ORC – Spring 2021 -Exterior Updates Week #1

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It’s time for the Spring One Room Challenge, my favourite way to get motivated to work on a project. This year I’m going to continue with the exterior projects from last year.

• Complete Exterior Trim & Garage Painting
• Maximize Planting Space in Vegetable Garden
• Create Seating Area at Front of House

The vegetable garden from last year gave us fresh greens for 4 solid months and I’m hoping to expand what we grow this year. Also, since we have to stay home I am focusing on creating more spaces to enjoy outside.

Exterior Trim & Garage Painting

This is our home in Kelowna. When we moved here almost 2 years ago I started to paint the yellow trim white. The fact that this wood trim needed maintenance in some areas already helped get my husband on board with this update.

If your home is in need of some paint touch ups anyway, why not change the colour?

Inspiration

I absolutely love this garage area by House of Jade Interiors. Eventually I’d love to add a pergola but for this year I’ll be sticking to paint and adding some garage handles.

House of Jade Interiors: https://www.instagram.com/p/B_keYAqlpqj/

Painting in Progress

Vegetable Garden & Deer Fencing

This was how the vegetable garden looked last spring, before the One Room Challenge project.

The vegetable garden last year.

Deer Fence from ORC Spring 2020

I am happy to report that the deer fencing I created stood up through the winter. During a windstorm our side gate and some other fence fell down but surprisingly this was totally fine.

The Garden this Year

Vegetable Garden May 2021

Having a designated area for growing food and being able to start the season earlier has been rewarding. There is so much to learn about seeds, soil, plants, composting etc.

This year I plan to maximize all of the space available here by adding more planters and trellises plus learn more about vegetable growing.

This is the pear tree that I planted last year – seeing it come back after winter and bloom makes me happy! Where we live there are orchards and vineyards everywhere and I want to try fruit trees in our yard too.

Seating Area at Front of House

One more project area is here by the front door. It is a shady spot that we don’t use because there is no furniture. Usually this is where piles of special sticks and pinecones the kids and I find get left.

Spring Last Year

I see that this could be a nice shady spot in the hot afternoon, perfect for reading. I plan to add seating and a coffee table here so that we use this area more often.

That’s the plan for the One Room Challenge this spring. To see what everyone else is doing the link is below. I suspect more people will be focusing on the outside this year.

https://www.oneroomchallenge.com/blog/orcspring2021wk1

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One Room Challenge – Spring 2020

It’s One Room Challenge time again and I am joining with a small outdoor project to refresh what we already have and prepare our vegetable garden.

Everything is different right now but one thing is the same – paint can make a huge difference to change what you already have and also to maintain materials outdoors. A lot of people are also more interested in growing their own seeds (myself included) so I’ll be sharing some of my trials and errors with gardening over the past few years.

One thing I have learned is that kale is so easy and provides green vegetables for months!

Kale from my garden – it’s so easy to grow!

Here’s a quick refresh of my ORC 2017 where I built my own planters and trellis:

How to Build Cedar Planters

 

This time we already have raised beds so I will just be changing the colour. One difference about our new home is that we have deer that come into the backyard and eat the garden so I will be figuring out a way to build a fence around this garden area. This was last summer with my Father in Law just after we moved in, late July.

Last year I naively thought that this little bit of chicken wire would keep out the deer. Two days later they had decimated the vegetables that I had planted.

I moved what was left of the vegetables into one box and made this ugly arrangement that did keep out the deer and did grow a ton of lettuce and kale.

Vegetables thrive here in the Okanagan. This little raised bed produced these large romaine leaves, swiss chard and kale despite being planted at the end of July.

This year I want to maximize what I grow in these three raised beds while making it prettier and more functional.

Right next to the raised beds is a hot tub that is in good condition inside, but the outer wood needs a new stain to protect it. This umbrella got destroyed by an animal last summer too so I am hoping to build a large pergola for shade.

Project Plan:

• New coat of paint on previously painted wood raised beds
• Sand & restain cedar
• Build a fence for the vegetable garden
• Build a pergola for shade

This is the back of the house, these sliding doors lead to the kitchen/dining/living room area. There is a large concrete slab patio which is the perfect blank canvas.

I love the look of these simplified pergolas that are an extended size. I would like to build something similar to these quick sketches and images below…we’ll see what ends up happening.

My brother now lives 5 hours away and I was hoping he could visit and help me but we’ll have to see what travel restrictions are looking like in June to know whether or not that can happen.

Fixer Upper

 

Humphrey Munson

 

Meanwhie these kale seedlings are getting ready for the garden soon. This year I had planned to try growing seeds for the first time. So far, so good but I have a better appreciation of buying plants now!

Lots of other people are working on projects big and small in their homes, here’s the link to see what they’re up to.

 

Fall One Room Challenge – Week 1

It’s been awhile since I’ve shared any new projects on my blog. Now that The One Room Challenge Fall Edition is here I’m joining in to create a shared bedroom for my son and his baby brother who is due this month.

This photo is from exactly 3 years ago when I painted a simple mountain mural for my 1-year-old. It was a quick and easy project (see the post here) that I still like but, that 1-year-old is now almost 4 years old and with a baby coming I know it’s easier to redecorate now rather than later.

Before I show my plan for this room I’m sharing photos of the whole space as it currently is. The crib has worked very well as a toddler bed but soon we will need it back to use as a crib.

The desk worked as a change table & dresser before and now it’s still used as a dresser. The rocking chair was one of my first chalk painting projects.

 

This little installation I created with some secondhand mirrors as well as canvases and painted them with paint samples.

This is the view of the room from the hallway that I completed with Metrie Moulding last fall. The gallery wall is made of wood secondhand frames that I painted white and distressed.

The pineapple quilt was made by my mum who will soon be opening an etsy shop with baby quilts.

That’s it for this week. All of the other people participating have shared their plans for The One Room Challenge and it looks like a few nurseries are being created as well as many other rooms.