You have to admit it's getting better. It's getting better all the time.

In the depths of February Yulia and I are slowly working away on renovating and, more importantly, beautifying our home. The work we've been doing has lifted our spirits. Moving around so much also keeps us warm!

We hope this simple blog post will be a source of pleasure and inspiration for you, our readers, as well!

Yesterday we finished installing a new ceiling in our dining room. We have a few small details to add, like molding around the edges. But we are excited to have the big part done--the ceiling!

We also added wood paneling to the base of the walls. The old clay walls were uneven, so we couldn't just put molding between the wall and floor. The wood paneling helped straighten things out (and looks sharp too!).

Our darling banana passion fruits are staying warm in those yellow pots in our dining room. As you can see, we still have to install a windowsill and trimming around our new windows.

How we attached the wood panels.

This is what we started with in our dining room:

Quite a difference, huh?

Upon first moving in all we could do to beautify the room was to keep incense and jars of dried herbs on the pichka. At the time we thought they really helped soften the brutal space. The mirror in the above photo also shows the significant work that was needed on the opposite wall.

After putting in the hard work yesterday to finish the ceiling, this morning Yulia and I took advantage of the warm weather and took a walk to the spring. What a beautiful morning it was! Warm--8 degrees Celsius (almost 50 Fahrenheit)--but with lingering snow on the ground.

We took Toma on a maiden walk with her newest leash--a metal one this time. Since she arrived in November, she has chewed up two of her leashes that we mistakenly left outside with her. Her nylon leash had three incarnations. It started out as 3 meters long. Then Miss Toma shortened it to 2 meters. Then to one. Then she destroyed it.

On the way to the spring Toma started barking at a tree stump. Haunted perhaps? Enchanted? Only Toma knows.

  

And here's our spring! How enchanting it is! (Though we do our best to refrain from barking at it!)