It's been awhile...

Sorry for my lack of posts. The summer is seeming to fly by way too fast. We got the entire house pressure washed, the fence and gate up, just a few more finishing touches and it should be complete. We got a great price on the stucco repair on the house and put our deposit down 2 weeks ago and still no work has been done. He seems to be a bit unprofessional but does good work so I gave him a deadline to have everything complete by Monday or we'll go with someone else. Ahh... contractors.

Other than that we just got back from AZ. We had an amazing vacation that involved laying by the pool and doing absolutely nothing for 4 days. It was refreshing. This weekend I will be powerwashing the garage driveway and sidewalk. Our goal is to have the house painted by the middle of August since I am going back to school on the 24th. I just planted the last of the plants in the landscaping for the season. It looks so good. It's hard to believe how far we've come. It doesn't even look anywhere close to the house we bought. Our appraisal came in $40,000 ahead of what we paid and we aren't even finished yet!

The Fence Is Halfway There!

I Finished sanding, staining and polying all of the woodwork on the fireplace, archway, window and DR baseboard. It looks amazing! Since I got all of this complete, I decided to paint the firsplace a charcoal/ flynt color. It looks really good. The couches don't really flow with it but we plan on replacing those this winter. Check out how nicely everything cam out:


Since we were putting up the fence I decided to complete the landscape along the front side of it. It's so cute! I planted some red gnome dogwoods and echinaceas. The dogwoods should get pretty big. I bought the smallest ones available since everything else has taken off so much. I can't wait for them to grow- exciting. What do you think about the pattern of the fence?

Our progress

Sorry for my lack of posts, yet again. We have been finishing up some projects and I've been a bad blogger. Here are my weekend updates:

I am still working on the front patio. I've been stripping all of the cracked paint off of the windows with a heat gun, sanding, priming and painting with a white gloss. I am almost done. It looks very nice and clean.


I have also added 14 new plants over the weekend to my landscape design. It looks really great! I spent about $200 which is not so great, but it really pays off. I went to Gerten's. The reason I love Gertens is that all of their plants and shrubs are guaranteed for a year. I returned 5 blanket flower and didn't have an issue. Tangle Town only offers a year on their shrubs. It's worth the drive. Here is the right side of my front steps. Just 13 more plants to go before it's complete!


And last but not least- an update on Quentin's project. We've got about half of the posts in the ground. The rest will be in soon we are hoping. At lease you get a good idea of where the fence is going to be.

A small dillema

Here are the photos of our new bathroom! I just bought that shower curtain and I'm sort of not feeling the flow. Should I return it and just go for a plain white shower curtain? I need some opinions here!

Here is a photo of the lovely purple that used to dominate our bathroom. I guess I've got some touch up to do.

Another angle


New lighting! I'm thinking that mirror needs to be flip right side up.

So what do you think?

Here are the photos of our landscaping! For the larger photos, just click to view the entire picture. Doesn't the bedlining and mulch make it look so much better? We still have quite a few
more plants to add (that's why the mulch doesn't come all the way up)



If you scroll down you can see just how much it's grown since May.

If you scroll all the way back to January you can see the weed bushes that took over our landscaping. My we've come so far in such little time!

A temporary solution

The bathroom is complete, for now. I figure if we really do the bathroom the way we would like to it will probably cost around 10-15K. I can't wait to show you photos though. We put up a new light fixture, new pictures, paint, rugs. It's hardly recognizable to us. It feels really clean, which is exactly what we were going for. I'm not 100% in love with the color but hey, it could be worse. It could be purple.

We also added about 12 new plants to our landscaping this weekend. We put in some Salvia, blanket flower, Fiesta Forsythia, and Red magic Flox. We also put down some more mulch. It's looking so good!

I had a very productive weekend- Finally.

I hope everyone is having a great summer so far!

Finally, some curb appeal...

We a planted bunch of shrubs and 2 trees this weekend- about 13 to be exact. Everything went pretty smooth. The most difficult were the sky rocket junipers at each corner of the house. It looks so much better! There is still so much work to do in the yard. Baby steps- right? This weekend I'll be doing our bed lining and putting down more dirt and mulch. I love gardening!

