The Great Yard Destruction

Last week (or was it the week before?) I decided that my back yard needed an overhaul.  I don't know where I got the gumption to tackle the back yard - maybe it was the cooler weather or something, but I finally got to it.

Unfortunately, I only have this one lousy before picture for you. I really need to remember to take pictures BEFORE I decided to overhaul something!

The only thing that you can really see here that I removed are the Pyracantha sticking up. Well, right there were three Pyracantha planted behind 2 carpet roses - making it next to impossible to get in behind the roses and trim them properly.

Also near there I identified three vines as Japanese Honeysuckle. It smells divine when it's in bloom, but it grows outrageously fast, reaches out and chokes the life out of anything near it, and it spreads via underground runners - so it pops up in places you didn't even plant it. It is an evil invasive vine and I hate it. I decided to dig it out.  Here are a few pictures of the detritus left over from the back yard battle.I tore all of this out of my yard inside of 1 week!

THE CASUALTIES

8 Pyracantha - 2 smallish and 6 medium sized pyracantha got yanked, 3 of which were infested with wooly aphids! They are terribly thorny, bear reddish berries that are a pain in the butt to clean up, and the birds don't even eat them. I've seen several mature pyracantha on campus and they are lovely, but these were all planted in the wrong places and looked sickly. The picture to the right shows where the 3 infested pyracantha used to live.

I plan to amend the soil here and turn the area into a flower bed for perennials. The area gets some morning sun and dappled sun throughout the afternoon. There are already some hydrangeas there - they don't looks so hot either though. I'm not entirely sure what I'll plant just yet, but I'm leaning towards a Virgina Sweetspire back towards the house.



Another 3 pyracantha used to live behind the roses in the picture to the left - one for each trellis. The roses, by the way, are carpet roses. They are supposed to grow 24"-32" tall. In the picture below, some of the stems are over 5' long! Needless to say, they will be cut back severely in January.

 The only problem here now is that the pyracantha did provide some privacy from the street. I might need to find something less bulky to go behind the roses to do that job now.



1 large Pyracantha - It's in the picture to the right in front of the air conditioning unit. You can't even tell what it is in this picture.  It had been cut back several times and was also infested with wooly aphids. I don't think I could have salvaged it even if I had wanted to.

I need to find something to plant in its place to cover up the AC unit since you can see it from the street now.  This spot gets great morning light and afternoon shade, so I'm thinking I might try a clematis here - one with dark purple blooms.


6 Japanese Honeysuckles - 3 large, 3 small - The three that came out of that huge hole in the ground you see to the left had sent runners 12-20 feet into my yard and all along the patio! I HATE this vile vine almost as much as I hate Smilax!

I'm thinking another perennial bed will go here. So many of the perennials that grow well here need full sun though and this spot gets little morning light, some heavy but brief afternoon sun, and dappled sun the rest of the afternoon. Planting suggestions for this spot are welcome.


I've recently installed a bed of Hostas to the left of the picture above, but I haven't taken photos yet. I'll do that soon though.

My awesome new roommate, Saalem, had a soil test run at the Clemson Extension office.  The soil is rather acidic, so I need to add some lime before I plant.  It's also very low in phosphorous and potassium.  If I had a compost pile I'd amend the soil with that, but I don't - at least not yet. In lieu of that, I'm going to add a combination of lime, composted manure, mushroom compost, and traditional fertilizer before I plant anything new.

The plan now is to buy some garden edging and define the bed space.  I'd use landscape timbers, but I like the idea of curvy beds. Once that is done, I'll amend the soil and get the beds ready for a spring planting!

Upstairs Hall Makeover

I finished this ages ago, but just got it together to post about it. Typical.  So, this is what the upstairs hall looked like when I moved in this summer.

And this is what it looks like now.

I painted the trim, walls and shelves. For the back of the bookcase I used some subflooring and cut it to the size of the opening.  I then pasted a textured wall paper on to that. Here is a close-up of it unfinished.

I painted it light gray (I mixed some white trim paint with a little sample of black paint that I had left over), then used a metallic glaze over that. And because I'm ADD, I spray painted the hardware to match.

I have since then rented out my upstairs so now I don't even get to use it. Typical.

Neglected Blog

I've been meaning to update this forever! I've done tons of work in my yard and around the house and I haven't posted about any of it. I will soon.

I also haven't posted about my workouts. That's because they are virtually nonexistent. My foot is better, more or less. It turns out the the magic cure is a pair of very expensive shoes - the ugliest shoes on the planet - made by MBT.

