The Great Wall

The day we bought our home Hubs and I have been pondering great things for the backyard.  We are total backyard people .. love the outdoors and hanging outside.  The previous owner did a lot, a whole lot of flowers and flowering shrubs, edging, and trees.  What our yard lacks first and foremost is grass and a place to sit.  Unfortunately, we can't tackle our mud hole of moss until the last freeze, but what we can totally work on is a nice patio area. 

Hubs and I talked about a patio versus a deck since day one.  We settled on a patio so that our yard stays open and wide.  Over the past couple of weekends we have visited places to price pavers and have played with the design using Google Sketchup.  Just lask weekend, we settled on our design and purchased our first bit of pavers.. for the retaining wall.  We have this awkward slope on the one side of the house which also happens to be the best place for the patio.  We figured we needed to build a 1.5 to 2 foot high wall on the one side of the patio, wrap around our current planting bed, then swerve back to the porch door.  Yes, I know, it is hard to imagine.  I will upload our sketch-up design soon.

Anyways, with a pallet of Pavestone pavers back at the house, Hubs and I tackled the excavation, footer setting bed, and stacking pavers for the wall.

Excavating the Trench for our Retaining Wall

Adding a Pavestone Setting Bed for the First Row of Pavers

Building 'The Wall'



 Now, we should have finished backfilling our wall Sunday, which is made up of one part gravel and one part soil, especially since there was rain in the forecast for Tuesday.  But, we didn't have any gravel nor the time so decided to cover the retaining wall on Monday night for the rain on Tuesday. 

I must admit, although it make me cringe, our wall FELL over Wednesday due to water in the footers and probably the weight of the water in the poly cover.  BOO.  So this weekend we will hopefully be able to tilt the wall back up with little re-work. 

Life

I must admit, I am a easy-going high strung spontaneous planner... wtf? you may be asking.  Yeah, that's right, I contradict even myself.  I read a post today on Hello Happiness regarding life's struggles and joys.  It ended with this quote:

Which is oh so true but often difficult to remember.  Over the past year I have had this 'picture' of what my life should be like by the time I turn 30, which is just over a year away.  I am a goal-setter, so I thought it would be a great idea to set some 'life goals' before 30.  The problem is, that if you let yourself, those goals can overtake and consume your life.  I am not saying that I am going to throw caution to the wind and erase the goals I have set myself.  Goals are necessary - you take a proactive approach to making yourself the best you can be.  But, I have realized recently, goals are something you must balance with everyday life and they should not take away or overshadow great life moments.  I have realized I really need to do a better job of not constantly striving to achieve the next 'best thing' in life, and to just live in the moment - cherish the time I play 'chase' with Grouper in the backyard (yes, we really do that), the wine and movie nights with hubby, and the actual part of 'doing' a project instead of 'accomplishing' a project.  I also have realized I need to relax my life timeline and go with the flow more. 

I am not saying it will be easy, but I am definitely going to try.

Spiffy Rooster

You know those painting projects I have been thinking about - well, I made one of them a reality on Saturday.

Welcome the new spiffy rooster:

He is by no means 'complete'.  This is him after 1 coat of white semi-gloss paint.  He still needs a good sanding and another coat of paint.  I lost concentration thouh after Hubs came home from work on Saturday. 

And in case you forgot what he looked like (and p.s. he was d-i-r-t-y, I didn't realize how bad)

Things I'm Itching to Paint

I have been at odds with myself - in some cases, I desperately want to tear our place up with a paint brush, in other cases I just want to relax and enjoy my home as-is.  Ay carumba.

These are some of the things I have been eyeing and want to tackle with my paint brush:
1. Our Front Door - I like the blue, Hubs likes the red.  To get my way on other things I think I should give him his door.  We like the middle one, which I think is Red Velvet by Behr.

Our Front Door

 2.  Our Kitchen Cabinets - I despise our cabinets, and that hardware.  Yuck.  My parents and Hubs have been trying to convince me otherwise, but I am dying to paint these suckers.  I did a test of the BM Fieldstone color last weekend on the inside of our Pantry door.  The cabinet door wasn't prepped, the paint wasn't glossy, but I like it.  This is the same color that August Field's used.

Paint Kitchen Cabinets

3.  Our Rooster - this is really a simple project.  I love our Rooster, it is just a little beat up and need a nice coat of fresh paint.  I am thinking of just a solid glossy white.  Kinda like all those white ceramic animals you see everywhere. 

Hello Rooster!

It's supposed to be gloomy this weekend.  Hubs is planning on working Saturday.  Maybe I should peel myself away from some Bravo TV and tackle some of these items... maybe :)

Worrying About My Carbon Footprint

I have a confession to make - I am very interested in green and sustainable design and construction, but I feel like I personally (and my fam) haven't done our part to contribute.  With our new home purchase, we have definitely given some thought as to how we can reduce our carbon footprint.

Here is what we are thinking:
Outside

• Add a Garden - stock it full of all our favorite fruits and veggies and herbs.  Not only does this save us money, it helps the environment by reducing transportation costs and emissions (ours and the manufacturers) 
• Compost - another great option now that we have a yard.  It reduces the amount of trash we contribute to the landfill and gives us great nutrient rich soil

Inside

• Reduce our energy costs 
• replace our old furnace and AC unit with efficient ones
• seal any cracks in our home to reduct air leakage
• insulate, insulate - our attic and basement could use some help
• Add low flow fixtures - some faucet, toilet, and show head replacements could be in our future

Other

• Use reusable grocery / shopping bags - Done!  We got a couple of Giant reusable bags and love them.  Less bags to tote (they are sooo strong) and less plastic heading to the landfill (note: we used to use all our plastic bags .. as Grouper poop bags .. when we lived in the condo - so that was re-use right there.  But, now we have a pooper scooper and consolidate his waste)

Those are just a couple of thoughts for now.  Updates as they happen.  Let me know if you have any ideas on how we can live a better, greener life :)

Update 2/22/13 - I drove by the trashman this morning.  It is amazing how much trash people throw away every week!  I want to make it a priority that we reduce our trash production as much as possible!

Doing a Little Built-In Dance

I have been horrible about blogging ... horrible I say.  But, I have been doing great at making progress on our living room built-ins.

Here's a snapshot of where we are:

Before

In progress

Aaa, Nice

Where we are Now

Look at those beauties.  I painted all day 2 Saturday's ago.  We were so giddy we couldn't wait to bring them up .. so we installed them on Saturday night.  Woke up Sunday and but the books back on them.. look at all that STORAGE!

Storage Solution: Built-Ins

The first time we stepped into the open house of our home, I automatically thought that if we bought this place it would need built-ins around the fireplace.  Being built in 1951, it is bare on storage.  Yes, we have an unfinished basement, but I wanted places to store books and movies and pictures and clickers and all that stuff you use and never know where to put at the end of the day. 

Upon our return from Park City, UT from skiing, Hubs immediately decided to tackle the built-ins on MLK day.  He modeled it in Google Sketch-up first to minimize any waste.  It also gave us a chance to tweak the scale and size and determine construction sequencing.

Since most of our furniture is coming tomorrow, here is a peak at what we have been working on over the past 2 weeks.  Much more progress has been made over the past 2 weeks, I just haven't taken any pics.. oops.  I plan to 1) show how we made them and 2) get these babies painted and upstairs this weekend.

At Home Depot cutting the boards to size (saves time)

First bit of work

Weekend Arrivals!

We were supposed to only get our coffee table on Saturday, but a phone call from Ethan Allen yesterday revealed...

ALL 3 PIECES ARE COMING!  Yayyyyy!

Now if we could just get that chair!