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A Looooong (and Productive!) Weekend....

We were busy busy busy over Memorial Day weekend....

Saturday morning we had the husband of one of the women who makes Paul's coffee for him every morning (hello Honey Dew coffee shop girls!) stop by to check out our house- he's a house painter by trade and our house needs to be painted.  I think we've decided to hire him which I'm excited about- the other option was painting the house ourselves which would have taken us all summer.  He's going to start this Thursday I think and is estimating that it will take about a week!

Saturday afternoon was a little rainy so we spent a few hours while LP napped working on painting the family room in the basement.  The difference a clean coat of paint made down there is amazing!  Will have to take some pictures!

After LP woke up we headed over to Lowes to look for a washer and dryer- ours work but they came with the house and are at least 25 years old and very inefficient and all of the Memorial Day sales were too enticing to resist.

On Sunday the weather was gorgeous and we spent a lot of the day outside- We've been clearing out under some pine trees in our backyard so I worked on that.

Here's what they looked like before, they hadn't been trimmed in decades and there was all sorts of junk (old toys, potato chip bags, etc.) underneath. 

2008 03 29 054 by you.

Here's how it looks now- Paul took the chainsaw to the trees and lopped off all the lower branches.  I raked all the junk out from under them and we planted some columbines underneath for ground cover.  So much better! 

5-25-2009 5-11-36 PM28 by you.

Our next step for this area is to finish up the planter box we're
building there and then to grow some sort of climbing plants to cover
up the chain link fence as this portion of the fence won't be replaced when we eventually move/replace the fence.

Funny story- while I was planting the columbines LP was in his activity center in a shady spot nearby.  Our nextdoor neighbor came over to tell me how great it was looking.  She talked to me for several minutes before she realized LP was there.  Then she says "oh my goodness!  is this YOUR baby???".   I told her he certainly is ours and is 6 months old and then she said she was such a horrible neighbor for not even knowing we had a baby.... Too funny...

While I finished up in the back Paul moved to the front of the house.  The previous owners left a lot of random materials around the yard- granite slabs, railroad ties, piles of bricks, pieces of slate, etc. that we've been trying to use in our landscaping efforts.  So Paul ripped up the slate path that had previously led to the pool that we had taken out and re-used the slate along with the bricks and some other materials to start work on a path to the front door.  We still have to fill it in with crushed stone and eventually we're planning to paint the brick, the pad and the stairs to match the house but it's already made a huge difference in how the front of the house looks (although there's not usually a dachshund grazing in front of our house):

5-25-2009 5-12-38 PM33 by you.

5-25-2009 5-12-28 PM32 by you.

5-25-2009 5-12-28 PM32 by you.

That patch of grass on the right will be ripped out and we're going to do some planting there as well as in the area between the shrub and the rocks.

Monday we worked on the yard some more and then headed to Home Depot to check out their washer/dryer prices.  After looking around there for a bit we headed back to Lowes where we made a big purchase:



Hellloooooo beautiful blue washer and dryer!  How I wish I didn't have to put you in our dusty cobwebby basement!  They're being delivered tomorrow!

We also spent some time this weekend eating, of course- Paul's parents came over for grilled chicken and corn on the cob last night and LP chowed down all weekend which is his favorite activity:

5-22-2009 5-51-39 PM17 by you.
mmmm... Puffs!

Don't worry, we spent some time relaxing too:

5-25-2009 4-48-40 PM27 by you.

So that was the busy busy weekend!  We got a lot done around the house which was great!  Hope you all had a great weekend too!

Comments

  1. Wow, a week to finish?! I can't wait to see the pictures! We had our old house in FL painted and it took 1 day to paint and 1 to touch up... I couldn't believe how fast it was.

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