I told you they are ugly! One month of wearing them though and my plantar fasciitis is almost nonexistent - just like my workouts. I still haven't made it back into the gym on a regular basis. I've been going to yoga on Monday evenings on most weeks.  Why is it so hard to get back into once you're out of the habit of going? It used to be so easy to work into my everyday schedule and now...

Watch for new posts in the next week or so.

Hand-Me-Down Mirror Makeover

The former owners of my house left me this lovely (ugh) mirror.

 And this lovely eye sore above my mantle to go with it. I swear these people were the laziest homeowners ever!

 I taped off the mirror, primed it (shown below) and painted it "Ivory Brown" - a left over Valspar sample I had from another project .

 I followed that up with two coats of a craft paint in a metallic finish called "Champagne" that I picked up on sale for 75 cents. Voila - a glamorous mirror for my glamorous guest bedroom! Best 75 cents I've ever spent.

Hand-Me-Down Dresser Makerover

Among the massive amount of furniture and whatnot left in my house by the previous owners was this dresser.  It's functional, but not really my style at all.

I wish I could take credit for this idea, but I can't.  Not long after moving into the house and acquiring this hand-me-down dresser, I read about this dresser makeover and thought I'd give something similar a try. I figured even if I spent $100 making over this dresser to go in my guest bedroom, it's still cheaper than buying a new one and I get a one of a kind, custom piece of furniture out of the deal.  So why not?

First, I removed the old knobs and pulls and filled the holes with wood filler.

I then gave the dresser a quick once over with the orbital sander and applied two thick coats of an oil based primer, just like Kate from Centsational Girl said to do.  I always wondered how to get a nice clean even surface when painting wood furniture, and this is it. Two coats of an oil based primer followed up with a quick sanding makes the most lovely surface for painting.

Next I went about painting the dresser, applying two coats (three where necessary) of Olympic's "Delicate White" paint. I used a semi-gloss because I wanted a high shine surface when I was finished.  Also, the insides of the drawers had seen better days, so I measured them and then cut some wallpaper I had lying around from a previous makeover to fit inside the drawers.

I used a glue stick to glue them down, and voila! I like the effect. It's a nice surprise when you open the drawers to find a little sparkle waiting for you.

I finished it off with a couple of coats of Polycrylic to protect the paint job - one coat on the body, two and the drawers, and four (two then sand, then another two!) on the top since it will see the most wear and tear.

Finally, I ordered some lovely glass knobs and pulls from Cool Knobs And Pulls (CKP). This was by far the most expensive part of the makeover. But seriously, after putting in a ton of hours painting this thing, it was worth it to me to splurge a little on the knobs and pulls, which, with shipping and handling, came to not quite $90.

Here it is in it's new home, the upstairs guest bedroom, just waiting for some friends to visit and put it to good use.  Until then, it'll will just have to sit around looking pretty.

Puddle of Misery

I haven’t posted in a long time. This is why.

I am working on various projects around the house – all in various stages of completion, but none of them far enough along to post about. I’m hoping that a few of them will come together soon so that I can share what I’ve been working on. Seems like even the smallest projects take forever to complete.

In other news, I’m rather depressed. I missed going to my chiropractor last week because I was in all day workshops in Florence last week. I thought that keeping off of my feet would help the plantar fasciitis, but it is worse this week, even though I wear my new tennis shoes with special insoles religiously. I’m really frustrated with it. I haven’t had a workout in over 3 weeks! I feel like if my stupid foot is going to hurt like this I might as well be high on some exercise endorphins. See, I’ve recently come off of one of the two anti-depressants that I was on, Zoloft. Exercising really helps with the depression and not being able to work out is making me pretty miserable. Not to mention flabby. And as if that wasn’t enough, my right knee is starting to hurt from trying to keep my weight off of my left leg. I feel like my body is just breaking down on me! I’m only 37 years old. WTH?? I don’t know how much more of this I can take. I know that being on my feet working on my house is probably what is making my foot worse, but I can’t just lie around! It would probably be in my best interest to just go into work every day and sit at my desk 10 hours a day. But summer II starts in 2.5 weeks and once that happens I know I won’t have any time to work on the house at all.

So, that’s it. I’m a puddle of misery today. Most days I don’t feel quite so bad, but seems like today I’m having myself a little pity party. It happens to the best of us, right?

Upstairs Bedroom Makeover - Progress

This is what the upstairs bedroom looked like before I started working on it. None of this furniture is mine, these are photos from when the previous owner still occupied the house.

