Just Porchin' Around

It is officially summer for this teacher! And I am super glad! It has been a whirlwind year of testing, Speech & Debate coaching, planning, and a lot of changes. But it is over. Next year will be easier. I plan on doing some decorating and updates to my classroom next week, so I shall have to post about that here soon. Speaking of changes... I finally bought a new computer! The first new one I have owned since 2007. It is a refurbished MacBook Pro and I love it! 

Plus I love my Little Mermaid sticker that I bought for it, check out all the different options on Etsy.com, I found mine {here} and it was an easy fun way to accessorize my computer. I also put a clear case over it that I bought from Amazon. com to keep it safe. 

I've also made progress on the porch! Remember last week when I showed you the new (safer) decking?

Well, I had a four day weekend and decided to take that time to stain it! I used the color Gunstock by Minwax. I did it all with a brush. It was ridiculous to try and use the pad and the handle thing from Lowe's. It soaked up so much of the stain that I used 5 times as much on three planks as necessary. Ugh. It only took me a few short hours to complete and do the steps at the same time. 

Though I confess... I did accidentally forget to unlock the back door, it was cool. I hung out in my yard for like awhile.

Here's the after!

I totally love it! I think it gives the house more character and pop, plus it looks way fresher. Which is always a plus. Of course... once you finish one thing there are still more things to do.

Here's a few images of things that remain on the the To-Do list:

Summer Porchin' Re-do List:

• Install new decking  $650.00
• Stain new decking $20.00
• Spray paint lawn furniture
• New accessories for tables
• Plant flowers
• Touch up front door
• Install dead bolt
• Paint roof
• Repair wood damage
• Hang lights beneath awning
• Paint trim and sides of deck

Hopefully I can manage to get a few of those things done before the summer really gets going. It would be great to have friends over to hang out and grill, and just have a good time. Until all that is done though... here's one last look at the cozy porch!

It's a Gutter Job

This last whole month has been filled with posts about the exterior of my humble abode! So here is another one for you as well. Last year all the gutters on the front of my house basically crumbled and fell off the house, or were knocked down from a falling limb or something equally dramatic. Here's a before of the entire front of the house, without gutters:

Here is also the back of the house, which from what I can tell, has never had any gutters at all.

It only took one short afternoon for the guys to come out and do my gutters. I did choose to hire them, especially with my Dad being so far away in New Mexico, I am quite sure this is one of those things you could DIY with the right means, but I don't think its for everyone.

Here's a beautiful view of the finished product:

It definitely gives the house a wonderful finished look and helps navigate the excess water from storms and other precipitation. The total cost was $678 on this bad boy.

The company that did it was called Guttermeister, click on their name if you're local and want to get in touch. I would definitely recommend them!

My house is feeling so grown up! New door, gutters, painted porch, new steps. I love it!

Outdoor Happiness

When back in the day when I first bought my house the back "yard" was a very sad and terrible looking space. Since the dryer sat in front of the door just enough that you couldn't use it, I didn't give much attention to it. I would just cringe and pretend it wasn't there when I saw it. Here's an original angle:

A wondrous "before" shot of the door of doom:

The weird cheap light fixture that has never worked in my recollection:

Overall, I wouldn't describe it as a pleasant area. The cheap lighting, the scary door, the cheap tiny piece of gutter above the door, broken steps, and peeling paint. So this year I decided it was time to step up the game on the entire exterior. Last summer I replaced the light on the front of the house:

The lovely gentle that gave me the light for the front, also gave me another for the back! So after one year of having it around the house, I decided to finally install it:

The new stark white door looks so incredible and keeps the house so much cooler. I love it! But it did make the peeling paint look that much more terrible...

Here's a full range view, ignore the lumber and debris, that should be gone soon!

Every year I repaint the front porch, so it totally makes sense that I should repaint the back porch. Finally. After six years. I used the same paint from the front porch to keep costs down and make it look cohesive.

