Work Day!

It's a good old fashioned work day around here today. Everyone is headed to our (Annie and Mike's) house to help with painting, raking, hauling leaves, and mulching. Thank goodness I have such a wonderful family that is always willing to help us out.

Here are some pictures of last year's priming and raking festivities. The house was new for us and painted every color you could imagine. Since last year's priming party, we've slowly been painting all our rooms, and working on re-doing bathrooms, building a retaining wall outside, planting things, etc. It's been a busy year!!

I wasn't lying about this house being every color you could imagine. I could show you more pictures that would make an interior designer faint with fright. This was almost two years ago now- when we first bought the house. You can see our front door at the edge of this picture. So, you walked into a crayon yellow hallway and to your left was a lime green dining room- straight ahead, yellow and green hallway/kitchen, and a red, olive, and tan living room. Depending on where you were standing you could see the teal laundry room, pink bathroom, and the office that had over six different paint colors in it including purple, mauve, lavender, and yellow....... I think I just heard an interior designer gag a little.

We'll be working on this beauty of a room today. In case you are wondering, yes, that is silver, textured paint. The second floor rooms were a myriad of colors as well- fire engine red, powder blue, light yellow, aqua, dark blue, and of course the shade of blue in the picture above with silver stripes.

Disclaimer: All carpets have been cleaned since this picture as they were so gross I almost died upon seeing them. Sometimes I wonder why we chose this house when we saw so many beautiful "finished" and CLEAN houses! Sigh. :)

Just a very small portion of our backyard when we first bought the house. We have lots of trees in the front yard too, so raking each year is super fun. Well, that sounded negative. It actually is kind of fun. Plus I love having so many trees!!

Someday I'll have to post pictures of all the changes we've made on this house as it looks a zillion times better (and cleaner!) than this now.

Have a great weekend!

Someday We'll Have Veggies!

Last year Mike and I bought a house- it was so scary and exciting! Since we bought the house in February, we weren't sure what would grow in our yard and gardens. So, we let things grow, and boy what a mess. Some of the weeds were over six feet tall!

We took away heaping wheelbarrows and buckets full of weeds and boulders just from this one side bed! We also moved a lot of the plants and bushes to other places in our yard as we're planning on turning this into our vegetable garden.

A few weeks ago we started in on the side garden again (trying to beat the heat and the mosquitoes!). Again, we overturned and weeded. The soil was mostly clay and the whole bed was really uneven so we had a ton of dirt delivered. The tulips and daffodils that we planted last fall were just starting to come up so we had something pretty to look at while we worked.

I can't wait to continue mulching, moving, planting, and bordering this bed. I'm really looking forward to being able to walk outside, pick some vegetables, and make a great meal with them. I know it will take a lot of time and hard work, but it will be worth it!

Happy gardening!
-Annie