Painting a block patterned wall



The Post-its worked great to keep the colors straight

I designed this baby nursery a couple years ago, before we had our daughter. We chose not to find out the sex of our baby, but I knew that I wanted a colorful stimulating space.  We painted the whole room yellow first.  My father-in-law and husband did most of the painting.


Then I incorporated several colors by tying them together on a focal wall in a square grid pattern.  Next I painted a chair rail height block of green, blue and pink on each of the other walls.  Now I know some may think, what, there is pink in a gender neutral nursery?!  But my husband suggested it after I was initially thinking of using peach. 

It wasn't that hard to paint either, just a lot of measuring and leveling.  The squares don't have to be exactly square to get the look.  The spacing for the edging was the width of the painting tape.  I also made a template in the paint program on my computer to see how the colors would look all together and make adjustments before actually painting. 
 

This pink was too light so we ended up redoing it

DIY Grapevine Wreath

I was cutting down some Buckthorn when I noticed a bunch of grapevines and I decided to try my hand at making my own wreath.  I took several long sections that were still pliable and wrapped them into a circle, then I took a few new growth pieces to bind the whole thing together.  It was very easy.  This was a much needed project for me since I still had my Christmas wreath hanging up.  Pretty embarassing!

My BIG EPIC project

My big project that I have undertaken this year is getting rid of invasive Buckthorn from the woods around my house.  Buckthorn is literally trying to take over the woods and in some areas it grows so thick together that it has pushed out almost all the native species and can be hard on the other mature trees. 

Woods thick with buckthorn

I have been able to kill some of the Buckthorn by pulling out small ones by the roots as well as using a hand clippers and a ratcheting clippers. However when one is cut down a dozen will sprout up in its place. So to keep that from happening I spray Roundup on the stumps, killing the roots.  For the seedlings springing up in the grass I use Ortho Weed-B-Gon, which is awesome because it works on several other weeds too.  Also if you are into a more organic approach I have heard that pounding a copper nail into the stump will kill a Buckthorn plant.  I haven't tried this so if anyone has good results, let me know.

So this spring I decided if I was serious about getting rid of the Buckthorn, then I'd better have my husband teach me how to use the chainsaw.  It is not the easiest thing to try.  There are a lot of safety issues and you can get very dirty, though it is a great workout.  I was finally feeling pretty good about my chainsawing skills and then last week I made the chain fall off twice in a row.  Oh well, a mistake learned and a new chain and I'm back in business.

Looks like I'll be at this a while, but I'll be sure to post some updates as well as a few more pictures...