the grass is grenner on the other side...

...of mowing. Its true. Though this task is generally a hated one, I don't mind it that much. I like being out doors, I don't really have any allergies, so mowing can really be kind of relaxing. This is the before picture, we had several days of rain, so it was a jungle out there.

 

This is my after. See how nice the grass looks. I dont own a mower, so I had to borrow one from my parents. And since no one was around to help me load or unload (mom was there to load, but not a ton of lifting power, though she was helpfull) I had to come up with a different approach. My solution? A ramp! I worked great. At my parents I used a folding table, mom helped me keep it steady. Once I got to my house, I used an old door we took out.

 

I spy with my little eye... well. The cabinets behind/underneath all that other stuff. They are the ones that I will be putting in my kitchen. I wont have a ton of cabinet space, but hopefully this will be enough. I still haven't decided if I should paint them, sand them down and stain them darker. I have a couple options and I guess Ill figure it out soon.

 

My proudest moment is these pictures here. I installed this ceiling fan all by myself! yay! It really wasn't hard, the cables were already set up for a ceiling fan, so the electrical connection was not hard. Other than that, it was following the instructions. Its the same kind of fan as what I put in the kitchen. And I will also be putting one in the livingroom.

 

This is my niece Ramona. Since I got poison Ivy from working in my yard I had stayed away till it got better. I got to see her on Sunday. She has grown. I love her, she is the sweetest thing ever! I really do love being an Aunt.

Got myself a washer and dryer.
I was not looking for a set, I had kind of come to terms with the fact that I probably wouldn't have any when I first moved into the house. But I got a phone call yesterday from a friend letting me know that there was a set for sale. I decided to stop by and see them, I really did not think I was going to buy them. I obviously changed my mind. And I'm glad I did. Once I decided to get them, the next thing was to get a truck, and some muscle to help load and unload.

Many thanks to my friends who helped out. Since I am not at the point to take these to the house I asked my parents if I could store them in their old barn.
While we were at the barn...

We also took some more bricks (same place we took the bricks for the fire-pit), but these bricks were for Lifehouse, they have a garden section that they want to out line with the brick so that the kids that go to their after school programs will not trample all over the flowers that have been planted.

A big chuck on my free time was taken over not by working on my house, but by the internet and food.
I recently was introduced to Pottermore, another Harry Potter website. I got sorted into the Ravenclaw house, I was surprised at that result, I expected to be a Hufflepuff.

My last activity of the day was to sit and watch Modern Family while peeling some eggs that I eventually deviled. Fist time ive made these, not to shabby if I may say so myself.

POISON IVY!

the culprit.
I've been itching all weekend. I cant recall seeing any while i was out there working in the yard. But i returned yesterday (after rain kept me away,,,oh yah, and the itching) and as I took the time to find what i knew was actually there, well, it was everywhere. which makes me glad that I did not get it any worse than I did.

Now, how to get rid of it. Ill come up with something to get it out from the root so it doesnt come back!

Here is that whole area, from this distance you cant make it out, but its there!
there is also a whole bunch of trash that I need to get bagged up and in the trash can. My house was rented for a long time, and at some point a bag of trash was left back there to bow be picked up by me.

Also, its been raining in the area. It was windy, really windy for a few days, well, it took down the tree next door, (actually, back yard neighbor) Disregard those clothes line poles, they didnt fall down, they were part the trash pile in the corner. I didnt get a chance to talk to the neighbor, but he was out there taking the lower branches down.
Now, on to happy things... the pantry

Right now its a storage for some of the things i dont want trampled as we remodel. But, all this stuff will eventually need to be put in, screwed in, or taped up. (taped up if I do it)

As I have mentioned before, these existing rack and selves will be coming down. And new ones will go in. That will have to wait for dad, but in the mean time, I think I am capable of taking them down and painting the pantry. I am thinking ill paint the back wall yellow, and probably do the other walls in white.

New electrical outlets and boxes have been installed. The most important ones were for the oven and fridge I am putting into the kitchen. also, the living room feels quite dark, so I wanted the option to install some more lighting in there, the picture above shows one of the two new boxes installed in the ceiling were I will have some track/spot lights installed.

Above is a picture of the stove's outlet, and a regular outlet that should be counter height.

