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We’re Making Progress!!!

January 15, 2012 By Spring

Hi everyone! I hope you all had a great weekend. We were busy here with our projects in Syracuse, and guess what! It finally snowed! It was our first real snow of the season, so, we had to take some breaks from working inside and go enjoy it.

After emptying the cabinets, removing the doors, sanding and deglossing, I have finally started to prime the kitchen cabinets. I have to say sanding took a lot longer than I expected, and the dust……It was u.n.b.e.l.i.e.v.a.b.l.e. I used a power sander and did all the cabinet doors and drawers in the basement, but I still have dust everywhere. I was not that excited to sand in the kitchen in the first place. The power sander even has a bag attached to collect the dust, but that only helps so much. On a good note, that step is now behind me. Plus, the primed doors/cabinets give me a teeny little preview of what the finished project will look like. At least, I am not looking at the yellowish wooden cabinets anymore.

I set the doors in various rooms in the house to dry after being primed. I even used our new kitchen furniture for a few.

Precious Gracie has been sitting and watching my every move in the kitchen. This is her calm, “I’m a perfect angel” pose.

I even have the drawers set up in our study to dry before I give them a coat of paint.

I took some time to play with Gracie in the snow. This was her first time to play in the white stuff, and she loved it. It did take her a lot longer to find her ball when we were playing catch.

Eventually, she found it. It looks as if she has a giant snowball in her mouth, don’t ya think???

Ahhhh, she is sad to go back in, but she knows we need to continue working on our projects.

*****

Hope you all had a productive weekend. Stay tuned. The kitchen cabinets will be finished one of these days. Hopefully, with my mom’s help (she arrives tomorrow night), it will be this week. Mr. Spring is also continuing to work on the bar. I’ll share those projects later.

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Cheers!

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Filed Under: Gracie, Projects

Weekends in the Adirondacks

July 19, 2011 By Spring

Author: Spring

Because I have been traveling a lot for work the last couple of months, I want to have some fun with Mr. Spring and Gracie when I’m home for the week-ends. Now that our big project in the backyard is finished, (you can read about it here and here) we wanted to go out and enjoy the wonderful summer Syracuse is having. It is great that our summer is so nice and pleasant. We earned it after having 15 feet of snow this winter.

Mr. Spring and I really enjoy the outdoors while hiking, camping and kayaking. Mr. Spring proposed to me during a kayak/camping trip to Cumberland Island in Georgia two years ago. Now that we are married, we decided to buy our own kayaks. Our first thing was to find a style that would have a space so we could take Gracie along with us. We did lots of research and ended up with a good model that has a special place where she can sit now and when she is an adult dog.

We make sure that safety is first. Even Gracie has her own life jacket. She hasn’t figured out the whole water thing quite yet, though.

The last two weekends we drove out of town to the Adirondacks where we kayaked on Lower Saranac Lake to an island to go camping. These island camp sites are only accessible by boat. We lucked out, and the weather was beautiful both times. As a bonus, it was very peaceful. Sadly, our photos do not do justice to the surroundings. If you ever get a chance, you need to visit the area.

While kayaking out to the island, I was so busy trying to take photos that I ended up pretty far from Mr. Spring and Gracie in their boat.

We made it to our campsite. All of our gear, food and even firewood fit into the kayaks.

Some of the views were breath-taking.

It was fun enjoying the warm weather and water. I was debating about going swimming.

Even while camping, we can enjoy a glass of wine. We love these non-breakable wine glasses. Even though we were in the middle of an island with no one around, we could still have some class using proper wine glasses instead of paper cups.

The moon was beautiful. This picture cannot explain how peaceful and beautiful it was that evening.

I hope you enjoyed our camping adventure. Have you had some fun weekend trips this summer?

Cheers!

Filed Under: Gracie, Out and About

It’s Not Easy Being Green

July 10, 2011 By Spring

Author: Spring

I am sorry I haven’t been posting as much. I have been traveling for work, and it has taken time out from doing projects on our house and from posting on our blog.

