Welcome to Mantucket

I know that I promised Part 2 of the horror that is my front yard/plumbing issues, but I was so excited to do this project, I decided to finish and do a big reveal! Well that and yesterday was Mother's Day, and I promised my mom I'd finish and post pictures. So here you go Mom!

One of the most neglected rooms in our house (or any house we've ever lived in) has been the master bedroom. It's a lot of work to do to prettify the place where you sleep. Hubs and I have been so done, I'm talking D-O-N-E with renovation drama, that we really felt like we needed a calm, quiet place to relax. To me, that means white on white, with hydrangeas and white roses, flowy curtains and all that pretty girly stuff, to him, it means beige on beige with some more beige thrown in for good measure (he really dislikes color). Normally he pretty much goes along with whatever I want without too much complaining, so for our bedrooom, I really wanted to make it a masculine space that he felt comfortable in, while keeping it pretty. I think I succeeded.

Here's the before. Not bad.
Here's the after. Isn't it pretty?! It feels very Nantucket (Hubs calls it Mantucket) to me. This is the view from the doorway.
I started by painting the bed white. What an immense pain that was! Those little spindle thingies...ugh. It was terrible. Plus, I was trying to save time, so I decided not to use primer before I painted. Big mistake. It took 3 coats and didn't even cover everything! In the end, I decided that I liked that you could still see through the white a little bit. It gives it a little bit of a white washed/aged look in some spots. But if I had it do again, I'd use primer. I just got lucky that I like the white washed look.

The oar I had hanging in the living room. The bedding is the same, I just flipped the comforter over so it was all white showing.
These are the pictures that really inspired the room. We found the large one at TJ Maxx for $14.99, and the other two were taken at The Point (I talked about it here, if you need a refresher!). One of my favorite things about The Point was that you could see the tall beautiful trees and the ocean, all at the same time. I really wanted to convey that feeling I used to have, and I wanted to bring in the ocean AND the trees.

In order for the bed to be centered in the room, we had to do away with one of the bedside stands. We tried to make it work, but when you opened the closet door, you hit the nightstand. So while it may have been more symmetrical and "normal" to have the two matching nightstands, we opted for function. This little stand was in my living room, then in the kitchen, and I think now, it's found it's permanent home.

I asked the kids to find me "interesting sticks", and this is what they brought me. Works for me! I got the jar/vase thingy at TJ Maxx for $3.99. I put some river rocks in the bottom to hold the sticks in place, and voila!
The lamp is another TJ Maxx find ($24.99).
The view from the other side of the room
We cleared EVERYTHING off the dresser. I don't think I've ever seen it so empty! At first I planned to paint the dresser white too, but decided against it. I think it adds some rustic charm as it is.

We found the sailboat in the garden aisle at Lowes for $19.99. I can't really imagine this in a garden, but I like it on the dresser!
Really, the only I other things I did were paint the trim white (Valspar Ultra White) and put down an area rug (Lowes $98). Normally, I think area rugs over carpets are kind of silly, but it's a necessity for us. We really want to put down hardwood floors, but it's just not in the budget right now. This lightens up the room and hides a lot of the carpet, especially where our monster of a puppy had chewed chunks of the carpet out.So there you have it. Nantucket, Mantucket, I don't care what it's called. I love it!

In a handbasket, Part 1

It's tempting to call me a slacker because I haven't posted anything since the end of March, but I promise, I have a good reason (and pictures!) Let's start with the timeline of very unfortunate events.

April 1- My parents came to visit, and we had such a good time! We went to the aquarium and Coke World in Atlanta, we went to the zoo, we showed them around our own city, it was wonderful, we really needed the vacation, and I loved seeing my family.

(Taken at Coke World. See? We're very happy)
Then it went bad. Very, very bad.

April 9- Things were starting to get back to normal. I was making potato salad for dinner, and I noticed that the sink was draining slow. I ran the garbage disposal, figuring it was a little backed up, and it spit water up the opposite side. Uh oh. I call the plumber (who can't come for hours) and wait. As I'm sitting across the room, pouting at my inability to not be able to use the kitchen sink, the dishwasher (which wasn't even running) starts pouring water all over the floor.

The plumber finally comes, and she (yep, she. Our plumber is a lady) tells us that there's no blockage in the kitchen sink. She does all sorts of plumbery things, and asks if we have problems with other drains. Since we moved in, all of our drains have run kind of slow, but honestly, hubs put in the 2 toilets and the bathroom sinks, so I kind of thought it was just because he didn't do it right (sorry hubs!). She says it must be tree roots that have gotten into our drainage pipes. So what does this mean?

It means that my newly planted lawn is getting dug up. But that's not the worst of it. The County Water people came out and ran a camera through the sewer line and spray painted where the mysterious roots were. Then we had all of the other utilities come and mark where their lines were (it would be really, really bad to hit a gas line and blow up the neighborhood!).

The neon green paint is where the roots are, all of the orange lines are gas lines. So, we can't get the big yellow digger to dig this hole. It has to be done by hand.

April 15- We had the heavy machinery start the hole, and hubs and plumber started digging a trench toward the curb.

Doesn't look so happy now does he? Oh! I forgot to mention, they broke the water line when they dug the big hole AND the broke the sewer line. So he's standing in a muddle of mud and...well, there's no nice way to say this. Poop. He's standing in poop.

After about 8 hours of digging , it looked like this.

Lots of roots, but still haven't found the culprit.

That black wire running across the hole is a cable wire, also bad to hit with heavy machinery.


Another couple of hours, and we're at the curb. Hubs is really happy about it, as you can see. Actually, he wasn't bad, he just kept "suggesting" that I pick up a shovel and start digging. How can I take pictures if I'm digging? Geesh. Anyway. There are no tree roots anywhere near our sewer lines. None. Mind you, at this point, I have a 5 foot wide hole in my front lawn and the sewage pipe hasn't been repaired yet, so every time you flush the toilet it goes to the hole in the front yard. We called the County back and told them we dug to the curb and there was nothing. They assured us there were roots, but they'd come back out and run their camera again. Is it possible that the spot was mismarked? Perhaps it's on the street-side and not in our yard? Certainly not! It MUST be on our side, otherwise, all this digging would be for nothing, and the county would have to take over and fix the issue. Hmmm, interesting. They were going to send a crew first thing in the morning.

The sewage pipe was taped (yep, taped) back together so the county could take apart in the morning. And we waited. And we waited. And we waited.

April 23- After calling the office about 387 times, I was finally able to speak to someone who assured me that they would send a crew right over. After a lot of back and forth, calls to supervisors and raised voices, they agreed to fix it.

I don't know that they ever found this elusive root. I thought it would be in bad taste to take pictures of them working, they were really not happy with me after all this, so I don't know what exactly they did. I know they did hook all the pipes back up, and they did bring a bunch of dirt to cover up the hole. Hubs and I covered the hole, but there's still a big dirt pile left. We got sidetracked with other problems. Yes, there's more. And it gets worse.

Part 2 tomorrow!