iPhone download & upload

Since I haven't been keeping up on blogging as much as I should be, I'll give you an iPhone recap of our spring.

My brother tore his knee again and recouped from surgery at our house for a week. Daniel heped him with his rehap and daily exercises.

Daniel got his head stuck in a boat steering wheel. (He was only stuck for a minute before Dave got him unstuck.) It was really funny.

Daniel has become OBSESSED with heavy machinery.

Our bathroom renovation is moving along smoothly and I'm in love with my new granite countertops.

Tayo the Little Bus (a Korean cartoon) has invaded our house. Daniel has figured out how to use our iPads and whenever I need a little "break", Tayo will be found playing.

We saw our neighborhood moose over Memorial Day Weekend.

Front Yard

It's always this time of the year that Dave and I start a ton of home renovation projects. This year, it's the master bedroom/bathroom/closet, the front yard and removing a large post from the kitchen area of the house.

The master suite renovations are ongoing and will be still in motion for at least another 3 weeks. The post beam in the kitchen was a huge decorative log that went floor to ceiling. It cut off the kitchen and prevented a more open floor plan that we had desired. I have been BEGGING my husband for almost 3 years to let me take it down. Once our bathroom contractor confirmed the beam wasn't load bearing, I had him break out his tools and saw it down. The end result-I'm in love with how much larger the kitchen looks! I still need to do a little finish work to the ceiling to repair where the beam was mounted, but I'm pleased with the results.

Before

After

Now, on to the yard...When we purchased the house almost 3 years ago, the front yard was an overgrown mess of weeds and wild flowers. Each summer, I have labored over it trying to make it into a beautiful expanse of healthy green grass. I've always loved grass and a well manicured yard. I've blogged about the yard before here. It's been a long work in progress filled with lumpy clumps of grass, tons of weeds and pits from voles. It was the opposite of manicured! Even with all the work I have put into it, it never looked great.

This year we decided to start from scratch. We had the whole yard sprayed with something to kill everything. Then the top layers of dirt were scrapped off.

 New soil was brought in, the space leveled and then sod was laid.

We had a new pathway to the gardens put in and a rock wall placed to surround the new lawn.

The end result-a lushous green lawn! I love it!

Bathroom Renovations

Several months ago the bathtub in our master bedroom cracked and started leaking into the living room downstairs whenever we used the shower. We had always planned on renovating the bathroom, but knew we needed to save up and prepare for a long overhaul of the master suite.

Our bedroom was fairly large and the bathroom was huge, however, our walk in closet was more like a walk sideways and don't stick your elbows out kind of closet. When we were planning our new bathroom renovation, we decided to move a wall, open up the closet and change the way we enter into the space.

My Dad flew out from NJ to help Dave demo the space and to do some framing. We hired contractors to handle the plumbing, drywall, flooring and framing. I love renovations and was thrilled to put my GC hard hat back on to manage the project.

First things first-the bathroom had to come apart.

Then, the bedroom and closet wall needed to come down.

The framers came in and built out the new space. I missed taking a ton of photos and didn't do a good job documenting the progress.

While progress was being made on the bathroom floor, our friend Blake came and helped with the painting.

One month later, the bedroom is finished, the closet is carpeted and waiting for the new closet system and the bathroom tile is done! Later this week, the last of the cabinetry will be installed, the plumber will come and hook up all the fixtures and the shower glass wall will be measured. The end is in sight!