Clearing the Clutter

Matt and I had three goals that we wanted to accomplish before our sweet baby girl's arrival in October, and I'm pleased to say that we're getting very close to finishing them. 

First, we wanted to get the back yard in order so that little Billie (who will be named after Matt's grandmother) would have a nice yard to play in that didn't consist of random trees, weeds, branches and dead grass.  If you look closely, you can see the old pots pictured below looking nice, shiny and red alongside our water feature below. Nothing goes to waste around here. :)




Fun place for babies to play, right?



We had the fence build a few months ago and stained it ourselves.  The "fence" before consisted of chicken wire, stumps and trees, so this was quite an improvement.  After the trees were cleared, sod was laid, sprinkler system was upgraded, flower beds were designed, and new trees were planted, this is where we stand now.  





Arg - don't even get me started on the holes in the sod...boo.  I guess we'll worry about those next season.

We still need to do some finishing touches (add some plants along the fence and mulch the flower beds) and maybe hide the car port a little bit more, but that will come in due time.

Here are a few pictures of the side yard improvements as well:



Behind the deck

See that nasty bench behind Matt?

 


Same old bench after a deep clean and fresh coat of paint! 

As you can see, Matt planted some plants, laid some mulch and added a lattice to keep the dogs from digging under the deck.  We will soon have a fire pit on the flagstone where we plan to roast marsh mellows with little Billie and our neighbors.  :)

 



Matt also built a gorgeous water feature in just a few days which we decorated with pretty plants.  It helps drown out the noise from the busy street on the other side of the fence.  We even have a couple of gold fish in the bottom pond who help us out by eating mosquito larvae.  I gave the little guys to Matt on his b-day (along with a cordless drill) and he was beyond thrilled.  ha!

 

That's the salvaged red pot that I mentioned above




Not too shabby, eh?
 

Our second goal was to finish our mudroom, which started out as a screened in porch.  This wasn't just any porch, it had dirty brown carpet, yellow plastic covers for the screens, a metal floral awning and a security gate on the insite that made getting into the kitchen really fun.  It would get REALLY cold in the winter which made walking from the garage to the kitchen totally awesome as well.  We called it our trash room - and I was SO happy when we had it completely destroyed and rebuilt.  Several neighbors complimented the new addition as well, which means that they equally hated the eye-sore on the front of our house.  Here the only photo I can find of the disaster before we took a sledge hammer to it:

And here is the mudroom now! 

We just had these lovely shelves from IKEA installed yesterday and I couldn't be happier. 

I still need to get everything organized, work on the décor and remove the excess furniture, but I think it's a little better, don't you?

And finally, our third goal was to transform the guest room into the nursery.  It currently looks like a tornado passed through the room, but I can (oddly enough) see my vision coming together.  Sweet Billie be here in less than two months (if all goes as planned) so I have some work to do!  Thank goodness for the long weekend ahead!