I shared an update at the 6 month mark HERE. Since then I've made some more updates.
In the front, we did rip out the juniper bushes and planted hostas along with some other plants. Both my grandmothers gave me starter plants from their yards, as well as my cousin Kim, who is downsizing her yard. I did TONS of work outside this spring/summer/fall. I planted so many things, moved and removed many more things, spread much, pulled weeds, trimmed trees.
I was outside working every day that I possibly could. In the backyard we removed the raspberry bushes and the raised garden. I moved plants around and planted more plants. I re-did the paver blocks by the backyard entrance. We planted tons of bulbs this fall and I can't wait for those to bloom this spring!
I did major landscaping overhauls. One of my first goals was to rip out the juniper bushes in the front of the house. I hated them. They're ugly and they collected leaves and trash that were hard to remove. I picture tons of pretty flowers out front now.
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| This is right after we ripped out all the bushes last spring. I actually don't have a current photo of the front of the house. |
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| How we decorated the front this fall. |
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| Front room decorated for Christmas. |
Then onto the kitchen, which my mom and I painted a few months ago (haven't painted the ceiling yet!) and then I was able to hang the drapes over the patio doors. Still looking for a new ceiling fan, want to install new flooring, and want to update the counter/backsplash.
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| May 2014 |
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| Sherwin Williams Passive |
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| kitchen, currently. the light grey really brightens up the kitchen! |
The downstairs is pretty much unchanged. Still looking for a new sofa and then I want to paint and decorate the half bath/laundry room.
Master bedroom is at a stand still because we're trying to decide about furniture/layout. The closets are kind of small for us so we need to figure out a solution. I am planning a trip to Ikea to hopefully get it settled. Probably will get rid of my bedroom furniture because it's just too big for the space. Probably will stay with brown colors and have an accent wall dark chocolate brown. Still need to paint everything, add art, a rug, find a new bed set/decide colors, etc.
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| current master bedroom |
My office/scrapbook room currently looks like this:
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| Ikea Expedit Craig's List purchase $125 |
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| Planning to purchase a few things from Ikea for the office space as well. |
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| backyard/before |
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| backyard/after |
Also, late this summer I finally had the brick repairs done to the chimney and the exterior brick on the house.
Then one day the original recommended guy called back and said they could come start the work immediately! When he and his son started working, they told me the chimney required much more than they originally thought. Every time they took a brick out, there were three others they found that needed repaired too. It took them longer than they had planned but it was still all done in less than a week and it makes a huge difference to the exterior!
I had a bad first impression of them, but they did amazing work and have built quite a resume working on buildings all over Kokomo. I saw them working on the fire station the other day.
I'd much rather spend my money on cute decorating or furniture items inside but I know other (boring!) things require my attention as well. When I look back I realize we have done a lot so far in the first year! I don't feel like we'll ever be "done" but everyone tells me when you own your own home, you never feel done anyway!
Goals for the second year are to have outlets and overhead lighting installed in the three bedrooms upstairs, paint kitchen ceiling, paint upstairs bathroom, finish guest bedroom and master bedroom, paint/decorate half bath/laundry room, and find a shed for the backyard.
+ a Lawn Shapes circle die cut. I exchanged hearts for the butterflies shown in the sketch and had to downsize the number of those as well.
