An overdue update!! Landscaping!

For the past few weekends we have been very busy painting, trimming trees, getting rid of

ugly and dead plants, and making new flower beds.

Here are the before pictures.  

We hated the big bushes in front and the trees were out of control.

Notice the new paint! It looks so much better!  

I came home from work one and day and these pretty daffodils were bloomed! It was such a nice surprise... I thought it was just monkey grass or something!

Getting rid of the huge over-grown holly bushes! This was a great day!!!

Biff hooked a chain to them and hooked it to the truck and drove them right out of the yard!

This tiller took Biff for a ride... it was huge and very heavy! But it did the job and we really appreciated our neighbors letting us use it. The roots from the bushes and surrounding trees were so thick we would have never gotten anything planted in there.

Now after lots of hard work we have this!!!

Our first garnden gnome... isn't he cute!!

Sago Palms in Red wood planters

petunias

Lillies (my favorite)

Just trimming the trees alone made a HUGE difference!!

Biff surrounded the flower beds with yard timbers that he cut and burried in the ground. We are going to eventually stain them but not until they really need it.

We have been shopping around for a new front door, but nothing has really caught our eye yet.

Snapdragons

Below is our new view from our front porch! We spend  a lot of time out here... it's so nice!! :)

Before

After



Home Sweet Home

We really love our new home! I think it finally feels

 like home to us now too! It kind of felt like we were staying in a really nice vacation home at first! :)

(Biff bought me an orchid! I love it!!!)

We are starting to plan our next project. We will be starting the guest bathroom in the next few weeks.

We have to completely demo what is there. There is a very small tile shower and tile (with 2 inches of concrete behind it) all the way around the walls of the bathroom. Just getting rid of the tile is a huge project in itself. After that is done we are going to put in a new shower, put up new walls (either painted paneling or bead board), tile the floor, replace the current vanity with a pedestal sink and replace the toilet. We are ready to have it done and I will start posting pictures as we work.

Here is a before picture:

Keep checking back

 Thanks for visiting!!!

End of week #8 Continued...

Here are the step by step pictures of my second chair.

I completely sanded the chair down with a palm sander. I used a very fine sand paper because I wasn't sure if I wanted to paint it or leave some of its original character.

After sanding it there was just still too much green left and it lots of places the (from wear) the paint was completely gone.

So it got a fresh coat of paint. I chose white for this chair to bring it back to it's original color, I think it looks great!

For the seat I got a sheet of newspaper and laid it down on top of the chair to trace the seat design. I then cut out the design and taped it to my plywood and traced it on. I used a jigsaw to cut out a new seat, cut a peice of foam (that I bought at hobby lobby) and then wrapped the seat with fabric and using a staple gun I stapled the fabric (tight) around the new seat.

Tada!!

I moved it around several times before I got them where I wanted them.

This table and my coffee table were given to me years ago by Mrs. Price. They started looking pretty rough so I sanded them down and painted them and gave them new life. They look like completely different tables now, it's amazing what a simple coat of paint will do.

Here are just a few random pictures that I had in my camera of the house. I thought I took better ones than this... but I didn't.

I love old furniture... especially if it belonged to someone I love. This piece was my Granny EI's (my Poppy's mom) entertainment center and it was built by my Uncle Marcus (Poppy's brother). They are both passed now and I am honored to have it in my house.

New entertainment center that my Granny and Poppy gave us. We love it! Thank you!!!

We bought this clock at Hobby Lobby this weekend with some Christmas gift cards! So thank you again Mom & Jared and Heather!! :)

My neighbor Jamie Dickerson made us this cross for a housewarming gift! She is so talented!!! Thank you Jamie!! :)

This weekend I plan to take better pictures!



End of week #8!

We got a lot done this week... lots of decorating!!! I'm having so much fun decorating the space and finding places for all the awesome furniture that our familes are giving us! I have taken pictures of everything but left my camera at home this morning! I will post them this evening.

I have taken on a couple of small projects this weekend by restoring a couple of old chairs that I bought at Bygones in Downtown Ennis. Sharon Fisher runs Bygones and she has so many treasures in there, I had a really hard time leaving with just two chairs! She was very sweet and I will definetly be going back soon!

When I bought this one it was just a wooden chair with a brown, orange, and green burlap seat. I forgot to take a picture before I started working on it.

This chair was at one point white... but when I bought it, it was sort of brownish green (from probably sitting outside) with a brown velvet torn and worn seat. I sanded it down completely, had to cut a new seat out of plywood (I did this with a jigsaw by myself!!!), then padded and wrapped the seat, painted the chair and put it all together! I love it!! I will post the before pictures this evening, it was a big transformation. The fabric that I used for the seat is just a $20 shower curtain that I bought at Target. Biff and I also made the headboard below... All with 1 shower curtain! What a bargain!!

This photo is of our previous apartment.

(more photos of the house will be posted this evening)

Thanks for visiting!!