 

Yikes, right? Obviously, the mural had to go. The bedroom is medium sized, but has low ceilings and is oddly shaped. I wanted to open it up and at the same time give it some personality and impact. The blue paint, even though it's light, does not open up the room the way you'd hope. And the low, angled ceilings make it look dark and gloomy. Just in case you missed the glow-in-the-dark stars stuck to the ceiling, here is a close up.

Of the two upstairs bedrooms, this one has the least amount of closet space. Since closet space is scarce in this house, I decided that this room should be the guest bedroom. I live near Myrtle Beach, so I expect to (more like would like to) have multiple guests in the future and I thought it would be nice to be able to sleep more than one person in this room. Lucky for me, the previous owners conveniently left two twin beds when they moved out.

In the unlucky column goes the framing around the windows. All three windows are in this condition. It makes me want to rip my hair out. Even though I love fixing this place up, I hate the part where I have to go back and fix all the stupid shit other people have done to it.  After much debate, I decide to just leave the molding alone and reframe the windows at a later date, i.e. when I have the money to do it.

Now, for the fun part! Seeing some progress! I agonized over what color to paint this room and finally settled on "Tranquility" by Valspar. I like this color so much, I'm going to use it in the master bedroom, too. I think that it makes the room look like a little jewel box and I love it. I'm really happy about the decision to take the wall color all the way up the angled portion of the ceiling. I think it makes room appear taller and less crowded.

Although you can't see it in these pictures (which is probably a good thing, because it's not done yet, shhhh!), I painted the ceiling in Valspar's "Botanical Bath," which is a very pale green. I've never painted a ceiling before and I really like the effect. I'll post pictures that show the ceiling when I get around to replacing the flush mount light. Until then, you'll just have to trust me that it looks great. The trim color is Olympic's "Delicate White." I used the same color on the dresser and I'm going to use it throughout the entire house.  It's slightly shy of pure white - just enough to take the glare off.

The best part is that all of the furniture in this room was free! The beds were left by the previous owners (I just updated the bedding) and the dresser, too.  The bedside table was a gift from a friend's move. Both the dresser and bedside table were updated by yours truly.  You can read about the Bedside Table Makeover here and the Dresser Project here (I'll put a link in when it's finished).

It's not perfect, but it is definitely progress! Here is what is left on the to do list for this room:

• Rip down the old molding around the windows, replace it with new wood and paint it.
• Window treatments! I'm thinking roman bamboo shades and airy white curtains.
• Trade out the old sockets (they've been painted over!) and light switch for new ones.
• Replace the outlet covers with new ones that have a satin nickel finish, which goes really well with the new paint color.
• Finish painting the ceiling! I really wanted to get it all done before I moved in the furniture, but things don't always happen the way that you want them to.
• Replace the yellow lamp with one that has a glass base and a white shade.
• Hang some art or a mirror on the walls. Really, my only big complaint about the room now is that it is a wee bit stark.
• Strip the doors of their old paint and repaint them to match the trim. This, actually, is going to be another project all on it's own, which I'll get to (hopefully) before the summer is over.
• Replace the ceiling light! I'm thinking of something like this to finish off the jewel box feel I'm going for.

The room is a long way from finished (is anything ever finished?), but I feel like it's come a long way from where it started. 

Sexy Shoulders & Abs Workout

Hi Everyone! So, I'm in my new house and I don't have the internet hooked up yet, which is why I haven't posted in a little while, but I'm still here and I'm still Body Rockin' it!

On Wednesday I didn't do a traditional workout, but I did mow my lawn for an hour and 15 minutes with an a push mower - I'm not talking about a gas push mower, I'm talking about the kind with the blades that spin! I had to go over sections of my yard multiple times and the grass still wasn't cut to my satisfaction! I'm calling it the "Nice GrASS Workout." I'm sure to repeat it at least once a week for the rest of the summer.

So, because I couldn't get on line, I made up my own workout. It's the very first one I've ever put together myself and I'm calling it the Sexy Shoulders & Abs Workout. All but one of the exercises appear in other workouts, so it isn't hard to figure out what the workout looks like. Here it is:

15 minutes, 15 50:10 intervals, repeat the following 3 times:
1) Reverse Lunge & Kick Up (left)
2) Reverse Lunge & Kick UP (right)
3) Dynamic Push Up
4) 25 cm Ball Crunch
5) Pike Press

For exercise number 4, I use the Gold's Gym 25cm Pilates mini-ball. I like it because it allows you to get a greater range of motion than just doing regular crunches.

