Father's Day!

We celebrated Father's Day this past Saturday with all of the Dad's in our life (minus Mike) and had the family over to our new house for the first time.  Despite the day meant to be celebrated just for the Dad's, my brother and sister both brought us nice house warming gifts!  I know I keep posting pictures of our backyard but, I am just so happy with the way it is coming together.

I gave the yard a good scrubbing!

Due to limited seating, the adults ate outside.

Can you believe how big these two are getting?

Watching bunnies on the front lawn.

I added another strand of lights to the inside of the patio cover when the Sheriff was a work, I think I did a pretty good job.

And not Father's Day related but we got our wall finished this past week and it looks great if you ask me!

Beyond Excited About a Wall!

A few weeks ago I was chatting with one of my coworker friends about all of the stuff going on at our house and all of the projects I wanted to complete, one of those projects was a pallet wall on our entry way wall.  I had seen a ton of tutorials on Pintrest and I figured the Sheriff and I could tackle the wall in no time.  I started collecting pallets like I was preparing to be on the next episode of Hoarders and was getting ready to start the process but then my coworker friend told me about and showed me pictures the wall she and her husband put in their house and I was sold, I totally abandoned my pallet project and dragged the Sheriff and Mr. Pie to my new favorite place US Reclaimed in Laguna Niguel.  After a lengthy and I mean lengthy discussion with the Sheriff we picked out some wood for our entry way wall with fingers crossed that I did not make a huge mistake especially since the Sheriff was not convinced that it was going to look good.  When we got home I called the guy they recommend to install it and we set a date for June 24, but as luck would have it he was able to come that Monday and within two hours of him arriving our wall was up.  When he was done I took one look at it and knew immediately that we needed more wood and it needed to go all the way to the top of the wall.  So back to US Reclaimed we went and I am now anxiously awaiting for the rest of it to go up.

BEFORE....

Boring wall!

DURING.....

AFTER....coming soon!

Light It Up!

I have been dreaming of patio lights my entire life and now I have a yard and patio cover to make my dream come true, lol!  For about a year and a half I have been eyeing these patio lights at Costco.  I purchased two boxes a couple months ago but with the move and all of the unpacking and other things going on we just put up the lights on Friday!  It is really hard to take pictures at night and lights throw things off so this is the best I could do...

Patio cover #1

Patio #2

Both patio covers are going to get more lights, but this is what we have so far!

I bought a new light fixture for our entry way months ago, it took months to come in and I finally I got it last weekend.  The Super Parents wanted to come over to see the yard work that we have done so they came for dinner last night and I had Super Dad help the Sheriff hang it. Once we put the lightbulbs in it was nerve racking turning the switch on, I think we all held our breath when the switch was flipped.

LOVE LOVE LOVE this!

Thankfully it worked!!

This is the ugly, missing a light bulb and sconce light fixture that is now in the garbage can!

Things I Want to Do!!

Pintrest has officially roped me in!  OMG, it is bad!  Last night I was dreaming about fixing things around our house all.night.long and I woke up trying to convince myself that all of these “little” projects won’t cost a lot of money and that Super Dad will totally be onboard with helping me (please, please, please) and on and on and on. I have been pinning away on Pintrest and making a list of all of the things I dream about so I do not forget anything!!!  

Here are a few things that I like…

Outside:

Mailbox - A new mailbox stand, I love the turquoise but, I think I will just repaint ours black, or hell, just go buy a new black one and call it a day.  I have no idea how much mailboxes are, so perhaps I will be painting ours after all.

Front Doors – We need/want new front doors, I really like this look.  Doors are EXPENSIVE, so this is a save-up and buy item for the future.

House Numbers - I want new house numbers, something simple but clean and new and not what we have now!!

Artificial Turf - The other day I applied for a rebate through our water district, I had to send them pictures and a site map, this is the best I could do for the site map…

Brick Planter – We have brick that surrounds our yard and I like it for the most part and since it is in good condition for now it is staying.  We have one area that looks like it was the victim of a really bad repair job so I want to break it apart carefully and rebuild it using the existing brick.  Then I got to thinking (in the middle of the night) that we have these hideous railroad ties that I either want to remove and build a matching brick wall or cover with brick somehow.

Inside:

Doors - I am trying to like our current interior doors upstairs but I just can’t bring myself to like them and it bugs me that they do not match our closet doors so I am thinking that they ALL need to go!  I am loving the look of these doors and I see them in our near future!

Closet Doors – I actually like our current closet doors and I would be open to keeping them if they matched our current interior doors, but they do not, so I am thinking our current closet doors must go as well, cause they are not going to match the interior doors that I want!!  Whew, that was a lot of matching, do you follow?

Door Knobs- As some of you may recall the story of the Sheriff and I having a knock down drag out fight over a door knob in our back bedroom downstairs (if you have not heard it, don’t ask, it was not pretty), so it is a pretty touchy subject and a struggle to bring it up, but I want new door knobs throughout our house ASAP!!

Bed Frame – I have found the bed frame I want, no ifs ands or buts!!

Shiplap - Need I say more??  I just need Chip & Joanna Gains to come and help me with it!  I want to put this on the window wall in our bedroom.

We have a lot of work to do and I am sure you are sensing a gift giving theme around here, please for all birthday’s and holiday’s send gift cards to home improvement stores or the actual items like bricks, doors, door knobs, mailboxes, etc. it would and will be greatly appreciated!!!

Trees Be Gone!!

When we bought our house we knew there was a lot of yard work that needed to be done and it was slightly overwhelming where to begin.  We decided to start with the trees, there were so many random trees and overgrown trees that is made most sense to get rid of them all and start fresh.  I have enlisted my awesome sister to help give us a game plan and I hope to start planting it soon. Here are some before pictures of the front yard....

BEFORE!!

This is to the right of our driveway, a slope with a ton of ugly bushes that attract critters, ummm, no thank you!

The left side of our front yard, part of this is our neighbors.  Our neighbor was being lame and did not want his side touched so the tree trimmers were given VERY specific instructions not to touch the neighbors side and they followed the instructions perfectly.  When it was done it looked AWFUL on their side.  Had my neighbors opted to have the tree trimmers cut their side all I was asking was for $100 to split the cost of this section of yard, well their cheap asses said NO, "ok, fine, no problem" I said!  I got the last laugh last night when the neighbors were out their trimming their side in the 90 degree heat. 

This ugly hedge was half dead and needed to go ASAP! It is now gone!!!

The palm trees were so overgrown and looked so bad.

DURING!!

Let the fun begin...

Can you spot the guy in the tree, it was amazing to watch them trim the palms.

Front yard.

Our driveway covered in palm branches.

AFTER!

What a difference a day makes!

It took them ALL day to tackle this project and it still looks like a mess but we are headed in the right direction, next is to get all of our sprinklers working and to remove a ton of dirt.  I don't have any after pictures of the front yard, but it is mainly dirt right now.   I am so excited to get this done, we have a huge backyard and it is going to look so nice when it is all finished!  

I caught Mr. Pie cleaning out the pool the other day, I was shocked, especially after we had just left Trader Joe's and he had carried out the groceries for me and put them in the back of the car without me asking at all!  Not sure who this kid is!

Stay tuned for more updates!