Yard Destruction

October 2010

So I went a little out of order with my posts because I wanted to get the kitchen saga out all at once.  In October, a month prior to the kitchen remodel we took advantage of some great weather and addressed our yard a little more.  We had made some unsuccessful attempts earlier, but I have not recorded them on the blog because I am supposed to look good on this thing.  So failures are being glossed over. 
 

My biggest issue in the front yard was the five HUGE rhodies that were overtaking the house.  We could have cut them way back, suffer with a year or two of weird filling in, or we could remove them.  These are absolutely beautiful rhodies, they were just too big for where they were, I wanted them gone.  We put a 'you dig you get' notice on craigslist and had a few takers, however, no one could have envisioned how hard these were to remove.  We had an older couple work for three hours before giving up without one rhodie out.  It appeared we needed to rethink this.  So after we did some digging of our own, Josh decided that we need some more power, a lot more power.  He borrowed his companies truck and we chained the trunks to the back of the truck.  We were nervous, but decided slow and steady would be our approach.
 

It was AWESOME, we ripped out four of the five rhodies in about 20 minutes, after three hours of digging.  We lost two rhodies, which were placed in our backyard to rot all winter. Until we broke them down into our yard debris bin.  The other two were craigslisted and went in a week.  Our real problem was landscaping in the front, or I guess you could say the lack there of.  It was October and we had to get moving! We went out to Garden World, a huge nursery 30 minutes outside of Portland, and took advantage of the late season to stock up on some goods.  We bought hydrangeas, mums, a Virginia Sweetspire, a crape mrytle and some other smaller ferns.  

We also bought several stepping stones from lowes to create a pathway from the driveway to the front walk.

So, It's Like Camping...

June 2010

Upon moving, we still had a ton of work that needed to be accomplished.  For the first two weeks we entered a time period I like to term 'house camping.' Half the rooms were not even started, others were halfway, some were future projects.  We asked the movers to pile everything in three spaces, the back bedroom, the basement, and the office so we could work away in the other spaces.

Status Updates:

Kitchen:  At this point I had finished painting the upper cabinet and installed cork liners. I had also finished up all the painting on the walls and trim.  The new fridge was in, yay!  We were half way unpacked.  In a moment of pure frustation, I pulled the backsplash off.  By backsplash, I mean faux sandstone exterior metal paneling.  It was special, and I was happier with the particle board backing (Josh was undecided).  I was still scrapping and priming away on the lower cabinets and drawers every night after work.  I went to Restoration Hardware and got some new kitchen hardware that was traditional in the bin pull fashion and modern in it's clean lines.  I think it was a good compromise between our two styles.  Camping rating 2 out of 5

Family Room:
 

When we moved in the the only thing we had completed in the family room was the putting two coats of paint on the ceiling.  We tried roughly 6-7 different paint swatches on the wall trying to get the right gray/green.  We first tried the colors from our old apartment, which we loved, however, these just did not work in our room.  This was a learning experience, what looks amazing, rich, antique, and warm in your west facing 100 year old apartment, does not necessary give the same feeling in your smaller, east facing, 80 year old house.  All the colors appeared dull, washed out, and sad.  We started going more and more green, until suddenly we found ourselves with Dark Celery.  This was a mix between army green and fern gully.  Dare I end that statement with 'in a good way?'  After much debate Josh started painting and we soon realized our small family room was quite large and required a lot of cutting in.  There are three doors, 5 windows and one large fireplace.  So we painted, every night, every weekend, 4 coats in all.  All the while, the only thing in the family room was one couch (covered in a sheet) and our tv, on the ground.  Camping 4 out of 5

Back Bedroom:
 

In the meantime, 90% of our belongings were in the back bedroom.  We called this the 'hoarders' room.  There were boxes of dishes, bags of food, books, lamps, boxes of kitchen utensils, rugs, side tables, and pillows.  Everyday we had to go into the room for something, it involved stepping precariously through a warren of objects and junk to dig in a box.  The best part is that once you had used the item you had to bring it back to the hoarder room because there was no place for it.  We bought a house to have more room and now we were back to living in about 500 sqft, which consisted of a small bathroom, half a kitchen, and a bedroom... lovely. Camping 5 out of 5

So it gets better right?