Operation Home

Over a year ago, I saw the doormat of my dreams on Pinterest. At the time, we were selling our previous house, and I wasn’t sure how potential homebuyers would react to it (It does require a little sense of humor). So, I [very] impatiently held off. After that, we lived in an apartment for six months while our house was being built. Having been the victim of apartment doormat theft in the past, I didn’t want to risk it with this gem. Then, upon moving into our house, we stalled on pulling the trigger as there were other items that came first on the money-spending priority list.

But, the other day, we finally went for it. I placed my order on uncommongoods.com and waited with baited breath for it to arrive. And boy, was he worth the wait. Without further adieu….

Yes, Siree. That says “Nice Underwear”. It makes me laugh every time. We like doormats with personality. And this one, in our eyes, is chock full. Plus, his quality is great. Nice and thick and plush. My only complaint was that he was a tad small for our doorway. So, I picked up a $6 woven rug from Ikea and layered Mat on top. Our doorway is pretty inset and therefore isn’t exposed to many of the elements, so I felt comfortable using an indoor rug for this task.

Just for kicks, here’s the doormat from our last house….

Uh-huh. It says “Leave”. That one made me chuckle, as well. (We did swap this out for an actual “Welcome” mat while our house was on the market, though.)

Since we’re out here already, here’s the rest of our porch. Im gonna go ahead and call these “before” shots because other than adding Mat and plopping down furniture on moving day, we’ve literally done nothing to it. I don’t even think I’ve wiped down the chair. Joey did add the stone border to the front bed around the same time that he completed the back borders, but the actual porch has been neglected since we moved in.

Plans here include changing out the lighting fixture with something more modern/industrial, painting the rocker a bold color, adding a second chair so I don’t have to rock out alone, adding colorful pots with flowers, some fall decor (if I get to it in time) and changing out this classy piece of computer paper….

…For a better looking sign (you wouldn’t believe the number of solicitors we get here). So, anyways, we love how Mat livens up the place and we think he was a great place to start the changes on our front porch.

So, what’s your favorite doormat??

Have I mentioned that we recently started composting? I honestly don’t really know a ton about it. Like most of our outdoor projects, Joey took the reigns on this one. What I do know is, we have our big compost bins outside and we keep a small lidded pail inside. The indoor pail is where we throw anything compostable… Vegetable clippings, coffee grounds, etc. then every day or two, Joey empties them into our outdoor compost bin and stirs it all up.

The other day, I opened the indoor pail to toss in a banana peel. And as if cued by some invisible maestro, a SWARM of gnats ascended up from the pail and into my face. I screamed. LOUDLY. It was freaky. It felt like it was happening in slow motion. The swarm slowly rises from the rubble and acosts unsuspecting homeowner. Ugh. So gross. And they weren’t normal teeny gnats. They were chunky. They had some girth to them. (shudder!) I still get the Heebie-jeebies thinking about it.

For days after that, Joey and I found ourselves swatting at an impossible number of gnats. We were in battle. And I think we were losing. We suspect that something must’ve laid eggs in the pail, which then hatched because we’ve never experienced this many gnats in our home. EVER.

By this point, we’d pretty much had it, so Joey went online and found this tutorial. Here’s what he did… He started by emptying a 2-liter soda bottle that had long since gone flat. Then, after rinsing it out, he simply cut the top off with scissors.

He filled the bottle with 1/2 cup sugar and 1/2 cup apple cider vinegar, then added a splash of water and stirred.

He inserted the top upside-down into the bottom of the bottle (that’s me demonstrating all spray-painted-Vanna-White-style… this was the same day I wrote this post if you can’t tell 🙂 )…

Then, we placed the bottle next to our trash can to attract gnats. We moved the trap around the house occasionally, if we happened to notice a large concentration of gnats in one particular place. The idea is that the gnats are attracted to the vinegar/sugar, fly into the bottle and can’t get out.

I have to chuckle when I imagine the gnats all “Hey guys! Hurry up! This way!! I found the jackpot!! Um ….oh. Wait. Ummmm….” Hahahahahahaaa!! See?? That’s how much I hate them.

So, anyways, the verdict???

Oh, yeah. It worked. This pic was taken about an hour after we set the trap. And it continued to work after that. In fact, we hardly noticed any gnats around the house within about a day or so. Maybe a stray loser here and there, but nothing crazy. And we continued to note more and more gnats in the trap over the next few days. It just kept working. We couldn’t believe that after all the swatting we’d done that there were still so many gnats living among us.

So, I’d definitely say that the 5 minutes and zero dollars spent which saved our sanity was completely worth it. This trap was for the win! Two thumbs up and a standing ovation.

And now, our indoor pail gets to live in our garage. Lesson learned.