Bug up my.......

For some reason about a month ago I got a bug up my butt that I wanted to refinish furniture. I am not entirely sure why. I have never refinished furniture in my life. My aunt did some cute tables a while back, and I've seen a few cute pieces on various blogs, but at the time it didn't hit me. It hit me when I was out shopping at various thrift shops in October looking for Halloween costumes. Anyway, I saw this little hutch/secretary thing one day for $10 and for some reason I put it in my cart and left without buying any Halloween costume stuff. This is what it looked like to start out with:

Plain and boring. 

And after. 

I think for my first refinish it turned out fine. I chose the color from a blog called All Things Thrifty that I was reading and the girl used this color to refinish end tables. They looked very cool. Well, hers looks way better than mine. I am not really sure why I even did this, besides that bug up my butt, because I have no place to use this and the color matches nothing in my house. Right now it is sitting in my mud room. I will say that I would like to refinish a dresser, something we actually need. If I find one cheap I'll give it a try.

It aint no Disneyland!

This spring we had a decision to make.We could either put our backyard in or go on vacation. Honestly, it was a tough decision. We talked to the boys and Parker instantly said he wanted the yard in. Preston at first said the yard, but then halfway though spending the money on the yard changed his mind to vacation. Yea, too late dude. So it really sucked not going on vacation, which for us always means Disneyland, but at least the yard is mostly done. We were able to do sprinklers, grass, most of the fence, and put in the forms for the basketball court and the patio. The major lacking we have is cement. We eventually need to pour cement for the patio and the basketball court. The amount of money we need for these two things equals a new car.  I don't see it happening....ever! It is so nice to have the grass in! Our yard was always either a dust bowl or a mud hole. So just having everything cleaner made it totally worth it. The thing that Travis and I are happy about is that we did all of the work ourselves. For one, we love to do yard work, and two, if we had to hire it out we would not have gotten very far. It is so expensive to hire it done. The heat was a killer this year so that made it so hard. Travis would work all day then come home and install sprinklers until bedtime. I would go out after dark and move dirt around, back-fill trenches, remove rocks, etc.  I can't handle the sun or the heat so nighttime was my time to get things done. Next summer we are kicking back....Yea, right!

This is how the yard looked not long after we moved in.

This is first thing this spring. The trampoline is in, the patio formed, and the garden in. Oh, and the weeds are happily growing.

Digging for sprinklers. ZZZzzzzzzzzzz.....boring!

 Sprinklers in and dirt sorta back in place.

 On the right side of the picture is the someday basketball court.

 Ready for hydro seed. Anyone out there looking for lawn, do hydro seed. The cost is very low and you get much better grass than you do buying sod. Our entire back yard cost 1/4 of what our tiny front yard cost in sod. The back is thick, even and a good color. The front where we did sod is the exact opposite. I hear people say they don't want to wait for the grass to grow so they spend thousands getting sod. It took ours 2-3 weeks to be walkable and about 4-5 weeks for it to be thick and useable. Personally, I can wait 4-5 weeks to save that much money. 

Ready for seed.

I took this right after the guy finished spraying the seed on. I took the picture with my iPhone so not great color

Drum roll please...we have a lawn! The dirt at the bottom of the picture will be the fire-pit someday. This picture is taken from the west looking east.

This picture is from the east looking west. 

Again, it aint no Disneyland but it's mostly done!