Here are my scores:
Round 1 - 19, 18, 14, 16, 15
Round 2 - 18, 17, 11, 14, 14
Round 3 - 16, 16, 10, 17, 14

In Love With Laurel

Hi Everybody. The good news is that I'm now officially a homeowner! I moved into my new house yesterday morning. I am SO happy to finally have a home again. And not a moment too soon. I've been carting the dogs around in the car for so long I think that they think that the car is home, lol!

I did a walk through of the house right before closing. When I pulled up and looked in the window I saw a couch, books and rugs still in the family room. I called my agent thinking, "It looks like someone still lives here!" Nope, the previous owners just decided to leave me a bunch of furniture. OK. So, this part is actually pretty cool. They left me antique dressers, rockers, mirrors, a patio set and two twin beds (for the guest room). They left more usable furniture in the house than I own. No joke. They left me a dining room table which is uber cool since I was dreading having to buy one. They also left a lawn mower and tons of around the house tools in the shed. Here's the not so cool part. They left all of their JUNK! They left me knick-knacks, art, wreaths, touch up paint (I'm repainting), multiple old lamps and two old couches, one of which is deadful! So, not only do I have to move my stuff in and organize it all, I also have to get rid of all of the stuff they left that I don't want. I guess you take the good with the bad.

There will be pictures of the house and house projects in the months to come. I've got all sorts of work to do on the place! On my project to do list:
- Paint the front door RED.
- Repaint the downstairs bedroom a soothing blue or green - it's mint colored right now and totally obnoxious.
- Paint the upstairs bedrooms a nice crisp, clean white. Currently there is a beach motif mural in one of the bedrooms - ugh.
- Install a shelving system in the upstairs closet.

Closer to Closing

My divorce decree came in the mail yesterday! The last thing I need to do is write a letter explaining why I still have an Indiana drivers license. The truth of the matter is that the picture on my Indiana license is good. Do you know how hard it is to take a good drivers license picture? This is the first good one I've ever had. But I think that the letter I write will say something like I wasn't sure that I was going to make South Carolina my permanent residence until I decided to buy this house and I'm going to get a new license as soon as I close on the house...which is mostly true. I'll e-mail the decree and the letter to my mortgage broker today and they'll submit the loan for final approval to the USDA on Monday or Tuesday. This means I will close in the second week of May. The sooner the better! I can't wait!

My Living Situation

Unfortunately, I'm not going to close on the house before the end of the month. If it's not one thing, it's another. I'm waiting on my divorce decree from Colorado Vital records - that should be here sometime this week. Also, something is wrong with the termite bond - like there was previous damage, but it's been repaired and the letter doesn't say that. And then there's the fact that the letter from the contractor sounds like a 3rd grader wrote it. I'm calling a certified structural engineer out to the house to have a look at it. I don't trust these people!

So, I rented a storage today and started filling it with boxes. Wooooopieeeee! I'm going to move all the little stuff this week, rent a truck this weekend, and bribe my students with a weekend review session in exchange for helping me load and unload my stuff. Is that bad? I'd ask my colleagues, but if I close in 2 weeks I'll need to ask them to help then - and I don't want to ask them twice.

Come Sunday, I will officially be homeless. Woot! I figure I can sleep in the back of the car and shower at the gym. I'm joking. I'll rent a hotel room - one of those seedy weekly motels. Who knows, maybe I'll get to meet a modern day Southern Charles Burkowski.

Abode on Laurel

I heard from my real estate agent yesterday and the seller is fixing just about everything that is wrong with the house this week. I'll close the first week of May. The seller is spending about $3300 on repairs. This includes: replacing the galvanized pipe with new PVC piping, fixing a leak over the carport, laying down a moisture barrier under the house, installing additional vents to air out the crawl space, installing a fan in the crawl space to keep it dry, and reinforcing the piers on the left side of the house to prevent any further sinking. What a relief!

<\begin drama>

As I mentioned in this post, I didn't do my workout over the weekend as planned. I'm chalking it up to one heck of a bad week. A (not so) brief summary of my personal drama.

Monday - Lose my phone.

Tuesday - House inspection is done.

Wednesday - Get into a hair-grabbing, weave-snatching fight with the ex-boyfriend. Not literally, of course, he has no weave...but if he did.

Thursday - Inspection report comes in. There is too much moisture under the house and it looks like the left side piers are sinking. Other than that, pretty minor stuff. It dawns on me that I might be homeless at the end of the month instead of in my new house. =( I also file an insurance claim on the phone. The good news is that they are overnighting it!

