Quantcast

Monday, August 22, 2011

Home Improvement

If ever a single lady were to ask me for any advice in what to look for when choosing a husband, it would be this, "Marry a guy that can fix stuff, but is not too proud to call in reinforcements when he's in over his head."  Not that anyone has ever asked me for advice in this arena, but if they did, that's what I'd say.

For the past two weekends we've been working, working a lot and it feels good to see progress made by our own two hands.  The biggest advancement?  Remember this eye sore of a block wall that ran along our entire property line?  Before it looked like this: 
And with some of this
 And this
We now have this.  And this guy couldn't be prouder of himself.  He can now add stucco artist to one of his many lists of talents.
After the stucco job was complete, we had to get rid of the green wall and so we painted.  Actually this is the "in over your head" part that I talked about before.  We ended up hiring 2 painters that got the job done at a reasonable price in less than 5 hours, which left us plenty of time to work on wiring the whole place up for outdoor lighting and to start planting.  It looks like a different place now though just with the walls painted.  Other shots from around the yard that I shot late last night...
We're working with all new plants that we've never had before in a yard and I love the silver colors brought out by the Silver Sheens and other plants in the pittosporum family.  White roses, lots of jasmine, lavender and rosemary round out the assortment.

And this is the best seat in the house, both indoors and out.  If you ever come visit you may have to fight me for this seat.  
 And while that's going on outside, inside I'm scouring catalogs and magazines looking for wall color inspiration since we're going to start painting as soon as the back is done.  I'm loving gray and thinking our bedroom set might look perfect painted this color seen in the latest Ballards catalog.  What do you think?
And lastly, the kids picked me this hydrangea from the garden over the weekend.  Not sure if it's at the start or end of it's blooming cycle, but either way I've never seen one look this with these dots.  I love it.  Any ideas how they turn like this? 
Whether relaxing or productive, hoping your weekend was whatever you were hoping it to be!
Linking up to Thrifty Decor Chick's September Before & After Party

12 comments:

  1. I love, love, love it!! Can I please come over and share a pitcher of sangria with you in your backyard?!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Oooooh, it's looking so good! Can't wait to see it in person!!!

    ReplyDelete
  3. We had walls like that around our house too. I couldn't believe how ugly they were once Aron stuccoed and painted them. Aren't we lucky to have guys who aren't afraid to get their hands dirty?
    Your yard is looking beautiful!
    Love from,
    Greta

    ReplyDelete
  4. I fell in love with that spread in Ballard myself. Wondering if I should do my guest room like that?

    ReplyDelete
  5. Some day I hope to live in a climate that allows me to have a fabulous outdoor area such as yours! What a great place to read a book, chit chat with friends, and enjoy a glass of wine. Oh, and I agree with you on the husband thing... my husband is GREAT at diy stuff but he knows what he can and can not do. (thank goodness)

    ReplyDelete
  6. looks great! love the gray bed too. the little loveseat looks great! and the wall - nice job Art!! can't wait to see it all put together :)

    ReplyDelete
  7. It looks great Andrea!! I can't wait to see it, soon!

    ReplyDelete
  8. Looks great! It's really coming together!

    ReplyDelete
  9. Wow, good job. Those pics of your hubby are crackin me up! I too married a handy guy who will call in reinforcements when necessary. So thankful for that ;)

    ReplyDelete
  10. Looks amazing. It's fun to do projects together as a couple.

    ReplyDelete
  11. looks amazing!
    We have that on our list for summer next year -can you tell me which product you used stucco wise? did you mix your own?
    thanks!

    ReplyDelete
  12. Hi Susan and Mark - we just used a thick coat of regular bagged powder stucco and mixed it ourselves. Apparently you're supposed to do a light brown coat first, then a light stucco coat, but one thick coat of stucco seemed to work just fine :)

    ReplyDelete

Thank you so much for taking the time to leave a comment. I read and appreciate every single one. If you enable your email address I'd love to respond :)

LinkWithin

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...