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Around the Cottage

Fighting for our land

    I was just thinking about how life can change in just a moment. We’ve had more than a few of those moments in our lives over the years. On June 29, not quite one month ago, one of those life changing moments came when I checked our mail. An innocent looking letter that looked like another solicitation to choose a… Read More »Fighting for our land

    Style Refresh

      Our family has wanted to significantly add onto our home for a lot of years. We’ve done three “small” additions, but we still really want one or two larger additions to make our home fit our family better. But the addition plans keep getting kicked further down the road. One of the biggest obstacles is finding a reputable builder who… Read More »Style Refresh

      Garden Pests?

        Our flower and vegetable gardens have taken quite a beating this year. I usually expect to lose some things due to rain, or due to lack of rain. I expect aphids and japanese beetles to decimate my roses before I can get them under control. I expect other insects to attack my vegetables. I try to garden without chemicals, including… Read More »Garden Pests?

        Decking the Halls – My Mini Tree

          I’ve had a frantically busy week with a To Do list that included things like: move four full bookcases to another wall, sort through and move all the toys from an upstairs bedroom to the basement, move the toy shelves to the basement, move the sewing desk to the bedroom and fabric storage to the basement, move my dresser to… Read More »Decking the Halls – My Mini Tree

          Painting the Trim – Slow Going

              We’re still plugging away slowly on our kitchen project.  I’m sure that there are some rules of what order things should be done that we’re violating, but we’re doing what works for us, and since we’re doing all the work ourselves we just do what makes the most sense for us.  Right now, while Husband is working on building… Read More »Painting the Trim – Slow Going

            The First Week of September

              We’ve been working more on the kitchen.  The pictures aren’t pretty, but they’ll show you the current state of things. Our new stove is in and working.  It’s a 36″, 6-burner stove.  I love the extra room I have and can actually fit my two largest pots and pans on the stove at the same time.  Dinner prep has (almost)… Read More »The First Week of September

              The Kitchen Project Progress

                We started renovating and adding on to our kitchen a long time ago.  Three years ago actually (I think). We’ve gone through so many different design plans and modifications and changes to the plans and changes to the modifications and thinking we’d just scrap the whole project only to return to it after a couple of days of “this kitchen… Read More »The Kitchen Project Progress

                During the rain

                  We’re in a bit of a rainy spell these last few days, but I took advantage of being stuck inside to do a room shuffle.  Again.  It does seem like we do that a lot here.  But then again, living in a smallish home with a largish family means you need to be flexible with who sleeps where. You see,… Read More »During the rain