Before and Afters

Let me begin by saying that I locked myself out of my house to get these photo's. I was in workout clothes, didn't have my phone, and because we were in the garden I was covered in mud. Thankfully the third neighbor I tried was home and let me borrow her phone so Jason could (Sorry Hon!) come and open the door for me.

We have two apple trees on our property. When we moved in the trees were full of unripe but wormy apples. Our trees are almost bare now because the kids think they are their little snack bar. (Oh, the llamas get the wormy ones).
Jadon is especially cute about this. When he wakes up in the morning he pushes a chair to the window and points outside. He can't wait until I take him outside.



Have I shown you the llamas yet? They are awesome. They act really snobby and arogant but deep down under their thick wool they really love us and our wormy apple donations.

I've wanted to have a compost pile for the longest time which isn't really something that works when you live a small city apartment. I looked at a lot of options, including just dumping things straight into the garden but I finally found a simple way that turned out to be a perfect way for us. I went to DI and found a big plastic storage box for four bucks....but it didn't have a lid which you need. So as I was putting it back one of the employees told me he would give it to me for a buck if I would take it. (Good to know eh?) I had a cracked lid at home so essentially we have a composte bin comparable to the expensive ones they sell for way on the cheap.

Noelle helped me drill holes all around the bin. Then we layered newspaper and soil on the bottom. Now we just have to add our vegtable/fruit scraps and by spring we are going to have a wonderful nutrient rich composte to add to our garden. The best part of this is that this is Noelle's deal. After dinner she takes out all the recycling (another project we put together in the garage) and then takes out the compost. Its so cute to see her run out to the garden doing "her job."

Having a house has been a lot more work--and I LOVE IT. I love working in the yard and seeing transformations. Jason and I have been really busy painting, fixing, etc....

The rain gutters were filling up our window wells and had caused our porch and the pavers below it to slope. Jason and his dad worked really hard to fix them so that they drain away from the house. Hopefully--problem solved!

Another huge job was fixing the slope on the pavers. Again, Jason and his dad did all the hard work. It looks like a muddy mess right now, but that is because I have been given orders to leave it alone for a while. :)

Our front steps had huge chunks falling out because the gutters weren't working correctly. We chose to fix them, seal them, and then paint them a matching color. It didn't turn out to be a m a t c h i n g color....but I still like it. We also planted some peonies in the flower bed an my wonderful mom pruned the front tree.




Tree before pruning...

Now for a before on a room we painted. Oie. It was a lot of painting. Turqoise and dark brown...it looked good for the first owners, but by the time the renters got done with it....

It was looking very beat up.


Since Noelle and Jadon share a room we get to use this as a guest bedroom--so come and visit us! This isn't the greatest picture (which defeats the before/after) but I think the color lightens up the room.


The deck needed staining....Now it is the kids favorite place to have lunch.


My favorite before/after is the kids room, but they are upstairs sleeping so maybe the next post....