The futon gets an upgrade

After finishing our living room redo, it became more important to us to think carefully about our couch situation. Because we only have a one bedroom apartment we have kept my old futon so that our guests have a place to sleep. However, using the futon as a couch everyday is less than ideal because of comfort and looks. That futon was hard as a rock due to years of the cotton filling getting packed down.

Our futon with the old mattress. Notice how much thinner it is in the center than on the sides. No amount of rotating seemed to solve this issue.

We considered three options - (1) getting a regular couch and having guests sleep on a nicer air mattress, (2) getting a pull out couch, and (3) getting a new futon mattress for the existing frame. We didn't really love option 1 because while perhaps as comfortable as a futon, its a hassle to inflate and deflate the air mattress to accommodate guests - and we seem to have a lot of guests. Option 2 seemed great, however pull out couches are expensive, heavy, and never seem to really be that comfortable. As you can now probably guess, we went with option 3. This was the most economical and we felt would have the best balance of sleeping and sitting comfort.

With Christine as our "guest tester," we took a trip to Futon Furnishings in Portland, ME. We chose this store because we thought it was affiliated with the NH Futon Furnishings where I originally purchased the futon, but we were very firmly told at the ME store that there was no connection. Interesting. Either way, they had what we wanted! We picked out a mattress that had four layers of foam in it (I think it was called Moonlight?) because it seemed to be a good balance of cost and comfort - the price tag was $251. We also picked up a dark blue futon cover (we had been using a blue blanket) on clearance for $69 and some matching drawers that slide underneath the frame for extra storage ($139). It was a bit of a pricey trip, but cheaper than buying a new couch and we got some extra storage out of it too!

You can see in this picture how much thicker the mattress is than in the picture above. If you don't believe me, focus on the arm rests - the new mattress is as tall as the arm rests! It is night and day difference for sitting comfort. According to Christine, it is also much more comfortable to sleep on. We decided to keep the old blanket on the seat of the futon to help with any dirt from the dogs paws or food crumbs from our movie & dinner nights. The blanket is a lot easier to wash than the cover!

Speaking of washing the cover... we did choose a machine washable one, but I unfortunately did not read the directions before doing the initial wash. It was not dryer safe, and after the first wash the cover no longer fit the futon. I was soooo sad when I realized my mistake. David luckily wasn't too frustrated with me and just called up the store and asked if they would ship another one, we remembered that they had one more of the blue one we chose. Phew!

The washed cover definitely did not fit:

This is what the second cover (unwashed) looked like! 

The two covers either weren't exactly the same or washing had a huge impact on the color. The one we have now is a duller and more purply blue than the washed one. Note that I decided not to wash the second one that arrived - I'll save that for a time when it actually needs it and then will carefully wash it on cold, gentle, and line dry it. 

Slightly different colors (washed one on the left, new one on the right): 

The new mattress is so thick that it is actually kind of hard to change the futon from the sitting to the sleeping position. When I try to put it back up from sleeping, this is what happens: 

Not too big of a deal though, just requires a lot of muscle to get it back in place! Futon mattresses have to be one of the most awkward things to move. Just don't laugh while you are doing it, you'll be doomed. 

As I mentioned, we also bought two drawers that roll beneath the futon frame and provide extra storage. We also think they make the futon look a lot more finished and less college-dorm like. We are very happy we bought them! 

The futon got some good use a couple of weeks ago when Harvie was down here for a bicycle event. After over 24 hours riding and four hours of sleeping, Harvie needed a second nap. Pepper agreed! 

Does anyone else have any great ideas for how to make a futon seem more like a couch, both visually and comfort wise? 

A little bit of a yard work

The past couple of weekends we have spent some time waking up the yard from the long cold winter. We have trimmed the grass, weeded the area around the perennials by the patio, purchased and planted herbs, and added a hydrangea to our front yard. We still need to mulch around the plants and are considering options for replacing the fence around our yard.