I questioned naming this blog after the address of the house. Well, I guess there was reason to hesitate, apparently the US post office has decided to change my address. This was on my mail box recently. So, if you were planning on mailing something to me, its not 222 on st Louis street, its 126.
Dont really know how I feel about it, I liked having three twos. I guess Ill just have to get used to it. Right?

Fire!

his morning I went over the house to get some "after" photos. Look at the lovely yellow.

I cant say enough of about how much I like this color.

Now, on the "to do" list Ive added another thing, to get some white trim paint to get that doorway and eventually the window trim painted white.

yellow!

As you can see from this picture, my ceiling fan is missing light bulbs and, since Im quite short, Ialso need to get some chain extensions for the fan and light on the fan. These are items that are on my shopping list, which continues to grow more and more.

Today's project, just like the title said, was fire!

Ive always wanted a fire pit, to get a fire going and roast marshmellows and on cool nights just sit close to it and warm up. Today I finally got one. Dad has a bunch of bricks just piled up at his old house (which they are trying to sell). So I figured he wouldnt mind if I went over and took some. So here is my car load. He has a small amount of several different kinds, so I picked one, and then ran out and selected a second. Not knowing how big or tall I wanted it, we guessed at the amount of bricks we would need. In the end a second trip was required, but I love the finished look a lot.

We ended up building it three times. Mostly to make the two different bricks work together (which they never did), it was an interesting process. At one point I was laying on the ground frustrated because I had thought of a solution and had destroyed a whole side, only it didnt work.

After the second trip and the re-arranging. This is the finished product. I love love love it. The location is great, far enough from the house not to worry me, far from the trees on the side. So needless to say, after all the work, we sat and enjoyed the fire.

The picture below is the title to the house. My mom had called and told me I had a package from the title company. So today when I went over for Easter Dinner I opened it up, and sure enough, there she is. Now to safe keep that in a lock box.

Such an important piece of paper, the reality of me owning a house still has not sunk in all the way, it kind of hits in little spurts.

A long weekend.

Today my great friend Beverly came into town to help me with work on the house. Today's project was painting in the kitchen. So I went to lowes this morning and picked up the needed supplies *plus some extras which I will talk about later

This is our set up, got some big plastic covers for the floor, because we don't want to get paint on the brand new tile. We are painting both the ceiling and the walls.

This is my fancy before photo. I was trying to get both the walls and the ceiling. It doesnt look bad right? well, just wait till tomorrow when I can get some nice and bright photos of the after.

See the difference between the non-painted and the freshly painted white ceiling.

LOVE the brightness!

Here is Bev getting the wall painted. Look at the lovely yellow! its such a happy yellow. I did a happy dance as we started putting the paint up. Seriously I paused several times just to comment on how much I LOVED the color. I am sorry that I dont have after photos, but it was getting dark by the time we finished, and since Im a bit lazy Ive just been taking photos on my phone and not with an actual camera. You will for now, just have to take my word for it that the difference is so amazing.

This is Bev's fiance Dillon. He came over as we were finishing painting and installed the ceiling fan for me. It was hard, mostly because Dad took any working phillips screw drivers he had with him, and left only one with a bunch of screws sticking out of the handle.

Here is the last picture of the day. It doesnt show the paint and fan to its best. But Ill get more pictures later. Promise.

Good Friday

Some times things have a slow start, then before you know it speeds up and more gets done that you ever thought possible.

This weekends projects started with taking down the uuuuglyyyy pink ceiling fan in what will be the kitchen to eventually be able to paint the ceiling and then install the new one I bought a while back. While the fan was done, this little light was installed to keep things illuminated inside.

I also got some spakeling done on the sheet rock under the new windows. Dad's way to teach me how to spakle is to compare it to icing a cake. Think of it that way and it doesnt seem so impossible anymore.

Above is the before picture. And below is the after.

Yard work was main project of Friday. Below is the before picture of the back corner with all the branches piled up on it. There was so much trash mixed in there as well. It was hard work, but the yard is looking better.

By the end, we had at least 5 big piles of leafs, branches and trash that needed to get burned and tossed. We did a medium sized pile. It was fun, I love fire. Seriously I love fire.

Also on Friday we finished the garden. We started it the night before and were missing just a little to get it done. It got finished on Friday, the second layer timbers were screwed in, the top soil laid, and then after our burning frenzy, we plants were placed.

