Feelin' Like a Redneck

Jason has been talking about cleaning out the garage, for almost as long as we've lived in the house. It has been piled to the brink with crap since the day we closed and began ripping apart our house.

Umm, yeah, I think it's safe to say that even the most expert of parkers couldn't get their car up in there. (those garbage bags aren't garbage - promise - they're fill of various small debris) In all honesty, I wasn't really too concerned about cleaning out this room, obviously it needed to be done, but it wasn't high on my priority list. Even in a world where it is all cleaned out and able to house a car, we wouldn't be parking in there. It's just a dirt (very uneven) floor, with mad tire grooves, the door doesn't work worth a damn, and it kind of smells pretty bad in there. Plus, it's just easier to go out the front door to get to our vehicles. So after a year of talking about cleaning it out, you can imagine how surprised I was one day when I came home to this...

Sorry for the terrible picture it was taken through the upstairs window, screen and all. My initial thought when pulling in the driveway was, "holy cow, we're hosting red-neck squatters." Then I remembered that no, we are in fact the red-necks that call this place home, and I thought, "We're pretty awesome for being able to shove all that crap in that little garage. That's a 27ft trailer FULL of house hold debris. Are you as big of a fan of Jason's creative "tarps" as I am? Yes those are carpets, how many times do I have to say it, we're red-necks. The other two piles were wood to be burned (which also (almost) filled the trailer), and scrap metal. He even got rid of everything (except the scrap metal - because we knew we'd get more off the roof). So after he got everything cleaned out, which surprisingly didn't take him and his dad too long, this is what the place looked like.

Anyone looking for a length of counter that has a sink? All that plywood was for the roof, so the pile is only about a quarter that size now. Favourite find from cleaning out the garage, was a badminton set that wasn't ours, made me want to break it out and show off my mad skillz from my high school days. As for what we're planning on doing with the space now, as long as it doesn't look as bad as it did before I think we're golden. I do want to bring one of the cabinet things we have in the basement out there to house all the gardening/lawn care stuff, so we don't have to go hunting for things every time we need to do something.
      What about you guys, did anyone else get any garage clean up done lately? Do you have one of those garages where you're embarrassed to open the door, or do you actually use the garage for its intended purpose of parking your car?

Operation Backyard Awesome : Private Parts

Normal people usually understand that someone's backyard is private property, for whatever reason there are a number of people in Lucan who are not normal; and don't understand this concept of private property. They apparently believe that all property belongs to them. Our backyard backs on to the back of a number of shops on main street, with apartments over them. Here's an old picture from last spring, before we took out the overgrown, useless raised garden bed pretty much smack-dab in the middle of our yard.

 It's come in pretty handy, since we basically back on to the only bar in Lucan, so it makes for a quick and easy walk home. Sometimes the neighbours cut through too, which we don't really care about. What we do care about are the crazy asses who come into our yard to steal our patio chairs after we only had them for three days. Or walk their dog around and through our yard, letting them crap wherever they want and not pick it up. Or my personal favourite (which happened the other day) biking through our yard. I was sitting in the van on the street, about to pull in the driveway when this lady on her bicycle came down it. For once, I was stunned into silence, although apparently the neighbour gave her an earful. She apparently thought there was a path there. Ok crazy, I can totally get how the vast green grass looks like a path, often people have dogs tied up to an umbrella stand, next to a garage, on a path; you're right. We're beyond frustrated with all these people. I suggested putting in landmines, but Jason says that's taking it a bit too far - really, it just comes down to we don't know where to get them. So we'll settle for a fence.
   That chain link fence on the right is the only fence we have, it's clearly open to the back, and it's open to our other neighbours as well. We get along splendidly with both sets of neighbours, so we never really cared about fencing in the yard. Until we got Kai. She wouldn't go anywhere, she's a great listener and stays when you tell her, but if she sees a squirrel she has been know to chase them...far. So last summer we started talking about fencing the yard. But then we discovered if we used the heavy, cast iron patio umbrella stand and some old random tools from the shed (like a mini pitch fork and a large spade and some railway ties) to secure it to the ground, then tie a long rope to it, it was sufficient enough to keep her in place. (Even when she's trying to kill Cujo, the neighbour dog) We almost won an award for most redneck pet corral, but the dog who lives in an old dryer won.

So now that we're actually having to be serious about putting a fence up (at least at the back) I've been searching for some nice looking options. I don't want the basic wood slat fence, if we're going to have to put one up, we might as well make it look as nice as possible. We're not sure if we're going to put a gate in or not. Here's some of my favourite "modern" fence ideas I've come across...

