Summer Project: Getting Grass

Once summer comes, we have a list of projects that we start working on.  It is a little sad because I have actually started dreading summer a little because we are so busy...TOO busy!  I am hoping that since we have a few of the major ones completed finally that next summer things will start to slow down.  I have always had the mantra, "Reprioritize and Simplify," so that our life doesn't get so busy but it seems like the the last couple of years it doesn't matter what we do, we can't seem to slow down.  I am open to suggestions. :) 

This summer, I knew we would be finishing the backyard.  My husband, being who he is, means there is  A LOT of planning that goes into everything we do.  I have a LOVE/HATE relationship with that.  Everything we do seems to take twice as long as what it takes everyone else because he is so meticulous.  But I have come to realize that in the long run it does save us time, money and heartache. 

So, just like all of our other projects, planning the backyard took us several weeks.  We looked at things from every angel and what future situations/problems could arise so that we don't want to end up changing something again or wishing we would have done it differently.  We probably (NO! we DO) think about things too much but it IS what we do. :)

This is the home of our future raised garden beds...already plumbed for watering.  SEE...what good planners we are. ;)

We have this wall in our yard and because I am so short it is a pain to just walk up.  So Chris built me these cute little stairs.  YAY!  They are my favorite now.  Also, we cleaned up our window-wells.  I don't have pictures but we painted the inside and put cute little rocks in them so that the kids don't feel like they are in a gross dungeon when they look out the windows of the basement.

The first year we bought plants for the yard, they all died.  I decided that I cannot rely on myself to water them so once we got the drip system in we attempted planting a few more.  Now that they have survived a year, we figured we could go ahead and buy a few more.  We bought this tree, 2 smaller bushes, 1 large tree-bush thingy, 4 peonies bushes and a couple more lilies.  Cross our fingers they last (and are low maintenance).

Asher thinks he is going on 13 instead of 3 and wants to do everything anyone else does. He jumps right into helping whenever he can.  I am not complaining. :)

I am kinda brain-dead so I never got pictures of the whole lawn done.  My camera doesn't work so the only one we have right now is on Chris's iphone and he never around when I remember that I need to take pictures so you will have to use your imagination. :)

Summer Project: Remodeling Office

My office is the catch-all for everything in the house.  Kids school work, homework, books, scouts, bills, computer stuff, work stuff, craft stuff etc., etc., etc.  If I don't know where to put it - it goes in the office.  If I am working on it - it goes in the office.  We had two desks, a large folding table, a book shelf and two filing cabinets but it still seemed like we had no space.  Both desks and the table were always covered in stuff.  If I cleaned it all up, by that night it seemed like it was in chaos again.  It was just always a mess!  Sooo...I started planning.  We are really good at planning.  :)  I thought that if I just had bigger file cabinets that were right next to me than that would help me out a lot.  Than it developed into a built in desk that would go around the entire room so there was more space for the kids to do homework.  But if you have lower cabinets than you have to have upper cabinets, right? Right! So, we have been working on these plans for about a year.  Chris drew them up in auto-cad.  I figured we still had another year before we were going to actually make them become a reality but...not so much!  This looked like the year to make it happen so, happen it did.   

We sent the plans to his brother, Robert who was going to help him build them.  Once he got a hold of them, things evolved again.  It took them over two weeks of working on them from the time they got home from their day jobs until sometimes midnight or later and on Saturdays to build them.  Sometimes, I wanted to pull my hair out because my house was a mess from the construction, I never saw my husband and the cost kept going up and up and up.  I told Chris it felt like we were spending money like water.   A month later we are still trying to play catch up.  But in the end, I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE how they turned out.


Here they are building the lower drawers.

This is the lower section finished.  There are a total of four desks.

We really wanted to hire a counter top person to come and install the counter tops but they were at least a week out and we wanted them done by the next day (I told you this was a spur of the moment project)  so we saved money by doing them ourselves.  Yay for saving money!

Luckily, we have a cabinet builder in the family who let us use his cabinet building shop.  We are so grateful for his help because it would have been sooo much harder without it. They built all the upper cabinets there.  There were a total of 8 large upper cabinets built.

 We tore out the carpet in this room and put it downstairs in the boys new room (yes, another project...with pictures to come).

We put in this beautiful new floor which I love. 

We also took out the clothing rods and put in two more shelves on the left side of the closet for even more storage space.  

This is the finished East wall.  

 This is the finished South wall.  My favorite part of the room are the filing cabinet drawers in the middle.  We splurged and bought expensive drawer glides but it was worth it because they hold lots of weight and are sooo smooth!  I love having the filing cabinets right next to me. 

Here is the finished West side.  

Another view of the room.