Redirecting

I am starting a new blog to combine all aspects of our life and to incorporate the entire family.  Please go to www.crazykuhlenlife.blogspot.com for our family's blog.

The Landscape Project

When we moved into the house we knew we had a problem with water drainage against the foundation.  This is why we have had some of the water problems in our basement.  Of course it took us 1.5 years to get around to fixing it.

We had quite a few evergreen bushes as landscaping, they were nice, but needed to be mixed up a little.  I wanted to keep half of them, as to save a little on the budget, and Jesse was all so happy to have to work around the remaining bushes while trying to regrade in the swampy mess of a yard with a skid loader.  Which all led to this problem.

 A torn up yard and many, many, many ruts running throughout the yard.  Needless to say mowing this season is at half speed, and you basically end up with a headache when you are done, or at least I assume, as it's too bumpy and I am currently not allowed to mow in my pregnant condition.

But after a little over a month, we finally have grass growing back in the front yard.  So take a look at the after product.

 The new smaller bushes consist of azaleas and hydrangeas, and a new skinny evergreen with holly in it's name (I am horrible with plants and their names).

 We also added 6 ton of river rock and new landscape edging.  It was 2 very long days of working to get it all accomplished.

We even landscaped a small area near our driveway and added a solar light, our address sign, and a lilac bush.  I absolutely love the smell of lilacs and hope this spot is sunny enough that it will take.

 So there you have it, a newly landscaped front yard.  A little less crowded than before, with a little more color (when the new bushes are in bloom).

Stairs

I believe it's finally time to show off our entryway project.

 In the course of 5 months we tiled, painted, installed hardwood treads, new risers, stained and installed new newel posts and handrail, plus new iron balusters.  We also put up board and batten along the hallway, which included a lot of caulking by Jesse.  Lastly we installed the new carpet runner and miscellaneous trim.

Here is where we started when we bought the house.

Here we are now.

A look down the stairs, before any work was done.

Midway through.

Our finished project.

Columns

Not anywhere close to being finished, but I love them.  I couldn't stand the old columns (I know many people liked them, but they just weren't my style).  Now they match the almost finished staircase....yes that's right the staircase is almost finished after 4 plus months of working on it.

We really are still doing work

This is an older picture.....can't you tell?  But as we speak we are getting our fireplace worked on right now.  They are currently fixing the firebox and then we will be getting gas logs installed later today.  Finally we will have a fireplace we can use.  Now I will just have to work on refinishing the front, I have some ideas, just need to find the time.

 And again this is an old picture taken back in September, when we first started working on the stairs.  We have beens slowly working on them for the past few months.  They are getting close, and we hope to finalize the project over the Christmas break.

So maybe sometime soon we will actually have new pictures to show you.

On a separate note, we actually had a guy come out to give us quotes on helping us with a few projects.  Mainly focusing on the kitchen, and master bathroom.  Let's just say we overwhelmed him, and he won't be helping us.  I think his comment as he walked out the door was that we would be working on this for a very long time.

Well...It's Brown

Painting is Done

The painters have been paid.  We thought we were getting a decent deal, and while they had a lot to do with 3 different colors, we still had to stay on top of them to make sure they were doing what we had asked for.

We will be taking pictures tonight (they literally just finished up).  The house looks good, but unfortunately in the front since it was predominately brick, and still is predominately brick, there isn't a big WOW factor.   Which is kind of depressing since we just spent all that money.  And for all those curious people the total came in at:

$2600 - labor (they painted for 5.5 days)
$1100 - paint (we went through 28 gallons)
$600 cedar braces