Garage Door Decor

While Frank was traveling I decided to keep myself busy with a little DIY project.  Since we moved in, we both disliked the "door decor" on the garage doors.  The design is nice, but really doesn't go with the rest of the house.  The design sort of reminds me of an Egyptian palace, haha. So, here's what the door looked like before...

Garage door with decor - Before

Garage door without decor - After

All 3 doors after!

Now that the garage doors look better, the roof is drawing my eye more and more.  It's in good shape luckily, but the tree debris stains this light color.  When it's time for a new roof we'll be going with something darker to hopefully end that issue. 

As for the garage door decor, there's another DIY project checked off the list! We're thinking about painting these doors to coordinate with the rest of our updates, and then eventually replace them down the road.  More to come on that soon!

Windowwwwwwws!

The windows are here! AND they're now all installed!! The crew's been installing this week, and since it took me so long to get to writing this post they're now all installed.  We're so excited!  The delivery came at the very end of May.  Frank and I were very busy the last few weekends though, with my half marathon, and traveling up to NJ.  Here's a glance at what the delivery looked like when the windows arrived...

Truck Delivery for the windows and sliding/glass doors!

Stack-o-sliders

Stack-o-windows

Once they all arrived, we had to wait for the window sills to arrive.  Frank and I went with a limestone will, to compliment a few other limestone installations we already had in the house (fireplace, mantle, etc.).  Once those arrived, it was time to install. 

Day 1: The crew installed the two master bathroom windows, and the side breakfast nook/patio door.

Window in mater bathroom from inside.

Side of the house - window in master bathroom from the outside, minus trim at this point.

Exterior view of the new patio/breakfast nook door!

Day 2: The crew moved on to installing the kid's bedroom windows, the breakfast nook back window, and the big front living room window -- that one was a beast!

Kid's bedroom - interior view of windows.

Exterior (front of house) view with two kid's bedroom windows in (far left and middle) and master bathroom window at the far right installed, minus trim.

Breakfast nook area - interior view of patio door and window.

Exterior view - living room "beast" window.

 Day 3: The crew opened up the new window between the kitchen and dining room, installed that new window and installed the dining room window and master bedroom window.

Back of house exterior - you can see where the new window opening is starting to take shape.

Here is the new window all opened up, and the dining room window in the back with the crew.

Interior view from the kitchen - breakfast nook window on the left and new window at the right of this photo.

Interior view from the dining room - new window on the left and dining room window on the right.

Interior view from the breakfast nook - all three windows (new on in the middle).

Day 4: The mancave window went in, as well as the mudroom sliding glass door, and the master bedroom sliding glass door! That's it for getting the windows in place!!

I came home to this! Standing in the breezeway, looking at new slider into mudroom.

Interior view standing in kitchen/living room - mudroom slider and breakfast nook patio door.

Exterior view - master bedroom slider.

View from the back of the house (prior to mancave window install).

So there you have it!  The windows and glass doors are in!  The interior doors arrived this week, along with a few other fixtures.  Things are really moving along here.  Next up, trimming all the windows and moving on to more of the finishing -- installing hardwoods, touch-ups and painting, etc.  Things are looking good for our July finish!

Patio Power Washing

A while back Frank bought a power washer on craigslist.  It needed a part when we bought it, so I picked on him for weeks about how it was junk.  He did a superb job and fixed it up to working order - I'm such a proud wife!  I finally took it for a test spin last weekend on the back patio area, and boy did it work well!  Between the backpack leaf blower and the power washer, it's hard to say which yard tool is my favorite!

Here are a few pictures to show you the before vs. after look of the patio.  The dark is the pre-washed area.

Overall it didn't take too much time to finish at all.  I think the patio looks much better now, and I'm excited to take on the next project with the power washer soon!



Our Plants are on the Move!

It feels like since the day we moved in we've been cleaning out the yard!  There was way too much overgrown greenery right on top of the house.  Frank and I have been working hard and seeing some big progress.  This past weekend, we even had some hired help come over to help us relocate two beautiful rhododendron trees/bushes we had right out in front of our house. 

