The Homestead

Now that the inside of our house has been, for the most part, completed I can start indulging my green thumb. Although I am planning on using only indigenous plants, so it's more like a "greenish-brown and spiky" thumb. I started with two miniature gardens this weekend, one filled with transplanted cactus from around our property:

and one filled with succulents we bought at Lowe's:

I've started taking pictures of all of our renovations, and am going to put together a big "before and after" posting. But here's two of the projects that have made me particularly happy. One was our front door, which was dented, dirty, and painted a very pale pink. It is also a very unusual size that has made it virtually impossible to replace. So we took it off the hinges and I repainted it with the image of brightly colored Victorian houses in my head, but to match a plate we got in Nogales:

The fireplace in the Arizona room was made with native lava rock, but unfortunately was sloppily installed and was covered with cement that couldn't be removed. Then the kids who partied in the house when it was abandoned set a fire in fireplace without opening the flue, so it was soot-stained. We built a frame around the existing fireplace and then walled it in with peacock slate and used glass tile accents:

The picture doesn't do justice to the slate which is full of beautiful colors and shimmery mineral deposits.

And, finally, the view from our front door. This view makes me feel very, very lucky every time I walk out of the house. We have our second generation of Gila Woodpeckers being raised in the saguaro on the right side.