Office Chairs

We found chairs for the Living Room Office!!

My husband about 3 months ago found one of these chairs at the DI (the local thrift store)  I used it behind my desk, and so we continued to search for 2 chairs to go in front of the desk.

You can imagine my surprise when I walked through the front door and I had 2 leather chairs in front of the desk.  What are that chances that 3 months later Devin would find the SAME EXACT chair at the DI!  Not to mention we paid $28 for both!  WOW!!!  Thrift shopping is AWESOME!  

I love how the 2 chairs in front of the desk really finish the space off!  Thank heavens for a husband that enjoys thrift shopping too!!!

What is really important??

Tonight I was cruising Pinterest when I came upon this quote. 

I am so guilty of always wanting to be PERFECT.  I am a perfectionist.  

But what is most important?  

Source: bystephanielynn.com via Cindy on Pinterest

The outside is complete

Before:

After (with all my flowers in bloom)

The outside of our house is finally done!  I am so excited about how it turned out.  

I believe everything on the house is new except for the brick and the bottom windows.  

I have always LOVED the look of Hardy board and Shacks!  I couldn't be more please with the way it all turned out.  

As part sale we got a new roof.  As you can see from the above picture you can't really see the brick.  Once all the wisteria was torn down my heart sank as the roof and the brick didn't match.  

I am sure our contractor hated me through this process as I kept changing my mind on colors, but I knew somehow we could make the brick and roof at least look good together.  

I was so nervous but it came together even better than I expected! 

My husband wrapped all the posts with Hardy Board.  If you are not familiar with Hardy board it is a great product.  It is actually a cement board you paint.  It holds the paint for 30 years.  So if you get sick of the color of your house...just repaint it!  It is also very durable and doesn't rot!

Once all the posts were wrapped and painted Devin put up the railings!  They are vinyl so they don't require any maintenance.

I am in love with the flag stone planter my husband made for me!  It is so beautiful I can't wait for the potato vines and wave petunias to hang over the wall!

The shakes are actually vinyl.  We wanted them to have a texture and look as though they were real wood.  Vinyl is the closest to that as we found!

I really couldn't be more happy with the end result!  It is a great feeling to have it done and now be able to enjoy it!

My first attempt to upholster!

Before:

I found these chairs at the local thrift store.  They were $5 each so I decided to take them and give upholstering a try!  

After:

The caning on one of the chairs was broken so I had to recover the back of the chair too.  I love how they turned out.  I defiantly learned a lot I ripped the staples out a few times and redid them more than once.  But I did enjoy doing it and I will try again! Plus there is no sewing involved!  Everything is stapled to the chair!!  My kind of project!
The frame I painted with Annie Sloan's Chalk paint and distressed it with some sand paper!


Brooke

Backyard

Before:

When we bought this house there was no grass on the property!  Everything was gravel!  If you don't like to mow that is an excellent solution.  However my daughters didn't enjoy rolling on the gravel :)

So everything had to come out!

Taking it all out was NOT fun!  There was more in this backyard than we realized. There was another pond/waterfall in the back corner, and a big bird cage right in front of those dirt mounds.  The dirt mounds are just 3 of the 8 composting piles.  The whole backyard was covered with cloth!  There was also a buried fire pit and a picket fence we dug out! 

After:

We laid our sod 2 weeks ago...I mowed it today!  It was a great feeling!  I LOVE THE GREEN GRASS!!



My dogs also love the green grass!

We have loved having the sport court.  We don't use it for sports...YET!  But my daughters love to ride their bikes on it.

We left the little stream and the Koi Pond.  It is on the side of our home, I love the sound of the water and the relaxing feel of this area.  In this area we also have 2 pear trees, 3 apple trees, 1 plum tree, 1 peach tree, and 2 grapevines.  Last year I loved having all the fresh fruit!

We are in the process of gating it off with a vinyl fence, to keep little ones out!  Once the fence is up I will take better pictures of the WHOLE area!

 And last but not least our cute little red shed!  They built this and I just LOVE it!  It is so darling one day I think it will be my girls playhouse!!