Sweet Hotel Living

Greetings from the Dirty South: Alabama!  I'm here for NINE WEEKS for an Air Force School, and while the temperatures outside might be enough to make you cry, the digs are pretty great.  Here's my new pad.

Itty Bitty Kitchen

This is the little kitchen that comes with all the dishes you need, plus a stovetop and a fridge.  I THINK there's a garbage disposal as well.  The downside is no oven, which I find I use a lot of as I learn to cook, but that's ok.  The single server coffee is pretty sweet.

Comfy-ish

My living room consist of this little love seat, desk, flat screen, and nice big window.

Bedroom with a nice cushy bed and...another tv!  Mr. Move-a-Lot will NOT let me put a TV in our room, for good reason.  I watched TV last night and stayed up way too late.  Lesson learned.  Well, probably not learned.  More like "Lesson realized."

Walk in closet?  Yes, please.

Here's some of my favorite (and not so favorite) design things already in the room.

I love this square lamp and the lines carved out of the base.  It reminds me of those stones in The Fifth Element.  I feel like saying "MULTIPASS" every time I look at it.  I am digging the rectangle lampshade that dares to be longer than it is tall.  There's a tall one in the living room and a small one in the bedroom

These curtains are nice and shimmery and have a slight blue/tan/brown palette that doesn't yell at you, but subtly suggests some color.

I love this brown blanket - sleek and shiny.

What am I NOT ok with?  All the pictures of jets.  I get it, it's the Air Force, but come on, I'm not even a pilot!  Planes planes everywhere.

I haven't put a lot of personal touches, because I'm still in a "neato it's a hotel!" phase.  Which, by the way, the BEST part is that I have a maid come and clean up after me.  FOR NINE WEEKS.  Heaven.  I did put some picture of the Move-a-Lot families out and about.

My only real personal touches as of yet.

So, any recommendations for making this place more homey over the next nine week?  I'm thinking of putting something OVER the pictures, like a gauzy scarf or something.....any more ideas?

I have a love and I call him Mulch.

I can't believe I once didn't know mulch existed.  It's delicious smelling, gorgeous, and probably good for plants, but did I mention how pretty it is?  I'm currently obsessed with red mulch, which is what I used on the front area of our house (see it here).  I decided to continue this awesomeness in our backyard.

As I posted earlier this month I've been working on the backyard with some help from the folks.  Now that everything was trimmed back, it was ready for some of that beautiful mulch.  Here are some before-and-afters to show off my mulch!

Nice, right?  Take a look at some more!

Anyway, not that exciting of a post, but I did a little happy mulch dance in my backyard with only my dog as a witness because I was so happy with the outcome.

Oh yeah, remember this product that I bought to try?

Well, there's good news and bad news.  The good news is, I'm not being eaten alive by mosquitos anymore.  The bad news is that the spray took me by surprise, and my hosta plant was the unfortunate victim here.

A moment of silence, please.

This brave little hosta got sprayed and is on its deathbed, but I appreciate his willingness to still provide purple flowers and turns a lovely bright yellow color to give my garden some more UMPH on his way out.  We'll miss you, dear friend.

Scary or Cute? I say Cute!

I've been vulturing around wall decals for a while, and frankly, I find most of them cheesy.  I am sure they look fabulous in all of your houses, but I haven't seen anything that I really wanted to put on a wall.  I'm not into cliche quotes, I don't need hearts all over my walls, you get the idea.

Then, on a random "I don't really need anything but here I am" trip to Target, I found these little birds-on-a-wire on clearance and immediately pictured our guest room done up in gorgeous tans and browns with big birds where the headboard is supposed to be (and isn't).  Of course, I bought them for $10 and found that the big birds on a wire were actually teeny tiny birds on a wire that wouldn't fill an eighth of the space I wanted.

But fear not! I found a home for them.  I love the idea of guests pulling down a cheap little blind and finding a surprise!

What surprise is lurking in this window?

Birdies on a wire!

A closeup.  I'm in love with these little birds that will watch over my guests.

My concern was that they were a little too creepy in a "we're watching you" sort of way, but I think they are kinda adorable.

Have you ever done a little surprise in a room for people to discover? 

A Yankee moves South

Since I've been in my new place for one month, I figure it's time to move-a-long.  Yes, this Move-a-lot is headed to the Dirty South for 9 weeks while I do some Air Force training at Maxwell Air Force Base.

So, what to take to make myself feel at home?  One the list:

• A plant
• lots of pictures of Mr. and Baby Move-a-Lot
• My own comforter and pillow
• My little bowl that holds my wedding ring because I'm terrified to wear it when I wash my hands or shower
• My laptop (of course!)

 What else should I take?  What would YOU take?

Just take a little off the top, please

Remember the first shots of my backyard?  Well, after a little bit of work on my part, and a whole LOT of work on the part of my dad who came out to DC for a week , the before and after of my back yard now looks a-like so:

 

BEFORE: My garden grows too much!

AFTER: Looking nice and groomed

Turns out, plants grow better with water.  I KNOW!  It came as a shock to me as well.  But I'm happy to say that after just ONE watering, that big poofy plant (hydrangeas, I hear they are called) bloomed some big poofy purple blooms and stopped looking like a sick plant coughing up purple phlegm.  My dad raked out all the leaves from last fall (I'm assuming) that were choking plants and grass all over the place.  Then, he went to town with the hedge clippers, especially to the bushes near the back gate.  A little weedeating is all the lawn took, so that was pretty fast, although all the trimming and such required a couple big trash bags.  Mom and I pulled some vines and lots of dead leaves off the bushes that were dying so that new healthy leaves could come in.

My diligent Dad going to town on the plants

I'm trying to get in the habit of watering the plants every day in the morning when I let the dog about before work.  And also to stop said dog from sitting on these big ferns to take his morning latrine break.  No luck on that front yet.  As for the mosquitos, I'm starting cheap, with this stuff.  Haven't cracked it open yet, but I'll let everyone know.

Please please please work!

Future goals for this space: replace the stepping blocks with something bright and cheerful, get a great outdoor mat to cover most of the concrete, work on that mosaic table that I mentioned earlier, and find a place for that stupid canoe that Mr. Move-a-lot doesn't have the heart to toss yet.

What do you think?  A good start, right?