(1)

 (2)

(3)

 (4)

 

(5)

(6)

(7)

2, 3, and 7 are our favourites, although number 6 is pretty freakin' awesome! 2 and 7 are pretty similar, and would be the easiest to build. Regardless of what we're going to do, we're planning on doing some landscaping back there too. We've got to get a move on with this fence because we've put our awesome sectional outside, and we really don't want that stolen.

Which options do you like best? Have you ever had any issues with people coming through your backyard, or people stealing your things?

Some Little Projects

I've been working on a few little things lately trying to summer things up a bit around here. Starting with the front garden. Last year we ripped out the brick at the front of the house to put a small garden, and it was ok. We had some blooming things (mainly because we planted things that already had flowers on them) but it was relatively sad haha. In the fall my mom and I planted a bunch of bulbs and I didn't really have high hopes for them, I'm a bit of a black thumb. I was always the kid who's stupid little bean never grew. That's why the only house plant we have is a succulent, because not even I can seem to kill them. But my garden out front looks great so far, and it's still early! So I had my mom and sister come out to help me weed, and we put up a little border around the garden, just using the bricks we'd pulled up.

I'm most excited about my rose bush. We transplanted it from the backyard last year, and it was pitiful, we figured it was dead, but it managed one bloom. This year it is looking WAY better, and I'm really hoping we get a few more than one this year.

There's still a few more plants and flowers I need/want to get in there, like some nice annuals, maybe some inpatients, and a few more begonias. There's some grape hyacinth in the backyard that we'll transplant up there as well as soon as we can (they're growing in the middle of the yard)

We also took off the ugly awning over the dining room window. It was one of those projects that take absolutely no time, and makes you wonder why on earth you hadn't done it sooner. And it lets is so much more light into the dining room now. We still want to take down those cedars, they're just too close to the house, but we want to wait until we're able to plant another tree first. Seems only fair since we already ripped out Bertha the giant bush. I also want to do some gardening/landscaping on this side, since it's not going to change at all, and it gets a bit more sun than the other side.


In terms of still summery, but less flowery things, I made some patio plates. I somehow have amassed a significant collection of plates, (I like to throw parties haha) so I decided to take the white plates I had and fun them up a bit. (they came from Dollerama) I started with a white plate and some Sharpie paint pens.

I was wanting to create something like the plates that Amanda from Love & Renovations scored from West Elm a while ago, I just loved them, but they don't sell them anymore, plus they'd probably be out of our price range anyway. So I figured why not try this Sharpie on white ceramics thing that's all over the place, and see if I could recreate a similar look.

Here's what I came up with. The colours are considerably more primary and bright, and a lot of my zig-zags don't line up all that great, but they're not too bad. I was a little disappointed with how they turned out, but Jase thought they looked good, and proclaimed they'd make good patio plates. So patio plates they shall become. The second plate I did looked better, and I devised a plan for the third one, so it should look even better. I've got 12 white plates kickin' around so I'll probably do it to all 12, and I've got an idea for salad plates, so hopefully I can get to those soon too.

Operation Backyard Awesome : The Initial Plans

So, I mentioned that we were planning on tackling (at least part of) the back patio this year, and we're hoping to get started now that the weather's nice. We already ripped out the big bush, and cleared away a lot of other dead or dying plant life that would be in our way, so we're ready to think about the layout, and finalize a few things so we can dig the gas lines. This was my initial (super rough) idea that I came up with last year, more of a way to play with sizing. How, long and wide could we go, and all that jazz.

This idea doesn't work for a few reasons, but mainly it's just too small, and cramped. Here's a reminder of what the area looks like now. (minus Bertha the bush)

There are only four main things we're looking for with the patio:

1. No more brick. We really don't like the brick. It's got copious amounts of weeds growing in between them, they're oil stained, and have massive dips in them from where the previous owners parked their cars. We'll be keeping the brick for the driveway for now, but it is our goal to eventually get rid of it, to put in something else.
2. A dining area big enough to seat at least 8 off the back door.
3. A designated "cooking" area close to the eating area. An outdoor kitchen if you will. (Since we plan on upgrading to a bigger badder gas BBQ down the line we'd like to run the gas line for it now so we don't have to make a mess of our pretty patio later)
4. A lounge area with patio flame. We have a large outdoor sectional that will go around the patio flame making it like a conversation area.
5. Must be made of wood, and must be pretty.