Friday - I have a 3pm appointment with the chiropractor - I'm storing ALL of my stress in my upper back and I eat, drink and breathe stress these days. I leave work at 2pm, so that I can swing by home for my new phone. I get home and find that UPS has not left my phone; I must sign for it. I go back to work to call UPS (cause that's the only phone I have) to ask if I can pick it up that evening. NO. The sender didn't make the option available. What? Since when can't you just go pick a package up if you aren't home when it's delievered? Call T-mobile, they say. There's a T-mobile across the street, maybe they can do it faster than I can, automated call centers being what they are. I drive over to T-mobile. Nope, they can't change the delivery options. I must call customer care. It's about 2:30pm by now and the chiropractor's office is a solid 30 minutes away. Total breakdown ensues.

I just remember standing there thinking - I can't go all weekend without a phone! I'd been without a phone all - and a crappy one at that - week and I've had no one to talk to about it! Tears flooded my face. A very kind lady at T-mobile, Donna, bless her heart, called T-mobile for me, then got the insurance company on the line, and stayed on the phone with them to get the pick-up option changed while I left for my 3pm appointment, for which I was 30 minutes late.

I spent the entire drive to my appointment crying. I think, I'm supposed to close on the house by the end of the month and now that's not going to happen. I'm sitting in the car, stuck in traffic, thinking of how sucky my current living situation is. How I can't stay even one day past the end of the month. How I must get out no matter what the cost. How I'm going to be homeless at the end of the month because my perfect little house isn't perfect after all. I think, 'ef it, I'll pack my things in a moving truck and live out of it. I think 'ef it, I'll quit my job, pack my things in a moving truck and leave SC. And I cry and I cry and I cry.

I show up to my appointment red faced, eyes swollen, still crying.

<\end drama>

I realize now that everything is going to be OK, but I did spend the weekend obsessing about it - instead of working out (which would have helped with the stress, I know). I did, thanks to Donna, get to pick up my phone that evening. Even if I can't move into my house at the end of the month, I have a friend with a warehouse who said I could store my things in it until I do close on a house. My current living situation will be rectified by the end of the month. Even if it means I have to go live in a seedy weekly rate motel for a few weeks - at least then I'll get to sleep in a bed every night. The current owners of the house had a contractor out on Monday to look at the problems with the foundation and I should hear back from them by tomorrow. If they really want to sell the house, they are going to have to fix whatever is wrong with it one way or another, so they may just do it now - it just means I might have to wait a little longer to close.

It's times like this that I just need to remind myself that things, as craptastic as they seem now, have, in fact, been worse. I have lived through worse than this and come out stronger and better for it.

Microscope Up The Arse

Apparently, if you've filed for bankruptcy and you're getting a government loan on your house, this gives the feds permission to look up your arse with a microscope. I turned in my loan application and the underwriter came back with a list of 13 things I needed to provide them. 13!

This list included things such as: a signed letter explaining why I pay Toyota $500 a month and not $310 like my credit report says. Um, I want to pay it down early. That's legal, right?

And things such as: explain the $930 deposit to your bank account on March 25th. Um, that was my tax return from the federal government less the $40 in fees I paid to the company that filed it. You know, it says right next to it on the statement "FED." Well, now I need a receipt for filing my taxes. To prove that the $40 was paid to the tax company. Really? You can't just look at my federal return which says $970 and take my word for it?

The House

This is totally going to be my little (2300 square foot) sanctuary and I can't wait to close on it, move in, and start making it mine. I might even close on it before the end of the month.

Here is a shot from the curb. The roof looks blue, but it's not, it's black and only 1 year old. Honestly, this picture doesn't do it justice at all. When I got the bank's appraisal back and looked at the comps - well, all I have to say is that this house has so much more curb appeal. I can wait to start planting flowers and making it even better.

Here is a shot of the living room and fireplace. If you can believe it, there is a second fireplace right off the dining room and kitchen, but it's not gas. I don't know if it works, but I hope so. I miss the smell of wood burning fireplaces from when I lived in Denver and Boulder.

This is the downstairs bedroom. I'm not sure if I'm going to leave it this color or not. It's kind of growing on me though. I've always wanted a Moroccan inspired bedroom, but that kind of theme doesn't fit the personality of this house at all. I've never been a big fan of cottage style, but that's really what this house is.

I think the cottage styling of the house becomes even more apparent when you look at the kitchen. The kitchen and the bathrooms are what need an update more than anything. I think the best part of having 2.5 bathrooms is that I'll be able to tear one apart and redo it and still have another to use in the meantime!

The inspection is tomorrow afternoon and I'll be taking some of my own pictures then, so there will more to come.