Planting Pops of Color.

The same day I planted my succulents, some outdoor planting got accomplished too.  The outdoor stuff is what actually kicked my butt into gear to get the succulents done.

On a recent trip to IKEA, I couldn't resist helping myself to a few planters.  Two of them, you saw here...they live on our front porch.

The third one I purchased is a white, three-tiered plant stand.  I totally fell for the uniqueness of it.  I adore the fact that it's not a typical planter you see every day. 

Hubby couldn't wait to add some life to it, so during a nice weekend day, we headed to Home Depot's Outdoor Center...along with the rest of the world. ;)

We picked out beautiful dahlias for the front porch planters and some colorful begonias for the IKEA planter.

We even purchased two hanging planters of pansies, but removed the hanging apparatus, and put them at the bottom of our patio steps.  They are a great pop of color in our backyard.

Since I love all things ombre, I decided to organize my begonias in an ombre type fashion...going from orange to pink.

Now this fun planter lives in our back porch, and gives us a pretty view, both out the kitchen window and from the back patio.

 

PS-The dahlias on our front porch have now fully bloomed.  When we went to the garden center, we chose the plants that had the least amount of open blooms on them.  We were hoping that if we bought plants that hadn't yet blossomed, we would be able to enjoy more of it's time in bloom.  It seems to have worked, and they are thriving.  Heck, the ones we bought for the back yard have even been thriving!  High five for us not killing our new plants after a few weeks! ;)

DIY Wood Shelves.

Or picture ledges...whatever you want to call them.  Either way, yay me.  I built something.  I don’t really care if they were the easiest things ever to build.  I'm convinced it still counts that I friggin’ built something!!  {Picture me patting myself on the back. ;)}

Some time ago, I put together a mini-gallery wall above our buffet in the dining room.  I loved the frames, but I wasn’t in love with the statement on the wall.  I couldn’t help but think that I wanted something more for that area.

Enter in the super cheap, super easy, super “$20 Shelves Anyone Can Build” from Shanty 2 Chic.  The minute I saw these, I knew they were just what our photo wall needed.  It’d add a little rustic, dark wood into the mix of white frames I had going on.  Plus, it said in the title that anyone could build them.  Consider me sold!

I measured the area that the gallery had covered, and roughly figured that I wanted 2 three foot long ledges.  Then I did a quick inventory of what supplies we had in the basement, put a list together of what I needed and hopped online to order everything we didn't have from Home Depot.  Once I received my email letting me know my order was ready to pick up, I headed out the door.  {Totally awesome service so you don’t have to run all over the store if you don’t want to.}

Once I got to Home Depot, they let me know that my order was in the back because I had things that were too big to keep up by the counter.  {This happens every time I order something dealing with wood, and I’m fine with it because where I pick up my order is right by the guy who cuts all the wood for me.}  I ordered 1 – 1 x 2 x 6 and 2 – 1 x 4 x 6...and after making sure all the boards were straight {don’t let them give you warped wood}, I had the nice wood-cutting-man cut all my lumber in half.  That left me with 2 – 1 x 2 x 3 and 4 – 1 x 4 x 3 pieces.  I also made sure I had my wood glue, wood screws and finishing nails in my bag.

Then it was time to get to work.  First I quickly dry-fit everything, making sure the boards I put together worked okay...

 

...and I gave everything a quick sand to soften up the sharp edges of the boards.  Then I CAREFULLY pre-drilled holes into the 1 x 4’s {to keep the wood from cracking/splitting}, and ran a line of wood glue along one piece before screwing the two pieces together using wood screws. 

 

{Don’t over-do the glue, otherwise it’ll be squirting out all over the place when the boards are fit together.  If that happens, just use a damp cloth to wipe up any excess...and possibly sand it off after it’s dry.  If you are staining the wood, excess glue might keep the stain from soaking into the wood in some spots.  Yes, I’m speaking from experience.  Just keepin' it real! ;)}

After the 1 x 4’s were attached, I ran another line of glue along the 1 x 4 before hammering in 4 evenly spaced finishing nails into the 1 x 2 to attach it to the front of the shelf.  If you have a nail gun, it would greatly come in handy for this step, but you definitely don’t need one.  A hammer worked just fine.