Not too big of a list of must haves. The first idea kind covered some of those needs, but not all of them, and it just seemed too small. We have a large back yard, so we want to patio to look like it belongs, and not be dwarfed. Here's what we  have in mind now...

It's got a little more oomph, and seems to hold it's weight better. See what I mean by we have a big backyard haha. And the blue spruce by the house is the only tree we have in our South facing backyard, so there's not much shade goin' on back there. You can also see, that this is why we need the help of a landscaper. We have a vast open space and no idea what to do with it. We need to put a fence up at the bottom of our yard to stop the crazy people from the stores and apartments above them walking through our yard. And we want to plant a few trees (we plan on planting one for every child we have) Anywho...lets take a closer look shall we?

 

Talk about a deck! This is definitely more of a statement, and definitely more our style and taste. Since we spend as much time as possible outside this idea covers our wants and needs better. It takes care of getting rid of the brick, it has a large eating area, under a pergola to provide some shade so our pasty necks won't get burnt (who am I kidding, we'll still get burnt - true story I got one of the worst burns of my life while sitting under a tree in the shade...I'm cool like that!) The pergola is attached to concrete pillars one of which turns into a bit of a bar area beside the barbeque. It's got a built in area for the BBQ, which is our designated cooking area. This area of the patio will come directly off the house, which means it'll be just over a foot off the ground, then we'll have a step down to our lounge area. This area has our sectional and the patio flame, and makes me want to sit there and roast marshmallows haha (and I don't even like marshmallows). We pulled this area away from the house so we're not blocking the basement windows, which we'll have to egress when we get to the finishing of it. It definitely covers our last point...it's pretty and made of wood! I think this is a winning idea for us, Jason is wholeheartedly on board with it, so I look forward to getting started.

  Just for comparison sake, the first mockup I came up with was 29' x 9' (although I suggested bumping it up to 11') whereas this one is 36' x 27' considerably bigger. We're not sure how much we're going to be able to get done this year, since we still have a bunch of things inside to finish, and we're hoping to get a baby by the fall. We plan on starting with the lounge area, since we already have everything for that, so we'll run the line, and set up a temporary situation, and we'll likely stake everything out, and plan our all our materials so we can have a budget in mind. We'll set things up where they would go, to play with size and layout, and make sure it does work well, because we learned the hard way that things don't always fit as nicely in real life as they do online or on paper. The best part of having a giant backyard, is you can decide to build a 900sq.ft. patio and it doesn't cut into where your imaginary massive pool is, so we can still go pretend swimming. I look forward to hearing what the landscaping company I talked to has to say about what kind of plants and trees to plant and where.

Operation Backyard Awesome : Destructive or Productive?

Jason posed the question when we were digging out, and hacking up, and chopping down things in the backyard if we were being destructive or productive. Actually he was in the middle of beating apart a large chunk of roots when he asked, so he was probably being destructive haha. But I'm pretty sure when it comes to yard work it's a combo of both. I mentioned before about our plans to create a back deck/patio. We weren't able to get to it last year, but we really want to use our outdoor furniture and our patio flame this year, so we have to at the very least hash out our plans in enough detail and certainty to run the gas line for the patio flame (and probably the BBQ at the same time.) We're planning to have someone come out from a landscaping company to take a look at our space, and help us brainstorm some ideas for the space. I know what I want when it comes to the patio (and we've pretty much nailed down how we want it to look) but neither of us know much about gardening, or landscaping so we need some help with that aspect of things. We decided to initiate phase one of "Operation Backyard Awesome" with that massive bush (seriously it's got like a 7ft diameter) we've got just chillin' right in the middle of where our patio will go.

Since it was such a nice day Sunday, we didn't want to be inside, so we got to ripping out the giant bush (And by we, I totally mean Jason, I didn't even have to ask him) He had fun, don't let him tell you otherwise.

He made short work of it, especially since he had these rinky dink little shears, he couldn't find the big ones on his first glance so he stuck with the little ones. Then the dog distracted him...

Until she was done. And when she's done she lets you know...

See, this is her, "I'm done, leave me alone now" look. She always just lays down and ignores you when she's done or bored...and she's usually done or bored after about two minutes. She's a lazy player.
    We took that as a good time to take a breakfast break, before finishing it off.

Huzzah! Bush-be-gone! Look at that giant circle of death. We couldn't get the roots out because the ground was still too frozen (maybe having something to do with the fact that the ground hadn't seen the light of days in years). We'll leave it for a few days, then dig them out. Upon removal of the giant bush, we found some treasure...