The one tree was quite large. The job was one we definitely couldn't do by ourselves.  The second seemed smaller, but one the guys got digging it looked bigger than we thought.  Before we moved anything, we needed to figure out where we wanted them moved to.  We really wanted to put them right at the front of our driveway, but unfortunately there wasn't enough sun there. These plans need lots of sun, which can be somewhat hard to come by in many parts of our yard due to the surrounding larger trees. 

We decided that the side yard would be best.  You can see them from the front as you drive up, the back and the side. Plus, they'll be right outside of our master bedroom and bathroom, so we'll have the view there as well.  Once we decide on the spot, it was time to get to work. 

Here's a few reminder pictures of where the trees were before...

You can see the larger tree on the left of this photo by the hose - only about a foot from the house.  the second is in the top right of the photo, in front of the second bedroom on the first floor. Again, right up against the house.

Below is a picture of the larger of the two trees right when we moved in.  They're just beautiful when they flower, so we really wanted to try and keep them if possible. Although, you can barely see half of the tree with the jungle in full effect around it!

Here's a quick picture of where we were going to move the rhododendrons.  There was a tree there as you can see, but we took that out.  It was a crab apple tree and made a big mess.  It was also a terror on Frank's allergies. 

We hired four guys to come and help us make the move.  There was lots of digging, until we got the base of the trees into tree balls like this:

Next they wrapped it up in burlap, but I was busy doing other things in the yard and forgot to snap a picture.  It took the four guys, plus one more we called for backup, plus Frank to get this thing moved!  It was much bigger than anyone though and super heavy!  Frank's tractor was a big help... here's a picture of him on his favorite toy (moving compost for the tree transplant).

And here's a few pictures after the trees were out of their holes...

(where the big tree was)

(where the small tree was)

(side yard where the crab apple tree was)

All in all, it took many hours, lots of man power and one Kubota to move the trees.  But they look GREAT!! And I'm so happy with the results.  Now we just need to nurse them and keep our fingers crossed that they live.  Here they are!

More Yard Cleanup!

Frank, Tyson and I were all busy this past weekend out in the yard!  We did some more cleanup.  First, Tyson and I tackled some BIG weeds growing by our walkway and front garden area.  Here are some before and after pictures of our handy work...

 The photos on the left are "before" and the ones on the right are "after."

The other thing we took care of was bundling up branches and small logs from the tree that fell during that big storm we had a few weeks back. Each Wednesday they'll take up to 10 bundles.  Here's our lot for this week...

  

We have a few more weeks worth of branches and bush limbs to go, but we're making progress! 

While we were out in the yard working, Tyson was busy having a ball rolling around the ground - probably in something stinky!  Between his fun rolling around and the mud/dirt he was definitely in for a bath after we went in that day.

 

This weekend I also had some time to re-pot my herb plants and my peace plant for the breezeway.  Here's how those turned out...

Tyson helped with those too, of course. All in all it was a very productive weekend in the yard.  We got lots done and all felt very accomplished!  More updates to come soon...

- Jess

De-bushing the Front Yard

As you've seen before in our Yard Tour, the front of our house was extremely over grown when we moved in.  There were a ton of huge bushes with no shape to them.  We also had lots of azalea bushes, that the deer like to eat.  The problem there is that the deer would trample everything in their path to get to those azaleas (like my peonies!). 

So, this past weekend Frank and crew decided to clear out the front a bit... or maybe I should say ALOT!  It looks so much more open, and you can actually see the house now!  We're already envisioning all the possibilities for a new porch and some more manageable landscaping. 

Here's a reminder of what things looked like before when we moved in:

And here's what it looks like now!!

The bushes you see left will all be transplanted this fall.  We spoke to a landscaper who takes care of our neighbor's yard, and he recommended waiting until the fall to move them.  We'll relocate them to the side yard tree line, so they can grow as big as they'd like.  They'll also help add some privacy in the more sparse tree line on the one side.

Once we have all the bushes moved, we'll start re-landscaping with new plants, rock, etc.  We're also looking to change our curb appeal - or lack there of.  The white shutters on tan brick are just not doing it for us.  That will be getting an update as well down the line...

More to come soon!