It All Starts Somewhere

My husband and I bought our first home a little over two years ago. We lived there for one year before he took a job overseas. I decided that while he was gone, I wanted to stay with my family on the west coast. We rented out the house for a one year lease and bid adieu.
Before we left, there were a few things we did together:
~Built a retaining wall in our sloped backyard.
~Painted most of the rooms
~Fixed the gutters
~Added insulation to the attic
~Tore out half a wall
~Laid hardwood floors in our office
~(Sadly) Removed most of a 60ft tree
~Built shelves in our office.
~Built a planting box

The only thing on that list that required any professional help was the retaining wall. Not so much because we couldn't do it, but because we were running out of time before the big move. We had spent the summer digging the dirt away so there would be a nice flat area at the bottom of our yard. When the move snuck up on us, it was all I could do to get our things in storage, let alone finish a rock wall. The guy who came out actually made the steps much prettier than I had originally anticipated so I have no complaints.

Here are some pictures of our work.


We found weird brick linoleum under the carpet in the office. So we put down hardwood instead. B marked each piece with tape to show where it would go on the floor so he could lay it down the way he wanted before securing it to the floor.





B called me while I was on Vacation on the West Coast and said he decided to "expand the office". I was very afraid, but coming home to the beautiful new half-wall was a very pleasant surprise.




Before the wall...

And After!

Its one of my favorite things about our house now. I was so happy when it was finally finished. We still plan to make it a little taller so the upper yard is more level, but this is fine for now.













The night after the lightning struck, the limb began to slowly fall. It didnt finally tumble until some idiot tree guy decided to climb into the tree! It fell and he left me alone to clean up the mess. The limb missed our neighbors gas meter by a foot or so. This was all while B was away at work. Lucky me. He came home with a brand new chain saw and was very manly about the whole process :)

-S