Hooray hooray!  It’s the beginning of a 3-day weekend in the United States.  I thought I’d take this quiet internet day to point out a few behind-the-scenes things that have been going on at Making This Home.

1. Chat on Twitter. Quite often, I run into interesting links and ideas that might not be worth an entire post; Twitter is the perfect place to share.  Plus it’s a quick way to see what everyone’s up to in a sentence or two.  So if you’re on Twitter, click here and hit “follow” under my pale little face.  I’d love to follow you, too!

2. You can show yourself with gravatars. Ever notice how over the last few weeks some people have fun little pictures next to their comments on Making This Home?  Those people are using gravatars (globally recognized avatars).  When you go here to set one up for free, you can have your picture or image pop up next to your comments on blogs and forums that have enabled gravatars.  It’s so easy to forget who’s saying what online; a face to a name is always super nice.

Looking forward to seeing you around!  Have a refreshing weekend.

If your idea of remodeling is all about amazing views and tight budgets, you’re going to love this next small space makeover.  Niky and her husband live in Germany.  Piece by piece, she’s been decorating their little apartment and making it home.  I truly love it, and if we hadn’t just finished moving, I think I’d be tempted to beg Niky to let me sip ice tea with her right on her little balcony.

Let’s follow Niky’s inspiring transformation in her own words, shall we?

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What inspired me was the 85euros I had in my wallet! No joking, this was the main theme:) I needed to do something about that space, and it had to be quick and on a very tiny itsy-bitsy budget. So I thought of using things I already owned (see the upholstered chairs, all the decor objects and the planters).

I would like to say that I arranged them so Feng-Shui, but I didn’t. I just put them in there and relaxed with a glass of Ice Tea (I must add that in that specific day it didn’t rain..so not normal for German weather.. but HURAAY for me).

Now, I know my balcony isn’t perfect… but it’s ours and more important ..it’s on a very low budget.

Now chasing down to numbers I spent:

• 40euros on the green patio carpet
• 30euros on that cute table
• 15 euros on the paint
• the rest came out of the house :P

Now the only things I see myself adding(on a budget as well) are some flower boxes(with flowers of course) on the sides of the balcony to hang over the edge..(but all this when the weather gets more stable here in Germany), some other flowers in the other planters, and me and the Ice Tea in one of those chairs :D

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What do you say?  Anyone else want to beg Niky to let us come for a visit?  We could do it vicariously through her blog in the very least.

Want to scope out some more small spaces?  We’ve got a whole slew of them right here for ya.  Maybe you’d even like to see your cozy corner on Making This Home.  We eat that stuff up faster than the best Apfelstrudel, you know.  Share one and all!

When we announced our plans to spend the summer in the Rocky Mountains, we’d just finished creating a Man Cave for Martin to tinker in at the corner of our living room.  The space wasn’t much.  It was just a desk with a bifold door that he could shut when company came to visit.

It was time to leave Berlin, and a bunch of you kept asking me, “What about Martin’s new space?”  To be honest, it wasn’t something we thought a whole lot about.  You want to know why?  Now that we’re settling into our home for the summer, this is where Martin spends his days:

It’s the hangar filled with airplanes, tools, and a whole lot of greasy, man-looking stuff.  It’s where all the guys in the county go to drool.

Before I met Martin, my idea of an airport was revolving doors, metal detectors, and baggage carts.  Now I am seeing the other side of things – the part that makes you smell like an oil can if you spend any length of time in it.  It’s the part where you get to know the “hangar dog” and “hangar kittie” so well you’re practically BFF.  I’m getting used to dirty leather couches (I assume they’re to go with the leather coats all pilots must own).  I have to duck my head to get around the wings of airplanes.  And dusty piles of aviation magazines abound on banged up coffee tables, sort of like the collections at the hair dresser’s except the aviation magazines get really boring.

The good news is that the women’s bathrooms are always really clean.  No one’s around to use them!

Sure I could do without the dust and smell of oil.  But it’s not like I’m going home to our apartment in Berlin and have to worry about getting dirt on the bright yellow couch.  I’m going home to an easy going house made of tires that I share with a family of mice.

