I’m in DIY heaven…

A few of you have reached out to see where I have been hiding for the past six weeks since purchasing our home. As you may have guessed, I’ve been DIYing all day, everyday. Despite all the aches and pains from the physical labor, which I actually thrive on, I have been having a blast transforming our home for Tabitha’s wedding in May.

This yard needs help!!!!

Once the termite tenting came down the last week of January, I went straight to work on the backyard. Clearly it was in need of some serious sprucing up as you can see from these pictures. I have always hated the hedges because critters like to hide behind them and they just seem dirty. Obviously the “grass” is just dirt and weeds with a few sprigs of St. Augustine mixed in and the gray dingy paint is hideous.

The grapefruit tree was in a bad spot as it blocked the flow of the yard and we don’t eat grapefruit. The area under the swing doesn’t grow grass because it is mostly shaded and is extremely uneven and perilous to walk on because of the grading. The sprinkler system needed to be fixed which is why my grass looked so horrible and because I know replacing sprinkler valves is out of my abilities I decided it was the first issue to resolve. I asked our gardener for a bid to redo the sprinklers, help with seeding the grass and possibly extend the hardscape. Well, I wasn’t happy with the bid he gave me and was actually a little offended because I knew it wasn’t fair. I did a little research and found someone else who could do the sprinklers for a fair price. I had never been happy with our gardeners mow and blow services but since our landlord was paying him I didn’t feel like it was my place to complain. After the offensive bid we let him go and I decided I would do the mowing and blowing myself.

mow and blow

I have to say I’m a terrible edger and blowing is much harder than expected but I’m hoping I will improve with time. Fingers crossed! Once the sprinklers were fixed I decided I couldn’t live with the concrete edgers anymore. I kept telling myself I could live with them but then decided I truly couldn’t. So while everyone was watching the Super Bowl I was doing this…..

video of me moving concrete

Oh, it felt so good to have those out! After I trimmed the trees myself with my new handy dandy pole trimmer I started on painting the long gray wall white. Tabitha came over on her day offs and helped me with the stucco painting but it was a very big job. I only have two walls left unpainted on the other side of the house that no one can see but I will be finishing them next week. I’m pretty sure the house hasn’t been painted in at least fifteen years and so far we have gone through 17 gallons of paint for the stucco alone. While I landscape and paint the stucco Lou has been patching every hole on the exterior of the house. He loves the small detail work which is exactly the opposite of me so it has been a good project for us together except when he gets too tired and starts spilling paint everywhere or puts the trim paint on the stucco and the finishes are different which results in me yelling and losing my mind.

Three coats later and the wall was finally done. I chose my plants and found this fabulous fountain on Wayfair for a great price and then started realizing we needed to extend the hardscape. Since the sprinklers were now working the space between the pavers and the planter was becoming a soggy mess, which is where the guests will enter for the wedding. UGH! I had been trying to come up with new ways of add to the existing flagstone without it being noticeable but nothing was going to work. I finally called System Pavers to come out and give me a bid after seeing on their website they were having a special offer and zero percent financing for fifteen months. One day later I had an appointment with a project manager named, Steve Whitaker, same name as my uncle! It’s a sign!

system pavers to the rescue…

Steve doesn’t normally do sales appointments anymore but is a Costa Mesa native and loves working with local families whenever possible. After me falling in love with the pavers and how they could potentially expand our patio area and solve so many of our issues, I received the bid. My hopes were dashed as it was double of what I was expecting. I talked to Lou and told him it wasn’t an option and we would just have to figure out another solution. I emailed Steve the next morning and explained I was sorry to have wasted his time but we couldn’t even begin to afford the cost. Three days later I received an email from Steve explaining that he had reworked the plans with his construction manager and if we made a few changes he could make it happen within our budget. I couldn’t believe it! I was so happy yet so confused because in my mind I had already resigned myself to keeping the old patio. After talking to Lou he said it was my decision but thought it would be a good improvement to the value of our house and thought we should go for it. Five minutes later and I was on the phone with Steve letting him know we could move forward. He said they would be able to start our job around March 22 so that gave Lou and I three weeks to finish painting the house before they started. I had already given myself the deadline of February 28 for all the plants to be in the ground and the grass seeded so everything would have enough time to grow. Once I finished everything in the back I moved to the front. I told myself I didn’t need to do anything to the front landscaping because I was worried about the cost of new plants. Two days later one of my best friends gifted me a $500 gift certificate to Armstrong! That was my clue it was time to fix the front as well. God and my friends are so good.

These hedges need to come out!

I removed the dried up Rosemary bush by the gate and then tackled the hedges. As you can imagine my hands, both of which have been diagnosed with carpel tunnel, were living in a state of constant abuse. I balanced my aches and pains by alternating tasks. Digging out stumps hurts my lower back and painting is the hardest on my hands so I just switched off days. When the pain became too overwhelming and I could no longer open a ziplock baggie without help, I would take a few days off. My neighbors have all been enjoying the transformation but sometimes I felt like I was broadcasting my mental health issues to everyone in the neighborhood. Friday night at 6:00pm and it’s almost dark and there I am painting the house for everyone to see. I could imaging their thoughts as they drove by and waved: “She is really crazy… I wonder what she will be doing next?”

That would be installing my new outdoor fixtures! I’m obsessed with the lights from Wayfair and they look so great at night.

So once they finish the back patio next week, they started two weeks earlier than planned, the outside of the house will be done and I’ll move on to creating the decorations for the wedding. Tabitha and I have already gone on several shopping trips and we have her theme nailed down, I just need to put it all together, which will be the fun part. Here are the after photos. I suck at taking pictures, so just know it looks even better in person and once the plants start growing it will be even better. We are loving being homeowners again and tackling all the work.

The almost finished front…

On another note, this morning I recorded a conversation with Dr. Sarah Friebert, director of Palliative Care at Akron Children’s Hospital, for the Child Neurology Foundation regarding seeking Palliative care for our children that suffer from neurological disorders. I was truly enlightened about Palliative care and only wish Tiara and our family could have benefitted from such a program. The recording will be available in a few weeks and I will share it as soon as I have the link. I think it will be very helpful for so many of my TSC families.

xoxo tiffani