Monday

This weekend was busy. Jason worked on the sprinklers, the boys and I worked on the yard.

Saturday we went to Cal-Ranch to get some feed, and ended up with 4 chicks. They are so cute! They are Rhose Island reds. I got rid of most the wood from the trees that we had taken down. I mowed the front yard Saturday. 

My plan for today ( Monday) was to spend part of the day doing yard work, then I was going to work on the housework. I ended up working all day on the yard. The one negative, I got sunburned. However, the backyard is finally looking good! I made three trips to the dump. The boys filled 8 bags with yard waste ( they didn't make it to the dump yet). We have lots of clover and weeds growing. My thought is, at least there is some type of vegetation growing. This weekend we are going to try to get the rest of the tree limbs loaded up and taken to the dump. Once they are gone, it will be that much easier to weed eat and mow the back.

My lettuce out front is growing well, and my strawberry plants have blossoms on them. The one area I was going to put my garden gets a lot of shade, starting around 2. Tha changes my plans a bit. I will probably garden in containers this year. By next year, I will be able to tell which area get the most sun. The nice thing is, our lot is like a blank canvas. I can create it to be whatever I want it to.

Cabinets and sprinklers

Well, when we moved into this house, I noticed that the kitchen cabinets were in some need of TLC.
Today I went in the laundry room and found some cans of stain the previous homeowner left. One of them actually matched the cabinets. A couple weeks ago, I washed and sanded the cabinets. Today I began touching them up and staining the two we replaced.
It's looking good. The only drawback is I ran out of stain.
Tomorrow I will be going to the store to buy some more. The weather is suppose to turn chilly after tomorrow, so I may just wait until it warms up again.
Hubby got the sprinklers in the front yard fixed ( good thing I now have a job,lol). I will now run that section into a flower bed as well. It was dug up when we moved in. I may need to purchase dirt to fill and level out that side.

Broken pipes

The projects never cease, ha ha ha. I recently started a job. It's on call, which I love. I work ten hour shifts. It's only 6 miles from my house, which I like because in traffic, I still can get home in 10-12 minutes. Yesterday it began snowing in the afternoon. It was slushy. Then it warmed up slightly and it rained. I felt like I was in Washington. Last night I went to lock up the hens, I heard a hissing sound from sprinkler system. There appeared to be several leaks. I went in to get hubby. We go out to the cover to shut off the water, and water shot out like a geyser. The pipe broke before the shut off. Hubby went next door, and lur neighbor said the other access cover( there are two) should also have a shut off. It was covered by 6-8 inches of water. Luckily, the shut off wasn't broken. The good thing is, the water line is to the canal water, there is no meter to it. I was angry though, because I know I read somewhere that the water wasn't suppose to be turned on till the middle of April. My neighbor told me I was correct. He even questioned why they turned it on, as it was snowing and raining.
The good thing is there wasn't any damage. Just one more thing to put on the to do list.
On the plus note, my compost pile got good and wet. Since the canal water is on, I can now water it regularly. I am hoping it will be broken down by fall, so I can mix it into what will be a garden area for next year.

Projects

We have had several projects going on here.
We have slowed down. Mostly because we are waiting for the weather to warm up.
My two older boys are also down here for the week. We are all enjoying each others company.
I need to touch up the stain on my kitchen cabinets. 
We also need to lay new flooring. I have the flooring. I got it on clearance at Lowes . It is a big enough piece of linoleum to do both bathrooms, as they are small.

Here are some pictures for the upstairs bathroom.
Yes, my animal like to photo bomb.

These are the main bathroom upstairs, before I painted the cabinets.

                                      

Here are the after pictures.

I did change out the hardward. Eventually the mirror will go and we will get two smaller mirrors or cabinets. We are also planning on changing out the counter top and the sink.

My bathroom, before and after pictures. The top one is with the new medicine cabinet.

Here are the pics of the new cabinet, painted vanity and new sink.
We replaced the light fixture too!

Before and After

  So, many of my neighbors have told my husband and I its been 15-20 years since anyone has done much with our house, inside or out.
After spending most of the week working on the back yard alone, I believe it. I made I don't know how many trips to the dump ( Friday I made four trips, Saturday one. I made at least two Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday).

Today I finally got around to downloading the pictures from my phone and ipad. Tomorrow I will get around to downloading the ones from my camera.

Here are some before pictures of the backyard.

Please notice all the trees. And the leaves.
Two of the trees in back of our house were half dead.
We had them taken down, and we took some trees down on our own.

It looks so much more open. We have the chicken coop done and the run is fenced in for the birds. We will be borrowing a trailer this weekend to hopefully get rid of the rest of the limbs. In the back of the lot we created a compost pile. I bought some worms from walmart yesterday and added them to the pile. I then covered it with a tarp. We have magpies here, I don't want them eating my worms.
My goals for this week are to finish up the back yard and to add more items to my garage sale pile. My goal is to have the garage sale in a month. I added quite a bit to the pile a couple weeks ago. I am going to go through the totes again, as I still feel as if we have too much stuff. No use in keeping stuff I don't need!

Goals for this week

Things have been busy here, we have gotten a lot done.

Got the trees taken down ( now just am working on the mess)

Hubby got the hen house built. 

I got the bathroom cabinets painted. We painted the panelling in the basement. It looks so much better.

Goals for this week:

- download pictures from all devices into the computer

- post the pics of this blog/ Facebook

- take the cans and cardboard to the recycling facility

- begin going through the holiday totes, get rid of decor I no longer need/use.

We have a larger house, I want to make sure it doesn't fill up with more stuff. I went through the kitchen and already have a pile of items I don't need/use.  I have some family members that buy items,realize they don't need them, or have a place to store them and were dropping them by my house. Since I have moved 800 miles away, I don't think that will be an issue. I want to have a garage sale within a month. I really need to get going through the items. I feel better after "purging" and not having clutter around. Less is better.

Last night, my dog was on my right, between me and my husband.

She was to the right..

She doesn't like him either...

They did behave . For a change :)

Saturday

Thursday evening and Friday, hubby worked on painting the paneling. I had started it, but he took over. I worked on and finished the bathroom cabinet in our room. I finished it yesterday. Hubby attached the new hardware today. We are super excited how it turned out. I will be painting the main bathroom cabinets next.

Last night we went to Lowes and looked at the flooring. They have a much bigger selection of hardwood/laminate than Home Depot. We discussed the pros and cons of them. 

We went back to Lowes, and we found flooring we both like. We also picked out some linoleum tiles that we like. They are bigger ( 18 inches x 18 inches). We will put those in the kitchen. It's not large, so it shouldn't be too difficult. We want to lay them diagonally, just for a different look.

Today we were suppose to have trees removed, however it began to snow. They got one down, and stated they would be back later this week. I am fine with it. I felt bad for the guys, the weather was awful. We did have to move the hens in the garage, as we had to move the dog kennel they were in. Once the trees are down, then we will build their permanent pen. The temps are supposed to be down in the low twenties, and we are suppose to have significant winds tonight thru Monday morning. I have lots of pictures, my goal is to upload them this week.