Voles In The Garage & What We’ve Been Up To

Disclaimer: No voles were harmed during the events that inspired this post.

A relative of the hamster and just as cute, voles have made our lives over the last few weeks a living nightmare. I’m too upset to show you a picture of how cute they are, you’ll have to ‘google’ them yourself if you’ve never seen one 🙂 It all started with my mission to get us organized and have every inch of our home shipshape. Not an easy task but over the holidays Ivan, my mom and I made huge progress and even tackled the garage. We recycled what felt like a hundred cardboard boxes, finally finished unpacking our things and got a good handle on garage clutter. In the process I found Cordelia’s kibble (our sweet woodchuck who lives under our deck that’s been in her slumber since last November) and made the mistake of leaving it in the garage, uncovered in a plastic box without a lid.  The temptation of chicken-flavored kibble must have been tremendous because apparently voles don’t usually get into people’s garages (or so we were told) but they broke those rules and made a mess of everything. They were sneaky too, and managed to steal kibble unnoticed for several weeks before we realized what was going on and what attracted them in the first place. Long story short, we’re now vole-free (knock on wood, it wasn’t easy) and have made a plan to keep the space in perfect condition. We ordered wooden shelves from Ikea and a dozen storage boxes (with vole-proof lids!) from Walmart. And lesson learned, no more kibble lying around!

Another “interesting” thing that’s happening (or is going to happen this weekend, weather permitting) is a good clean-up of our backyard. Ivan and I are heading to Home Depot on Saturday morning to get a pair of machetes, gloves and goggles,  (and a hard working vacuum cleaner for the garage) and we’re attacking the dried shrubbery in our yard. It seemed like an impossible task when everything was lush and green but now that the ground is frozen and everything is dried up and died back, we stand a pretty good chance of reclaiming a few feet on the perimeter of the yard. We’ll still leave a live barrier between the garden and the neighboring farm and come spring Ivan is fencing up the backyard but for now this is the plan. 

On the decorating front, I have immediate plans for Isabella’s room. I want to make her space a priority because time flies and kids grow up way too fast and I want to give her a wonderful “big girl” room she deserves right now. I know that for my plan for the rest of the home to come together it will take time, probably about a year if not more and I don’t want her to wait on her room that long. So I’ve asked her to think about the mood and feeling for her space and what would make her love her room more. Unicorns, fairies and color pink reign supreme in her world right now so I have got an interesting, and sweet, challenge on my hands. I’m gently guiding her taste toward a compromise – she’ll get a comfortable room in the color scheme of her choice while Ivan and I get to decide on the actual furnishings. To get a better read on her taste, I showed her three great kids’ rooms with a pink color theme: Julia Engel’ s nursery which I’m obsessed with, designed by Olivia Brock (would it be shameless of me to just copy that room and call it a day? It’s perfect!!!), a charming attic bedroom clad in Sister Parish prints, and a pink girl’s bedroom by Hanna Seabrook. The rooms are so very different in style but all lovely. Isabella’s choice was the second, the attic bedroom with the Sister Parish vine wallpaper (sorry I do not know the designer, just that it was published in Lonny many years ago) so now I get to work and make it happen. We have a lovely Swedish bed in natural warm wood tones which I’m undecided whether to sell, paint or leave as is, and I’m scouring the web for wallpaper and fabrics. I’ll share the plans soon! 

Anyway, that’s what’s up on our end. I hope you had a peaceful week so far, thanks for stopping by!!