Concrete patio removal

When my family came down in August after we closed on the house, we were all in agreement that the concrete slab had to go. My younger brother took one look at it and said "I could do this in a day". Four hours and only 2 square feet later, he gave up.

Here is one last look at the original slab. That ugly, cracked thing...

Home Depot has a great rental department, so one day in January my husband and I rented a jack hammer. We only had 24 hours before we had to return it and since we wanted our neighbors to continue to like us, we had to complete our work before dark. A little while after we started hacking away at the slab, we thought it would be cool to setup our camera to take pictures every 10 minutes. My husband put together a compilation video. Check it out below!

Boy, were we sore the next day! This calls for lots and lots of garlic bread for dinner! Yum!

Living Room Color Schemes

 

Here is what our living room looked like when we moved into the house. The double French doors let in alot of light and those are the original wood floors! We are lucky to have the previous residents take out the wall between the kitchen and living room. That opened up the space tremendously. Perfect for entertaining guests!

This is one scheme of just the change in flooring color. We felt that the dark black-brown color would really modernize the space.

Here, we experimented with a lighter color floor and a pale blue color for the walls.

We also liked the fresh green color, which we thought would make the space very calming.

Ultimately, we ended up choosing a soft tan color. This color seemed the most versatile and modern with the dark flooring.

Dog Run

After we moved into the house, we then turned our attention to our backyard. You remember, that large weed-filled expanse to the rear of our home?

When we were looking at homes to buy, one of the major items we were looking for was a space to entertain guests. With two small but hyper dogs, we knew that we would need some sort of space to keep them corralled when we had guests over. We decided to build a dog-run. 

Since I went to school for Architectural (Structural) Engineering, I may have over-done it a bit... 

8" concrete bases, 4x4 posts, 8' lattice frames.

You should have seen the look on people's faces when we rolled away from Home Depot with these items in the backseat of our Versa. All the contractor's with their big trucks and vans, and us with our five-door Versa. Granted, it took us a few visits to get it all way home, but we did.

Overall, I think it came out well. We bought our first power drill, learned how to use a borrowed circular saw, and finished our first project without killing each other!

We hope to build the dogs a shelter and a dog house some time along the road. Knowing my husband, it will look like a le Corbusier building.

Flooring Update

After painting, pulling (linoleum) and paying (for new wood floors in the kitchen), it was time to refinish the wood floors. Below are some before/after pictures of the updated flooring color:

Previous floor color... medium oak; typical, outdated and booooring.

New floor color... espresso; fresh and modern.

(Though it looks great, it's nothing if not hard to keep looking clean)

I know what you're thinking: "At last, a project without hiccups..." Hard to believe. This can probably be contributed to the fact that we had nothing to do with the project, aside from writing a check. In truth, we avoided a minor catastrophe when we were able to adjust after the mock-up of our original color choice turned out Grimace purple (pun intended). 

Oh, and lest I forget to mention our quality control, Daisy. We pretty much run everything by her first.