Nesting

Birdwatch 2018 is still ongoing. All this bird nesting has me thinking about how we’ve settled into our new home. I still love this house and all the ways it’s so different from our New Mexico house.  We are individually finding our way into our Virginian lives. Meeting new people, hitting the local Farmers Markets, finding our favorite spots. We have a long way to go, but in time this place will feel like we’ve lived here forever.

I’ll tell you about our master bedroom, our nest if you will. I chose to keep this room very neutral going with the same “Floating Feather” by Edwards and Dunn that I painted the main areas of our house. As well as the color I chose for all of the New Mexico house actually.

This is our living room. It’s one of my favorite views. I love how this couch end is angled. It makes the really large couch feel intimate and cozy. I picked up that Majestic Palm at Harris Teeter for $20.I love it in this corner. But really the point of this shot was to show you the paint color.

 

 

Our Master Bedroom has a small bathroom which you get to via a dressing room.  Hollywood style? Maybe. The dressing room is a prime example of one of the best features in this house. The built-ins. This space has enabled us to eliminate the need for dressers in the bedroom and expanded the closet storage. As a bonus it even has a makeup table, definitely old school style if not Hollywood.

 

I picked up this painted mirror at a second hand store which has made the space function as a make up place. The table has good storage with 3 side drawers and one large shallow drawer where the chair goes. The chair is a second hand needle point chair. You may remember I have a need  to re-home every needle point chair I find, I suppose in remembrance of my grandma.

 

These built-ins house my stuff on one side and Chuck’s on the other. It’s surprisingly a lot of space. Having the three-way mirror is really nice for bouncing around light.

 

The closet is just to the right. While it would be nice to have it a bit bigger, the addition of the shelves Chuck added in works nicely to put my hand knit sweaters folded in there. I really cut back on the amount of clothes I have, that was probably really over due. I still had clothes I wore before Hanna was born, and she’s 21. Yikes.

 

The bathroom has been previously updated in a way that feels authentic to the house. I like the style but will probably someday make changes so we can enlarge the room.  It’s so small there really is not any good storage. There is the medicine cabinet and I added a little shelf from Target to hold extra stuff like washcloths and shampoo. There is no counter space or a place too hang a hand towel. It was actually pretty hard to get a photo that didn’t include the toilet. Now that is a small bathroom!

I’m obviously a fan a repurposing things. One of my favorite repurposes ever is in the master bedroom.  When we moved in there were shutters on a pallet behind the cottage. After my mom paired them with their windows, we ended up with one lonely shutter.  This shutter having no mate, no window, no destiny. It needed a new identity. So I helped it find one. It was already hinting at my favorite color combo, red, white and blue. I knew I couldn’t change that. So, I simply sprayed it with the hose on the highest setting, gave it a good scrub with some bleach water and let it dry. I then covered the entire shutter in a coat of polyurethane to prevent further peeling.

 

See those chippy colors. It had my heart. And needed a place of honor in our home, too. I new exactly where it would go. Right above the headboard in our master bedroom! I could picture it in my mind. I could see it there with the perfect focal point being a wreath. I set out on a wreath hunt the very day I hung the shutter.

 

 

I found the exact wreath size and style at Home Goods. I used heavy duty picture hangers screwed into the back side of the shutter and then added heavy gauge picture wire. It is really heavy so I used two anchored hooks rated for 50lbs each secured into the wall at the precisely measured height. Added a command hook to hold the wreath.

 

 

Voila! It is magic. I love it there. I have the beautiful afghan my grandma crocheted for me forever ago. I think it is charming and pairs nicely with the shutter, bringing the outdoors in, just the way I like it.

 

 

My reading corner is in this room, I’ve mentioned this corner here before.
This  is one of my favorites in the house. I love the way it feels and the way it looks.

 

 

Back to nesting and Bird Watch 2018. The bird houses in the back yard with the Winter Wrens are a flutter of activity. Mom constantly bringing food to hungry babies. They can’t be to far away from flying the coop. Of course I can’t see inside the houses so I’m just guessing. The Wren sitting in the paper box by the mail boxes is still in there, sitting all day and night. I steer clear of her getting the mail. I have noticed there is a lone teeny egg sitting just outside of the nest. I may try to collect it after this nest has been abandoned.

 

I did collect the Robin’s nest, there are the two unhatched eggs still inside. I placed it carefully inside this decorative wire nest I picked up a long time ago at Hobby Lobby. It will live here on my entry table for awhile. I can’t bring myself to give it up, but my hanging basket needed to breath, my plants can now flourish.

 

 

The sparrows have to be about too fly their coop as well. The two nests of finch eggs are still being sat upon. One nest should be hatching any day now. I can’t wait to see these birds out on their own!

 

Until next time. Happy Knitting.