We went to Pemberton Farms to purchase our herbs and a hanging plant for the front porch. This place has gardening things as well as produce, specialty grocery items, and a deli with tasty foods. I always love having an excuse to go to Pemberton Farms because they make great chicken salad that I can buy from the deli. Mmmmm. I kind of have an addiction to chicken salad - figures that its not very healthy, most of my food addictions aren't. We purchased the hanging plant pictured below for $24.99 only to get home and learn from my dad that he purchased a set of two much larger hanging plants from Lowe's for just $18. Here's our hanging plant:

And here's Dad's hanging plant. I couldn't help but laugh. At least I got some great chicken salad! To be fair, ours has continued to grow and is looking a bit more full than when we first got it. 

We reused the planters that we got last summer to plant herbs. We changed it up a bit this year and skipped the oregano and parsley because we found we don't use either very often, and instead planted cilantro in addition to our standard mint and basil. We like to use cilantro in some Indian dishes and in homemade salsa, so we are excited to have some on hand! 

The basil: 

The mint (used to make iced tea and mojitos!): 

Cilantro: 

For Christmas two year's ago David's sister got me these cool and super cute chalkboard name stakes (not sure what they are really called) for the garden. I was excited to pull them out this year and use them! The chalk pencil they come with supposedly holds up for standard rain and watering, and so far my writing looks as good as when I first wrote it. 

We were pretty excited to see that the perennials we planted last year survived the winter. They are growing like crazy right now and making our patio a really cozy space. 

This picture of our bleeding heart was actually taken a few weeks before the above picture, and you can tell how much it has grown in just a short time. It's super pretty. 

In just a week our lupine has taken off as well. Look at the difference! It kind of looks like a popsicle now... I was excited when this one flowered because last summer it kind of looked like it died, and my grandmother said she has always had trouble growing lupines down here. 

 

Unfortunately, our Jacob's Ladder seems to be the one plant that didn't really make it. 

For my birthday, Grammy Pat and Grandpa John bought me a hydrangea. They had originally thought it might go nicely with the other plants on our patio, but given how well most of them survived the winter we decided to put it in our front yard instead. The hydrangea says it can grow to between three and six feet in diameter too, so it will be nice to have it in an area where we can let it reach its full potential. 

David went to an F1 race in Montreal last weekend, so I was left to my own devices getting this plant into the ground. Let me tell you, it was quite the experience. First of all, I not so intelligently decided to wear Crocs while doing this. That meant that not only was I jumping up and down on the edges of a shovel in unstable shoes, but my feet turned black from all of the dirt that billowed in through the holes in the shoes. Here's a picture of the hole I dug. It doesn't really look that impressive, but believe me, at the time I was convinced this hole was massive. 

I used this shovel to dig the hole. The ground was very densely packed, there were tons of rocks to dig out, and roots from one or more trees, or possibly our bush, annoyingly crisscrossed right where I was digging. 

After hacking at the roots with the shovel (to no avail) I had to go get these hedge trimmer things to cut them all out. I also called my grandfather in the process because I had visions of the roots growing back and strangling the plant I was "installing." He didn't think that would happen, so I pushed forward with my project. 

What felt like an eternity later, I ignored my aching muscles and dumped this bag of dirt in around the plant that I had set in the hole. This was also part of my birthday present - its supposed to be great for the health of the plant. It wasn't quite enough to fill my crater, so I lugged a heavy bag of topsoil from the garage to my planting zone and filled in the rest of the hole with that. 

Here's my finished job. If it wasn't clear from my comments above, I'm really not an experienced gardner. I love how gardens look, and I'd like to get better, but I'm new to the whole process. I felt very accomplished after this thing was successfully in the ground. You can see one flower on the right must have gotten damaged in the process (or peed on by a dog?) because its started to turn brown. I'm doing my best to keep the dogs away from this while it settles in. Our next task is to edge around this plant and the neighboring bush to create a nicely defined flower bed, and then mulch around the bush and the plant. I was way too tired, and hungry, to take on that task at the same time I planted the hydrangea. 

