Great news!

On Friday I am meeting with a professional landscaper to have the plans for the front and side of my yard laid out. I am really excited! She is charging $70 per hour so my cap for her is 4 hours. She'll just have to cut a few corners. Quentin and I will be putting all of the pain staking labor into it, I just want a good design and plants that flow with one another. I can only do so much. Sometimes you just need the extra edge of someone who has more knowledge than you. Yes, I admit I don't know everything- there you have it. Curb appeal is so important and we currently have NONE. Of course this is going to be a project we work on over the next couple of years but I want to get a good head start this summer. Now if we could only get some more nice weather so I can actually work outside without freezing.

OK, I'm sure you are sick to death of seeing pictures of the buffet- but here it is with the poly and all- the finished product!

You gotta see it to believe it

The buffet turned out better than I'd imagined. It was well worth the dirty house and grueling 2 months spent on it.

Happy Earth day!

I hope everyone does something special to take care of our good earth today. I'm happy to hear that people are still reading the blog. I was almost certain you had all given up on me. I'm posting a bunch of pictures today!

The stain is complete. He is what a bad photo of the buffet looks like- I took it without day light.



The final photo is the color change between the interior and the exterior of the buffett. I'm psyched to get some poly on there.




The stairs I'm working on are next. There are atleast 60 staples in each step so I continue to pull them whenever I think about it. I've also been scraping the wallpaper in the upstairs hallway so that the glues doesn't get all over what will soon be our gorgeous new floors.

And last but not least, the ugly floors left under the carpet we tore out. The floors in the office look pretty similar. We will be paying someone to come in and do these. It shouldn't be too bad.

I'll keep everyone posted on the stair progress- Grr....

The sweet taste of success.

I am beginning the poly process tonight on the buffet. The poly process is alot less work than the staining- atleast I assume. We are waiting to start the drawers. If weather permits we'll probably be working on them outside this weekend.

In near future news- I am going to begin sanding the stairs once I've fully completed the buffet. The last thing I want in my life is more sawdust all over my house but this will be the last sanding project we do oursleves for a bit. We are also going to be paying someone to come in and sand the floors in the office and the upstairs hall. I have a feeling it'll cost around $500 give or take. The room isn't very large nor is the hall. Having those floors redone will make a huge impact on the upstairs. I CAN'T WAIT!

Outside we have begun ripping out bushes and I am going to start seeding our non-existent grass this week. I'll post photos soon.

More exciting news- we just had family move near us (John & Kendra) right down the street. They got an awesome fixer upper as well and I'm hoping they blog about it as well. We are super excited to have them as neighbors!!!

Sorry I haven't updated this in so long. I hope you're still reading the blog.

More Progress!!!

Sorry I haven't written a thing in what feels like months to me. We finished sandy the buffet! We have begun the staining process. Rather than changing the color of the wood we decided to keep the exterior of the buffet the same color as the rest of the wood- which is an antique walnut. We did a light cherry wood stain the we aren't thrilled with but it adds more depth to the buffet and highlights the glass shelving area. It still looks better than having the entire buffet the same color. The old stain was darker on the interior and you caould barely see what we had in there without opening the glass doors.

Other than that I raked 18 garbage back of leaves from the yard with a few left to go. We are also pulling some type of weed bush with HUGE roots. They seem pretty hard to get rid of but I've gotten some good advice about cutting them about 6 inches underground. I'll post yard photos on the next blog (which will be soon!)

Here are the beginning photos of the stain. Once we are finished- we'll have 3 coats of top coat to protect the buffet with a medium sheen.