Planters Defined…

Just a few weeks ago there was no visible border between the planter and the grass. We extended the planter and put this block border in.

After putting in the new border we had to dig out all the grass and weeds. We have a few more weeds to pull out and then we will add bark on top of the dirt. We also want to add some type of plants that are low profile at the curve in front of the hydrangea. Once this and another planter behind our deck are complete I’ll do a full before and after post showing similar angles.

Tonight Josh, Laura and I will be at the U.S.A. v Ecuador game at Century Link Field in Seattle for a quarterfinal game in the Copa America Centenario tournament. (Boy that was a long sentence) The photo above is from a U.S.A. friendly game against Panama a few years ago that Josh and I attended.

Since I’ll be enjoying soccer tonight my Friday post will be late and it might have some fresh photos from Copa America!

I have a couple recipes that are published on Mennonite Girls Can Cook this week. Get the recipe for Creamy Potato Gratin and Succotash Plus by clicking on either name.

San Fernando Cathedral – San Antonio

The 18th-century San Fernando Cathedral is the first church built in San Antonio, the oldest standing church in Texas, and one of the oldest cathedrals in the U.S. It’s listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

A copy of Michelangelo’s Pieta.

It is disputed whether the remains of some of these Alamo heroes are entombed here but they are honored here.

I’m linking up to InSPIREd Sunday with Beth and Sally.

When I uploaded my photos I noticed that my lens had a hefty smudge on it. This was a hot muggy day so it’s no surprise my lens got smudged. This was my last stop on the trolley tour and from here I walked back to the hotel. I visited another church in San Antonio before we flew home that was a beauty. I’ll share that one next week.

Friday was a banner day for exercise at this old house. After Zumba in the morning I mowed our yard and the front yard of our neighbor. During this time Dear and our son in law continued the work on our front walkway. (collage below) In the evening Dear and I took a walk since we were falling asleep too early. Today I might just be sitting around doing nothing until the Sounders game tonight.

The walkway work will continue on the next dry day we have.

Hope your weekend is going well…

Before and After – Back of the House

Just to forewarn y’all, this is a photo overload post.

This photo was taken in 2000 and it was before we replaced all our windows.

This post is full of photos that are interesting for Dear and me in documenting the progression of our home improvements.

This is the finished product with the trim painted around the upper level of our home which is our master suite. The bottom narrow window is our laundry room.

Now for the process step by step…somewhat.

This rosemary bush was out of control and we ended up taking it out completely. It not only got in the way of the work but it’s fragrance when disturbed was so strong that Dear and I would get nauseated working around it.

This photo shows the planter (rosemary bush) cleared out and ready for new plantings.

Dear has done the siding and improving the “look” of our home I wanted to post the photos of all the hard work he has put into this old house! Along the way he has had some help from our boys. Dear is taking full advantage of his “temporary retirement”. For the record, before Dear was a Pharmacist he had very different jobs as a Loader Operator in a Quarry, a repairman/welder, and a painting contractor with his father. He inherited some ladders from his father and has purchased some of his own and is comfortable on a low and high ladder. This next out of sequence photos shows his prowess.

Putting the new windows in the garage.

Yikes! That’s high!

We are considering putting up a Barn Quilt between the upper window in the loft and the middle window of our garage/shop. The lower level with the single garage door is the shop. Our garage is the middle level with a double garage door on the opposite side of the building. We might enlist our daughter’s skills in designing and painting a Celtic Cross design for our “barn quilt”.

Back in 1999…

2008

Spring of this year.

And this is the upper entrance to the garage today with our new privacy fence showing on the right. Maybe we should put a barn quilt on this side, too.

Dear is working hard to finish up his projects on this old house because soon he’ll be working on a renovation at our son’s home. Today and tomorrow he is finishing up the trim on the garage/shop in between fast moving storms. No ladder work if there is lightning!

Do you have any projects progressing on your home?

Before & After- Deck Side

This is what the deck side of our house looked like when we moved here in 1998.

First change out was the stairwell window. The porch you see to the right in this photo has been enclosed and is now our family room with french doors onto the deck.

Dear built a temporary platform to be able to hoist the window up and get it set into the opening.

Next he built the deck in anticipation of Josh and Laura’s rehearsal dinner in August of 2001.

