Giving the Hallway Some Character

So I was finally sick enough of our rather soulless hallway to start shopping for a new rug and implement our wall hanging idea. Here is a reminder of what our hallway looked like before:

Pretty blah. And fairly dangerous since that runner was actually two rugs, so there was a spot in the middle that could trip someone.

Now, it's not so dramatic as some of our changes, but I like what we did this week to improve things. First, a new rug from Overstock.com for under $100 plus, like, $10 for the rug pad:

Much prettier and much less treacherous than before. Also the cat really seems to like it and spends a lot of his time rolling around on it. Bonus!

Second, we figured out a way to hang pictures without doing much damage to the walls. D tapped little nails into the corners and we strung various bits of yarn along them to hold pictures. This way, D can display his hobby: photography, and I can (sort of) display mine: knitting. Also I get a few photos too. The plan is to change these out whenever we want, including for Christmas cards next month or other holiday themes throughout the year:

Hopefully the nails will stay put!

So we're still missing a little table, but at least the hallway has more personality. We decided that we want a small corner quarter circle or triangle table but I'm having trouble finding the exact words to search for one online. The best I could find are on Amazon, but they seem too expensive for what is probably pretty shoddy quality:

Liso

Home Star

Suggestions, as always, are encouraged. (Please? Pretty please?)

A Good Workout

It's a good thing that I find raking oddly fun and rewarding, because we've been doing a lot of it lately. Today I raked the front yard for the second time and helped D in the backyard rake the piles he created with the leaf blower onto the tarp. We hauled 7 tarp-loads from the backyard to the curb, in addition to what I had already pushed there from the front  (thank goodness for curbside leaf pickup). See how pretty our frontyard looks? And all the leaves on the curb?

Here's another view to help you appreciate the quantity of leaves we hauled:

While raking, we also took care of a few other winter necessities. D brought in the hoses while I shut off the water to the outside and put our little faucet booties on the spigots:

And if that wasn't a good enough workout today, we also bought and lugged home (with the help of some amazing friends) a treadmill! I'm building quite an exercise facility in the basement. I think, however, that I might be too sore for the next few days to use it. Raking wakes up muscles I didn't know existed!

We're also doing a few indoor projects, but I'll save those for another post.

Hello Stranger!

Before I tell you about the great peep-hole we installed, I thought I'd give you an update on my experience with solar panel holiday lights. You may remember that I could not get any light out of the Halloween set I put up and was about to give up on solar lighting. Lo and behold:

A little button in the back that could either be set to "auto" or "off." Apparently even though the box said that the lights automatically turned on at dark, the default setting in the back was "off" and I had to switch it before anything would happen. So I am stupid and now I know better. The solar panel does appear to work. The light set was jumbled up on our floor for days before D noticed the switch and turned it to "auto." And, like magic, we had little orange lights. A few days late, but at least we know they're worth storing for next October.

(Trust me, there's a button under the red arrow. It was hard to get a shot in focus without the flash, but I wanted you to see the orange glow.)

Now to the task at hand--telling you about the peep hole we (and, as usual, by "we" I mean D) installed. It was scary because it involved drilling a hole in our door. But it worked and now we can see who is knocking before we open up. I feel much safer.

The first step was a pilot hole. The instructions said to drill a pilot hole on both sides and then go right to the big, 1/2'' drill bit. Well the door was so strong, we had to drill two sets of pilot holes to work our way up to 1/2''. The tiniest one, which I think was 1/8'' (this was a few weeks ago--it might have been even 1/16'') and the first one to actually be able to make it through the door:

Then round two, which took off a little bit of the edges as well:

 And then round 3, the giant 1/2''. Scary stuff!

The final hole. Fortunately the bigger bit carved out most of the edges that got all wonky with the middle bit.

Here's the finished door. You can see the tiny chip at about 2:00--we filled it in with a marker and I doubt anyone will ever know:

I see you!

BOO!

Halloween has come and gone and, all told, we got about two dozen trick-or-treaters. More than last year but still not a very impressive turnout. At least this time around, they were all appropriately young and cute and in costume.

I also tried my hand at decorating, but that was less than impressive too. The plastic Target pumpkins in the window were cute enough and the cat helped set the mood (pity he isn't completely black):

But the lights left a lot to be desired. See, we don't have any outdoor electrical socket, so we can't use lights that need to be plugged in. The closest plug is in our breezeway, which would require running the cord under the door and also having to actually go out there to turn everything on and off. So I decided last year, while shopping the after-Halloween sales, to try out solar-powered lights. D laughed at me. And, apparently, rightly so.

Nothing happened. Absolutely nothing. After stringing the cute little orange LEDs around our light post and staking the panel into the ground, making sure that it wasn't covered with grass, I expected at least a dim glow. But even after moving the panel around on various days to test different spots, we got no results.

We have a lot of trees in our neighborhood, so even though our house faces south and we have had some sunny weather, maybe there's just too much shade to power up the lights? But the instructions say that even shade and cloudy weather will charge the lights. So the question is, are we doomed to never use solar-powered decorations or did I just buy a dud?

Either way, Happy November!

(Oh, and don't forget to take this poll from last week!!!)