Reason number 2,342,342,352 why I'm a lucky lady...

I got home last night to this...

I went to bed last night (around 11:30pm) to this...

I just wanted to post a picture of our new blue door :)

And I woke up this morning to this...

Ryan's my hero.

Upgrade

These days, everything seems to be about upgrades. I guess that's what happens when you get older, you can actually afford to have nice things instead of just place holders that work for the time being. Our garden was one of those things that desperately needed an upgrade. See when we moved in, the previous owner's had already set up one of those gardens in a box. So last year, I used it and it was fine although not great. There was only about 6-8" of dirt so I pretty much had to ghetto rig all of my tomato stands to get them to stand upright and all of my plants seemed to grow fruit a bit later. This year, Ryan had promised me a new garden and he quite certainly delivered.

Here's what we started with:

When I got back from my review session Saturday, he had already built a base. We had decided on a L shape because the back corner gets the most amount of sun, I also had to be able to tend to the garden without walking in it so Ryan didn't want to build it too deep.

For drainage purposes, Ryan had decided on pebbles surrounding the edges and sand in the middle.

He then put down a weed protector to act as a tarp so the dirt would stay in the garden and not on our back patio. Then came the original dirt from the old garden.

Right about now, the wind started blowing and it was clear we were going to get a massive storm so we didn't finished filling the garden with the bags of dirt Ryan purchase. He's also going to build me a bench around the side and we're thinking about painting the edges but it's already a massive a upgrade. I can't wait for my Mom to come down next weekend so we can plant some vegetables! Good bye ghetto vegetable box, hello beautiful garden.

The little things...

When you lived without a kitchen for a year, and a laundry room for about the same amount of time, it's not so bad when you aren't finished decorating, your floors aren't  finished or your window sills aren't painted but, it's still pretty exciting when those things do start to happen (not that anyof those things are completely done yet but progress is happening).

For one, I'm loving our new back door. No, it's still not painted (even though I bought the paint over two weeks ago) but it still makes the downstairs so much brighter.

Ryan also finished painting one of the window sills in the kitchen. I can't wait until I have some free time to make some curtains (the amount of fabric I've accumulated is getting pack rattish).

Swoon

And, tonight, oh tonight was an exciting one... Ryan finished laying down our rock tiles. Squeal!

Progress

Last few tiles

Done!

Woot woot! Ryan plans on grouting this weekend and building me a new garden (which I'm ridiculously excited about) so although my posting may have slowed down (darn grad school), the house work has thankfully, not (well maybe some).

When did April happen?!

It's been a whirlwind of the past few weeks and our house is starting to look like... well, a home... finally :)

Ryan started priming the back room to get ready for the rest of the stripes.

Krispy Kreme Hat and all.

And we FINALLY got the back door in, squeal! It still needs to be painted and fitted but I'm loving all of the extra light. 

Of course this picture was taken in the dark ;)

I also did pick up paint for it and I'm going to go with a light bluish green. I was inspired by some photos I found on pinterest:

I just love the bluish green with the green and I think it will carry well through the rest of the house.

Ryan did some kitchen finishing and put in our toe kicks.

I'd show you a picture of the finished product but not long after this picture was taken we realized that you can't open the dishwasher all the way with the toe kick in... so, another problem to fix #whitegirlproblems.

Ryan's also getting ready to tile the rest of the floor in the back room now that we have the door in. I'm SO excited.

Goodbye ugly linoleum, hello rock tile! Speaking of rock tile, the grout is on the lighter side so I'm a little worried about keeping it clean, does anyone have a good grout cleaner they'd like to share?

And the last excitement of the past week or so was that our dining room rug came in and I loveeeeee it.

I need to decide on some curtains and a new table cloth. I'm SO over red.

I ended up getting the same entry way rug and I just love the texture of these rugs.

Here's the last picture of our family room slowly coming together. I'm dying to get some new couches and to update the coffee table but for now, I'm pretty happy to have some things on our walls and for our house to start feeling like an actual home.

#homewin

Spruced Up

It's been rather busy the past couple of weekends with visitors but definitely all in good fun. Last weekend, we were lucky enough to have Ryan's parents down to help out around the house. They brought down these beautiful benches which led to a shopping trip for Mary and I to decorate them while Ryan and Tim fixed a cracked joist. I should have taken more pictures but here's a few of the backyard getting spruced up!

Mary planting some hydrangeas.

Finished product!

We have to paint the rest of the furniture (and eventually get new furniture) but for now, it's a 100% improvement! We've already spent a lot more time out there now that it's more like an oasis and less like a junk yard :)