Do you guys have any places that you find yourself drawn to?  From the place you always knew you’d wind up to that (oily smelling?) place you never fathomed you’d be spending your days in, we’d sure like to know the place that really floats your boat…  or rather flies your plane.

Martin and I are no experts on the environment.  Sure we make our own wrapping paper and repurpose old birthday cards.  Yet we haven’t truly been worthy of the name hippies… until now.  This summer, we’re taking our green lifestyle up a notch.  As of last weekend, this has been home:

It’s a house made of old tires.  How green is that?

We call it “The Tire House”, which we know sounds oh so sophisticated and official.

      ”Meet me back in The Tire House when you’re through at the airport, Martin.”  
     “Did you see that huge beetle running across The Tire House floor?”  (said after screaming is under control)
     “Boy, the Tire House sure has a lot of miles on it, Katie.”

Our house is hip.  It’s weird.  It’s also got mice.

We’re still unpacking (and mouse-proofing), so things are far from settled around here.  You can bet there will be another house tour coming your way soon.

While we work, we’d love to have you chime in on pest control.  How do you keep buggers at bay in your space?  We’re talking insects, mice, pets, and heck even those pesky neighbors that are always knocking.

I feel like there are two very different versions of our life now.   I started this blog in one of Europe’s hippest cities.  Now less than a year later, I feel like I’m supposed to be driving a truck and playing Garth Brooks in the Western US where we just arrived the other day.  Despite these two very different lives, I know one thing for sure:

Home is the place where you can return at the end of the day and know you’re being the best that you can.  It’s the place where you can let go of everything else in the world.  Home is the only true place where you get to be you.  No one judges or tells you it’s not good enough.

1. I bought this shirt in Berlin at H&M.  We didn’t know we’d be moving to the country then.
2. These vanilla cupcakes are super easy and yummy.  We were craving something sweet, and our cupboards were bare.  These baking cups from Denver are perrrfect.
3. I started listening to The River Wife on an audiobook when I pulled out of Denver.
4. Our 36 square foot kitchen in Berlin was featured on Decor8 while we were on the road.  What a treat!
5. We’re going to have the entire neighborhood over for dinner every week.  There’ll be three of us.
6. These etsy pictures would be a dream.
7. When the grocery store and bakery were a few blocks away in Germany, we could grab anything any time.  Now we’re eating simpler meals with rare trips to the store.  
8. Our days have been filled vacuuming mouse poop and spider eggs from the house and breaking to visit the little airport and start working.  I do not remember much about mouse-proofing food and clothes; I do not want to be reminded the bad way.
9. I think the only animals I saw around Denver were house cats and prairie dogs.  
10. These tips on living more frugally seem so timely these days.
11. If we had a reason to have baby food jars in our house, I would save them to make something like this.
12. I found a horseshoe behind the house today.  The luck – I pass that to all of you.

Chances are, if you’ve spent much time in the Western United States, you’ve probably come to recognize this symbol on the Utah license plate:

It’s Delicate Arch, the 52 foot, freestanding arch of sandstone that every Utah native I’ve ever met gladly boasts about.  And they should.  Imagine having Arches National Park in your home state.  I want to say something about how it’s one of the Must Sees for every American, though maybe that would sound funny since I was the only US citizen on our trip between me, Martin, and our German guests (remember the culture shock our friends had in the suburbs?).

After we flew around Canyonlands, we zoomed over to Arches National Park.  We couldn’t fly any lower due to aviation regulations.  So despite my joking suggestion, Martin wasn’t willing to attempt to fly through the arches.  Still, I bet you’d like to see Delicate Arch from the air, right?  Here are two angles for you to enjoy:

Can you spot Delicate Arch?  I’ll admit that I’m the one who took the picture, and I still have to pause for a moment.  So how about a friendly little cheat sheet?

We flew a big circle around the Arch and snapped a shot from the other side, too.  Can you spot it here?

And a handy little key for that one - 

That about wraps up our trip to Canyonlands and Arches National Parks as Martin prepares to surrender the pilot’s seat for me.  I’m still pinching myself for getting such a great view.  Any fun summer plans in the works at your house?  Sometimes, there’s nothing so nice as a getaway from home for a bit.

(First image by Wikipedia, remainder by Katie for Making This Home)