AWESOME weekend.

you know i don't use capital letters much. so you know when i do, it's serious. and believe me when i say it was an AWESOME weekend.

all day friday i waited impatiently anxiously for the arrival of my momma, my timmy and tucker. and then, they got here. and i was soooo happy to see them! i hadn't seen them since christmas! not. ok. and they had yet to see our new house, of course.

friday night, we all headed downtown to watch the lookouts play. the game was rather uneventful and it was getting cold, so we actually left the game early. the lookouts didn't win, anyway. we grabbed some dinner at chili's {despite the disaster that that was} and then we all crashed at home, preparing for the busy day on saturday.

saturday morning was a bright and early one. i've been waiting and waiting for mom and tim to come give us some advice on how/what to plant in our flower beds, they are pretty much master gardeners. basically, after working from around 9 in the morning to 4 in the afternoon, we took the front of the house from looking like this:

to this:

it might be a bit hard to tell what's changed. so let me break it down for ya.

before:

after:

we started the morning by extending the flower beds out from the house by a foot or two. also adding about 30 cubic feet of soil to the beds. we think when they were preparing to put the house on the market they dug up some unruly plants out of the beds, taking the soil with it and leaving the ground sunken and sloping towards the house a bit.

then we moved the two rose bushes from the right side of the house over to the left, where the giant tree won't block their sun and hopefully they'll grow big, like the two that are already over there.

then we added two new azaleas to the right side, to replace the roses. now we have a red, white, and a pink azalea. we also moved two firepower nandinas from the retaining wall planters to the right side of the house. hopefully they'll have more room over there to grow.

and although that existing pink azalea looks a bit rough currently, that's just because she's almost done blooming. but when she is in full bloom like she was the other week, she's a real beaut.

we also mulched the slope down toward the wall, eventually we'll plant some ground cover type plants. the closest little planter space in this picture is where we moved the nandinas from.

remember when austin and i moved into the rental house and mom sent me some daffodil bulbs from her garden in virginia? no? well, trust me, it happened. and i didn't want to donate those to the rental house {i'm stingy like that}, so we went and dug those up and moved them over to our new house. we put them in big groups between the azaleas and the nandinas on the right side of the house. we put some pretty little hyacinths there, as well.

the left side isn't quite as full. yet. other than moving the roses and adding soil, we didn't really mess with what's there.

there are a few randomly placed daffodils, some grape hyacinths {mom taught me that's what they are!} and maybe some tulips in there. it's not prime time for moving daffodils, so for now we'll let sleeping dogs lie {does that saying apply here?}. once it's a better time for moving the daffodils, i'll get them out from right under the rose bush and put them between roses instead. we also think we found where the sellers dumped all the stuff they dug up from here, as we found a giant mound of dirt with tons of daffodils growing in the woods out back. i plan to put them back in the flower bed where they belong!

we also worked hard to get some of the honeysuckle vines out from the holly trees on the side of the property, where we worked the other week to get it off the fence. that stuff is a mess. and we got to the root of the poison ivy problem over there {i'm so pun-ny}.

gloria donated these little planters to our front porch steps and mom and i added some succulents to them.

oh, and mr. tucker was there to supervise everything.

we didn't let him supervise too closely, though. considering how helpful he has been with mom's tulips back home.

after we were all completely worn out from digging, planting and getting all muddy, we had austin's parents down for a little cookout.

clearly, we cleaned up a little bit. although i think i still have dirt under my nails. don't judge.

on an only somewhat related note, you can see in the picture above our easter door hanger i made. pinterest inspired, of course.

unfortunately, as with all good things, my awesome weekend had to come to an end. mom and tim had to head back to virginia. i considered lying down in front of the car in protest. instead i just cried as they drove away. true story.

hopefully it won't be another four or five months before i see my family again, because i sure do miss them already. and i know everyone seems to think their parents are the best, but everyone else is wrong. because my mommy and my timmy are the best for real. i can't thank them enough for everything they've done for me. i love you guys. and i miss you. come back. now.

please?

rain makes corn...

corn makes whiskeeeyyyy.

yeah. you know the song. and now it's probably going to be stuck in your head all day, too. you're welcome.

anyway. after a year-and-a-half wait, austin and i finally got to make our rain barrel! we signed up through outdoor chattanooga, paid a mere $25 {pre-made ones at stores are around a hundred bucks!}, and showed up to assemble the thing, despite there being some mis-communication in the whole signing up step...

when you show up at the class, they pretty much have most of the work done, but save the last couple of steps for you {even though there are only about 5 steps total}. step one was screw in the little hose connector spigot thingy.

step two: put a bunch of gorilla glue around it to hold/seal it.

step three: attach the overflow tube thingy.

step four: wait awkwardly for a few minutes until you realize you are finished and can take the barrel and leave.

once you get home, step five: cut the top off because we have a better idea for debris/mosquito control.

step six: paint the bad boy {to protect if from cracking due to the sun}.

step seven: realize the paint color you picked out was terrible, so give up on trying to make it look good.

step eight: cover the top and overflow tube with screen, secure with metal thingy {am i talking over your head here?}.

here's where we take a little time out to do some prep work on the area where the rain barrel is going to go.

see this picture of the side of the house when we moved in? and see the mass of ivy/shrub/weeds taking over the sidewalk area? yeah, that's where the barrel is going to go up against the house.

after we pulled the big stuff out by tying it to a truck and i painstakingly pulled up the rest of the vine-y roots, austin and i bought some new plants for around the barrel.

so here's that same view today. much improved, yes?

we propped the rain barrel up on some cinder blocks and although it ain't pretty, it's necessary. the whole thing has to be high enough to get some pressure for flow.

