My New & Improved Yard!!!

I love a well-maintained home.  I don't need to have anything fancy or something so elaborate, but when we do things to maintain our home it just gives me the warm and fuzzies.

While we were in Florida we had two major projects done at our house...we had a new driveway and walkway put in and we had someone come and Spring Clean our yard.

We have had plans for over a year to have our driveway redone because it was broken and had started to sink a little lot.  We had to gun it to get into the garage because of the bump that was created from the driveway sinking.  We also needed to have our walkway redone because it had also sunk.  Luckily, Rondell's uncle does this type of work and he was able to do it for a reasonable fee :)

Another thing we pondered this year was to have someone come to our house and Spring Clean our yard...rake really well, edge the beds, and clean up the weeds.  I just happened to mention this to my neighbor Lyndall who then told me that she does just that!  She agreed to work on our yard while we were gone...what a blessing.

I have talked about what my yard used to look like here.  Over the years we have tried to keep up with the yard and we have done a descent job, but we were ready to take it up a notch...and take it up a notch she did!!!  Just look:

 She edged...she mowed...she weeded...she mulched...we love her!  Here you can also see the new walkway and part of the driveway.  

Here's a before shot.  You can see the how the walkway is lower than it should be and that caused people to have to take an extra big step to get up onto our porch.  You can kind of see the driveway and how cracked it was...we were always afraid that someone was going to fall (I actually did a few times).

 Another shot of her edging and mulching work.  You can also see where our driveway now properly meets the garage...no more bumps before pulling in (which we are still kind of trying to get used to).  Also, the bare flower bed used to be the home of a HUGE hosta that Lyndall divided and put in the back (you'll see that in a sec!)

 Look at that beautiful smooth driveway!  Disregard that it's time to mow :) 

She made a much more defined space around our mailbox post...something my mom was going to do this year.

More great edging!  This area is on the corner of the house.

 I once did a post here about how the side of our house was overgrown with weeds and bushes.

 Now it looks like this.  Lyndall cut down a ton of bushes that we had growing on the side of the house.  It looks SO much better now and it's a little lighter in the basement because there aren't any bushes blocking the windows.

 She had to put down some grass seed in front of this bed because the grass was dead due to the overgrown bushes.

 She edged behind our deck and cleaned up my decorative grass (I'm not sure the proper name...brown thumb!)

 She did an amazing job behind our garage.  It was covered in weeds and just needed some edging and TLC.  She turned over the soil, edged and mulched...and this is where she put the divided hosta the used to be in the front.

This part made me gasp and almost brought a tear.  She landscaped this area that simply looked pitiful before.  Now it has definition and looks absolutely gorgeous!

So there you have it...my new and improved yard that I'm just in love with.  It is so refreshing to have some things checked off of the To Do list.

I am grateful for Lyndall and Uncle Larry for all of their hard work!

Now I just have to decide what flowers to buy :)

IKEA or Bust!

My trip to IKEA over the weekend was a ton of fun.  There were six of us altogether (we missed you Katie!), so I feel like it was a good turn out.  I didn't end up getting a group picture like I would have wanted to, so you will have to picture me with some of my friends.

This place is amazing.  If you have not been and you have one within driving distance you must go.  This was technically my second visit to IKEA...my first being when I was a sophomore in college and went to visit my family in CA.  But, that did not prepare me for this trip...it was truly overwhelming...a good overwhelming, but overwhelming nonetheless.

Just look:

We stayed together at some points and went our separate ways at some points.  There was so much to look at and so many great deals.  I did not end up buying a ton of items like I thought I would because I spent a lot of time just taking it all in :)

Here's a glimpse at my goodies:

 I ended up with some cups for the kids, a travel bad for Ron, a microwave plate cover (you know, so the food does not splatter), some food containers, and...

 I was excited to see these beauties.  I have seen them all over blog land and they were top on my list.

Don't you think they fit right in at my house?  I will use one for a plant for my kitchen, but I am not sure what I will do with the other two yet.

I also got this cutie...just cuz:

Lastly, I picked up these cute jars (for only $1.99 for all 4!).  Now I have a cute place to put the accessories for my cards.  I will eventually find a home for them on my craft shelf (which I really need to clean up).

Overall the trip was great...good times with friends, cheap household goods and a cinnamon roll for $1 :)

And there are already talks of returning...

Spring To Do!

Spring is finally here and with that comes the idea of Spring cleaning.  I know that some people are already in this process and others I've seen are participating in the 40 bags in 40 days.

While it's technically Spring, it's raining here and we might even get some snow towards the end of the week.  This sounds like a perfect time to take advantage of not quite being able to go outside.  So from now until the end of April I will be bustin a move to get my Spring Cleaning To Do list done.  I'm using sites like A bowl full of lemons, House of Grace, and IHeart Organizing to help prioritize and organize my plans.

Here's what I'd like to get done (I'm sure I'll find other things along the way too):

Deep clean kitchen - washing walls, cleaning out fridge and microwave stand, pulling out items from cabinets and organizing and discarding any old food, cleaning cabinets, hang paint samples to figure out the color I want to paint the walls this summer, etc.

Organize each closet

Deep clean master bedroom - clean out closet & donate clothes, deep clean bathroom & hang pictures, remove all papers from room to start our paper filing system, vacuum & flip our mattress, dust ceiling fan, clean blinds and windows, etc.

