Q*Bert

We actually have a couple of different areas in our living room that are ripe for an accent or feature wall.  I mentioned the wall between the living room and kitchen here, but the wall our television goes on is another stand alone wall that we could do something fun with.

Here it is on moving day:

There's that pink.

We painted the hideous pink backgrounds about a week after moving, but our 46" television wouldn't fit on the counter without removing some of the vertical shelving pieces.  So down the one on the right went.  Our TV fit pretty well in the large opening, but we had our components on the counter and it looked pretty low rent.  

After the success of the wood wall in the basement bathroom, we thought we'd try it again.  But after looking around on Pinterest for awhile, I found something much, much cooler.

Prepare yourselves for the Q*Bert Wall...

But first, the backstory.

IN PROGRESS:  We've taken the shelves out and are getting ready
to start!  I just included this for the Vera photo bomb :)

IN PROGRESS:  We let Will draw something on the wall for a time
capsule.  He chose Plex from Yo Gabba Gabba.  He's 10.

To create the all mighty Q*Bert, we bought 4 sheets of luan plywood for $9 a sheet and cut 2 of them into diamonds.  Then we laid them out in a cubish pattern atop the other 2 sheets and glued it all together.  Here it is all laid out and ready to install.

IN PROGRESS:  We didn't think this step through.   We assembled it in the basement
and then tried to carry it back upstairs - it was pretty fragile.
We lost a few diamonds in the transfer.
But we just glued them right back on.  NBD.

So pretty cool right?  We left a few diamonds off so we could screw it directly into the wall.  Then we glued the missing diamonds back on and put a coat of poly on it.

GETTING CLOSER:  How cool is this??

I forgot to mention a few prep tasks that were necessary before we could attach this baby to the wall.  John had to move the power and cable outlets up on the wall so we could mount the TV to the wall on a bracket and not see the cords.  He also needed to build a couple of shelves to put inside the firewood storage area to hold the DVR and Blu-Ray player.  

Once the power/cable stuff was taken care of we were ready to attach the bracket and hang the TV.  I'll save you the drama of having to run out and buy little things that allowed the cords to make turns (?) and the very funny (now) incident of getting the TV hung and realizing that we didn't plug it in.  That was fun.  But here it is hung, plugged in, and ready to go.

AFTER:  Isn't he handsome?  I like how you can see different patterns
at different times of the day.  We're not sure if we are going to put
anything else on the wall.  We don't want to hide too much of the pattern.

AFTER:  Here is a side view so you can see the cool pattern from a different
angle.  And also so you can see our cool IKEA Maskros light in the stairwell.

So there you have it.  Oh, wait.  The cabinets!  We hated the way the doors were hung unevenly, it drove me crazy on a daily basis.  Since we needed to take the doors off to rehang them, we decided to modernize the 80's oak with an ebony stain.  I used my miracle product (see below) in Onyx.   John reattached the doors at the proper height and we're in business.

We'll decide after living with the wall (and possibly getting a different TV - we're seeing dark spots...) if we are going to build shelves.  I'm thinking not, but I'm not shutting that door yet.  But for now we'll just enjoy the view :)

Dreaming of Spring...

So when we looked at the house in late May we noticed the landscaping needed some love in a few places.

We have railroad ties that are falling apart, heaving brick patios and a deck that is soft and spongy in more than a few places.  We smiled and said "no big deal, we can dig this patio up and reset it" or "I know I can get some of my friends over here to help replace this deck" and "these railroad ties aren't in that bad of shape".

Then we took another look in June when we decided to buy.  "Hmmm, some of these weeds seem a bit large" and "that patio is going to need some attention stat".  Then later in June, after we bought the place but before we closed, we came by for some measurements and noticed that the weeds were growing unabated, but really couldn't do anything since we didn't own the place.  Most obvious, the north side of the house had a nice landscaped walkway that leads you from the front of the house to the back yard that seemed to be disappearing.

Fast forward to August 19, closing day.  We were proudly showing everyone around and then - CLUNK - outside.  We were fortunate enough that the previous owners paid for a lawn service and continued to water the lawn, so the lawn was nice and green, but anything that wasn't lawn - weeds.  Weeds taller than 6 feet.   So many weeds that you didn't even know there was a walkway on the north side.  You couldn't tell there were tiered planting beds in the backyard.  Vines growing like crazy up the side of the house.  Sigh.

Trust me,  this is the backyard

Hello heaving patio with weeds included!!

We spent most evenings in September pulling weeds on the north side of the house to restore some sense of livability.  Here is what it looked like before...

Why, Mr. North side of the house - where is
your lovely walking path??

And, here it is today.

There's the walking path

Ahh, much better.  This is the easy side of the house.  All we have to do is not let the weeds grow and it'll look like this.  Now for the rest of the exterior.  Sigh.

Those are railroad ties that are falling apart.  And the
only way to walk from the deck into the backyard

See the patio?  I don't think it should be
draining toward the house, do you??

The camera is level, it's the fence that's not :(

This is going to have to wait, since we are the only
ones who would use these "stairs" that go
 from the front entry to the backyard

This is the south side of the house.  It also drains the wrong way - toward the house

Now we've got big plans.  Sadly, we've also vastly underestimated the amount of effort and money that exterior projects eat up.  But we've budgeted and planned for the immediate needs, so the agenda for summer 2012 is as follows...

1.  Replace deck.  Fortunately, the framing is solid as a rock, the 30 year old boards are not.  Hopefully we'll get by with only replacing the floor and rails, and trellis...

2.  Dig up and reset heaving patio.  We were going to build a lower tier to the deck there, but seriously - how many square feet of deck does one family need?  So for now, we'll reset what we already have and it will be just fine.  I promise.

3.  Regrade south side of house.  We suspected it was a problem, and now the snow has melted, we know it is a problem (it looks like a sweet little lake out there - 2 feet from the house).  Hopefully we'll find some free fill dirt on craigslist.  I'm also planning on building some planters underneath the windows to the boys' rooms for privacy and some pretty.  We'll see how that goes.

4.  If the budget allows, we'll also have the ash tree removed before the ash borer comes along and does it for us.  I'd prefer to have professionals remove it so it doesn't crash through my living room ceiling.  I'm scared to call for estimates though.  It's not going to end well for the tree or our checkbook I'm afraid.  We'll see if the tree guys feel sorry enough for us and give us a good deal on removing the pine tree as well.  It's got the wilt and isn't looking too good these days.  Poor fella.

Since this will be our first spring around here, I'm hoping that lots and lots of pretty flowers come up this spring to help us through this.  We'll need all the pretty we can get for motivation!!