A Breath of Fresh Air

Three and a half years after buying this house, we finally cleaned up the yard!  I had done a little to clean out a few things over the years, but my small efforts didn't make a big difference in the overall appearance of the lawn.

This week we brought out the professionals, and here are the results...

In the back yard, we had them take out everything that's not a tree or grass.  After they had removed everything, we actually discovered an small tree that we didn't know was there.  They'll also be treating the lawn throughout the year in hopes that the small amount of grass will spread to cover the spots where we removed plants.

In the front yard, there wasn't any existing grass, so we brought in sod.  I know you may think the green you see in the before pictures is grass--It's not.  There were some green weeds in our front yard, but no grass.

In the front, we replaced the existing flower beds that had a couple live bushes and some dead plants with these beautiful new plants.

Now we're all ready for Spring!  (Did you hear that weather... stop being bi-polar and stick with Spring please.)

Fall Crafting

John's been busy recently... working every day at the state fair, so I took some down time to work on some fall Pinterest crafts.

A couple weeks ago, Kim and I made this "Thanks" banner:

This weekend, I got some fall decor for the kitchen table and the tops of the cabinets:

And I made a few crafts:

This one is direct from Pinterest

This is my own creation from a little Pinterest inspiration.  It's yarn wrapped Styrofoam, a disassembled candle ring, and crochet flowers from a scarf pattern on Pinterest.

Some decor for the entertainment center

Closeup of the EEK I made.  This was partly from "BOO" letters on Pinterest... I already had a "BOO" craft though, so I went with "EEK".

I've really enjoyed being crafty... I'm already trying to pick my Thanksgiving and Christmas crafts to do next!

Also, in the last couple weeks, we had a refrigerator mishap that moved up our acquisition of a new fridge... My picture of the fall decor has the new fridge, so I thought I'd update my Kitchen before and after.

Great 2012 Remodel: Guest Room

I know it's long overdue, but I've finally got the before and after shots for the last room... the guest room.  We were slightly delayed in completing the guest room because we had to get a new bed and by the time we had it the new bed in place, I'd stopped thinking about before and after posts... better late than never I suppose.

Before:  (Looks like I took the before pictures without the light on... not sure what I was thinking... maybe the problem is that I wasn't thinking)

Best we can gather, they started work on the guest room the first day, but they closed the door and we didn't know.

Here's what it looked like on day 3:

On day 4, other than carpets, I think this was the first room "finished":

Before the painters left however, we discovered that they had broken the bed... we figure that's why they had the room closed off on day one and why it was so put back together by day 4.  The painters didn't put any other rooms back together so nicely.  Needless to say, the price of that Ikea bed was deducted from what we paid the painters.  Breaking the bed wasn't what upset us the most... it was that they tried to cover it up.

After the carpet:

Closeup of the broken bed... it was relatively well concealed when it's assembled, but you can see here that it's not just a crack.

After with a new, taller Ikea bed:

And the Before and After shot:

I think this room, more so than the others, really needs more decor help before it will be finished, but at least it's got fresh paint, new carpet, and a new bed.

Great 2012 Remodel: Kitchen!

Drum roll please... I'm finally posting about the kitchen!

I was going to save the kitchen for last because it's the most dramatic change, but there is still one room left  that I still haven't posted about.  The guest room still needs a new bed to replace the one the painters broke (which we're planning to get next week), so I can't finish that post yet.  But the kitchen after pictures are ready... So here you go, pictures of the room everyone seems to comment on the most, the Kitchen...

Before:

This picture shows some of the worse things we were trying to fix with the whole remodel: scratched laminate, blue counter tops, no cabinet hardware, and one of the drawers didn't even match.

Day 1: Granite Counter-tops 

Day 2: Tile started

Day 3: Tile floor and back-splash finished.

Day 4: Cabinets preped for painting and starting to remove wall paper border.

Day 5: Cabinets painted

Day 6: Painting the walls

Painters didn't understand at first that the half wall should also be blue.

 Day 7: Paint finished

Day 8: The kitchen became the new storage space to make room for new carpet in the rest of the house.

Day 9: New Lights!

And here's how it looks today...

One of my favorite parts of the whole remodel: no more leaky faucet, we now have a working sprayer, and the "shallow" side of the new sink is good deal deeper than the old one... all together, a much more functional sink.

And the side by side views:

So here's a summary of what we did:

• New counter tops (granite instead of blue laminate)
• New back-splash (tile instead of blue laminate)
• New sink
• New sink faucet
• Painted the cabinets
• Added cabinet hardware
• Replaced the laminate flooring with tile
• Expanded the tile area to go all the way to the other wall
• 2 New light fixtures (in particular, replacing the old florescent light)
• Painted the ceiling (the kitchen was the primary cause for painting all the ceilings in the house... there were clusters of spots on the ceiling... we never could figure out what the previous owners could have done to create the spots)
• Painted the walls (a beautiful blue color... note to whomever made the original selections for this house, blue looks much better on the walls than on the cabinets)

Thank you, Hillary, for helping me realize that white was the way to go with the cabinets despite my initial hesitation; I love it.  And thanks for all your help with this whole process... we could not have done it all without you!