Before and after

When we moved into our new house last fall, there were a number of things we loved. But there were lots of things that we didn't.

First there was the retaining wall that was falling over on itself.

And the dilapidated shed.

And the bricks falling off the front steps.

And - ugh - the seafoam green shutters. I don't like seafoam green.

And, and, and...But we're making progress.

Here's the house we bought. We liked it, but it wasn't perfect. Nothing is. (Note there are no photos of the backyard.)

This winter, we replaced the retaining wall. And put in a new fence.

New wall, old fence. And really old shed. Oh, and a weird little garden next to it that wouldn't grow things.

Chad took this down in a matter of hours. (Note new fence.)

Then Nick built us a shed (covered with a tarp).

We roofed it. And painted it. We still need to organize it.

Our front steps were another story.

They were patchy and holey, and my high heels loved to get stuck in them. We're lucky we never fell down these with Jackson.

So we got our steps fixed.

And then we spruced up the shutters, the door and all the trim. I spent a long, long time at the paint store. This just makes me happy.

You may think I'm done, and we are - for now. But wait til I get started with the landscaping.

Summertime, and the livin' is easy

There are lots of things I hate about the summer. Mosquitos, for one. And humidity. And having melon served at every gathering because it's in season. I hate melon.

But there are lots and lots of things I love even more about summer. Daylight past 8 p.m. Pick-up baseball games and trips to the park and not having to bundle up when you walk outside. Those nasty hot, humid days that end when the wind picks up and a cold front ushers in a quiet, beautiful summer rain.

And porch swings. Ohhh I love porch swings.

I've got lots of summer memories from my life on the farm. In fact, thinking back, most of my childhood memories are from the summer; you wouldn't know it's only three months long. I remember the four of us being sent out in the morning and not going back in until dinnertime. We caught bugs, counted cars, dug lots of holes, built treehouses, and exhausted our imagination. Unbelievably, we seemed to manage all of this without any injuries. Ever.

These days, I don't live on a farm. Not even close to a farm. And that's not going to happen anytime soon, if not ever.

So this year, we brought the farm to me.

Several months ago on my birthday, when we had just made the decision to buy this house, Chad bought me a hammock - or the promise of a hammock - to put in the backyard I had always wanted. Problem was, I only half-wanted a hammock. I could foresee Jackson getting tangled up in it when he was playing and having to mow around it and lying there swatting bugs in it and the idea became less appealing. So I never bought it.

About a month ago, on one of those first few summer nights where Jackson had gone to bed but it was still light out, I came out to our porch. Sitting here decompressing and reading a book, I looked up to soak it all in.

Rungs.

Sure enough, someone who owned this house within its last 60 years must have loved porch swings too, because there were already rungs screwed into the studs. It was almost too easy to decide that I needed a porch swing for my birthday present. But we're talking about me...so of course it wasn't.

I looked and looked and looked - and then Chad looked - for the perfect fit. I finally picked one. And picked the stain. And ordered it. Two weeks later, this beauty was sitting on my front steps (bless you, online shopping).

This little lady is small - as Chad said, "It can only fit two Tolleys" - but, man, it's awesome.

Last Sunday night, we had some friends over for a cookout. The second Jackson went to bed, it started to rain, and we had to move the party inside. Until Chad brilliantly suggested we go out on the porch, so there the four of us sat - protected from the downpour but still enjoying the smell in the air and the cool breeze on our skin - and chatted for three more hours.

Around 11:00, our friends went home. And the rain stopped. And the days got hot again. And we went back to work after the long weekend, and life got more complicated. But the summer has stuck around, seemingly forever. Something tells me that a lot of memories will be made on this porch, and it makes me happy that even though I can't totally replicate my childhood for Jackson, there are some things we can do that might make him look back in 33 years and smile.

Mending wall

When Chad and I moved in to our new house, we knew we were going to need to replace the fence. It was so old it was rotting - you could see right through to the neighbors. So when we got our tax refund back, we called our trusty landscaper, bought some fence panels, and scheduled the work.

Fine. Done. End of story.

Until I got an email at work from Paige, our landscaper. It said only this, "Ellen, please call your neighbors" - and included a phone number.

Oh, $#&!^. I thought. That is the last thing I want to deal with. Some pesky neighbors sticking their nose in the business of what we are doing on our property. I braced for the worst. And then I had Chad call them. (Yes, I'm spineless that way.)

Turns out our neighbors have a dog, and we're all lucky they were paying attention when they sent Fido out in the middle of the day to go to the bathroom and they had no back fence. (Oops. Ok, should have given them a heads' up about this little project.)