During all of our time in the yard, it has become evident that Ash loves to dig holes behind bushes and settle in. We think he likes the way the cool dirt feels on a hot day. Unfortunately it makes him super messy afterwards and we have to clean him up before we can let him back inside, but its hard not to have his cuteness melt our hearts in the meantime. Here is a picture of him behind the bush in the front yard: 

After I dumped all of the dirt from my hole digging behind that bush, he picked a new home - behind the bleeding heart. So far he doesn't seem to be disturbing the integrity of the plant or it's roots. The first time he ended up back there I couldn't find him! Then I saw the bush "wiggling" and I peeked behind to find this: 

Hope everyone else has had a successful time sprucing up their yards in the recent weeks! 

Kitchen details - lights, shelves, chalk boards, and cabinet rejuvenation

Over the weekend we spent some time finishing up a few kitchen updates. Some of the ones presented in this post were done awhile ago, and some were done more recently. Since the main kitchen renovation, we have installed lighting and shelves, refreshed the cabinets, and hung a bulletin board and two chalk boards. We still have to stain the plywood cabinet ends, swap out the cabinet hinges, hang a wine rack, and buy two more stools. 

Lights

The original kitchen had a single ceiling fan/light combo in the center, and we didn't want to have to deal with rewiring new light fixtures throughout the kitchen. However, we did want some kind of track lighting as well as pendant lights. We ended up finding some flexible track lighting at Home Depot that allowed us to have a single fixture/junction box because all of the other lights, pendents included, are powered off of the track which has a wire running through it. Everyone jokes that the amount of light in our kitchen (and the fact all of the lights are controlled by a single light switch) is going to drain our bank account. We do our best to only have these lights on when we are actively using the kitchen. 

Shelves

We had a bit of wall space in our kitchen that didn't quite work with the cabinets we bought from craigslist, and we debated for awhile what to do with them. In the end, David built a set of three shelves in both areas using brackets and boards from Home Depot. The boards are painted "cotton fluff," same as our moulding. David installed the shelves and arranged my cookbooks as a surprise while I was out one night (we had talked about the plan in advance). I was very excited when I got home! The glass storage jars have been filled over time since the shelves were put up. They contain baking goods like flour and sugar as well as things like popcorn and dried fruits and beans. I've recently started cooking more vegetarian food during the week while David is away and decided to work from dried beans rather than canned beans. 

Cabinets

Quite a long time ago now we decided that we should try a tactic used by a great DIY blog we follow (Young House Love) to freshen up our kitchen cabinets. We purchased these cabinets on Craigstlist and they were originally used in a horse barn show room. They were very dirty, but some scrubbing with Murphy's Oil Soap helped fix that issue. To fix some of the peeling finish, we followed YHL's example and used Restor-A-Finish and Feed-N-Wax. 

We unfortunately don't have any good "before and after" shots for you, but the process worked really well. The finish areas that are peeling and/or scratched previously looked white, and now they are stained a much darker color. The cabinets in general have a much richer tone and a glossier finish - much newer looking than before the treatment. 

Chalk & Bulletin Boards

These chalk boards were used for our photo guest book at the wedding. We painted the wooden frame white to match our molding and decided that they'd be very useful for shopping lists and notes in the kitchen (better than the scraps of paper we use now). Because we don't have a magnetic fridge front, I've also been wanting to hang a bulletin board in the kitchen for awhile for things like cards and pictures. David had a bulletin board that he bought at a work auction that he cut to fit the space. We then covered it with fabric from an old dress that I wore to Cornell graduation (there was a stain near the neckline and I've changed size a bit in the last 7 years...). We attached the fabric simply by stapling it to the back of the board. The clock in this picture was one we bought while on our honeymoon in Kauai.

Other

Here are some pictures of the entire kitchen. It feels so homey to us now! Quite a big change from what we had when we moved in. 

I like to buy a magnet every time I go to a new city so I have one tangible thing to remember the trip by. I capitalized on the small amount of magnetic surface our fridge does have to display my collection. 

We hope everyone had a lovely Mother's Day!