Thursday, February 7, 2013

Beautifying the Outside

Is beautify even a word? You know, I'm an English teacher and I still had to look it up; I don't want to look like a fool after all. 

Anyways, as you can tell, the topic of this post is about the outside. This past weekend my boyfriend and I worked on landscaping the front yard. Steve (the BF) actually did a lot of the grunt work a week beforehand. I got home from work and the front garden area was all weeded and the rocks were dug up. Yup, you heard me right, rocks, and lots of them.
There they are, well, one pile at least. Right now they are just sitting on the edge of our property. These rocks are a pain in the rear and I feel like they are never ending.

The next step was to go shopping! Normally, I'm not a shopper...I HATE it! But when it comes to the house, I LOVE it. Steve and I went to Home Depot and bought one pink rose bush, two pink bougainvillea shrubs, one pink azalea shrub, and seven decorative grasses called Cordyline. Our goal was to get plants that had heart and could survive through any hardness that was thrown at them. Did we do it? Beats me but I'll let you know when I find out. As for now, they are getting water every day; that's a start, right?
Above is the finished product, and I can't wait for them to fill out. The lighting isn't great because I'm not able to get a picture of them till at least 3:30. This weekend, I'll have to try and take a better one earlier in the day with some close ups on the plants.

I don't have a great before picture (when we did this I wasn't blogging). Below is the best picture I could find. 
It's a little far away but you can see there were some unevenly spaced bushes that were there before our transformation. We ended up transplanting them to the side of the house, which is the next step on our outside project list. It's not pretty right now. See for yourself.
Ewww, gross. Shield your eyes and turn away. I hate looking over here but I can't wait to make it pretty like the front.

Stay tuned for more. Next up, maybe I'll talk about the ants that are haunting my dreams thanks to our landscape project.

P.S. It's my goal to post every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. Let's see if I can stick to it. Cross your fingers and wish me luck!



Monday, February 4, 2013

Welcome!

Well, here it is...my first post. I created this blog over a week ago but couldn't sit down to actually write a post; not because I didn't have time (my Pinterest account would prove otherwise) but because I was intimated. I have been reading blogs for quite some time now and I LOVE them, and for some reason that scared me a little. But, here I am, thanks to my sis! Love you sis! The whole reason I wanted to start a blog in the first place was because we have been doing all these cool things to the house and I just want to shout it from the rooftops to the world!

Anyways, let's get some back story. My boyfriend and I live together in a foreclosure that we purchased back in August 2012. It was quite a roller coaster to get it (perhaps to be told in a later post) but we are so happy; this house was really meant to be. It's nothing large but it's almost exactly was we were looking for. Want a look? We'll start with the before pictures of what it looked like the day we closed.



The living room:
This is the view of when you first walk in. Straight ahead is the entryway to the kitchen and hallway. There is a weird little mirror thing that I would like to get rid of one day but for now it stays. Mostly because I use it the morning to see a whole view of my outfit for work. Then again, that doesn't really matter because I usually don't match anyways.
The next picture is what you see when turn to the right (I'd create a layout but my new computer currently doesn't have Photoshop on it). This is the living room/dining room. I like how they are open yet still separated by the angles of the wall. One day we'd like to put in laminate but the bank just laid new carpeting so we will keep that until they are worn and gross.

Family Room:
In the picture of the dining room above you'll notice an archway, this leads to the family room. I was so excited to see that this house had a family room. I honestly didn't think we'd find one in our price range. Bonus! It has a sliding glass door (french doors one day?). And it also has a pass through that leads to the kitchen, which is really great for when we are too lazy to put our dishes away because the sink is right below it. This room is used as the man cave/gaming room/nerdville.




 Guest side of the house:
Not much special at this side, so I'll just let the pictures do the talking.




Kitchen:
One thing I love about the kitchen is the set up. It has a TON of cabinet space (there are still at least two empty cabinets). It has a pull out drawer for the trash cans. It is enclosed (part of my wish list) yet still feels open because the walls don't go all the way up to the ceiling. The pictures may make it look small but it really is rather spacious.



Master Bedroom/Bath:
The bedroom his huge (for my standards anyway) and it has two walk in closets. My wishlist only had one decent sized closet on it so I was pretty giddy when I saw two. 

As for the master bath, it has a very nice walk in shower and no tub. This was not a big deal for us because neither of us take baths, but the guest bath has one for any future (and I mean distant future) little ones. There are two sinks (score!) and a toilet that leaks from the seat's bolt (I know, weird).

Wrap Up:
Well, that's a quick brief tour of the house. If you haven't noticed, it's beige and boring, really very boring. I looked at it as a blank slate. We have/had the opportunity to really start fresh and we felt no responsibility to keep anything (except for the brand new carpet, I mean come on, it's brand new carpet). We've already made a lot of changes that I will show in some future posts...there's so much I want to talk about! For example, the living room paint debacle, the mystery toilet leak, and the zombie in our living room. 

Even though we've already done a lot we still have a lot more left to do. I hope you enjoy!

P.S. My name's Sarah, nice to meet you!!
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