Gertrude

At just under 8 months old, Gertrude is normally a little on the crazy side. Yet this past week, she survived two 10 hour car trips like a champ. She is also a fantastic free-form sleeper. 

And some more gratuitous Gertie shots:

Totally unrelated, but the garden is starting to actually produce veggies! Fresh green beans and grape tomatoes. So thrilling!

Storage Solutions

I am going to try to record some of the minor fixes we try around the house, so I can remember it looks better than it did. No one else is probably interested in this, but hey....here goes nothing!

Hundred year old houses have small rooms. This is not a new phenomenon, but our room is small enough it can't accommodate a dresser. That kind of small. So the above photo is how we started out. A bit claustrophobic, and a lot of clutter. 

To solve our storage dilemma, we started with some boxes for under the bed, that Robin and my father-in-law Jeff built.

 

From there, we created a headboard. We started with a frame of 2x4s, nailed a plywood piece to the front, and then stapled 2 layers of batting followed by some white seersucker fabric. We based it loosely on an example from Young House Love, but wanted something a bit more durable, so we could sit and read leaning on the headboard. With the extra weight, we needed something heavy duty to hang it with, so Robin installed a french cleat.

 

Pillows were next: my sewing skills are at a level that pillow covers are about my speed.

Basic shelves from Target and wall sconces from Ikea allowed us to take out the end tables.

Finally, Robin took off the door so we could actually function with the bed turned sideways. We added a curtain to close the closet off a bit, and had ourselves a bit more grown up room!

The Beginning

We moved halfway across the country.

We got married.

We bought a hundred year old house.

We started graduate school.

We got a four month old puppy. As Robin has said, she goes straight from berserk to bedtime. Hence the name.

It is always an adventure, so here is a reason for us to write it down. So here we will (hopefully) log some of our experiences from the Show-Me State.  From adventures of first time home ownership and home improvement to cooking and everything in between. Hopefully a little bit worth reading. Maybe a lot of it not. But it can't hurt. We're going to give it a shot anyway!