Making the Neighbors Jealous

Though our front yard still isn’t done, it is starting to look awesome. Hubby has been hard at work out here, putting in a new sprinkler system and apparently tunneling to China in the process.

In places where he was going to install new piping, Hubby dug up the old sprinkler system. And, the deeper he dug, the more he found! There were actually two old systems stuck in our front yard!

Instead of the plethora of random sprinkler heads throughout the yard, which have never quite done the job anyway, Hubby is putting in six new rotating heads for almost triple coverage in the entire yard. This whole project has been a lot of hard, manual labor for him.

I’ve either been at work or sick when he has been doing most of this. Wop wop.

You can see one of the old systems gracing our yard with its presence. And Hubby’s trenches are ready for the new piping to be installed. His only regret is that he didn’t chop up these clumps of dirt as he dug them out. With just a few days outside under our awful sun, these are now giant rock-hard clumps of pain that have to be chopped up by shovel before being put back in the trenches after all the new stuff is in.

Some of his trenches got pretty deep, too. Most of them are around a foot. He has the muscles to prove it.

There will be three heads on the front row, and three heads closer to the house. We are also adding a few drip systems to our planter boxes. Things may do better with water around here.

These trenches are ready for some piping!

And here is a view of the trench running along the front of the house. He ran the drip system pipes in this trench as well as the line for the three sprinkler heads.

A few days later, this is where we were. The entire powerhouse for the new sprinkler system was redesigned and ready for action. This little box will be completely buried with a top cover available to access what’s beneath. Hubby made all of this.

Here is the new pipe heading towards the front of the lawn. It then spread in both directions for a total of three rotating heads in this row. Because of the intense sun, we had to get this covered pretty quickly before the pipes get damaged from being exposed.

Again, the beautiful view of our neighbor’s “new” RV. Cracks me up…most of the time.

It was a slow process breaking up the dried clumps to return the dirt back into the holes after the pipes were in. You can see that he is making great progress (Hubby took these pictures).

This is one location of a future rotating sprinkler head. He will twist on the new head and then cover all of this up for protection from the sun.

This is Hubby’s new power box. He is so excited for this! And proud, as he should be. He has been researching for months how to make a better sprinkler system, and now we are getting the benefit of his diligence and patience.

On his first test run, things worked! He wanted to make sure that he could get water to these head points before installing everything and covering it up. Looks like we have system go, Houston.

Woohoo! With the heads on, this test run is a complete success. I am sure that Hubby was pretty excited at this point to have so much light at the end of his tunnel. We have been working on this front yard for over a month.

Lots of Saturday time has been spent painting a house, so we haven’t been able to do much in our own yard.

Since he knew that everything worked properly, Hubby began the arduous task of breaking up the dirt to fill in the trenches. Then he was able to lay his homemade sod on top to complete the filling process. I was personally excited for this step, as it was ugly and dangerous to have such huge holes in our yard for this long.

We are getting closer! Not done yet, but inching our way there!

Photo-bombing with Spuds

You’ve met these wonderful people before. Ted and Ann are dear friends of ours. We couldn’t think of anyone else with whom we’d rather spend Date Night, so we did just that a few weeks ago.

Our friends are presently visiting family in Utah, and I really miss them! It’s awful to lose your best friend for a week. This post made me miss them even more!

We went to Five Guys Burgers, since our friends had never been. This is probably my favorite burger place, and that is saying a lot, since I am never one to brag about great burger places.

I brag about Five Guys…I stop random people on the street to tell them to eat burgers here.

Huge sacks of Real Idaho Potatoes line the store. They decorate the storefront with their fries! And they always have a sign listing where their particular spuds came from. Today, these fries are fresh from Ideeho Falls.

Usually, the fries are just a little too salty for my taste. But tonight? They were perfect!

If this doesn’t make you drop everything that you’re doing to grab a bite to eat, then I haven’t done my job. From the toasted bun to the completely-customized burger, this thing is just insane. I went all out tonight and even got some cheese and bacon.