Ah fresh paint how much I love you! Here's another view from the same angle with the light and paint. The new steps also look fantastic! There are still a few things to do, for instance; clean up the rubbish, paint the new step runners, and fix the mulch and rock leading up to the steps. 

 

I feel like it looks a thousand times better! It makes the back of the house much more in line with the rest of the house. Plus it helps increase the resale potential, if I ever get to that point of course. Maybe next year I can build a wood fence along the chain link to create more separation and visual appeasement from the neighbor's yard. Hopefully before the summer is out I can get you a full updated image of the space with accessories and everything! I hope you like it as much as I!

Let There Be Light!

****If you are seeing this content on http://manufacturedhomefacts.com/ please be advised it is there without permission! thismessybusiness.com is the OFFICIAL and only site I publish on!***

My dear lovely reader and blogger friends! I am so sorry it has taken me so long to get a post together for you, but this time there are happy reasons for my slacking. I am pleased to announce that I received a full-time teaching position at a local high school! I teach 10th grade English and I love it! However I only got hired about a week and a half before school started, which was August 12th for us this year.

It was a mad scramble for paperwork turn in, get to the training days, set up a classroom, and start planning stuff for kids to learn. All while working 20 to 30 hours still at Lowe's, taking care of a house, and being a single puppy mama.

It's been crazy. 

But awesome! Hopefully I will be able to share my classroom photos with you but! In the meantime I do have a curb appeal post for you that's some real detrashing the hood action!

Please meet my exterior light, Creepy Cobweb Light:

I've had that light since I bought the house back in 2008 but it is not a good mix for my house. It is stuffed full of cobwebs and the top was so close to the awning thing that you couldn't change the bulb. It wasn't bright either, so safety was something that definitely concerned me.

Since I work at Lowe's I get a discount on items in the store, even clearance items! Of course I also work with people, like my lovely friend Cory. Cory gave me these lights that he had gotten on clearance for $5.00 but was never going to use. Check out how cool they are!

It is sooooo bright too! It lights up the entire porch at night which is great!

It upgrades the entire look of the place, giving it a more modern feel and making the entry area so much prettier and more "me." Which I of course love. A lot.

Here's a snapshot of the overall effect. My flowers are looking awesome also, I loveeeee the sweet potato vines. That's happening every year from now on. Definitely.

Total project investment: $0.00

That's a budget even my dad could love!

De-Trash Your Trailerhood: Manage It.

****If you are seeing this content on http://manufacturedhomefacts.com/ please be advised it is there without permission! thismessybusiness.com is the OFFICIAL and only site I publish on!***

Here is the first phase of our mission to start de-trashing the trailerhood, or rather, my trailerhood but these are applicable anywhere I'd say. Keep in mind that as we do this some of our steps may get out of order depending on what we are working on.

When I first moved into my trailer it looked straight up trailerhood (for the duration I will be saying "hood" but I mean that in terms of a trailer park/manufactured home community).

Here's a little reminder:

I don't have very many original pictures since it was not my original plan to start a blog. I know. That was dumb. I'm kicking myself for it now. But you can sort of see that the wood is rotting in places, the stairs are weird, there was rotting lattice attached to the porch and some of the flashing was gone from the roof overhang.

Here's what it looks like presently:

You can see even in this picture that the grass is over grown, the rails are filthy, and my aspen tree is totally dead.

Even this big mulberry bush is trying to escape from the picture.

Porch is cluttered with planting materials and is very, very dirty.

This side wasn't so bad even though all the paint was peeling off my bench and it was looking a little wonky.

Loads of cobwebs all around the front entry is also not very inviting. It works out okay on Halloween though!

The main point of showing these somewhat embarrassing photos of my house is that maintaining your exterior is crucial! It not only adds value to your home but also increases the curb appeal, and allows you to identify potential issues early on rather than waiting for it to totally fall apart. 