But here's why they were really calling. These neighbors, who we have never met because they live on another street, said they agreed the fence needed to be replaced. And - no questions asked - they wanted to contribute toward the cost. (What?!?!) Chad told them the fence was on our property and we had intended to pay for it ourselves, but they insisted. Fine, he said: if they wanted to chip in a little we would welcome it but it was not required. They asked us to call them back when we got the final bill.

So Chad called today to give them an update on the cost. Because 1/2 of our fence covers their backyard, they reasoned, they would pay us for 1/4 of the cost. In other words, $350 right back into my pocket.

As Robert Frost would say, "Good fences make good neighbors." And in this case, our neighbors are very good indeed.

Bingeing and purging

I'm so behind, I haven't even updated that we bought a new house.

We close in two weeks.

And if you thought I was motivated about getting rid of stuff from my posts in February of 2009 or during my series of posts last year, you people ain't seen nothing yet.

Since we made the decision to move, I have been dead serious about purging the stuff we don't need. I am not taking seven years worth of crap into my new house. So here are the current rules we live by, agreed upon by Ellen and Chad - and Jackson by default:

1) If you forgot you even had it, it goes.

2) If it hasn't been used in the last five years, it goes. (For clothes, amend to: if it hasn't been worn in the last year, it goes. And if you have kept it around all this time thinking that someday you're going to be able to fit into it again...who needs that pressure?!? It goes.)

3) If you have no idea what's even IN that box, the whole blessed thing goes.

4) If the only reason why you still have it is because you'd feel badly getting rid of it...buh-bye, honey. It goes.

5) If it's not something that you want your spouse or your kid to have to sift through when you die, it goes.

In the last two weeks, we have taken a ton of stuff to Goodwill - including five garbage bags of clothes and over 100 books. And we've thrown away our fair share of stuff as well.

But in all the manic throwing-away of things, there have been a few moments where I've stumbled upon something unexpected and smiled. Like this note I found buried in a ridiculous amount of cards and love letters and newspaper clippings from my senior year of high school. They all got pitched but this made the cut:

Among a sea of absolute junk that I've been dragging around with me for 15 years, why on Earth did I keep that? (And why on Earth didn't I keep MORE of that? I love it. I'm keeping it forever. Chad and Jackson can clean it out of the attic when I die, and it will make them smile.)

I wonder how as a parent you make the decision on what to keep and what to pitch. I wonder if I'll have an attic full of Jackson mementos that someday I'll be begging his wife to take off my hands, or if I'll wish I kept around just one more piece of artwork or note on the days I'm reminiscing. I wonder if what I deem "important" enough to keep now will seem totally irrelevant in 15 years. I do wonder, all of these things.

But I ponder all this while I keep decluttering. This has been amazingly liberating and is such an opportunity to prioritize what's important in our lives. So when we move into our first actual house at the end of the month, we'll be doing it without a whole lot of baggage.

Except for the little things I love that will get tucked away until I stumble upon them again.

Inside and outside

I mentioned a few months ago that we've had a big list of to-dos in getting ready for Buster's arrival in just a few months. We got a new backyard patio and landscaping, put a TV in the living room and are making slow progress on our baby check-off list.

The furniture has arrived, so I feel like I can finally show off the backyard. Chad's had breakfast out there a few times and now that the weather is cooling down, we'll be spending lots of nights out there too. (Remember what it used to look like?)

We've also been busy inside. In summary, Chad made a mess and I cleaned it up. If you didn't know any better, you'd think this just involved hanging a TV on the wall, but a lot of behind-the-walls work was involved...which of course also means cutting, spackling, painting...Our living room is now quite a bit more functional and Chad is already enjoying it immensely (as you can see by his feet propped up on the coffee table).

And we registered. One wouldn't think that this would take much time, but it took f-o-r-e-v-e-r. Thanks to some amazing friends who sent along lots of tips - plus one who even went to the store with me and another who gave us a ton of toys, clothes and gear they're finished with - we've made quite a dent in this baby thing. We finished registries at Buy Buy Baby and Amazon.com last weekend and have a study full of great baby stuff that needs to be sorted through and put away. We still need to pick out a crib and a dresser, but, well, we've been pretty darned productive lately. That project can certainly wait until next weekend.

The bad news

...But first, the good news. Our backyard project was completed yesterday! I'll post photos of it in the next few days once we clear all the debris and random branches off the new patio.

Now on to yesterday's bad news.

Remember that tree in front of our house I wrote about last spring? The one with the gorgeous flowers and big, bushy summertime leaves?

Well, now it looks like this:

Yesterday afternoon we had one of those crazy summer storms that brought with it far too much wind and lightning. It caused a ridiculous amount of damage - seriously, look at those pictures! - along with a 12-hour power outage for us and most of our friends. The police officer who came by our house after I reported our tree (it was blocking the street) said this was much worse than anything that happened during last winter's storm.

