Stage one

Stage one of our new deck cover was completed today.  They had to demo some of our back patio to make sure the piers underneath the columns were the right size.  So we had been living with dirt for the past two days.  The county inspected it yesterday with their approval.  Today they poured the concrete. 

Ok so these are not glamorous pictures but I am excited about it anyway.

They will be starting on the roof cover on Monday.  I am sooooo ready to get this done! 

One last look at the pergola before it is gone. 

Don't worry Bee happy

I love that song by Bobby McFerrin from the 80's.  This tablescape that I did makes me happy.  I think I might leave it up until Fall.  My inspiration was the teapot.

I just love the little bees flying around on it.  I was able to find some bee fabric and napkin holders to go with it.

I got the honey dippers at Hobby Lobby and painted them yellow.

Sometimes I feel like maybe I should add one more item on the tray.

Or maybe not.

 I showed my husband this when I got done and he said that it reminded him of the 50's because of the black and white. So I guess you could say this is the "bees knees".

Linking with
Savvy Southern Style, Our Home Away From Home,Worthington Court,A Stroll Thru Life
DIY by Design,My Uncommom Slice of Suburbia,Creative Country Mom,Cozy Little House
Pure Grace Farms,Coastal Charm,Elizabeth Joan Designs,The Dedicated House,DIY Show Off,
The Happy Housie,I Should be Mopping the Floor,Dwellings The Heart of Your Home,
The Style Sisters,Boogieboard Cottage,Finding Silver Pennies,Three Mango Seeds,Thoughts from Alice,It's Overflowing,Life on Lakeshore Drive,Pieced Pastimes,Be Different Act Normal,
Easy Life Meal and Party Planning,Natasha In Oz,Up To Date Interiors,Craft Dictator,The Pin Junkie,Remodelaholic,The 36th Avenue,Just Us Four,DIY Vintage Chic,Chic on a Shoestring Decorating,Craftberry Bush,Bacon Time With The Hungry Hypo,My Romantic Home,
Have a Daily Cup of Mrs Olson,French Country Cottage,Shabby Art Boutique,Redoux Interiors,
A Delightsome Life,The Charm of Home,Rooted In Thyme,Imparting Grace,Between Naps on the Porch,Lavender Garden Cottage,Katherines Corner,Posed Perfection,The Brambleberry Cottage,
Ivy and Elephants,At The Picket Fence,From My Front Porch to Yours,Elizabeth and Co
Greenwillow Pond

Bye bye pergola

Finally they are going to be working on our new deck cover today.  I don't know how long this will take since they have to cut out the concrete below and install piers under the columns.  I will not be missing this eyesore.

This picture is from the listing when we bought the house.  They were nice enough to have left us this grill that we had to get rid of.  It was a mess. 

I can't wait for this to be done.  I am so ready to get this decorated. 

Baby steps in the backyard

Well, the  landscapers are all done with cleaning up and installing the new pathway.  I am not sorry to see the old pathway gone.  Now it is time for me to get some planting done.  We went and bought a few flowers for the backyard on Sunday.  I still have to get tons more as these will only make a small dent in the yard.  Who knew that you would need so many flowers to replace the old bushes.

Here is the new pathway.

 I  have plans for that pile of flagstone left from the old pathway.  Here is how it used to look. I will warn you know that it is not a pretty picture.

Pretty bad right.  I have wanted this gone since the day we moved in ( actually even before).  It was very difficult to get the mower down this path since the flagstone was at different levels and even more difficult to get it back up.  My next house will not be a walkout.

I wasn't able to get all the plants that I bought planted since I had to help with demoing the master bathroom floor.  I was able got half of the floor done and my hubby put down the backer board so we can walk on the floor.  Removing tile flooring is not my idea of fun.

Here is what I was able to accomplish in the backyard after I got all the mowing done.  I know it doesn't look like much but it is not easy to remove rock, cut a hole in the fabric and dig in clay dirt. I was able to get 8 flowers planted in this area. Here is the west corner of the yard.

I am thinking about thinning out the day lillies by the trees and I still have to work on the east corner. 
Here are some of the plants that I got for that area.

I will need more for the east corner since it is a bigger area and I still have the back section to do.  Here is the back section.  We had all the bushes removed that lined it.  They were in poor shape and were that nice looking bushes to begin with.  I would rather have flowers along the fence.  I like to look at colors not just green as it was before.

 This is the east corner after the clean up.  This was full of weeds. I will have to move some of the flowers around since the previous owner planted some behind the red twig dogwood bush that you can't see.  There are some rose bushed back here so I think I will add some more. I can't wait to get this done.

I wasn't able to get everything done this weekend as planned since it rained Saturday afternoon and of course I had to run into a few problems as usual.  Hopefully next weekend will be better. 

Kitchen topiary makeover

The other day I was in Goodwill and saw these containers.  I thought that they would look good in my kitchen.  I have two topiaries by my kitchen window but have never  really liked the color of the containers that they came in.  I don't care for the stark white.  So I thought these would be a good replacement.  All  I have to do is remove these and put them in the new containers.  Easy right.  Wrong.  Little did I know that these are cemented in and the styrofoam was only at the top. So much for those plans. Where is that easy button when you need it?  So what  do I do now?

