How was your (long) weekend?

[mrs.jacinthe]

Do anything exciting?  Anything H&G? 

We spent, if I'm honest, the entire 4th drinking and watching the drunk history marathon on comedy central.  It was delightful!
Yesterday, R wired in and installed a new ceiling fan on our porch (over where we sit, so that hopefully we can keep the mosquitoes down) and a new porch light, which did not need to be wired.  Neither is quite right for the house visually (the light is pretty strongly craftsman), but I'm pretty sure we're just going to deal, because R is *not* doing that again.  LOL

[auroraloo]

I put up new curtains, hung baskets on the wall for shoes, I'm desperately trying to make my living room more adult-friendly and less kid-invaded.

We went to the horse races and my mom's for the fourth.

[emoflamingo]

We had a redneck slip-and-slide in our front yard made of PVC pipes, plastic sheeting and an inflatable pool. No one died, everyone had fun.

I feel very, very broke today. My anxiety is affecting me more than I want to admit, considering I missed my meds basically all weekend. Pass some xanax?

[2curlydogs]

I just downloaded Photoshop landscape brushes. MUAAHAHAHHAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

*opens up landscape plan*

[lilac05]

Crappy.

We got passed over yet again on the house sale. They loved it...but are now talking about building. I'm at wit's end with this whole nightmare. Always the bridesmaid, never the bride.

The boys are both feeling the stress in the house, too...it's not pretty.

[bunnymendelbaum]

We were at my parents' Friday - Monday. We took my DH's 11yo niece which was fun too. She talks sooooo much though. Omg. I need like an hour in a sound-proof booth.

[munkii]

Mine is just wrapping up now.

My ILs hired me to design their kitchen remodel; so, I spent the bulk of the weekend working on that, putting together floor plans and rendered perspectives. I also went over the construction process with them because they have no idea what they're getting into. MIL was talking about where she planned to set up the temporary kitchen and freaked when I told her they would more than likely be inaccessible in that area. That was just the tip of the iceberg, and they're going to have to sit down and really think this through.

We watched HG Mockingjay P1 last night. It was ok, but not as good as the first two. We also finally ordered a patio sofa and wall mounted pot racks. Maybe those will get put together sometime in the next week or so.

[namasteak]

Pretty good considering we had no plans. The cleaners came on Thursday so we didn't have to do any chores, DS slept through tons of fire works, I organized 2 closets and we went out to eat a few times.

Today DH finally found a home gym set up (power rack, bench, weights & bars) he has been wanting for just under $1k (just over $2k retail) AND the guy will deliver it since we live close.

[simpsongal]

DS was sick, we cleaned up the wainscoting room and moved some furniture around. We mostly laid over a ton of flagstone around the porch.

I bought more plants but didn't get around to planting them. Sigh.

[2curlydogs]

In other news, I found monarch eggs on our milkweed out front.

[TBM]

We spent the 4th at our neighbor's resort back yard.  We had a great time, but I seriously wanted to cry when we came home to our non-landscaped/hardscaped front yard and courtyard.

They have an outdoor kitchen roughly the size of my kitchen, and an outdoor room that might be larger than my living room.  They built it all themselves and it is gorgeous. Add in the pool, several chaise lounges, tables, chairs, umbrellas and a lot of food and drink, and no one wanted to leave.

I told them that we liked their resort, and all they talked about was what changes they are making and what needs to be done.  The rest of us look at it as move in ready, and a whole lot nicer than any of the rest of us have. lol


We continued our obsession with Miss Fisher's Mysteries on Netflix, that we had started the previous weekend, and watched two full seasons. Sadly, they just started airing the 3rd season in Australia, so it will be awhile before we will see it on either PBS or Netflix.

DH did some yard clean up and installed our new wireless doorbell with two receivers...one for the house and one for the studio.  We should have gotten one for the porch too, since we will never hear it if we are outside and the people ringing the bell will never hear it.  Now we just need to upload a tune.    We bought a glass doorbell plate/doorbell when DH's siblings were here in April, but it was a wired system and the old wires were gone, so we had to find something that fit the hole left from the original, then actually get around to installing it.

[2curlydogs]

Jul 7, 2015 11:22:03 GMT -5 TBM said:

We spent the 4th at our neighbor's resort back yard.  We had a great time, but I seriously wanted to cry when we came home to our non-landscaped/hardscaped front yard and courtyard.

