yourself, but it's a good laugh to try. Not fun, not exciting, but hopefully tomorrow we can really get cracking without too many more runs to the hardware store. Ha. Ha. Triple ha.

To recap our goals for this weekend: (This too is an ever-growing list...)

1) The Green House Project! Build a greenhouse out of our antique window collection. (Yes- this really is the plan. I find that I often prefer to take the path of most resistance, and this is an excellent example.) John and my dad are going to build the skeleton of the greenhouse this week and then we're going to fill in the gaps with the 2 dozen + antique windows I've been collecting for the last year and a half. This is going to be a crazy (aka wretched) project and if it gets anywhere near completed this weekend, I'll eat my right shoe.

My right shoe...

2) Sew the orange pillows for the city living room, once the fabric arrives. (We bought super cheap feather pillow inserts at Home Goods today, so we can already chalk up Score-1 for this project. Hopefully the fabric shows up soon or we're going to be pretty much stalled out at Score-1.)

3) Clean up and prep the garden for Spring (It's almost here in Upstate New York. I am impatiently waiting for the trees to start to bloom, but we already have a decent showing of daffodils and hyacinth. It's about flipping time.)

4) Wire this kooky pair of Italian-Toile-esque sconces that Mummy brought out with her, so that they are actually electrified. (They are currently just for very skinny candles.) My mom found this wiggy pair of sconces at a yard sale, and though peculiar, they are totally growing on me.

They are balanced precariously on that ever-so-fine-line between awesome and vulgar. An unpredictable see-saw that I enthusiastically embrace in my own home design, but every once in a while, things really go haywire. Initially I thought I would have to spray-paint them to make them a little less weird/heinous, but the technicolor pears are becoming more endearing by the minute.

This is one of my favorite "Why do I love this, when I know it is ugly?" moments. I'll report back on this front.

We're off to a good start, so stay tuned to see how these projects turn out. There are even more projects lurking in the wings, but it seems overly-ambitious to add the pipe-dreams to the list when the Green House Project is looming over us. We'll see how we do...

A Super-Exciting Side Note: We're being featured on the Brooklyn Limestone website on Thursday morning! Brooklyn Limestone is a particularly well-designed and well-written home design site with a plethora of inspirational and envy-inducing projects that is sure to incite action in even the most slovenly of Do-It-Yourself enthusiasts! It is a rad honor to be included on the site, so definitely check out Brooklyn Limestone, and make sure to let Mrs. Limestone know you are visiting from After-Dinner Design!

Hazahh!!!