Home Makeover: Egli Edition - The Garden!

Jared and I have talked about redoing our garden for a long time now. We finally made it happen on Monday!

The first thing we had to do was change out our sprinkler heads. The old ones wouldn't have cleared the new bed. Plus, these are directional so we won't be watering the fence any more!

Next we built the planter box. Jared made it out of cedar and it smelled incredible! 

Then we dug our trench for the underground hose that would lead from the house to the planter box. We are putting in a subterranean soaker hose to the garden so that even if we are out of town, the plants will still get watered. Once the trench was built, we put the box in place on top of some landscaping netting to keep any future weeds out!

Once that was done we filled in our trench and added dirt! We found a local place that had massive piles of dirt you can buy in bulk instead of the 1 cubic foot bags at Lowes. We got half and half for filler and organic garden dirt for the top. I had some sweet peppers going already along with some jalapeños, green bell peppers, strawberries and three kinds of tomatoes. Then, my blueberry came back after dying last year! So I was super excited to put it back in the garden, this time with some more shade. 

One of the most frustrating things last year was that I got one tomato and a bird took a big chunk out of it. So this year, we are adding a cage around the garden to protect it from birds and any other animals that might want to help themselves.

Test fitting the cage

All done!

I'm super excited about my garden and can't wait to see what it can produce this year! I'm getting more and more knowledge about how to grow things and I want it to pay off so bad! I guess we will have to wait a few more months to know!

It's starting to feel like Fall!

One of the joys if home ownership is I get to finally put all those Pinterest ideas to use in decorating it! I've always admired how Disney managed to make a whimsical yet slightly spooky haunted mansion and I took inspiration from that and mixed it with fall to make this fun fireplace decoration-scape (is that what we call it these days?).

All finished!

A couple of frames from the Dollar Store and some points at Walgreens provided a way for me to share my favorite fall photos for cheap!

Inspired by the haunted mansion, we used some black lace to wrap mason jars that will hold our little tea lights.

Walmart had these adorable pumpkins for cheap!

We found this candelabra that matched the haunted mansion theme perfectly. This raven was made to go on a wreath but we thought he could look out over a mason jar too! And our little decor set up wouldn't be complete without one of our homemade signs from our shop!

I finally have a spot to show off some of my favorite shots from our Disney trips! Costumes + Tower of Terror goes great with the whimsical Halloween theme!

My favorite? Hard to pick but these little burlap ghosts are high on the list!

Best part of the set up? It looks awesome at night!

So happy for the fall season. While I will miss the warm sun, it sure is fun to decorate for the season! Now excuse me while I go make me some pumpkin chocolate chip cookies!

#TheHomeImprovementLife: The Big Reveal!

So today is the day...we are finally finished with the guest room makeover! Are you ready for the big reveal???

Here we go!

Entering the room before...

...entering the room after!

We went with a Disney infused travel theme...of course! I was inspired by the idea of Beauty and the Beast and inviting our visitors to "Be Our Guest!" As avid lovers of travel, we wanted a place to display our travel souvenirs and inspire our travelers to visit all different parts of the world.

Before

After

We wanted to provide guests a place to put their luggage and a dresser to unpack into so that they don't have to feel like they are living out of their suitcases!

Dresser

The dresser was won at an auction house that is close to where we live for just $35! A simple cleaning and spray painting the handles to match the decor was all we needed to update this piece of furniture!

This mirror was also a consignment sale that we found for $35 as well!

We know wifi is important to everyone these days. So we provide our wifi information right next to sustenance in both healthy and unhealthy forms!

Before

After

We dressed up our window and put up a map on our wall!

Jared found this old map at his parent's house and created a frame for it out of reclaimed wood. We want our guests to come sign the map pointing to where they are from!

We found these oversized drawer pulls on sale for $2.50 each and we spray painted them and repurposed them as curtain holders.

Before

After

Jared also created all the floating shelves for this room. The best part? We have room to grow in displaying our treasures from around the world!

I created this reclaimed wood sign inspired by Beauty and the Beast. As we tell our adventures from traveling around the world, there seems to be common threads that are as old as time. Nothing beats experiencing the world and the experiences shaping our view of life. You can actually buy this sign at our new Etsy store called Loving Life Design Company!

Last but not least, the vision design that I had to inspire this room!

Before

After

Our guests will be luxuriously sleeping on a custom made platform bed that Jared built. Above them, recessed LED reading lights in the shelf will allow them to see even when the main light is off!

Guests will see our photos from around the world (including this landscape of my brother on the Great Wall of China) as they are settling into the room!

This chess set was brought back from Russia by Jared after his family adopted his little brother and sister. It now finally has a place to be displayed!

And finally, what better finish to the travel inspired guest room than a cute vintage globe!

Jared and I sometimes would sit back during a project and wonder why we were doing the guest room before our own master suite. But honestly, we spent a ton of time into this room because we genuinely love people and want them to come visit! So consider this your invitation to come and hang out with us. Just call first!

Here's to new adventures with great friends!

#TheHomeImprovementLife: Not So Little Projects

We have been diligently working for the past couple of weeks on the little details of the room! From furniture to curtains, it can be deceiving on how "little" these projects might seem. Jared and I have done lots of shopping and changed our minds several times, but we are moving and grooving!

Spray painting our curtain rod system

Jared is blowing off the sawdust from his newly created platform bed!

I spent a good deal of time cutting out the design inspiration piece for this room. It's a surprise!

I can't wait to show you all the final product! It's so close I can taste it!

Creating is Messy

So the last few posts have been about some crafty things I have been making. After I finished the bulk of the work, that fun part starts...the clean up! While I'm cleaning, I realize just how big of a mess crafting is, and why my OCD husband insisted on a craft room for me in our new house (aka...to contain my mess!). 

This got me thinking. God is the ultimate creator. We all know the story from Genesis where he makes Earth and everything in it. But what my ADD brain thought of next was actually about how he made it. I thought about grade school science where I had to give a presentation about ecosystems. God didn't just create things on Earth, but he created them with cycles and balances. The death of one thing in an ecosystem actually gets reinvested in the environment to create something new. While it can be complicated to explain in a large ecosystem like a forest, I can see this simply in my backyard. Fall brings colder temperatures which tell the trees to start going dormat for the winter. This is why we get beautiful colors of leaves in the fall. These leaves eventually fall off into my yard. Then I can take these now dead leaves and compost them until spring when I can use them now as soil to plant new seedlings. We have taken something dead and used it to make something new. It's messy, and it's hard work...but it cretes something beautiful...like my garden. 

This sparked an idea for me that I understood to a certain extent, but highlighted and expanded the importance of it in my head. If God made this reinvesting cycle into the very fabric of the Earth, this would probably be a good foundation to use in ministry too. We should design our ministry structures to not just extract what we can from what we have between people and money, but reinvest it into the very fabric of the ministry, especially in the people that come and serve. We should be thinking about how the work they do is not only investing in the people they serve, but in themselves as well. The work they do can reinvested into community and relationship building, flexing their spiritual muscles to step out of their comfort zones, or teaching them a skill they didn't know. We can find lots of different ways to invest in the people that come to work and volunteer in ministry that helps them outside the walls of the church as well. 

It will probably be messy, and it might make me pull my hair out sometimes figuring it all out. But if we do it and God works in it, we as a church can create something beautiful. 

Talk to y'all soon!

Maddie