So for a total investment of $0.00 dollars we are going to start our detrashing by cleaning up the outside of the house considering that is the first thing people see when they drive by, and often the only thing.

To-do list:

• Mow the lawn
• Pull weeds that are mega tall.
• Fill containers with pretty flowers
• Repaint the peeling paint on the deck.
• Clean off the cobwebs 
• Replace the icky light
• Repaint the bench and clean furniture.

Keep in mind that water is (nearly) free, you can get a decent broom at the dollar store, and if you have to buy paint you can get it for only $15 dollars at Lowe's or even WalMart.

Check back on Friday and I'll show you the steps I've taken so far!

Mulching Around

One of the most challenging things in the home ownership process for me has been working on my yard. It seems like this year all of the exterior issues I've been putting off or babying along have finally started to break and die. Dang it.

 For example all the grass that I planted totally fried in the yard as you can see in the next two pictures:

And it even died over in the side yard. Totally stinks. Starting over again this year is what has to be done but it's not really all that much fun.

One area that actually did get some improvement was in the "backyard!" It is actually starting to look way better! Here's a picture of it before:

{Ignore the weeds... every time I try to get out there with RoundUp it randomly starts raining. Weed killing is this weekend.} Here's the random not cement section. I used to wonder if maybe this was a dog run in it's former life? Who knows.

Sebastian likes to run around in this section so instead of buying rock that would only attract heat (it gets NO shade in the summer) and burn his little baby puppy paws I scored a great deal on mulch at my second job. 3 large bags for only $10.00 plus my discount. Not bad! I would say if you're doing a large area it wouldn't be a good deal to buy bags but I was only covering some smaller spaces.

Here's the new view from farther back. I think it looks way better! Especially once I get the weeds totally taken care of. Try not to look at the neighbor's yard. Two years ago they covered the whole thing in brand new sod and then let it die. Seems like a waste. It looks awful now.

I also added mulch around this beautiful old tree in my yard. I love the view of the park. However I am jealous of the grass at the park... #yardenvy.

I still have some other major projects to get worked out in terms of the exterior of the house. Porches still need repair plus I found out I have to totally replace my entire skylight because it is leaking. Joy. 

How are your yard projects coming along?

Dirty Rockin.

This year I made a pledge to myself to really make some changes to the yard outside of my little house. I outlined some of what I wanted to do in this post awhile back. 

I started out by shoveling all the rock in this triangle... (ouch....) I love the fact that Sebastian's in the background mid run. Haha.

I wanted to put it in the back by the little pathway thing because nothing grows there and it's typically a mud puddle. First I had to clean up all the leaves from the last two seasons. My neighbor's kids like to throw their broken toys over the fence which is super frustrating. They also built this atrocious looking shed. It's directly in front of my kitchen window. Grrr.

My Dad left me a bunch of his landscape tools when he moved to New Mexico so I used this fancy rake to start pulling the rocks out of the flower bed. I also broke it. Conveniently Dad also left me duct tape! :)

My neighbor gave me a huge pile of iris and tiger lily bulbs to plant so I put them all into the ground trying to space them out so that they have room to get way bigger.

I need to get some mulch to put around the tree (can't plant anything there because there is a whole nest of carpenter ants that kill everything) and then I will fill in around the new plants with the mulch as well. I think it will look way cleaner. I will sweep the sidewalk. But it was supposed to rain the day that I did the whole planting thing so I decided to hold off. In case the rain washed it away for me. 

And the big thing of rocks was transported to the back....

Also needs to be swept but it looks wayyyy better! I'm just hoping I can find some more rocks that are the same color to fill in the other side and way back by the gate. Then the "back yard" would be totally done, with the exception of replacing the steps though Jennifer (my new roomie) has an uncle that is a carpenter so we are hoping that he will accept payment of beer and dinner to help us out.

Phew. Way more yard work to go but a little free DIY headway is good for the soul!