 

Well, I had to take out my trusty hammer and destroy them.  I would have never been able to get these out as they had cement all the way down.  I was wanting to keep these and use somewhere else, but no such luck.  I would have to say that 99.9% percent of the time my ideas don't go as planned.  Something always seems to go wrong but nothing major.  Here is the before picture.

Now for the after.

I love the way these turned out.  They look so much better. My counter tops are a little messy right now so I didn't show the full view.

I got this cute container at Hobby Lobby that was on clearance.  I was thinking about putting it on top of the island to hold a flower arrangement but I decided to put it on the shelf instead.  I will probably move it onto the island when I decorate for Fall.

I am still working on decorating the kitchen table so I will have to post that later.  I have so many things I want to do this weekend.  My weekend begins at 2:00 pm today  when we close the shop until Monday morning so I might not get everything done.  In between all my projects I am also doing demo on the master bathroom floor.  Wishing everyone a happy weekend.

Linking with
Between Naps on the Porch
Dwellings The Heart of Your Home
The Dedicated House

Changes on the front porch

Have you ever decorated an area and then go back a few weeks later and change it?  I just can't seem to get the front porch exactly the way I want it to look.  I thought that I liked it this way.

 But now I am thinking more this way.

 I am still not sure which I like better.  Of course most of these cannot stay on the porch otherwise it will blow away.  Here are a few more pictures.

Still not sure which way to go.  I will probably change it again one more time before I will decorate for fall. I just can't help myself.

Linking with
Green Willow Pond
Savvy Southern Style
DIY by Design
Ivy and Elephants
The Brambleberry Cottage
The Style Sisters
The Dedicated House
The Blissful Bee
Have a Daily Cup of Mrs Olson
A Delightsome Life
Easy Life Meal and Party Planning
From My Front Porch To Yours
Pure Grace Farms
Katherines Corner
Posed Perfection
Between Naps on the Porch
Imparting Grace
The Charm of Home
Redoux Interiors
Shabby Art Boutique
Craftberry Bush
The Shabby Nest
Bacon Time with the Hungry Hypo
The Pin Junkie
DIY Vintage Chic
Craft Dictator
The 36th Avenue
Remodelaholic
Up To Date Interiors
The Dedicated House
Just Us Four
Rooted In Thyme
Jennifer Rizzo
French Country Cottage
My Romantic Home
Pieced Pastimes
Be Different Act Normal
Chic on a Shoestring Decorating
Life on Lakeshore Drive
DIY Show Off
Thoughts From Alice
Finding Silver Pennies
Three Mango Seeds
Boogieboard Cottage
Dwellings The Heart of Your Home 
I Should be Mopping the Floor
Coastal Charm
My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia
Worthington Court
Our Home Away From Home
Creative Country Mom
Elizabeth and Co
A Stroll Thru Life
Cozy Little House
Elizabeth Joan Designs 
Greenwillow Pond

My back yard and goodwill finds

I usually don't like for anyone to see my back yard.  We will have lived here for two years in August.  When we first looked at the house the landscaping is what made me not want to buy this house but once I went inside it was a different story.  I knew that I could make this house work for me.

I love to garden but lately I don't have much time.  I dug out everything in the front yard last year and replanted.  This year I just don't have to time to do the back yard.  It needs to have all the rock removed, cleaned, new fabric and then replace the rock.  We decided to hire this out.  Of course I will be doing all the new planting myself.

I forgot to get some before pictures of the bushes along the back fence so here is some photos from the original listing.  This is the front of the house.

I tried to crop this picture so you can see the lamp post area.  It came out blurry but you can see how overgrown this area is. It had three bushes and some daylillys around it.  I removed the bushes and kept the daylillys.

 We  changed out the light fixture and added a trellis for the clematis that I planted.  Here is what it looked like last year.

 Here is what the front yard looks like right now.  Most of the flowers are still not full grown yet.

Now for the back yard.  This is the only picture I could find on the listing where you can see part of the bushes along the back on the right corner of the picture. I also trimmed out the choke cherry bush at the bottom of the stairs.  There wasn't a fence when we bought it so we had one installed since we have two small dogs and we back up to open space.

Here is what the back yard looks like now.  They are almost done with getting the rock finished and they are also putting in a new paver path on the side of the house.

I am so ready to get some flowers in this area.

Here is what the pathway looked liked when we moved in. I don't know why anyone would install the edging like this. Pretty gross!   I am grateful that this is on the side of the house where no one can see it.

Now this is how it looks before the pavers go in.  It looks 100% better.  We would probably leave it like this but if we have a heavy rain it will just keep washing the breeze away.

Now onto the Goodwill finds.

I told myself that I do not need anymore soup tureens as I am running out of room but when it is marked $5.99 and is half off I couldn't resist.

I also found this nightstand for $7.99.  It is in pretty rough shape as someone tried to paint it but didn't do a very good job.  I am thinking about refinishing it and putting in the corner on my back porch.