We're Baaa-aaaack!

I finally unpacked the desk stuff today, to include the cord to the camera. Which means we can post a couple of house pictures. Hooray!

We've been constantly working on the house since we moved in a few weeks ago, and we're still not even close to being done. I'll post a few before and after pictures so you can get an idea of what we're talking about here.

Let's start with the exterior, shall we? When we moved in, the outside of the house was in awesome shape as far as the roof, stucco, and anything costly was concerned. But the front yard was full of dead weeds, random big rocks that didn't really belong, and two half-dead agaves. It had zero curb appeal.


Now that I'm done with it (for now) the agaves have been cut back, the trim was painted, the weeds are no more, and I planted a couple small plants that will grow pretty and add color in the next couple years. I planted a Russian Sage which has purple flowers, and a Spanish Broom which blooms yellow flowers. Here's the result of my labor:


I'm still not so sure about the green. It may be a little too green. It was easy to paint, so I'm still considering changing it. What do you think?

Moving on to the kitchen. When we moved in , it was what I like to refer to as "baby poop orange". All of it. To include the cabinets and the small tiles on the back splash that used to be white.


At first I thought it would be really cool to paint it dark blue. I wanted to do the tiles in either all different shades of blue, or different shades of green with a little turquoise thrown in. Once I painted the kitchen dark blue I realized what a mistake I had made. It looked like a garage!


I really hated it. Pete thought I was crazy, but the next day I re-painted it. When we lived in Flagstaff, our kitchen was lime green and I loved it. I decided to stick with a classic, and I went with the lime green. I still haven't painted the individual tiles yet. Also, we're going to change out the sweet 70's counter tops, but the ones I want will cost about $1,500. We're gonna have to wait on that for a few months. The tile, and the tile in the nearby dining room are getting changed out as well. Here's how it turned out so far.


I don't know why, but I didn't take any "before" pictures of the living room. Therefore, I will describe what it looked like. Tan walls, dirty fireplace, and my favorite, concrete. It was just plain concrete in the living room, but it was orange down the hall. What is with these people with the baby poop orange I will never know. Anyhoo, we decided that we really liked the wood at our old house and that we'd love to kill ourselves laying 500 square feet of wood, so that's what we did. It was really hard work, and our friends Kyle and Megan came in and saved us at the last minute by helping us out. They were like angels of mercy swooping down from the heavens in work clothes ready to assist in any way they could. They literally shaved at least 5 hours of work off the job. I love them! Our hard work paid off, and our floors look really great! I also slapped a coat of paint on the walls.










We still have to lay down tile in the dining room, so we're waiting to do that before we tackle the molding that goes along the floor. We figure we'll do it all at once.

The carpet comes in on Thursday for the three bedrooms. I can't wait! I hate waking up and putting my feet on the cold, orange concrete. I am dreaming of Friday when I awake to some lovely, soft carpet to greet my tootsies! Yay!

Incidentally, on the day that I was outside doing all the yard work and painting the house, I completely slathered myself in sunscreen. I burn really easy and my freckles get darker (yucky) if I'm out in the sun too much. However, there was one place that I didn't think to put sunscreen that got toasted! That's right...the coin slot.


And on that note, we cue the moment of Zen.....