I really wish we could paint the outside of the house. I need to do some stucoo repair 1st and we know that is going to co$t us. I really do miss living in a great apartment, spending alot of money on new clothes, going out and looking great. I don't think I have even bought myself new work clothes not to mention clothes for me. Every extra penny goes into the house- and willingly. That's the scary thing. I love this house and I love making it beautiful.

June bugs are invading our yard. They are about as gross as the palmetto roaches I used to live with in Florida. I think they live in dirt. They come from under the ground. I hope they are called June bugs for a reason. I don't think I'd be able to deal with them in July and August as well.


Here are the plants!


We've got Magnolia trees, Sea Green Junipers, Summer Wine Nine bark, Cranberry something or anothers and rocket junipers.



Because you were dying for a closer look.

What a great weekend!

I am so pleased with all of the progress we made over the weekend. For starters, I have been dying to get some furniture in the front sun porch, seeing as though it's pretty much useless without it. I went down to Target to check out this set that I've had my eyes on for the last 2 months and to my surprise it was 10% off. Not only that but I had an additional 10% coupon plus I got another 10% off of the love seat. Total I saved about $80-$90. I just had to yap about it because there is nothing better than getting a good deal on something you love. Good thing I waited! The only bad thing is that now I want to begin redoing the front porch.


Onto the big projects. We finally started removing the huge weed bushes that have turned into trees. We removed 2 big bushes/ roots by digging down and using the chainsaw. I'm hoping the bushes don't grow back but I guess we'll just have to attack them as they come. It's already made such a difference by removing them.


We got the landscape design back from the lady @ Indigo and she did an amazing job. We will hopefully begin planting our trees and shrubs 2 weeks from now. There weren't any hostas in her design so, to use of what was already in the yard, I planted a row of them on the side of the house that people don't really see. We also planted 2 trees, one to the right and 1 to the left of the driveway. Everything is really starting to look nice.


The two little white sticks are the new trees


On top of all of this, it was my nephew Luke's 4th birthday today. Nothing like a child growing to make you feel like you're really getting old- or just growing up. Ok, getting old. My nephew and neice are so cute! Why can't they live a little closer.
My baby and I.

Finally- warmer weather

What a productive weekend we had. First off, we got our babies, Tito and Roscoe, on Friday. They are the cutest things in the world. We pretty much fell in love with them right away. I'll post some larger pictures when I get some. They are the coolest dogs in the world.

On Saturday we finished sanding and painting the ceiling going up our stairwell. We had to put up new sheet rock tap and mud. It doesn't look as great as when we paid to have it taped, but it looks so much better than the tiled ceiling. We also too the living room paint up through the hallway. I'll post photos when we get the mirror hung at the top of the stairs.


After and before- sorry for the neck cramp

Since yesterday was so nice I finally got to begin some lawn work. Lanscaping can get pretty exhausting pretty quick. After an hour or so of shoveling I feel like quiting, but do I give up? No.
Baby steps right? Everything is starting to look better. I am starting on the back patio area. There is a large amount of extra dirt back there so I am sort of transferring it to different areas. I can't wait for our yard to be a little more pleasing to the eye. This week I should be getting back the drawings for the yard!






That fence needs to come down!

Ahh... Landscaping

I went to Gerten's greenhouse yesterday with Jackie, who also has a green thumb but plenty more experience in that area. If you haven't been there you must go. It was amazing, they had quite the selection. I was getting ideas for our landscape designer. I am going with formal type tree yet more modern with grasses, magnolia trees, forsynthia etc. The colors we were thinking we are going for are red, white, and yellow. We are planning on painting the house a dark taupe this summer with white trim so it should all play in together very well.

I can't wait! I have to wait a whole week until I get back the drawings she comes up with. The bad thing is I am picking up my sugar maple this Friday and I have NO CLUE where to plant it. Arg. I'll post pictures of our awful landscaping that we currently have tomorrow

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!