House Work

When we got back from vacation we dove right into work on the new house.  We obviously still have a lot more unpacking and organizing to do, but we also had a long list of cleaning, repairs and improvements to do.  The yard was one of the first large projects that we tackled.  All of the flower beds needed a major cleaning out, weeding, massive pruning and the edges needed defined.  The grass started at about 2 feet tall and fall leaf piles left for dead spots in the grass.  On top of that all of the trees needed major trimming.  Thankfully I was able to borrow a pole saw from Julie and made quick work of the trees in an afternoon with my moms guidance.  A year later and we are still working on burning up the rest of the branches.  

With all those branches now needing to be disposed of, and two fire pits being left at the house, Dan started making lots of fires in the back yard.  The kids loved it and now that the yard was finally cleaned up Dan and I really enjoyed being out there too.  So I ended up hanging lots of swings and a hammock in the back yard so we could enjoy our time outside even more.

Then on the outside of the house I got busy with repainting the shudders.  I didn't like the white that they were painted a few years prior and I didn't want to go right back to the dark green that they were before that (even though the shudders on the back of the house are still dark green), so I ended up settling on a dark shade of red that has a bit of an eggplant shade to it.  Those darn shudders took 4 coats of paint and they were a huge pain in the arse to cover every nook and cranny on.  But after a couple of weeks they were finally done and hung back up.

We also decided to wrap our tacky pillars on the front porch with wood, but upon closer inspection, they were stictly decorative pillars and didn't provide any structural support, so we just tore down the old ones and replaced them with self created square wood pillars.  We still need to finish trimming out the pillars and paint them now that the treated lumber has dried for almost a year.

The Kitchen was another major project that was a little trickier to tackle.  We needed the cabinet over the stove cut down shorter so the microwave didn't hang down so far and we also needed a new cabinet door made for the largest upper cabinet in the kitchen.  I don't think that door ever exhisted.  I think years ago when the renovated the kitchen they turned two cabinets into one and didn't make a door to fit it, so they used it as decorative shelves in the kitchen, but with 4 kids, I need functional cabinets, not decorative.  We also replaced the white stove and microwave with stainless steel.  

Finally the kitchen sink was a huge point of contention between Dan and I.  He wanted it left as it was, but I hated every aspect of it.  The faucet sprayed too far forward so it got me wet whenever I used it.  The sink was a cream colored cast iron that always looked dirty and I wasn't able to get the stains out of and the garbage disposal was on the wrong side for me.  After many discussions and I believe my birthday gift, Dan finally agreed to let me fix it all with the one restriction of not going to a stainless steel sink.  Luckily for me they now make granite composite sinks that look amazing and do not show dirt ever!