Curb Appeal

We've been doing lots of yardwork lately. Alton cut the grass for the first time last week and we've been dabbling with the garden a bit. For example, there used to be a very large sago palm growing right next to the driveway, which you can see in this photo:

It's branches were hanging over into the space we needed to drive through and it produced baby palms like crazy, which we do not want. So we ripped it out.

It left quite a divot...

We also removed a second sago on the other side of the driveway while we were at it.

The ripping up of the palms happened last week (with assisstance from Alton's dad). Today, we focused on the flowers. Our house came with lots of nice landscaping all around. Unfortunately, the previous owners left all the weeding to be done by us. Luckily, they also left us three bags of mulch which is supposed to help suppress weeds. So this morning I spent about two hours pulling up weeds from the flower beds around the front and side of the house. According to the calorie counter app I have on my phone, gardening burns three calories a minute. I also learned that I rather like gardening. So making the house look better, doing something I enjoy, and burning lots of calories. I feel like Charlie Sheen, that's such a win! Anyway, on to the pictures.

Here is a before and after shot of one area of the garden (This was actually one of the least weedy areas):

Muuuuuch better!

Alton came outside after a while and decided to tackle the area next to our side fence. Apparently some acorns got in there somehow and sprouted baby oak trees. Alton pulled them all out except for one that was about as tall as he is - we need to get a spade and dig that sucker out.

baby oak trees:

He also vanquished the giant thistle plant that was growing over there:

All while wearing his slippers. hehe.

The yard is really starting to look good now. There are a couple of smaller flower beds that still need to be weeded. I might do that tomorrow...or as soon as I have the feeling back in my fingers. (Note to self: get gardening tools.)



I can see out of my window!

Remember the post I did with photos of the kitchen? Remember how I said one of our small projects in there was going to be removing the stained glass decal from the door? Well, yesterday that project was crossed off our list, along with an item from my personal bucket list which was to learn to sew and actually complete a project. Alton removed the decal and I made a cute curtain. It's far from perfect, but I think I did a pretty good job of hiding the messed up parts. Anyway, on with the pictures!

Before:

Preparing for the project:

(with supervision from Vespa)

My first sewing project:

(Click the photo to make it bigger so you can see the pattern of the fabric. Alton and I like it a lot.)

Look, no "stained glass"!

Much better, I think. I'm pretty proud of that curtain as well. Trust me, it is far from perfect but I plan to make some more curtains and maybe a pillow or two down the road so I have time to hone my abilities.

Quickie

This is just a quick post to say that I completed my first ever sewing project (which was an item for the house) and that photos will be posted later. Goodnight!

$20 for three rooms worth of hardware!

Last week, Hobby Lobby had their decorative hardware on sale 50% off, so we decided to go check it out. We ended up going home with nine knobs for $20.66. That's all six knobs for the living room built-ins, one knob for the hall bathroom, and two knobs for the master bathroom. We plan to get drawer pulls for the three drawers in the master bath, but they didn't have any at Hobby Lobby, so we will probably order those online.

The first knob is a pretty shade of blue. We had no idea what we were going for in the hall bathroom until we saw this knob. We both really liked the color, so our hall bathroom is now going to be blue. :)

We plan to print and frame a couple of photos from our honeymoon to go in here. These are some of the candidates for printing:

We bought clear knobs for the master bath:

I think these will look really cool once the cabinets are painted white.

The knobs we purchased for the built-ins in the living room were a bit of a surprise to us, but once the idea was planted, we just had to do it. Hobby Lobby had lots of white ceramic knobs with black letters on them. Our last name happens to have six letters in it and we happen to have six cabinets in the living room, so we spelled our name out across the built-ins. :) So fun.

So that's how we got three rooms worth of hardware for around $20!