Front Yard Fresh Up

Glenn is a little obsessed with the lawn.  Religiously he weeds, seeds, and fertilizes on a prescribed schedule that our local hardware store recommended to him.  But the bushes tend to get neglected since I've never paid much attention to them and Glenn's more focused on getting our lawn to look like a green carpet.

Our house came pre-landscaped and like many lessons learned, we should have paid more attention to the spacing and placement of the newly planted landscape but of course we didn't.  They've had seven years to fully take root and spread and one plant looks like a creature coming out from the black lagoon with arms and legs.



Glenn planned a full day of trimming the bushes, mulching, and seeding the lawn - the key word here is planned.  He got about half way done with trimming with the electric hedge trimmer and then cut himself pretty darn deep.  Luckily his digits were still attached but he was forced to take a break from yard work and go to the emergency room. 

However, being as obsessed about the yard that he is, Glenn didn't let a near dismemberment stop him.  He finished up the trimming and mulching when he got back from the ER.

Here's his finished product. 



The front yard looks so much better!  And more importantly - the Scary Swamp Thing doesn't look so scary anymore - sounds like a line from a kids story!

Friends:  Any thoughts, or ideas?  Please don't by shy and feel free to leave comments!

Container Gardening

I'm a horrible procrastinator.  We bought two of these large planters last year but never got around to actually putting anything into them.  This year we made some progress and actually filled the planters with gravel and top soil.  They've been sitting in this state for the past two weeks.



Rather than wait another year to actually put plants in the planters, blogging about our home improvement projects has really motivated us to finish these half completed projects.  Combined with a great sale on petunias at Lowe's ($0.50 for a six pack), we had the motivation to finish this simple project :-)

The only drawback was that the plants didn't have many flowers blooming but were otherwise healthy and at $0.50 a pack, we weren't going to be too picky.  On our way out we also saw the sign that Lowe's guarantees their plants for a year and since they're annuals, that's pretty much a lifetime warranty!

After an afternoon of playing with the dirt and flowers (with a short interruption when we thought Glenn cut his finger off with the hedge trimmer), we had these two pretty planters to adorn our front door.  Hopefully with some sunshine and a little water we'll see more magenta in the coming weeks.  If not, we're digging them back up and returning them to Lowe's ;-)

I ♥ Etsy

Ever since we purchased our first print from Etsy in 2009, we've been fans of the site.  We love the off beat funky nature of the work.  Our first purchase was a funky print from yellowlion called Folk Sea that I actually saw in Ready Made magazine.  At $35 ($30 + $5 shipping) it was a cool and inexpensive way to decorate.

Our home has been sorely needing some wall decor so we naturally turned to etsy for some more cool affordable art.  We scored these prints for the kids' bedrooms and bathroom from GreenNest.

And we got these from beethings who has so many amazing pieces - I had a hard time choosing just four.

The barn owl is my favorite of the lot - I'm saving it for my office once the basement is done.

This post may seem like we're advertising for Etsy or it's sellers - but we're not!  As the designated online shopper of the house, I just really love the site and am happy to get the word out to anyone who will listen :-)  Etsy (or the sellers) didn't pay or perk us for this post!

The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe Door Knocker

We found this really cool door knocker at an antique store on our honeymoon in Spain years ago. Being the procrastinator that I am, we never got around to installing it and then we moved. So in a way, it's a good thing I procrastinated so we got to take the door knocker with us. Luckily DH is pretty organized so he was able to find it in a jiffy when I finally got motivated to install it.

You can see it still has the price tag on it. Back then the exchange rate was something like 1.33 euros = $1 so it cost us about $15.  If we were to buy it today with the exchange rate, it would be around $30!  

This blog is really helping us (really me) get motivated to finish up these lingering projects.  I have lots of ideas but am lacking in the follow through so anything that helps get me over the hump is a good thing. Now all need to do it get the proper drill bit to drill into the door.  At the rate that I move, I'll probably get to it next year :-)

All you need is a good plumber

We have a good plumber. A plumber who we trust, is very competent and reasonably priced. As a bonus he's a huge Giants fan too (makes DH happy). Unlike the electrician where we got three quotes and interviewed them, we committed to our trusty plumber's quote right away. We set a date and he starts the work.

Everything is moving along nicely when our trusty plumber points out that the toilet flange is a little far from the wall so either we have to special order a 14" rough in toilet or move the flange to make up for a 2" gap. We have some time to think about it which launches me into some late night searches for 14" rough in toilets. We decide that it might be a good idea to check out all the other toilets in the house and find that our other full bath upstairs also has a 2" gap from the back of the toilet to the wall. We've lived in our home for seven years and it's never bothered us so we decide to bag both ideas and go with a regular 12" rough in toilet.