Of course, it could have been so much worse. The tree didn't hit our house, anyone's cars (it came inches from our neighbor's convertible), or any of us.

Plus, it's on city property so it's their responsibility both to clean it up - which they did with chainsaws at 2 a.m. this morning - and tear the rest down. Still, I am going to mourn the loss of our little tree which gave us about as much shade as one could expect with a front yard the size of a postage stamp.

As I told Chad, now we have an amazing backyard and the front looks like a disaster area. Doesn't that just figure?

The clock is ticking

It seems that every life change brings with it a fast-and-furious frenzy to start and finish all the projects you've been meaning to undertake or should have done years ago.

Moving? Time to throw away all the crap you've been keeping in your closets for years.

Selling your house? Better get new windows, new carpet and replace that broken dishwasher.

Having a baby? In our case, that means redo the backyard, get new living room furniture and, oh, figure out the nursery.

First things first - the backyard. We noticed about two years ago that the patio was starting to slope toward the house, which isn't good for all sorts of reasons. Plus, we've always hated the pavers and never spend any time out there because, well, it's not really visually appealing.

So we had a few landscaping companies give us quotes and draw up designs. It took me a year to swallow the idea of spending that much money, but last spring we started having discussions about doing this again. Then I thought I was going to lose my job. Then we thought we were going to move. Then we just decided we'd rather have the money in savings. (And thank God we didn't do any of this earlier because our winter storm would have probably ruined my new plants. Who says procrastination doesn't pay off?)

But Buster's upcoming arrival has put our backyard plans on the front burner. We picked a landscape architect. We approved the plans. We got rid of the pavers ourselves to save money (read: I found someone who wanted them then Chad & Nick took them out and carried them all to our driveway on a particularly hot Saturday). And now the work is finally starting!

In about a week, I hope to show you something a little more lovely, but here's the pre-show along with the dirt pile I'm dealing with now.

The left side of our patio...ugh...
can this be any more drab and brown?

The right side of our patio (Answer to above: Yes, apparently, it can.)

One of my pathetic flower beds (ie: playground for Lucy
since it's been six years and I still can't figure out
what will actually grow in here)

A massive ole dirt pile, but hope that soon we'll have some green!

We're moving!

Nah, not really.

But we've been here for five years and things are starting to pile up, or get pushed farther back in drawers, or fill closets. My latest mission is to get rid of all the stuff we don't need or don't use or don't want. So I'm de-cluttering one room or one closet per week until I'm done, literally thinking as I go, "If we moved right now, would this go to the trash or in a box?" The hope is that when we ever do move out of this house we won't pack a truck with a bunch of things that I don't want to clutter our new house with either.

Chad is on board with this, too. It's a good thing because, if not, he might lose quite a bit of stuff from the basement.

Christmas comes early

All of the appliances are here! The range was delivered today, which finished the project.

Strangely enough, I was a bit sad to get rid of my stove. The fridge and dishwasher I couldn't care less about, but I had a lot of memories with that oven...one of the most memorable being when it died one Thanksgiving and I had to go to a friend's house to bake the pumpkin pie I promised to take to Chad's boss's house for lunch!

But it also saw me through lots of great meals, too. It's funny that one can be sentimental about a stove.

Anyway, here are a few pics.

Curb appeal

We got our new roof yesterday! And new gutters. They also took down the huge antenna that was up there and some snow guards which serve no purpose on the East Coast. (The roofer said that he isn't sure why we had them and that they don't make sense. I told him that most of the things the people who lived there before us did made no sense.)

They had the roof off by the time Chad went to work yesterday and were finishing everything up by the time we came home. While the roof wasn't leaking (yet), it was almost 30 years old. We knew that when it comes time to sell this place, a new roof would make a big difference in asking price...and that was that.

We're very happy with how it turned out!

Before & After

I think I can officially say that we are done with our kitchen! Chad did such a great job with the new countertops and I must admit that my painting skills are almost professional.

So here is a before-and-after shot of what our kitchen looked like when we moved in...and what it looks like today. (Yes, we still have the same stove.)

Still going...

We're done painting and Chad has been a busy guy. Sanding, spackling and generally just making a mess.

This is going to get worse before it gets better.

By the way, I do know how to take pictures. All those spots all over the place? That's dust.

Easier said than done

Chad wanted to put in new kitchen countertops this winter, so we decided to get cracking on our project last weekend by finally buying the supplies. We were going to spend a few hours here and there this weekend ripping out the old countertops, taping, and painting before installing the new tops ourselves.

Oh dear Lord, what was I thinking? Somewhere along the line I failed to realize that meant we had to take out everything in the lower drawers and cabinets of the entire kitchen (hence, my living room looks like this)


and take out the sink.



And let's just say I have nowhere to put mail. Here's my desk.


These projects always sound so easy.