But I have good news! The biggest project that Mr. Spring and I wanted to do this summer was the backyard, and we are finished – for now!!! Here you can read about the start of our backyard transformation.

Our backyard was filled with rocks and Zen gardens from the previous owner, and we wanted grass to add some color. It would also make it more fun and inviting for Gracie to be able to run around the yard. (Disregard the chicken wire in the pictures it is our temporary fix till we update our fence next summer).

The first thing we did was remove the rocks and the landscaping fabric. We removed over 12 cubic yards of these rocks, and we found a nice man on Craigslist who was willing to pick them up and take them away. Ripping up the last few yards of landscape fabric was so hard for us till we realized roots were all tangled into the fabric. This made the last piece extremely difficult to pull up.

Here are some of the roots that were in the fabric.

We also decided to remove a huge shurb/tree. It was creating a lot of shade, and we needed all the sun we could get in the back part of the yard. I cut down all the limbs, and Mr. Spring worked and worked on removing the bulk of the tree.

Once all of the rocks were out and the landscape fabric was removed, we were ready to use a rototiller and till the soil.

We decided instead of seeding the backyard that we wanted instant gratification, and we went with sod. The sod cost 33 cents per square foot, and we thought was well worth it in order to have instant grass. When the sod was delivered, it was a beautiful sight.

We were so happy to see it. The sod was delivered on a Friday afternoon, and we installed it the same day after work. It was the easiest part of the whole backyard.

Before ordering the sod, we bought a soil testing kit to test the soil. We learned our soil wasn’t as bad as we thought it might be.

However, we did put down a a turf builder/starter fertlizer on the soil before we put down the sod.

Mr. Spring is adding fertilizer to our tilled yard.

We are starting to roll out the sod in the yard in this photo.

Gracie was on the new patio watching the whole process while enjoying some ice.

Here I am rolling out some sod. Mr. Spring started on the other side of the yard and we met in the middle.

The yard was looking so much better with the added color.

The next step after putting down all the sod was to take a lawn roller and go over the new grass. We rented this for $7.

The next step is the most important part of the sod process. WATER. The next couple weeks are crucial so that the sod has enough water to survive.

Here is the completed sod, and now we are ready to enjoy the yard. It will take about two weeks for the sod to grab, and then we will be able to mow the lawn for the first time. After that time we shouldn’t notice the squares from the sod. Stay tuned .

Also, if you look at this picture you will see rocks on the left beside the sod. This building is our garage, and we put rocks right beside it to help with drainage. One day we will start spiffing up that area. Till then we are going to sit back and enjoy our yard and enjoy my new muscles from shoveling rocks.

Cheers!

Linking to Between Naps on the Porch

Filed Under: Before and After, Gracie, Projects

Meet the Amazing Gracie

May 16, 2011 By Spring

Author: Spring

I hope everyone had a good weekend. We had a great one because this was the weekend we picked up our new puppy, Gracie. She is a German Shorthaired Pointer. We think she is the cutest thing, and we are having fun being new dog owners. Since we are the proud “puppy parents”, I wanted to share some photos of the new lady in our house.

Gracie is nine weeks old, and we have read several books on how to raise a puppy so that we train and socialize her properly. We are kennel-training her, and we have sectioned off a portion of our Florida room for her until she adjusts to our home. You can read about what our future plans for the Florida room here. We are going to replace the floor in that room in the near future, and so, any accidents she might have will not ruin anything.

Some more good news is that we finally finished the patio this weekend, and Gracie even helped to supervise. Mr. Spring worked really hard on this team effort. Once the weather clears up enough to take good pictures, I will post the completed patio photos.

“Will you play catch with me?”

“I may have a ball in my mouth but, Ferret I’ve got my eye on you…”

“I can’t wait to blog about this….moving this blanket will really make the room ‘POP!’”

“Get this thing done! I want grilled meats!”

“I’ll guard this weird looking brick till you come back”.

“Oooo yeah, that is a tough cut to make….”

Isn’t she as cute as can be?

Cheers!

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Filed Under: Gracie