And by treasure I mean gross old flower pots, some of which had frozen to the ground, and the bottoms were completely eroded away. The giant one Jase is trying to pry from the grips of the cold, dead ground had so many snails in the bottom of it, I gagged a little. I don't mind snails, they're kinda cool, in a grotesquely weird way, but it was like the mother ship of colony's. Hundreds of the nasty little buggers. We also cleared away all the dead clematis and other junk that was against the house, as well as trimmed the tree that was hanging way over the fence from the neighbours'. You had to almost crawl under it if you were walking there. So phase one is complete, we've cleared away everything standing in our way, now we can get to the fun stages. It was such a productive morning outside, that we decided to bring the fun inside. We also got the dining room painted, and I sprayed the chandelier for the dining room as well. All in all, Sunday was a very good day on the home front.

Another Year Over

Another year over, and a new one in full swing already. I've already crossed a bunch of things off my to-do list which is good! So I decided to make some house related resolutions for 2013, in order to help further motivate us in this year. So, here's 10 things that we've discussed and plan/hope to have happen this year.

 1. FINISH THE DANG KITCHEN.
        I can't pretend to be happy that this is still on our list of things to do for this year, but sadly it is :(.

We still have to do the floor, eating nook, install a few more base cabinets, and the uppers, all the electrical, plus all the little finishing touches like kick plates, and trim and what have you.

2. Re-do the main floor bathroom...making it bigger and better
          This was on our to-do list for 2012, but obviously we didn't even come close. We did manage to accomplish some minor updates though - like a new toilet and paint. (although the ceiling is still pink, I should probably do something about that)

But we need to tear down a wall, and upgrade pretty much everything in there, and we're pretty sure we'll probably run into some mold issues, so we'll see how that goes. I'm excited to tackle this project and make the bathroom all spiffy and good for a family bigger than 2.

3.  Tackle the back bedroom (affectionately called the blue room).

        This is the room that we intended on having as the nursery. Since we've run into some fertility issues, we're not sure if it'll ever be a nursery, nursery, but it will definitely be the coolest kid bedroom around, regardless of how old a whipper-snapper we get. There's not much structurally we plan on doing in here, but a bigger closet, and for sure new flooring are on the list. I'm oddly excited to pop this bad boy out!

4.  Living room. Un-pop that ceiling, and lay some lovely new floor.
         This was also something we'd at least start this year, but alas, did not. We have to scrape the ugly popcorn ceiling, because we both hate it, we also need to replace (as well as reinforce) the floor. I mentioned before that we're thinking a dark vinyl tile since there's two entry points, and it's super durable, and since the kitchen floor is pretty dark it'll flow nicely. Obviously it'd be nice if we could completely finish the room (ie, paint and new couch, TV set up, entry established, storage, etc) but I'm trying this new thing this year, it's called "being realistic". So I'll be happy with just a proper ceiling and new floors.

5. Master suite. Finish bedroom and bathroom
       This shouldn't take too long, since they've both been stuck in the "almost done" phase for a while now. Bedroom only needs a few tweaks, and the bathroom basically just needs some beadboard. This one shouldn't be too hard to cross off our list.

6.  Laundry...move it or lose it.
        Well, not lose it, but definitely move it. Downstairs. Yes downstairs, heaven forbid it not be on the same floor. We currently have to lug it down stairs to do it, so what's another 7 stairs? Plus, we've both grown up having laundry in the basement, and it doesn't bother us at all...gives my lazy butt a bit of a workout.

The laundry has to move downstairs to make way for that bathroom (and 2nd bedroom) expansion.

7. Brick, hooouuuse. (c'mon, sing it!)
         We need to brick over the old front door that we took out almost a year ago, and since we're most likely moving (or possibly taking out completely) a window at the back of the house, we'll need to re-brick that as well.

8. The garage. Umm...if you could even call it that!?
         This is like the big ugly mole on the guy from the Austin Powers movie, something that is gross, and just keeps growing. It's terrible, I don't even like to look at it. Can't even go in there. Must do something about it. The door doesn't work properly, and the floor is dirt & exceptionally uneven. Neither of us are overly fussy about parking the car in there, and we'd both prefer to use it as a sort of workshop. But at this point, I'd just settle for clean!