Trusty plumber comes back to do the work and has another discovery (uh oh). Remember how the builder had to reconfigure the bathroom rough ins? Well, during our home inspection, we should have lifted the toilet flange cover because it turns out our builder took a short cut and installed an offset flange which isn't to code in our county. We had no idea what an offset flange was so I quickly googled it. Because the flange is offset, the toilet outflow can be impeded leading to clogs (yuck!). They're also apparently not to code in most places so it's interesting that they still make these. If the builder hadn't used an offset flange, then the toilet would be 4" from the wall which is a lot more obvious than 2".

So we're back to two options - we can either hope that the inspector doesn't notice our offset flange since the flange has a little plastic cover on it (and he didn't notice it the first time around even with the metal ring around it) or fix it for $200 more which involves breaking up the concrete again! We like to do things above board and proper to save headaches down the road and after visions of a backed up toilet zoomed through my head, we decide it's worth the $200 to fix it properly.

So the concrete floor gets broken up for a second time to move the toilet flange. One benefit of doing this is that we now correct the location once and for all so that we won't have a 2" gap. Our trusty plumber re-pours the concrete (see the wet concrete around the flange?) and the problem is solved! Yeah!







 

Details, details, details

The basement came with the bathroom roughed in. This was great and saved us a lot of money but in hindsight, we should have paid a lot more attention to the placement of the rough ins. When we did our home inspection prior to closing, our inspector pointed out that the location of the toilet flange was way off from the tub and sink so the builder moved the toilet flange on his dime which included breaking up the concrete floor.

Fast forward seven years later when we actually start doing the detailed measurements to finish the bathroom...Turns out that the bathroom is a little on the small side and while not preferable, is certainly livable since we have room for a full tub. Uncle Steve frames out the bathroom nicely.

Another nice thing about having Uncle Steve do the framing is that he lives with us during the work. So every night when we ate dinner together, we could talk about how the project was going and things we needed to be aware of. For example, because the bathroom is on the smallish size, the max vanity size would be 30" wide. We didn't want to have everything feel tight and cramped so we decide on a pedestal sink and also the matching toilet from the Kohler Memoirs collection. I will update this post with our sources shortly since I've seen a few other blogs do that too and it's a great idea!

We decided on a porcelain coated bathtub because it's more white in color than the fiberglass models and it also seems more sturdy. DH and I debate about the type of fixtures for the shower and sink. He wants brushed nickel and I want polished chrome. I realize that we should probably never build our own home from scratch because it takes us forever to agree on details like this. I eventually come around to the brushed nickel and we pick the fixtures.

With the fixtures purchased, all we need now is a good plumber!

Adventures in Home Improvement

So my initial blogging endeavor didn't get enough momentum going but I'm still an avid lover of blogs and lately I've been loving Young House Love. They've inspired me to start blogging again and to get me motivated to finally fix up our house after living here for so many years! Really DIY home improvement is crafting on steroids. I've spent so much money on craft supplies, I realize I need to improve my rate of return on my investment so I'm channeling my energies toward fixing up our home.

We have one huge project going on and that's finishing our basement. Unfortunately I don't have any pictures of the totally unfinished product but here's after all the framing is done. My husband's super handy Uncle Steve, did the framing for us and we are pleased with the results. Uncle Steve did a great job framing out the basement and working around all the little imperfections of our house.





Now that we've embarked on this project, we realized a few benefits of having the builder finish the basement:

1) Cost: If we had the builder finish the basement when we initial were designing the house the cost would have been rolled up into our mortgage. As it is now, we are having to pay large sums of money to get the framing, plumbing, electrical, etc... It really adds up even with us acting as our own general contractor.

2) Schedule: The builder would have done it faster and we would have had use of the space for the last, oh 10+ years!

3) Resources: A very large chunk of my time is spent on this project. From scheduling the various trades people and making arrangements to work from home, to researching bathroom fixtures that are affordable but that both DH and I like.

However, there are definitely some nice benefits to doing the basement on our own:

1) I get an awesome home office: we're planning large french doors on my huge den/home office/study to be. In addition to pretty doors, I'm going to have two nice sized walk in closets again with double doors. I'm a pack rat (as my husband can attest to) and so these nice size closets are a must for me.

2) Bathroom we will love: Yes, I'm spending entire Friday and Saturday nights studying up on different types of toilets (elongated or round? 12" rough in vs 14"? left or right handed trip lever?). Sometimes just having two choices is a good thing. With some patience, we finally did decided on a toilet, tub and sink that I'm excited about and my husband is happy with. Something must be wrong with me for being excited about the toilet :-).

This space is going to be awesome! I can't wait for it to be finished!