June 21, 2009

Before and After: Bedroom

The BEFORE











A before and after picture! The bedroom! Before it was dark and cold. Now it is a warm, serene retreat! It is one of my favorite rooms next to the dining room!

The AFTER

June 19, 2009

Garden pictures!

Here are updated pictures of the garden. These are from the end of May. This weekend I will take more! The vegetable garden has grown considerably since then and there are a whole lot of other flowers and plants in bloom now! More picture can be found in our photo link on the side bar of our site. Here are some of my favorites!


Me and Nick went to Menards yesterday and bought a bunch more perennials and a few annuals for really cheap! I am planting them all tomorrow.
My Lillies of the Valley. They are sadly all done for the season now



Does anyone know what this flower is? All I know is that it is pretty and still around



My bleeding heart flowers

My vegetable garden. It is MUCH bigger now... and sadly, overcrowded


My first bouquet of the season from my garden!

June 14, 2009

Of Lawn Bags and Clogged Sinks

My father has been feeling a lot better since his surgery, so he and my mother visited today and we worked a lot around the house.

Downstairs, after shaving one day, I noticed the sink was clogged. My heart sank. I did not feel like dealing with fixing a clogged sink, especially with water now sitting in the sink. However, I thought maybe if I left the water to sit, perhaps it would drain after a while. Maybe it was draining so slow I couldn't see it draining.

After two days, there was no progress on the draining, so after the weddings Hilary and I went to Saturday, we decided that the sink needed to be unclogged.

Sunday, my father came over, and we practically ignored the sink until they were about to leave. We had filled ourselves up with turkey burgers, so we were content to just work outside in the nice weather. Right before my parents left, we worked on the sink.

With a bucket under the sink, I undid the trap. My father and I were expecting the worse, but we did not find much. The stop in the sink has become stuck, and it would not budge. So, we undid the stop and jammed paper towel down the drain. We used a snake to push the towel through, as it came out where the trap should be and landed in the bucket. The towel was filthy, but it did the trick. After attaching the trap back, the drain is now working at max capacity.

People can finally wash their hands in the downstairs sink!!! WOO!!!

As for the outside, Hilary, my mother, my sister, and my father worked hard outside. We swept the sidewalk, removing all the dead leaves and hacking down some unruly plants. It now looks very nice, and when it rains, the rain will clean away the dirt rather than pool in places.

I removed large portions of the trees between our garden and the neighbor's house. They are all maple trees that have not been trimmed for a while. There were a lot, and I have not cut them all yet, but now we can actually see some of the plants on the outskirts of our garden. Hilary found a fantastic red flower which I'm sure she'll talk all about.

With all the weed pulling we did, the yard waste bin is completely full. There may be a little bit of room for some leaves, but that's about it. Waste pickup is not until Thursday, so I guess it's back to good, old-fashioned lawn bagging.

That container is not small either. We weeded. A lot.

June 10, 2009

Overdue apologies!

I am so awful! I owe all of you so many pictures of what we have updated since moving in! I don't have my camera hooked up to the internet yet, but when I do, I will finally post pictures!

We have officially had the house for two whole months. It looks like a whole new home! I am finally starting to touch the nursery/guest room, and it should be painted within the next few weeks. It is way overdue that we finally hang our pictures and shelves as well!

What is also overdue is our housewarming party! I am thinking it will be the second week in July! I will keep you all updated!

June 7, 2009

Lawn mowing at its finest.

I don't own a lawn mower yet, but I haphazardly started planting grass seed as soon as I moved in.

Well, with planted seed comes lawn, and soon that lawn needs a mowing. A week ago, I borrowed my father's lawnmower since my lawn needed mowing desperately. Well, there was a catch.

My car's trunk would and could not possible fit my father's Lawn-Boy. So, I had to place the mower in my trunk, partially shut the trunk door, and use bungee cords to strap the sucker down. Securing the mower was like a brain teaser. My trunk has few places to secure a bungee cord strap, and at the bottom of my car there is only a plastic bumper to latch onto. It took four cords and some twisting and turning, but finally my dad and I secured the mower down.

We even tied a red scarf to the end of the mower to make it legal for me to drive.

I maneuvered my way up from Eagan to St. Paul on 149 North. That road eventually turns into Smith Avenue, which is the High Bridge in St. Paul.

When I returned to my home, I kicked the mower into gear and mowed like a mad man. Eventually, I filled three lawn bags full of grass clippings. You should find this remarkable, since I have a small lawn. The grass was JUST THAT LONG.

Which leaves (no lawn bag filler pun intended) me my last problem, one in which I have found a solution. Our lawn was not well kept before we moved in. There seemed to be several autumns worth of leaves on the ground. After picking it all up, we literally filled our art house full of lawn bags. Roughly 20, to be exact (a sentence that should make your head spin).

Turns out, our garbage company, Veolia, has year-round lawn bag pick up for roughly $85 for the year. They dropped off a huge lawn waste container, and I'm set to mow my lawn time after time after time.

Problem is, now I need a own a mower.

June 1, 2009

Unpacking... still.

This weekend I finally made a fairly good sized dent in the unpacking disaster that was the upstairs hallway.

Before I continue there are two things that need to be said: 1. I am a girl, therefore, I have a lot of clothes, 2. I am a girl with a shopping addiction, therfore, I have an obscene amount of clothes, and 3. I am a girl with a shopping addiction who hates to get rid of clothes, therefore, I have a ridiculously obscene amount of clothes.

I had been trying to unpacking my clothes and soon the entire upstairs was a conglomeration of multiple piles of clothes. I figured if I was going to do this, I was going to do it right and make sure that everything was organized. Sadly, I haven't had a lot of time on my hands lately, so the upstairs has been a danger-zone of hazardous clothing for weeks. This weekend I changed that!

The upstairs is still in various stages of unpacked, but now I have all my clothes put away and an entire bin of clothes to sell and donate. This is an extraordinary feat! I don't like to throw away clothes that still fit me because the way fashion goes, you never know when something will be "in" again! I did it though, I weeded through it all and am sadly parting with several outfits.

When I finally get my computer and office set up I will post pictures of how amazing this closet is. It is basically the closet of my dreams. A few more shelves and I will be a happy, happy camper.

I also started to unpack some of our books and hopefully we will soon have the entire upstairs landing/our book-nook, a mecca of all of our favorite books.

So, three weeks of unpacking and living at Winifred down... many more to go! Hopefully we get a bunch more unpacked before next week when we are having a garage sale!