They have an outdoor kitchen roughly the size of my kitchen, and an outdoor room that might be larger than my living room.  They built it all themselves and it is gorgeous. Add in the pool, several chaise lounges, tables, chairs, umbrellas and a lot of food and drink, and no one wanted to leave.

I told them that we liked their resort, and all they talked about was what changes they are making and what needs to be done.  The rest of us look at it as move in ready, and a whole lot nicer than any of the rest of us have. lol

The grass is always greener. I'm sure some people would look at our yard when it's freshly trimmed, weeded and ready for guests and think there's nothing to fundamentally change.

And then I'd haul out our landscaping plan and to-do list. And start sketching more revisions to the plan.

[magdala]

lilac05, I am so sorry.    The sale of my house (pre marriage) took a while and was gut wrenching because it was a buyer's market then. 

Our little girl turned 1 and we threw a small family birthday for her.  I was worried how she would deal with the crazy grownups lighting her food on fire and singing at her, but she rocked it.   She chair danced to the 'Happy Birthday' song and clapped hands when it was over delighting all the grandparents.   We gave her a home made cupcake (French vanilla cake with chocolate ganache)...her very first sweet ever and she reveled in it.  She ate the whole thing and had chocolate ganache from ear to ear and head to toe.  

The following day, we had a 1-year-old photo shoot.  The photographer is a friend and brought over a dozen brightly colored balloons. DD loved them and had great fun batting them around.   She was moving constantly creating a challenge for the photograph but had great big smiles.   I hope that our friend got some great pictures!

[redredwine]

We stained our fence (as talked about in previous post) It went well and took us about 3-4 hours each morning for 3 days. We had to stop before it got too hot as it was in the high 90's this weekend. Overall, it wasn't that bad. We used rollers and brushes and were happy with the stain (though it doesn't match the older part of the fence we still have up)
THe funny part: We had one section that had some high weeds and when we went to cut them down, we ran into a high amount of bees. SO, we had to stop and couldn't finish that section until we have someone to take care of the bees, then someone to deal with the weeds in that particular corner (I'm over it and would rather higher it out) THEN we can stain that part of the fence.
We started on the other side of the fence, but had some really tall half dead Arbor Vitea tree's that were leaning into the house and also too hard to stain around the fence. SO, H hacked them down.

OMG, it was like the "if you give a mouse a muffin" of fence staining, lol.

I did end up weeding 3 30-gallon bags of weeds between our back yard and side of our front yard (the neighbor behind us complained...we're "that" neighbor.

[TBM]

Jul 7, 2015 11:33:35 GMT -5 2curlydogs said:

Jul 7, 2015 11:22:03 GMT -5 TBM said:

We spent the 4th at our neighbor's resort back yard.  We had a great time, but I seriously wanted to cry when we came home to our non-landscaped/hardscaped front yard and courtyard.

They have an outdoor kitchen roughly the size of my kitchen, and an outdoor room that might be larger than my living room.  They built it all themselves and it is gorgeous. Add in the pool, several chaise lounges, tables, chairs, umbrellas and a lot of food and drink, and no one wanted to leave.

I told them that we liked their resort, and all they talked about was what changes they are making and what needs to be done.  The rest of us look at it as move in ready, and a whole lot nicer than any of the rest of us have. lol

The grass is always greener. I'm sure some people would look at our yard when it's freshly trimmed, weeded and ready for guests and think there's nothing to fundamentally change.

And then I'd haul out our landscaping plan and to-do list. And start sketching more revisions to the plan.

Well, I am pretty sure that they wouldn't want any of our yards. ;p

They are just upgrading...travertine instead of plain concrete, and replacing some of the tile and the older furniture.  They act like it is all much needed, but really, they know they already have a well put together and welcoming home inside and out.

[Redpoppy]

We got the new shower door in. The old one was in science experiment shape. Not perfect but good enough til we can do a full remodel in a few years. That's a shiny new toilet next to it too. We got rid of the water guzzlers in the house.

I got the shelving unit up in DS's closet after ripping out the old one. If you are looking into one, the Rubbermaid Home free line was SO easy. I've done them before and they were fine but a pain. These you don't have to cut at all, they can just overlap. We just need to get the new light in now, replacing an old fluorescent tube with LED directionals.

I ordered curtain rods for the bedroom and got sheers from Target up. Now to figure out measurements for the drapes to order fabric. The UPS guy will love delivering an 11 foot rod.

There are just so many projects I'm all scatter brained.