In the trenches

Yesterday was the day to make the preparations for the power line to be buried. The guys needed to dig a trench from the power pole to our house and lay the conduit that will hold the new power line.

This is the view of the garage from our house.

When we got home, Donnie had to help the girls cross the trench to get to the house.

This is the view from the end of the “driveway”.

This is the street view of the garage. You can see there are a few windows and the trench is running behind it.

 

This is the backside of the garage…..also the neighbor side.

There were two times of excitement during the day….first when they hit a water line and second when they hit the cable. Ha, Ha. Obviously these things happen, but the good thing is they know how to fix it right away.

The little helpers helped Brian put a foot of dirt back over the conduit so that he could place the caution tape. The caution tape warns any future diggers that there’s a power line under there.

So tomorrow the electrician will be here to put a box on the wall and the power company will come and run the wire through the conduit.

The Great Garage

 

The framing is underway. Donnie has spent about two days getting the walls framed up. He’s had help from his friend Jay and his brother and Tim.

I think you can tell it’s going to be huge. Hence all the awesome punny blog titles.

There are going to be two bays and garage doors. The right, rear area will have a door and a walkway that connects to the house.

This is the view from the house. I’ve pointed out the power line so you can see how low it hangs. We still have above ground power lines in our neighborhood that haven’t been dealt with. The electrician is coming out today to make plans to bury the one that connects our house to the street.

That’s it for now. The plywood is going up today.

April Showers (….and January, February, and March)

I know I shouldn’t complain about the weather. It was a lot worse further up north. But, it was terrible here. It rained and rained and rained for months. We had days and days when the sun didn’t come out at all.  We were all in a weather induced funk and didn’t get much done.

Luckily the sun has come out and the time has changed and we are back in the swing of things!

In February I decided to take advantage of the President Day Sales and get some furniture for the front room. The room has been empty since we moved in and became the landing pad for everything that didn’t have a home.

The color on the wall was the same greige that’s all over the house. It’s called November Rain by Benjamin Moore. I was sick of it!

I am 100% sure after living here for a year that I am a color person. Neutral doesn’t suit me.

The girls helped me roll the walls while Donnie did the cutting it. The color is weird. It looks off white/tan/yellow in the sun but in certain light it looks lime green.

The rug came from Rugs USA and was 70% off with free shipping. You can’t beat that!

Emmitt is a fan.

Skipping ahead……we’ll start to look at the room put together. The console table is from World Market and the baskets are from Jo Ann’s. I need to switch out that table lamp for something shorter, I just haven’t gotten around to it yet. I also need to get some hardware for the table drawers. I have something in mind, I just haven’t seen it yet.

The chairs came from Home Decorators Collection and were on a pretty good sale with free shipping. The color and pattern is pretty bold, but I love them. I know I won’t love them forever, so that’s why I went with a neutral sofa. In 5 years if I hate them I can recover them or change them out and just change the pillows on the sofa.

The next step for this room is window treatments. I bought the fabric to make the panels and I plan on hanging bamboo shades across the top three window panels.

This picture shows the warped mantle. See how it droops on the left side. Donnie is going to build another one and we’ll stain it about the same color.

Moving outside that front window, we have some new greenery. The area is pretty shady and only gets afternoon sun so we had to go with some shade lovers.

The plants up front are called Red Button Ginger. They are shade lovers and have little red flowers.

The ones in the back are called Japanese Aralia. They are also shade lovers and grow like crazy. They can become 5-8 foot tall and wide. They should fill in the area well. In the winter they will have white flowers.

So that’s where we are. There’s nothing to update on the garage, but I will post as soon as there is. Have a Happy Easter!

The Slab is Fab!

 

Today was concrete day! Yay! The guys have been out there all day in the dreary weather getting the slab down.

It took two trucks full of concrete.

Check out those boots.

Donnie let the girls put their handprints in the front corner of the garage.

I took this pic before he got the “R” scratched in. Don’t worry, it’s there.

Garage Mahal!

 

That’s the name that comes to mind when I think of our future garage. It’s going to be big! It’s going to be a little taller than our house and wider than the existing garage. It needs to be big enough to hold Donnie’s bobcat, trailer, his office space, and normal everyday household stuff.

So here’s the cleared out space. Donnie started by marking the corners.

That’s our neighbor’s house and driveway in the background. The back of our garage will be up against the property line.

This is the spot where a huge oak tree was taken down. It was right outside the kitchen window. The interesting thing is that even though it looked healthy from the outside it was completely hollow on the inside. Glad it’s down! We had to take down 3 large oak trees in order to make room for the garage, pool, and patio.

Here’s Emmitt checking out the progress.

Here’s more progress. They are working on the footings. The plan is to have the termite spray tomorrow, inspection on Thursday, and pour the concrete on Friday.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Spooky Sprucing

 

I was waiting patiently for the calendar to flip over to October. Now that it has, all the Fall décor is making it’s way out.

I got most of this stuff at Hobby Lobby for 40% off.

I thought those burlap frames looked very Pottery Barn-esqe, but at a fraction off the price. I just printed out the word BOO! to put inside the frame.

My dollar store skeletons made it to another year.

Now here’s a before and after. We have a long way to go on the entrance, but we’ve already shown big improvement. :)

This was the front door when we bought the house. That’s not really the door, that’s a screen door in front of the door. The real door only had one glass square at the top.

This is the front door now. Donnie cut out all the squares and replaced them with glass. He also sanded and stained the door and replaced the hardware.

I got the wreath at HomeGoods and the door knocker online.

I love this door knocker. I think it’s so cool. Hence the close-up.

So that’s where we are right now. Donnie drew up the garage and it’s at the engineer right now being turned into plans. I’m so excited about having a detached garage and driveway I can’t stand it.