White Wash

Sunday, August 5, 2012

If you give a mouse a cookie ...

Let me tell you, that little mouse will ask for a glass of chardonnay!

So this weekend, my in-laws came to visit and we did SO much! Not only did we do lots of sight seeing, but we also completed fun projects around our apartment as well. I'll start with Friday night when they arrived ...

The first thing we did (other than open a bottle of chardonnay) was venture out to find dinner. We ended up at Rojo, the same restaurant Adam and I went to with the pups after our Sunday afternoon in the park. Rojo once again provided us with a fun atmosphere and a tasty dinner. Saturday morning we went to Vulcan Park to check out the view, then visited the farmers market in Birmingham, and on the way home we found a little plant nursery. Between this nursery and the Lowe's across the street from our apartment, Tammy doused our patio with beautiful plants. My mom had already purchased some for our patio, but they didn't very well handle the little bit of sun light they were exposed to so we decided to bring them inside.
Tammy and I added the asparagus fern when we repotted this palm.

Here are some photos of the plants outside. This one already came mixed so we decided to leave it alone.
It's got creeping jenny, lantana, and a grass in it.

This one we put together ourselves with something purple (we can't remember the name of it) and asparagus fern.

And this is the dracaena marginata that Tammy also got me.

I love them all! So I gave this post its title because, well, it was actually a phrase Tammy and I used all weekend. It alllllll started when we decided to add a few more plants to the patio. But then we thought that some of the smaller plants would need to be a little higher off the ground so we decided we would need a little table for a few of them to sit on. And since the plants that my mom got me were getting burned from the sun, well then we would need curtains for outside to cut out some of the sun exposure ( ... even though we eventually decided to bring those inside, we still wanted the curtains).

To keep things straight, let me continue with what we did this weekend. We grabbed lunch after the farmers market and then decided to check out the Birmingham Museum of Art downtown. That was fun and interesting. If I'm not missing anything, I'm pretty sure we went back home afterwards. Multiple times throughout that day, Tammy and I made random trips to Lowe's, Walmart, Hobby Lobby, and Dollar Tree to look for ideas for our projects. During our last trip to Lowe's (and after several failed attempts of looking for a small, simple/cute, relatively cheap table) we decided to dip into the world of DIY. This was all Tammy's idea. I can't take credit for it -- but we were actually walking through the store looking for a table when we came across a stack of empty bright blue five gallon paint buckets. I saw the light bulb go off in Tammy's head. She suggested that we make "tables" out of the buckets by covering them with fabric. So then we headed to the curtain isle to pick out the fabric that would cover the buckets. Well, of course I would pick out a sheer fabric that the bright blue paint bucket shined straight through. To cover the blue paint, we decided we would spray paint the buckets a darker color so they wouldn't be noticeable anymore beneath the fabric.

Although the final trip to Lowe's (for that day, anyway) started off simply to pick up a bag of soil, by the end our buggy was full with paint buckets, sheer window curtains, spray paint, duck tape and velcro strips -- but this was still going to be the cheaper option compared to buying tables at any of the other stores we visited prior to.

Here is a photo of the finished stools/tables. I think they turned out just great!

Here are the curtains on the patio. These turned out fabulous, too.

So, in the end, my patio got a light makeover and I do love all of it. But gosh! I haven't even finished our weekend! Sunday morning we were going to go to Redstone Church, but as it turns out they actually weren't having a service this weekend :( so instead we thought it would be fun to find a yard sale! We were specifically looking for a yard sale in Mountain Brook (a reeeeaaaalllly ritzy area in Bham) and we weren't disappointed! I came out with a few very cute dishes and a very used (and very loved) stepping ladder. Here are the dishes ...


Since we were already in the area, we decided to go to the Birmingham Zoo! And lo and behold, they were having $5 Fun Day. We all got in for pretty cheap. :) Even though I was just there last weekend, I still saw new and fun things. I think we all really enjoyed it.

Shoo-wee! This weekend was a whirlwind of fun. We enjoyed each others' company, enjoyed some tasty food and good drinks, and I certainly enjoyed working on improving my patio. Thanks, Tammy for all your help!

Till next time, my friends!

Oh, PS -- I also got a hummingbird feeder. Not sure they'll actually come, but I'm sure gonna try! And if they do, I've got to get a prettier feeder. :)
This is hanging on the tree in front of our patio.




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