Clean Caleb's room - vacuum and flip mattress, clean out unused books and toys, move out train table, wash valance, etc.

Change all light bulbs

Figure out how to re-caulk bathroom sinks in 1/2 bath and kids' bath.

Vacuum stairs and all baseboards

Add sections to my Household binder

Organize and implement a filing system for all of our bills and papers.

Complete Destin To Do list :)

Scrapbook Christmas card pictures.

Do you have any big Spring Cleaning plans?

I Did It...I Did It

I froze a meal!  One of my goals is to cook more often and find a balance regarding working and caring for my home.  I thought I'd try freezing meals so that when there are times that I don't have time to cook a wholesome meal I'll have some on hand.

Last night I made lasagna...x2.  I used the ingredients for an entire pan but split it into two containers.  I assembled the lasagnas but just did not cook them...just covered them with aluminum foil.  I will just put one in the oven tonight when I get home from work (it's waiting for me in the fridge) and I froze the other one.

I am so excited about this and can't wait to see how it all turns out.  I think next I'll try this when I make potato soup this weekend.

Do you freeze your meals?

Spring Cleaning Motivation

Good morning! Today is going to be a sunny day (and I hope it's going to be sunny where you are too!).

I found this blog (here) yesterday and I had to share it with you. It is jammed packed with great tips, just in time for Spring Cleaning.

So, check it out...and then let's get cleaning!

Front Door Reveal

It's done, it's done...and I can't be happier with the results. It didn't take long to tear down the curtain, paint the door and then add the film.

Here's the door before:

Terrible. The bottom of the curtain room was broken, leaving the curtain hanging. Then the curtain itself was just dingy where even a wash wouldn't help. The door was also painted a peachy color (in flat paint, which isn't good when you have kids).

See the curtain hanging...real fancy, right?

Here's the top of the rod and how it was supposed to be attached at the bottom.

Here's the door after:

Not the best picture because the lighting is funky, but here she is! We (and by we, I mean Rondell) painted the door and then added the film...that's it. I think removing the curtain also allows more light to come in.

Here's what the film looks like on the windows. It was pretty easy to install. For about 2 days we had no curtain and no film and you could see right into our house, but now we have a little privacy. I'm very happy with the way it turned out.

We (there I go with that we again) painted the door a different color than our walls because I wanted it to pop a little. The door is more of a "coffee with cream" color (and this is where I should be able to say it's ... from Behr, but I forgot to grab the name of it. When I do I'll update the post).

So, there you have it...sprucing up the front door and giving my home a little TLC. Next up, the stove...pulling it out, praying nothing is living under there and cleaning under and behind it. We also need to clean the filter for the vent and find a good cleaner for the stove top.

How are you showing your home love today?

Love Your Home, Again

Rondell and I currently live in our first home. Of course when we started looking for a house we had a list of the things we were looking for, like a basement (not necessary finished), 3 bedrooms, and of course a kitchen window.

We looked at about 15 houses before we found our current home, and it was love at first sight. As soon as we pulled up I knew I was going to love it...it had a two car garage, 2 1/2 baths (that was a plus), the yard was well manicured, and the backyard was huge and gorgeous. I remember sitting in the living room at our first showing and telling my Realtor to make it happen (not like in a super bossy way but in a "I really want this house" way).

When we had our home inspection our house passed with flying colors...it was obvious that the home was well taken care of and maintained well.

...and then we moved in! Rondell and I are not handy and honestly don't have a lot of knowledge on how to keep up a home. So, after almost four years we're ready to get serious because we love our house and we need to show it that we do. We've started making a list of all of the things that need to be done or that we would like to do to give our house a little TLC.

Over the weekend we rehung a few pictures. I know this sounds so small but one picture was behind the closet door and every time you would open the door it would knock the picture and make it crooked (one of my pet peeves!). Finally I took it down and moved it over just a bit (how simple was that!). This time we hung it just on a nail because before when it was hanging on a picture hanger you could see 1/2 the hanger (not cute), as well as another picture that had the same issue. But just those small changes got us motivated.

One of the first things we are going to do is change the front door a bit. Right now we have two long way rectangle windows in our front door. On the inside of the door there is a curtain that covers the windows...nice for privacy but the curtain AND the curtain rods have seen better days. We're going to do something like this:

There is film you can buy to cover the windows to make them frosty for privacy. This way we can take down the tired curtain and still have privacy. Then we'll repaint the inside of the door. Small, yet something that will make a nice difference.

The next thing we're going to do is change the flag pole bracket or just take ours down and repaint it. Right now ours has rusted nails and the rust has bled onto the bracket. Soon it will look like this (all white with no rust):

Another rather advanced (for us) plan is to change out the lighting in our kitchen. Right now we have two ceilings lights like this:

Not cute! I want something like this over my sink:


And something like this for the other fixture:

I really hope that it's not too hard...we'll see!

We're also going to paint our kitchen walls and cabinets. I saw a good tutorial here about repainting the kitchen cabinets. We painted the wall Fun Yellow by Sherwin Williams and man is it yellow. I love yellow and have always wanted a yellow kitchen but it needs to be a softer yellow. The cabinets are already a creamy white and we'll keep them that way, but they are chipped and just need a little TLC.

So, there are just a few things we want to do in the next few weeks (believe me, the list is much longer than this. With that, over the next few weeks I'll be showing you our process of falling in love with our home, again.

Are you in love with your home?