The deck got an extension sometime after 2001 so we could reach the garage from the house on decking. The house got a facelift with new horizontal siding.

Our deck covers changed over the years, too. These two are serving us very well currently. This photo shows the extended deck and the difference between the horizontal siding and vertical siding to the left of the deck.

Here’s a shot that shows the house with the completed horizontal siding.

One more addition this summer is this privacy fence we put in.

Here’s a view from our house without the privacy fence.

And this is the view with the privacy fence.

We really are enjoying this new privacy fence. It gives this whole area a more finished feel and we aren’t totally open to the surrounding neighbors anymore.

Some reflections…

Our two sons born almost exactly 2 years apart were married 14 years apart, one in 2001 and the other in 2015. So our 3 kids were married in 2001, 2011, and 2015.

July 2015 was a tough month for me. It was as if someone had let the air out of my tires. I’m happy to say that I’m getting back to my old self now in August!

I also have to admit that summer is probably one of my least favorite seasons. Even though I was born and raised in Southern California enjoying the beaches and spreading coco butter on my body to ~~sunburn~~ tan, sitting in the sun does not give me pleasure anymore. I enjoy the sunshine while sitting in the shade or under an umbrella. These days my favorite time at the beach is in the winter.

How’s your summer going?

Before and After

This is what the front of our house looked like when we moved in way back in October of 1998. This photo is from March of 2000. This next photo was taken this week and shows the changes we’ve made. I’ll be posting the different sides of the house and how they looked before and what we’ve done over the last fifteen years to update this old house.

Same door, new windows, and new siding. The planter is filled with new plants, too. I’ll be showing the process of Dear working around the house little by little to make more improvements over the years.

This part of our front walk used to lead to a porch that we enclosed to make a family room instead.

This was what the front walk and porch looked like before we enclosed the area.

The other side of the porch before we enclosed it.

This is what it looks like today.

The process of enclosing the porch/deck.

When we first moved we had signed a one year lease to rent and a month after we moved in the owner said he had to put the home on the market to sell it. We were tired of moving (long story) so we made an offer to buy the property and the rest is history.

I’m beginning to feel the “squeeze” of things I need to organize in my brain for the upcoming wedding and hosting some out of town family here at this old house. Posting and visiting might be a little random. I will be participating less in weekly memes until Julyish!

We are cooling down today in the Seattle area. That makes it nicer to work outside. My relaxing time these days is sitting with my feet up watching Women’s World Cup Soccer games. Watching soccer is my “happy place”.

Mister B.

M is for Mister B., the marvelous man I’m married to.

Joining in with ABC Wednesday that was begun by Mrs. Nesbitt and is carried on by the ABC team!

My Dear is quite the man. Not only is he a professional in the workplace, giving out medical information but he’s the most handy of men in the home.

He’s outstanding in his field.

Dear with our oldest son.

Here is a photo series of one of his latest home projects. It’s taken months to get close to the end of this project but other projects and weather took precedence during this time period.

Before he started on the siding on this end of the house we decided to take down this tree that was serving as a ladder for varmints to get onto our roof.

He replaced the attic window.

With this old house there is always another project ready to start. The back side of the house will be the final side to get horizontal siding. We are hoping to get that done by July. The tar paper is up and ready for the first half of that project to start.

I will leave you with my Bible Verse Card for the letter M!

Hope you all had a wonderful Easter and Passover. We had a marvelous celebration. Have a good week!

Walkway – Before & After

Since our yard project was completed for now I’m sharing the before and after views before I share our great overnight getaway.

We had an unusual string of dry mild days in February and the beginning of March that gave us lots of time to work on some projects in our yard.

Before

First Phase…

Phase two in process…

Walkway done and now onto the extension and step down from the deck.

Before…

Digging, digging, chipping away at large tree root, digging some more and hauling off the dirt and grass…

Defeated the tree roots and moved on…

We are now getting to the end of this part of our project.

Chose a new planter box and planted some plants in the cement blocks.

Another before shot…

We are pleased with the results from all our hard labor over several weekends and evenings.

We still have a few more ideas for tweaking some things but for now we enjoyed a weekend without any labor. During our overnight away we probably put back on the weight we dropped working on this project. Looking forward to this first full week of Spring. What’s on your agenda?