9.  Backyard. It's time to tame that jungle.
        Ok, so it's not really a jungle so much, but we do need to get rid of the giant ugly bush guy to make way for the great patio flame and whole patio revamp (that I talked about here).

This is probably one we're most excited about getting to. We love cooking and eating outside, and did it a lot this year, so we can't wait to do it on matching sets, and we can't wait to have a lounge area where we can get together with friends and sit on a comfy couch and sit around the fire.

10. The long forgotten dining room!
         When I'm thinking about things I still have to do to the house, for some reason the dining room always slips my mind, maybe because of the fact it's tucked away in the back corner of the house where we don't often go. But more likely it's caused by the fact that it's been sitting in the same embarrassingly unfinished state for the past year.

It's like that weight you slowly gain, you hope that if you ignore it, it'll just get better on it's own, when it fact, it just slowly builds, then WHAM a few years later you're 60lbs heavier, and even your fat clothes don't fit.


Thar she be, 10 things that we can hopefully tackle, and hopefully I can show you in 2013. We also have a number of smaller little things that we'll be doing as well. I plan on being a munch better home owner this year, and actually accomplishing things. This will be the year of doing, instead of the year of putting off.  

Big Backyard Dreams

Since the weather has been nicer and we’ve been spending more and more time outside, BBQing and puttering, and what not, we’ve been thinking more and more about what we’d like to do with the back yard. Remember back from this post, where I showed a bunch of eye candy, and some rough ideas of what we wanted...well now that it’s hotter, the weeds are attacking us with a vengeance, my love for all things backyard pretty has been renewed. Our driveway (which turns into our “patio”) is bricked; now, not only are the bricks ugly, but they’re being overrun with weeds, and we just can’t keep up with them. I have a few plans kickin’ around inside my head that I wish we could do out back, but we both decided that we’d wait until our second spring/summer here before we do anything too major. That way we have time to figure out exactly everything we want and need, and what a good size will be.

   Then something happened that sort of jump started our plans. We won this!

After winning this bad boy from Mike & Steph's stag & doe (donated by Patio Palace) we legitimately had to start thinking about the back patio. We won a natural gas "Patio Flame" which is basically a fire pit that no one can yell at us for having because it's a controlled flame. Since it's natural gas, we have to run a dedicated line for it, so we need to know exactly where we want it so we can have the line run. Here's what the yard looks like now...

A back yard shot from the side of the house 

Again from the side of the house, this is about where the patio would span.

Overgrown myrtle and clematis...you can almost see a basement window trying to peek out in the middle of the jungle.

From the other side of the house. You may notice the pile of bricks leaning up against the garage that we still need to stack back out along the front garden boarder...someday.

We need to remove that giant bush...which is pretty much where the fire pit will go. It's a monster, it probably has an almost 5ft diameter. So we're going to have to do some digging, and some pulling with the truck to get it out. Our lawn is already filled with holes, so what's one more gigantic one eh?

 

I know you're all jealous of our amazing "patio eating" set up, it's pretty pimpin' I'm not gonna lie! You may also be jealous of all the weeds, and this picture doesn't even show how many there really are. 
   So now we've got our thinking caps on, for all the amazing things we could/can do with the back patio. There are a few things that are must have's for us, and the rest is just fun "make it look pretty" 
The things we have to have are pretty simple:
   1. No more brick - we'll keep the bricks on the driveway portion for now, until we figure out what we want to do to the drive.  
   2. An eating area (enough to sit at least 8) - which will probably go roughly where our pathetic one is now
   3. A "conversation" area, or just more of a loungy area - that's where we'll be putting the patio flame
   4. A designated "cooking" area, most likely close to the eating area - because in the future we plan to upgrade to a natural gas BBQ, and it's                   just easier to plan for it now, than try to figure out where to put it in the future.


Those are pretty much our only stipulations at this point, I'm sure as we get the ball rollin' there will be more that crop up. But for now, our goal to spruce things up is to rip out that bohemouth bush & put the patio flame in, and power wash the bricks to clean them up (which will hopefully also help get rid of the weeds). I heard that baking soda is supposed to work well for killing weeds because of it's pH level...so we'll have to give that a try, see how it pans out. 
  Here's my "had-way-too-much-fun-screwing-around" computer rendition of what it'll look like when all is planned, said and done.

Isn't it just so pretty! Hooray, I know it's going to be a while before it actually looks like this, but it's exciting to just look at this, plus it helps me get a good idea of what a good size is. (this is 9ft by 29ft) It looks like maybe 11ft would be a bit better, no?