We decided to name our little plants. The watermelons are named after female country stars, the cilantro's last name is Hispanic, the Japanese egg plant is named after a character from Princess Mononoke a Japanesse anime. All of them got named, and eventually I will make little name plates for them.

Jordan and Megan's garden

Garden. Ive never done one before, I have tried to grow things in pots, which then die :(

So this is a first for me. I cant deny that Im quite excited about it. Jordan and I meet up this afternoon, and after about an hour of walking around the yard, looking at different areas, we decided on this lovely garden's location.
The next step was a trip to Lowes for the supplies.

Lowes is always an interesting experience, this time we found everything that was needed and were on our way in no time.

By the time we got started it was like 6:30 and we had some digging to do.

We used the lumber to determine were we needed to dig up that top layer of grass, during the digging process there were a couple of moments were I couldnt help but yell out my disgust with the amount of rocks in the ground. One side of the digging wasnt to bad, and so naturally you think more will get done, well, we started on the second half of it and it had more rocks and ended up taking a while.

But we finally finished enough to start placing the timbers.

This step also resulted in me yelling about how much I hate hammering. See those jumbo spike things? we hammered them into the timbers and then into the ground. (were hoping they stay) but man that took some force.

After we did 8 of those big ones, we had some smaller ones to place a second timber on top of the first. Well, we started the first one and decided that some screws would be a better route, so this meant a return trip to Lowes, and a much needed diner break. (pizza yum!)

This is the picture of what it looks like so far, I laid the weed stopping plastic down to help discourage weeds (yes!) and Jordan's drill didn't have enough battery to power the screws through the wood. It was dark and cold so we called it a night.

Tomorrow the drill should be charged, and so should we. We will probably go ahead and plant once we get all the nice new top soil (and manure!) in the nice square we've built.

Tuesday.

Hello! So dad left yesterday. No big progress has been made on the house. Mostly because Im working, and I only get so much time to work on stuff before it starts getting dark.

Today, I planted a tomato plant. I splurged for the fancy upside down pot. I went ahead and bough a plant instead of starting a seed. Mostly, because I am horrible at growing stuff. So here is to hoping this doesnt end up being a waste of money. I feel like I should name him, what name would go well for a tomato plant?

Now before you start thinking that Im not going to get anything done with out dad. Let me show you I did do some work today. I have photographic evidence.

That is my arm covered in a lovely layer of dust that came off from me sanding the plaster in the bathroom. Man that stuff is fine and messy. I didnt realize just how much was coming off till I notice the piles of dust on the floor (got to use the shop vac to clean that up, big fan of the shop vac!) My arms were covered in it, im pretty sure i breathed quite a bit in, and my hair was also covered in a light layer of the dust.

I now have an idea of what I will look like once I go gray. It adds character right? well, I should have to worry about going gray for many many years.

Here is that corner again. I measure the side of the wall, one measures 14feet and the other measures 8feet. Im thinking of starting out with a triangle just filling in the corner and then go from there. Eventually I will doing a drive way, and I think that concrete will be going in for that, so maybe it can be edged with the stones that will be laid.

can you see the string i put up? tomorrow I will be going to lowes to get the actually supplies i need, also in the plans is to call Dig right and have them come out and mark the water lines so i can work carefully around them.

This last picture really is a bowl of cereal. I dont think I have had cereal at least 6 months. I go through phases when Ill eat cereal for the 3 meals of the day, and then I dont for a long time. I think it has a lot to do with the heat and not wanting to eat something heavy and warm.

The cereal tasted so good that I had to take a picture and share! So go get yourself a bowl and enjoy with me! yum!

This little light of mine...

This is the corner of the house that gets no sun light. And i wish that singing that song would make the grass grow in that corner, but it doesnt. So....

What options do I have? I was thinking a little stone patio corner. This is prevent it from just being a muddy corner.
But,,, there are some things to take into consideration.
1. That gas meter. (insert long pause here. had to stop and call the gas company because i remembered that dad has smelled a small leek near the gas meter. now 1.5 hours later, im getting back to this post.)
2. There are probably water lines under that section as well, since that back wall is the bathroom.
3. water drainage away from the house, there must be an incline away from the house's foundation to keep it from getting wet.

All in all, at some point I will do something. And like I said in the previous post, I want to try and do stuff with out dad. so why not just give it a go!