Life at Cloverhill

Farmhouse Friday Favourites

Friday Favourites – House Love, Playing Hooky and What’s In a Name

Happy Friday! I’m writing today’s post from the comfort of our front porch! I think I’ve found my new favourite spot to blog!

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House Love: Garrett and I are totally in love with our house. I knew we were going to be pretty happy moving from the apartment to a larger space, but I didn’t realize how much. Every day I wake up so happy that this is our home and I feel so at peace here. It’s slowly starting to come together and I’m really looking forward to when it starts to shape up. I still feel like we’re in a bit of moving limbo, where you don’t quite know where things are and where they should go. I’ll go to grab a fork and I open two drawers before I find the cutlery. There are boxes everywhere and our furniture is still a mismatch of hand-me-downs and garage sale finds, but I know that in time it will start to take shape.

The biggest improvement we’ve made so far is tearing down the vines and removing the lattice from the front. Everyone who drives by says on how nice it is already starting to look – and we haven’t even started on the new porch posts. With the garden cleaned up a bit, you can really see the big peonies and iries out front. It will be fun to see what other surprises pop up in the garden this summer.

Playing Hooky: Yesterday we both ended up being off on a weekday and it felt a bit like playing hooky! We spent the morning running errands in town and stopped to pick up a pizza (from the pizza place I worked at when I was 15!) and had lunch on the porch back at the farmhouse. Then it was time to get to work on some landscaping.

All our talk about what to do with the gardens this year led us to my favourite garden centre. I know that we have so much work to do on the house this summer, but it’s hard not to get tempted by all the beautiful plants. For now we’re just going to mulch the front garden and make a vegetable garden out back. I’ll keep you posted how that goes!

The dogs were so happy to spend lots of time outdoors together, especially when Cola found a good spot to dig. Apparently he’s going to help me with the landscaping, whether I need his help or not.

Before the peonies are gone, I was able to snip some blooms to bring indoors. I just love the vibrant colour!

Our long day of work ended with a cocktail hour back on the porch. I picked up this Pommies Farmhouse Cider to share. It seemed appropriate.

What in a Name: I started blogging back in October 2009 when I was just a single gal living in a tiny apartment in Toronto with her little dog and trying to navigate this thing called adulthood (still working on it). Without much thought for what the future could hold, I named my blog “Small Home Big Start”. My apartment was most definitely a small home and I was trying to make this big start with my life. In those five years and seven months I’ve gone through some big changes. I met the love of my life, we moved in together (to another tiny apartment), we got married, adopted another dog…and now we’ve bought our first house, which is most definitely not a small home.

Over the last few months I’ve been really thinking about how my blog name doesn’t fit who I am any more, or where I want to go with it. So, it’s time for a change…which is scary and exciting at the same time. I’ve been brainstorming for about a month now and while there have been some close contenders, I haven’t found the right fit yet. I’m putting this out there in hopes that this will be the push for me to get it done and to see if anyone has any suggestions or ideas. I’m open! (Also…if one more person suggests “Big Home Small Start”…haha).

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Hope you have an awesome weekend!


Comments

  1. Home to Roost , Peace and Plenty, Minding my Manor, Farmhouse Freshening , Fields a Plenty Farmhouse, Brooding Thoughts, Expanding Horizons, Urban thoughts from the Farmhouse, Porch Ponderings

    • Wow! Great name ideas Rhonda! I’m trying to steer away from a descriptive blog name again because I don’t want to potentially be in this same situation again in five years time when things could change. I’m going to send you an email tonight and I’d love to hear more about how you come up with all these creative ideas!

  2. What a wonderful new blog spot you have! The porch is really shaping up great.
    I was actually curious as to what was going to happen with the blog name now that you guys have moved into a bigger house! I wish I could say that I have some awesome suggestions…but I’m completely drawing a blank. It’ll feel so different not to refer to the blog as Small Home Big Start but I know the new name is going to be fan-tabulous! Looking forward to it.

  3. Oh, I love finding all the great plants when I move into a new (to me) house. It really makes me think about all the homeowners before me who have planted and grown and put roots down there. It’s a bit cheesy, but that’s why I love to do landscaping at homes too. It leaves something behind that gets better year after year. (Hoping future owners weed.) 😉

  4. The peonies are absolutely beautiful! We’ve got lots of new flowers blooming around us at this time of year.

    Thank you for this blog post! The Pommies Farmhouse Cider is right up my alley, is it Gluten Free?

    Thanks!

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