New and Improved

Our backyard is finished! The landscapers finished up yesterday and the hydroseed company came out and sprayed down the new seed this afternoon. It looks so much better. Now we just need to water and feed this new lawn and hope that it comes up think and green. We had two more maples put in, 3 evergreen trees, some plants and ornamental grasses- along with 18 yards of river rock. It'll be nice once the grass grows so Chaco can go back out and play. Our backyard is no longer an eye sore!

- Tyler

Manual Labor

We hired a landscaping company to come out and work in our backyard. The whole thing needs to be re-done. Whoever put the sod in last time did a horrible job. They didn't till the dirt, so they laid the sod right on top of the hard hard clay we have here in Idaho. I would assume the original owners had sod put in about 3 years ago, put you could walk right up to the grass today and pull up chunks of sod that never rooted in the dirt. Today the landscaper tilled up the entire backyard. It already looks better, at least we have a consistent look now, and not just some patching grass full of weeds which floods every time it rains. They are adding some trees and plants in the yard, along with some rock too. It'll look nice. The last thing the landscaper will do is hydro-seed the lawn. Within a month, we should have nice grass growing. We can't wait!

- Tyler

G.U.N.S.T.R.E.A.M.

Last week, I created a little home decor for our house. I got the idea from my sister. For Christmas, I received some wood letter blocks that spelled out Gunstream. I painted the backs of them white, put scrabooking paper on the front, and added my own little pizazz to them. They are a great accent for our living room!

Stephanie

R.I.P. Yellow Wall

This last Monday, Stephanie and I took a day off work to paint our bedroom. Luckily, Steph's family was in town staying with us, so we took advantage of the extra hands to help with the project. If we were to paint the room ourself, it could of taken a week. But having 5 pairs of hands all painting together helped us get the entire room done in a day. We couldn't have done it without them! Finally the horrid yellow wall is gone!

- Tyler

Splish, Splash

We spent last weekend painting our half bathroom downstairs. Originally the bathroom was the off white color (yuck!) that's in the rest of the house with the main wall painted dark dark brown. Why on earth would you want an accent wall in such a small space? With each project, we find out just how many corners the previous owners cut to finish the job. On this project, for example, the wall anchors used to mount toilet paper roll hardware to the wall had been stripped. Instead of patching the hole and moving the hardware down a couple inches, they just filled the hole with caulking and essentially clued the hardware to the wall. Anyways, we painted the bathroom the same color as our master bath. Steph went out and found a framed mirror at Ross for like $15! It's usually hit and miss with their mirrors but its way cheaper than buying an $80 one at a hardware store.

It's Christmas Time

We went out and bought our first Christmas tree. Although we don't have a lot of Christmas decorations for our first Christmas as a married couple, we had so much fun setting up our tree and making it look pretty.

Stephanie

The Pianist

We still had some money left from our tax credit and I really wanted a piano. I had been looking on Craigslist and found some for really good deals. Some were too far away, some were out of tune or in completely bad shape, or some just got snatched up too fast. I was on a mission. I had my Craigslist page open and I would refresh it every 5 minutes to see if someone put an ad on for a piano. After a little patience, it happened. I saw an ad for a piano that was a really good deal, and I called

the seller right away. I went to her house after work to check it out. It sounded great, I told her I wanted it, I wrote her a check, and arranged for movers to come and pick it up. It looks beautiful in our house and I love playing it!

Stephanie