Whoa. Settle down.

Imagine a lovely orchestra playing soft tunes while birds sing in the distance. You are listening to all of that calm while enjoying a view of the best fries ever. All is well in the world…

Then, all of a sudden…PHOTO BOMB!

This is just a tiny insight into how funny these two people really are.

Please come home soon, you two.

You know that this guy loves Five Guys as well. He probably wishes that he was the sixth guy. It’s always a treat to visit this fine eating establishment with Hubby.

Do everyone a favor and check out a Five Guys Burgers near you. Don’t forget to order the large fry and split them. They could probably feed half an army with just one order.

You and your stretchy pants will be happy that you came here.

And, preferably, go with your best friends. That will only make things better.

Spraying a Future Gallery Wall

After my recent trip to New York City, I decided that it could be pretty nifty to display some of the tickets used during those wonderful two days. It would be an easy and fun way to remind myself of what a nice visit I had while “working” there in September.

I’ve still got bare walls in my house, if you can believe it, so a gallery wall became the perfect opportunity to fill empty space while displaying items that brought back wonderful memories.

Of course, with my precious knowledge that spray paint can improve anything, I decided to invest in frames and mats from thrift stores such as Goodwill. I knew that with the right amount of elbow grease and spray paint, these old ugly things could be turned into exactly what my walls needed.

After several weeks of watching the sales and many scores at each one, I found some beautiful, solid wood frames with some matching mats. This will be just what I need!

I broke away from my normal Rustoleum spray paint use because I was at Lowes. They have a wider color selection in Valspar, and I didn’t want to pick the same blue that is on every many other surfaces throughout the house. My absolute favorite color is a deep teal called “Lagoon” in Satin by Rustoleum’s Painters Touch. If you’re looking for a great can to start you off, Lagoon is it!

Valspar is actually Lowes’ own brand. It works well and has such pretty colors.

I sprayed this first batch back in September, so you can imagine that I had to act quickly under the intense sun. The ideal spraying temperature only goes up to ninety-five degrees, and it was probably one-hundred and ten today. Yuck!

So I scrubbed these guys clean and removed the glass and mats. Then, they were quickly placed on a spraying board in the backyard and given several thin coats of white.

From ugly to gorgeous, all with a few passes of the can. Man, I love this stuff. Talk about instant gratification at its finest!

I wanted the frames to all be white, but I picked a rather obnoxious bright color for the mats to add some color and dimension to the wall.

   

The mats were given a few bursts of love from the spray can, and they also looked new and ready for a life in our home.

The sun was pretty intense, which made taking accurate pictures of the blue a little difficult. You can see the same color in a table that I did near the fireplace when I got the new rug for the reading nook.

I told you that it was loud…

Just like all paint, this stuff has to dry. I try to let it sit for a few days to really harden. There is nothing worse than a little scratch after some new white paint has been laid down. So I spread them out in a safe place to let them mull over their new cosmetically-altered lives.

Because it was so hot outside, I brought the mats inside to finish drying as well. These were on the kitchen counter on top of small plastic cups (leftover from our wedding!). Because the mats were painted paper, they dried much more quickly than the wooden frames.

Hopefully, it doesn’t hurt your eyes. Once these mats are back in white frames with a little pop of color inside, they will look awesome. I am waiting until I collect even more frames before we start hanging.

Can you believe all of that patience?!

Lowes is quite a drive for me, so I stocked up last time I was there to make sure that I had enough to do whatever frames found their way to our home in the future.

Plan ahead so you don’t run out of spray paint, I always say!

Well, look what we have here! Looks like I found another half-price sale and scored a bunch of frames for a few bucks each! I try to look for various shapes, sizes, and textures. They will all be white, so I want the interest to really come out in the frame itself. This wall will come together nicely in the end. It’s certainly a work in progress now…and it’s taking way too long in my book.

So much for patience…

What projects do you have going on right now?