Outside in Progress: A yellow House

Ah the outside of the house - a huge project of overgrown plants and a dead lawn. We removed all the Ivy and most the plants that were taking over the house. We went with a color called Wheat Field (yellow) for the outside with a white trim. Here are some before pictures -
(below) Front entry way
(below) Garage
(below) Front of the house, next to the entry way.
(below) Street side of the house
(below) the back yard. Looking even more white trash than normal with the laundry machines sitting on the back patio.
(below) The beginning of the painting.

(below) The back patio.
(below) Street side of the house.
The yard is going to be quite the project. Hopefully, I will be able to get everything green and just lovely! I'll be honest.. I'm not know for my love of yard work or my ability to keep plants alive. Wish me Luck!

Cedar City Groovefest 2011

Every year in June Tim Crestinger (owner of Grooveacious) puts together the music festival Groovefest here in Cedar City. Desperately needing a day where I wasn't covered in filth and feeling like I look as though I was hit by the ugly bus, I decided to let the Tom and Alex do their thing and I spent time to do my hair. :) Silly, I know - but some days you just need to be girly and play with your hair.
One of my favorite ways to spend a lazy afternoon is in a coffee and book shop. I took myself out for a pre-Groovefest coffee and book rummage. I love to go and search the travel section for informational and inspiring guides to places I will probably never see, but dream of experiencing.

The Festival brings in musicians from all over the country and they cover most genres of music. No death metal though... (thank goodness). Of course, almost as important as the music is the food that comes in. Street venders make food that is better than anything else in town. I will admit to enjoying a Navajo taco and.... a deep fried twinky covered in fresh strawberries.


Of course no music festival would be complete without a temporary tattoo of a tiger :).

A Kitchen not quite finished

We have, at this point, about 80 projects going around the house. I thought I would do an update on the kitchen. We basically gutted the kitchen - tore everything out!! I of course, forgot to take before pictures of the kitchen. Mostly I forgot due to the disgusting state it was in and did not want to remember it. ;) Once again, all these are taken with phone cameras so the quality is not the best.

Below: the dining area

Below: main kitchen area... disgusting.

Below: Attempts at getting a shot of the whole kitchen.

Below: Alex and Tom redid the vents and wires.

Below: Sub floor down and beginning of tiles.
Below: The hardest working one of the bunch. Wiping a tile with a rag while they did all the light lifting and easy cutting of the tile. :)

Below: Contemplating laying tile.

Below: Attempting laying tile.

Below: We are not done with the kitchen and I apparently couldn't even be bothered to clear off the counters to take pictures, but there it is. We still have a considerable amount to do. Finish painting trim and cupboards ect..

Below: The wonderful Tile job. I just have to say that Tom and Alex did an amazing job.

It is fantastic to have freshly painted walls. It also allows me to hang pictures so it feels like a home.

Unfortunately we found there are some pipe problems so that is the next big job. Everything in this house is just so old. Apparently the pipe is rusted, clogged and leaking. Until then - no dishes, no sink and worst of all no laundry. We are all very ready to be done with this and relax with a clean and finished house.

Home Project Update

This is the first update on the house so far. Unfortunately I took all these pictures with my phone camera so they are really quite horrible.

First up is the Hallway.
This involved painting, Trim, doors and closets.
This is the only before picture I took. When Tom bought the house it had carpet, ect..

And this is the after. Ohh it feels so much cleaner! That's the most fantastic part of re-modeling. You can actually clean and it feels clean!
And now on to the scary room - The bathroom. As you can tell with this horribly disgusting photo that the floor was coming up. Also, please note the crappy paint job that was done on the bathroom. Painting tape people!
The bathroom is the one I am so excited to be able to clean. You just can't get a sense of what the bathroom was like with this picture. There was a sliding glass door on the tub, which had about 100 years worth of nasty on it.
The bathroom is still not quite finished but here's where we are at on it right now. New paint, new mirrors, new tile and new fixtures. Just a couple more things to do and it's ready!! At this point we are leaving the green tile. It's kind of retro and I kind of like it :) We'll see, I suppose.
And now on to the kitchen! I better mention that Rosaleen and Alex have been helping and we appreciate them so much!
Wish us luck and have a great day!! ( I am very fond of exclamation points today :))

A day in June

I am very lucky to have such a wonderful family. This weekend my Aunt Gwendy let me come out and took me for a horse ride. I have been wanting to ride a horse again for a long time and it was perfect! Shorty (the horse I rode) was wonderful, he was very calm and easy to ride. I have to admit that after the ride I felt as though someone had beaten me with a two x four. :)

Little Gus and Emma got to meet - Emma is such a pill. She just sat and growled at poor Gus the whole time. :(

This is Melanie's new lamb for 4-H. When she would jump in the air it would jump with her. Very cute, and unfortunately I took all these pictures with my phone so it wasn't fast enough to catch the jumping.

This is Gwendy working with her young horse Concho. It was incredibly neat to watch. He is an absolutely beautiful horse and very smart.

Melanie took a picture of me posing with her pony.

This is Shorty, Nakia's horse that I rode. We made a good pair. His foot hurt a little and I hurt a little. I'm sure we looked like we were returning from battle at the end. I was about to ride him doing a handstand. jk)

It was really wonderful and I forgot how much I love horses.

And now to quote a little Winston Churchill.

"There is something about the outside of a horse that is good for the inside of a man"

Audrey was very kind and agreed to take my family through the cave that night. We were also joined my the very lovely Jenny Hamilton and adorable miss Eva.

Well, now on to the rest of the week. Hope everybody has a great week!