hopefully, the hostas and other plants {which i can't remember the names of currently} will grow nice and big and camouflage the barrel a bit. i also plan to find a better paint color.

so there. rain barrel complete. for now. we did have a few hiccups regarding the gutter, too. turns out this down spout was completely and totally clogged with dirt from the ground to above my head height. not very effective when you're trying to collect water from the downspout. after a few trips to the roof and some messy cleanup, i'm happy to report we're clog free!

and while we're on the topic of getting rid of out of control greenery...

two things about this picture. 1. the holly tree-like thing that tries to grab you as you walk up the steps here. and 2. if you squint, you can maybe see the vines/trees overtaking the fence around the side yard.

so the holly tree thing wasn't a big deal, but it's placement was just not right. however, the trees and vines and weeds taking over juliet's fence definitely were causing a problem, slowly pulling the fence down. it had to go. and i do apologize for the lack of better picture of the fence situation.

but now that it's gone, i think you can see a difference on the fence. and if you can't see a difference, just know that there is a huge one. about 15 more feet of exposed fence and it actually stands up straight now.

we also chopped down the gigantic tree/bush that was overtaking the mailbox. oh and i forgot to share we built a new mailbox a while ago.

we still need to get rid of the stump here, but right about the time the guys got the tree down, they realized there was a nasty vine of poison ivy running all throughout it. progress froze there.

the last two pictures of the house i have you can really see how much vines and such we removed. the vines were covering the fence from the left side of the picture here almost all the way to the gate. it was out. of. control.

we also chopped quite a bit down from the "wall of trees" dividing our yard from the neighbors.

and now we wait for curbside brush pickup...

also, we wait for my sunburn to subside before we do anymore yard work.

we also go buy sunscreen.

one last thing:

MY MOMMA AND MY TIMMY ARE COMING TO SEE ME ON FRIDAY!

i am so. pumped. i have no idea what we are going to do while they are here, but i don't care. i'm just super duper excited to see them. clearly, since i used capital letters and the term "super duper." you know it's for real.

come and knock on our door.

we've been waiting for yooooou.

actually, i've been painting for you.

so you know how you're supposed to change the locks on the doors when you move into a new house? well, turns out to be easier said than done, at least with our door. so long story short, we had to buy a new door.

so this was the inside of the door when we moved in.

it was just plain wood on the inside and the outside was the same maroon/burgundy/red/whatever you want to call it that the siding on the house was.

and i figured if we had to get a new door, might as well paint it some fun bright color!

so i was thinking yellows. austin was thinking blues.

so, naturally, we combined them together to get a green! valspar's beach grass, to be exact.

so here's our new front door! the color doesn't really look all that much like the paint swatch, it's a little more teal/turquoise-ish. and i love it!

and if you were to look really closely, you would see that i definitely need to put another coat of paint on the door. but, if you know me, you also know that i am lazy. sometime soon i will maybe put another coat on. sometime. we also plan to paint the entire room {and more than likely the paneling, if i can convince austin to let me} but we gotta pick some colors, make some money, etc.

but while we're talking about our hallway {or is it a foyer?} let's discuss this shelf situation i gots going on.

so when we moved in there was this odd little cabinet/closet thing in the hallway, built in to the wall {crappy cell phone picture, sorry}.

i couldn't really figure out what to do with it. both doors couldn't open all the way because of the doorway into the living room and with the doors shut austin just kept shoving random junk in there to hide. not ok.

so i took the doors off. and now i just pretend it's a nice little built-in nook for books and pretties and things.

but considering the new bright front door, i thought this little nook could use a little loving, too. so naturally, i painted it.

do you love? please tell me you do. and if you don't, well, nobody asked you. because i love. and it's my house. and i do what i want.

with austin's permission, of course. :)

now that that's done, i've got to go scrub paint out of my hair and off my skin. apparently i'm a bit of a messy painter...

february birthdays.

i know, i know. it's already march and i'm just now posting about some february birthdays. it's been pretty busy around here...

anyway. so way back at the beginning of the month we celebrated austin's 26th birthday.

i stopped by the cupcake kitchen to grab us some delish birthday desserts.

italian creme cupcake for austin and a red velvet one for me. yum.

and then austin opened his present from me. i got him a subscription to this old house magazine.

and yes, i realize we are just like old people. oh well.

then we met up with austin's family at biba's restaurant for some dinner. and by dinner, i mean garlic. because i think that's about all i ate. and it was awesome.

then later on in the month we celebrated steve's birthday.

and yes, this is a typical heard family photo...

pinterest inspired.

you do know what pinterest is, right? {careful: you might get sucked in.}

so a while ago i found this pretty little idea on pinterest, originally from here.

and since our bed now has a big window right behind it, i needed something to cover the window, but regular old curtains weren't going to cut it. and i happened to have some really long white curtains from the guest room in the old house...

so i reused them to create this:

how fun is that?

and pretty long curtains for the second window, as well.

i also found inspiration for my nightstand on pinterest, originally from here.

a few trips to goodwill and now i have this:

the middle one is my favorite one. i'm considering painting the other two in some neutral shades, since they are the hard plastic kind of suitcase and i figure paint would stick to them pretty well. i also need to actually secure them all together somehow since i have a sneaky little cat who likes to climb on anything and everything he can, as evidenced here, before we moved. can you find him in this picture?

yeah. that's him on top of the cabinets. silly cat.

anyway. those are a few of the pinterest inspired things that have been going on around here. we've been working hard the last month, working on turning this house into a cozy little home.

and just for fun, a few sneak peeks of some other house-related happenings.

and our nice little neighbors, bryan and kara {or maybe brian and cara?} baked us some yummy welcome to the neighborhood cupcakes. how sweet is that?

and now i had better get to work. these shelves aren't going to build themselves!