Phase One Planter Project…

Over President’s Weekend Dear and I worked on phase one of our sprucing up the yard project. I promised before and after photos and here they are.

I decided on the Primroses in the Cinder Block because the property our home sits on used to be called Primrose Acres.

Phase Two will include digging out these stones and leveling out the pathway beside this planter and putting in a flat walkway using pavers. Our plan for the pavers will help support the planter wall and we will be able to take out the temporary supports you can see along this section.

The walkway will extend to the existing deck and we will add a step next to this section of the deck which will make stepping up and down easier.

We are enjoying the fresh clean look. We hope to get started on Phase Two this coming weekend. It will be another Ibuprofen weekend around this old house!

Pulls and Knobs

These first few photos are before shots of our pulls and knobs. I had to look in my archives to find the before photos. I was a bad blogger and I forgot to take close ups of the before shots. These pulls were nice and functional but they had too much detail on the surface that allowed crumbs and flying flour and sugar to gather in the nooks and crannies.

We decided to go with these cup pulls and knobs to match the metal on the pulls. No more nooks and crannies for food to get stuck in…

Our first project of the New Year is complete. Do you have any projects you are going to tackle this year?

Finally the Bathroom Revealed!

To say that there was much agony over this latest renovation in our home is an understatement. We are happy to be done with the company we chose and happy to be finishing up some final touches ourselves. I won’t even mention the name of the company because I don’t want to give them any advertising. You will see a wonderful transformation without experiencing the pain of getting there. So enjoy the before and after…

Of course I realized that I didn’t take the best before photos, especially of the bathtub enclosure. Oh well, you will still see major transformations. The sink before was on the right of the cabinet. The window was a slider from side to side.

The tub enclosure before was one piece with a average depth on the tub. The new enclosure is Porcelain tile and goes to the ceiling and wraps around the deeper larger tub. The new tub is wider and longer and deeper.

Our new window is a more energy efficient one and opens up and down instead of side to side. It’ is also larger and allows more light into the room.

We decided since we are getting older to add two safety bars to help with getting up out of the bathtub or stepping out of the higher tub.

We chose, purchased and installed the Mirror, Sconces and wall art ourselves. Dear installed the new window and all the can lights and heater unit in the ceiling. He also did the painting.

When we were at Windsor Castle in England we bought one hand towel to use in our new bathroom as one of our souvenirs. Our new bathroom has a great Spa feeling to it worthy of this queen.

We used to have a wider cabinet in this area of the bathroom but because we chose a longer and wider tub we ended up with this narrower cabinet. We are happy for the choice we made to go with the wider tub and to move the door into the bathroom over four inches.

We switched to a center sink which gives a good amount of space on either side of the sink. The counter top is a quartz composite with the under mount sink. All the fixtures are brushed nickel.

We like our flooring choice and our pulls and deep tub. I still haven’t had a chance to have a bubble bath in the tub yet but hopefully I’ll get around to that soon. The floor is not tile but a composite material that is warmer to bare feet.

We are very happy with the choices we made on the materials for our new bathroom. Now I need to find someone who might need all my old towels that are not the right colors for the new bathroom. I suppose I could cut them up and use them for cleaning rags.

I bought the mirror, the brushed nickel trash can, and the waffled shower curtain at HomeGoods. The sconces are from Lowe’s, the brushed nickel soap dispenser is from Target. The wire bird art is from Hobby Lobby and the Bird print is from Fred Meyer. The towels are from Costco.

The job began the Monday after we returned from England, July 21st and we just signed off with the company on September 24th. It was suppose to take 12 days. We did get them to reduce the final payment.

Now we are moving forward and enjoying the finished product that Dear has fixed up to our satisfaction. We’ve had busy days here at this old house and we are thankful for each new day afforded us. We are looking forward to more finished projects. Dear and I worked hard in our yard today mowing and weed-wacking and getting rid of the first round of fallen leaves. We look up at the huge maple tree in our neighbors yard still full of leaves and know our leaf raking days aren’t over in a long shot. What’s up in your corner of the world?

The Happy Wonderer ~ ellen b.

To honor and encourage

Category Archives: Before and After