More Yard Work

Okay, fast forward to August! Susan really got at it in the yard. She pulled out all kinds of ivy and weeds from the overgrown plant beds. She also helped me out in clipping back the apple tree and some more of the pine. The pine that looks barren on the bottom half is eventually going to get whacked as well. Here is some of her handy work.





We cut back all kinds of shrubs in the front of the yard against the walkway. The root was really dug down in there so I figured I'd put the Avalanche to use and rip that bad boy out of there. That was fun!

Cleaning up the yard!

Okay, so I took a couple months off from the blogging. Well we have been back at it full swing getting things squared away and the latest fun was dealing with the front yard.

Jason came over and we had some fun with the chainsaw back in the spring and here were some of the pics of the carnage.

These aren't very good pics of the before and after, I'll try to get some other ones as we go along.

LA trip picture link

Hey everyone, we've been delinquent on posting stuff about the house, but I did upload a bunch of pictures from our recent trip to LA. Feel free to check them out here:

http://picasaweb.google.com/bradrodriguez/LosAngelesTrip070604

Brad

The Big Move!

Well, I've been off-line a while, mainly because we were without internet for almost a week during the move process. This weekend we moved in with the help of some of our great friends who where a complete Godsend! Our gratitude and thanks go out to Jason, Jill, Sally, Seth, Dave, Paul, and Todd for helping out with the move. After 4 hours of moving, 3 extra large Dewey's pizzas, a 12 pack of beer, 4 trips with 3 vehicles, a competitive blowgun shooting spectacle, and countless sore muscles...here is what we ended up with!!!

Now we just have to unpack.....arrrrrrrrrrrrrgggghhhh!

Glassblock windows

On Tuesday the glassblock guys came out and ripped out the old windows and put these lovely new glassblock ones in. I don't have any great pictures of the old ones but basically they were single pane glass with metal safety bars on them on the inside. These look 10x better and not to mention the security which is the main reason we did it. Anyone could just have smashed the windows before and gotten into the basement. They look great and he did an excellent job.

Painting the living room

Here we are, the last room to be painted (other than the hallways which we'll do after we beat the walls up moving in). We always thought the room was kind of a greyish green, but after painting the trim white and putting on some of this green the old color just looked nasty. Here is Susan hard at work cutting in.
This is the finished color, we like it alot. Also notice the new light that we installed this weekend. In this pic the base of the columns is the old color as well as the door. The previous owners really had all the trim painted like a grey instead of a white and doing all this painting is just really making everything pop.
Still need to paint the pocket door to the entry way.

Pretty much finished kitchen

Well, here is the kitchen. Only 2 small things left to do, caulk the seam between the backsplash and counter and put in the trim piece under the sink. Other than that we are done! New additions are the under cabinet lighting, the now functioning microwave and gas range, and the white outlets.

Painting the master bedroom part 2

Today Susan had a snow day and was able to some good work on the house today. We finished painting the living room as you can see here.


Also had a chance to change out the old light for a new fan. It looks really good now!

Painting the living room

We've been doing a lot of small stuff like painting trim and replacing electrical sockets with white instead of almond so not a lot to show. This weekend though Susan started painting the living room which we are taking from an off white to a khaki. It's actually the same color as in the study. Here are some shots of Susan at work. Notice the fashionable portable CD. She's listening to her books on CD while she works...always reading!!!

Snow!!!

Okay, so these aren't house pics...but we've been doing some pretty boring stuff lately like painting doors, sealing the grout, and prepping the living room for paint. So figure I'd share the 4-6" of snow that we got here on Tuesday. Man it was coming down!

Almost finished kitchen

So here are a couple shots of the kitchen in it's almost finished state. Click on the picture to see it larger and get a better view of the backsplash and hardware that we installed for the pulls. Didn't have the other side cleaned up an not all the pulls were installed so we'll get that on soon. It's really turning out just how we wanted it.

Kitchen backsplash part 3

Finished the backsplash today with the grout. Went pretty well, but I used sanded grout instead of unsanded and that made it pretty messy and harder to get into the tiny gaps between tiles. Here are a few shots of the grouting.

Kitchen backsplash part 2

Finished up putting the tiles on the backsplash tonight. Only thing left now is grouting it and putting some trim and caulk around the edges and trim plates on.

Kitchen backsplash

Today I started in on the backsplash in the kitchen which is pretty much the last thing that needs to be done. The tiles are 4"x4" and match very well with the counter and cabinets.
I was backbuttering all the tiles and setting them in place so I could fit them just right. For those that have never tiled, it's basically like buttering a piece of bread except you're using mastic and tile instead of butter and delicious bread.
Here is the right side almost totally finished. Still need to cut tiles for under the cabinet where you can see the white
Here is a closer view of the tiles. I'm going to put some trim there under the window sill.
And a full view of what I got done today. Will do under the cabs and microwave tomorrow then grout on the weekend more than likely. We really like how it's turning out!

2nd floor lighting and floors

Today I installed the fan in the bedroom and a light in the guestroom as well as setup for tiling the backsplash. Figured I'd take this time to show the finished products of the 2nd floor as well. Here is what the master looks like now iwth the new fan and painted trim and walls.
This is the guest room and if you are very observant you will notice that we changed the window shown from two small windows to one big one. It makes a huge difference in the room and from outside.
This is the office and it's painted a nice khaki color. It doesn't show up well here but I really like the way it turned out.
Now, for the floors! I love the way they turned out. Much much lighter and it just feels like it opens up the whole 2nd floor and gives it a much more contemporary feel. We'll do some before vs. after pics later or you can link back to the original posts and see the floors. Huge improvement.
And a quick shot of the 2nd floor landing.