Our New Garage Door!

You know you are jealous of this dirty, gross garage door.

Oh..no? You aren’t? Color me surprised. Let’s not even mention that it didn’t open or close because the tracks were living on a prayer..Well, actually, one track was there..the second had an unfortunate encounter with Josh and it didn’t survive to tell the story. The ancient garage door opener also was not ruling at its’ job before the tracks went to hell.

We got a few companies to come by to give us quotes, and we ended up deciding pretty quickly to go with Precision Overhead Garage Door service of Hampton Roads, who blew us away with their professionalism and fair pricing. They were rated #1 on Angie’s List so we knew they’d be good, but when an awesome guy named Chad came out to give us a quote, he explained things clearly and in regular-people terms so that I could understand them (since Josh was snoozin’ away because he was on night shift) AND explain them to Josh afterwards. He even gave us a “Good/Better/Best” quote at three different levels of door/features/etc. Another company gave us a quote before even measuring the door or going inside of the garage to check out the set up..AND they gave us the highest quote. WTF. Bye. Move along. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200. We also got a quote for us to DIY it and decided that the value Precision offered far exceeded the savings we’d get by doing it ourselves.

Anyway, we hired Precision, and it was worth every darn penny. They came out within a week and it was all set up and ready to go within a few hours. It was so nice…hiring people to finish things. 🙂 Despite a ton of rain, our technician (AH! I wish I would have written his name down) rocked it out. I kept going outside to offer him water/coffee/etc and he was so polite and awesome, even though he kept telling me “No.” Haha! He probably thought I was weird

^ That’s the new garage door opener.. 🙂

The new SUPER WHITE GARAGE DOOR makes it obvious how much we need to power wash the rest of the house this spring. Anyway, you know you are officially an adult when you stand in your driveway and record a video of your garage door opening and closing. I AM NOT ASHAMED! SO AWESOME!

 

If the videos don’t work, click these links!:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1aI2R8aJ5fki19wztxUCw5236qmo0EjrKcg/view?usp=sharing

https://drive.google.com/file/d/14PaOAAryv1YoFaNFGO_D6cYgTIKn5496aA/view?usp=sharing

 

We got a puppy…

Lots of changes here at the Whole Damn House…that’s Jimmy Dean!  He’s our new pup and the reason we expedited our fence building project.

We used our huge stack of wood to mask the fact that one of those posts was installed out of line to avoid a tree root. Holla!

We have only fully completed and stained the run pictured and have about 3x that amount to go. After installing the wood and staining, we are also attaching weld wire so that the dogs can’t get out. YAY! I can’t wait for the day I can let them out without worrying that they will run after a squirrel into neighbor’s yards/the street/etc. More details soon!

#kickinggrassandtakingnames

This post has been a LONG.TIME.COMING. but I think it is a better post because of it, so there’s that. This is a story about our first really big fail on this house. We were failures with a capital F.

Early this spring, we decided it was time to try to grow grass in our front yard. There is something to be said about a lush, thick, beautiful yard of grass. It is fun to walk barefoot in. Tucker likes eating it. It gives Josh a chance to use our lawn mower since he is usually sooooooooo so sooo bored on weekends (haha!). And…it looks better than this:

Needless to say, we wanted to give growing grass a shot, even though our lot is heavily wooded and there is a short period of real sunlight throughout the day. After testing our soil to test it’s PH levels and that sort of thing, we determined our game plan. We started out with a truckload of compost from our city dump mixed with Vigoro Super Green Lawn Fertilizer and pelletized Limestone. By the way, Josh and I also know the best time to plant grass is in the fall, not the spring. We knew this when we planted grass in the spring, but we were feeling invincible after finishing our kitchen. Shut up and stop rolling your eyes.

We then spread the seed over that mixture and waited.

A few days later, we got hit with a huge thunderstorm where the rain created a stream through the middle of the yard. A few weeks later, we started seeing a bit of growth in some areas and a LOT of growth in the lower parts of the yard where the seeds all ended up at the bottom of the stream. It was a bit patchy.

So, we went and got some more seed and spread it again. This time, we covered the seeds (and the new grass) with another layer of compost to help it stay in the same place in case we got hit with another storm. We were worried it would kill the new grass, but a few days later it started popping up through the compost, so YAY! Soon, the second layer of seed started growing and it looked like this:

We put up this temporary fence so that Tucker wouldn’t get in to the new grass or dig holes. And our azaleas! They are so pretty when they bloom!

With even more waiting, the grass kept growing and it was very exciting!

 

Then, the summer came and it turns out… our front lawn gets more sun than we thought. And we got busy and forgot to water it. The grass totally withered away and was fried. It was really brown and sad. I didn’t take a picture because I was crying about it and couldn’t see through the view finder.

So…we started over. This time in the fall, with a better mix of seeds that aren’t Shade Blend, and making sure that we water it every single day it isn’t raining.

 

Here’s to hoping the second time is the charm! We’ll keep you updated.

 

Mail time!

For the past month, we have had our mailbox leaning up against a tree. Our mail man probably thinks we are so lazy and/or hates us. The bottom was almost completely rusted out and the door barely opened, so we bought a replacement in mid – November.  Then came Thanksgiving, and we forgot about the mailbox project. Then came December and it stayed on the back burner behind all of the holiday decorating, shopping, wrapping, etc. Now that the holidays are over and since Joshua’s company shuts down for the week between Christmas and New Year, we finally got the gorgeous replacement mailbox installed!! (I say we, but Josh did all of the work.)

I got home from work last night and was jumping up and down in the driveway. I have officially become a lame homeowner who gets excited about a mailbox! But can’t you just see a sweet little flower bed or plants surrounding it? And can’t you imagine our mail man starting to love us, even though Tucker sometimes barks at him? I can, yall. I can.

Virginia Chainsaw Massacre

Two weekends ago, I left the house to go to breakfast and go grocery shopping and when I came back, there was a tree in my driveway and a pile of branches on the road for pick up. Josh and his mom are bad bloggers and didn’t take a before picture, but they worked really hard and got our front yard close to ‘finished’ for the winter.They took out a few trees, a prickly holly bush, a huge bed of ferns and the wooden garden edger. You can almost even see our house from the street! 🙂

 

“You’re working too hard”

Our front door neighbor came over with warm brownies, wine, and that awesome quote above. Oh, girl..if you ONLY knew.

The landscaping in front of the house needs a bit of TLC. With the previous owner being elderly, we completely understand WHY lots of things did not have the attention paid to them-yard work is hard work! The best thing about the front of our yard  close to the street is that it has a TON of Azaleas, which don’t take too much effort. A bit of pruning and we’ll be good to go. Below is a picture of the house in the spring when the azaleas are in bloom..HOW PRETTYYY IS THAT? I can’t wait for the spring.

A few weekends ago, we finally left the comfort of our paint scented kitchen and ventured outdoors for a little R&R. And by R&R, I mean raking and ripping out roots. Once you pull into the driveway, there is a pathway leading to the front door. This is what is on either side of the path:

Left: Ivy, Rusty Mailbox, Big Green ugly plant. Right: HUGE Green ugly plant. (Obviously these are the technical names of everything..)

We raked the leaves around the Huge Green Ugly plant then started taking off branches one by one and throwing them into the truck. Then, we took an axe the roots and pulled it out of the ground with the truck. We roped a chain around the base of the root and put the truck in reverse. I know, we are ballers. And/or lazy.

Now we have a bunch of dirt in our front yard, but god made dirt and dirt don’t hurt as much as the ugly green plants. One day we will try to plant grass here, but who knows when that will happen? We have a kitchen to finish! 🙂