Just like the Shanty girls, I didn’t mind that you could see the finishing nails along the front of the 1 x 2 because I was going for a rustic look...so I didn’t worry about sinking the nails below the wood and filling any holes.

Once I had both shelves put together, I applied two coats of Minwax’s Dark Walnut stain.

Over the next couple days I let everything dry and removed the frames from the wall.  I filled in any holes or dings and touched the paint up to prep the wall for the shelves.

Once I finally got around to hanging them, I pre-drilled holes in the shelves and in the wall.  I tapped some plastic anchors into the wall, and then used long screws to go right through the ledge and into the anchors in the wall.  I don't mind that the screw heads are exposed because you can't even see them with all the frames I'm displaying!  You'd never even know they are there.

I was a little apprehensive about how this project would turn out, but I really love the statement the ledges make in our dining room.  They truly are shelves that anyone could build.  You should try too! ;)

Everybody's Working for the Weekend!

Yup, that's right...we {I use the term "we" quite loosely for this one} were busy working this past Memorial Day weekend.  Okay, okay maybe just the first half of Saturday, but still!  A whole heck of a lot got done before we overindulged in lots of food, movies and BBQs for the remainder of the weekend.

In a post or two, I may have mentioned that I despise our backyard, especially the ugly concrete slabs that had become my spray painting backdrops.  Unfortunately our backyard brings absolutely NOTHING to the table, and certainly doesn't make us want to go out and enjoy the great outdoors.

{Least favorite area of our yard.}

 {Close up view...basically where I spray paint everything. :) }

 {Small concrete pad at the top of the steps to our driveway.} 

And because of all the loveliness shown above, we previously called a stamped concrete guy to come and give us an estimate to do some work.  We wanted him to demo our old slabs and install a stamped concrete patio.  {We personally prefer stamped concrete to pavers, but I know many may disagree with us.}  His quote was quite reasonable for the work to be done {let's be clear...the patio we want is very sizable because if you're going to do it, do it once and do it right}, but holy moly...it was much higher than we were guess-timating!  Bummer!!!

He let us know that if we wanted to demo the slabs ourselves and clear away the concrete we could save $1,500.  At first, we didn't even consider this.  Jackhammers and flying concrete debris?!?!  It kind of freaked us out.  But after a couple weeks went by, and we investigated our slab {it seemed to be only about 3-4 inches thick}, we decided to look into demo'ing the slabs ourselves.

All it took was a couple minutes of reading some info on Home Depot's Tool Rental site, and I was sold.  We {meaning my big, strong hubby} could totally handle this!  So when Saturday rolled around, we headed straight to HD and rented an electric breaker...$75 for 4 hours.

Once we got home, we were both pretty anxious about how it would go.  Hubby suited up with long pants, work boots, safety glasses and ear protection....and off he went!

The breaker came with three different bits {I'm just calling them bits, because I don't know what they are really called}, and even though he used them all, hubby had a clear favorite he used for most of the project.  The breaker does all the work for you, but you have to constantly pick up this heavy piece of equipment and move it to the next area you want to break...and occasionally it'd get stuck in the rubble and you'd have to yank it out of the concrete.

Here is a little glimpse at the process...as well as some inadvertent eye candy for my female readers. ;)

{Getting the hang of it.}

{Switching out the "bit" to try a new one.}

{Making progress.}

{For those of you who follow me on Instagram [retroranchreno]...you saw this picture on Saturday.}

{The big slabs are almost done.}

{Trying to clear everything out from under the stairs.  There were two layers under there...one of concrete and one of brick.}

{No more little slab near the steps to the driveway!}

After almost two hours of hard work in crazy heat and humidity, hubby had everything broken up.  He was E-X-H-A-U-S-T-E-D!  No joke...I have never seen him beat like this, and we have taken on many long and exhausting days since purchasing this home.  I am really so thankful to have a husband who could take on this huge task.  I felt so bad that I couldn't help, so I just stood out in the porch and was his "support" while he tackled this major project.

And thanks to all of his hard work, we managed to return the breaker before our 4 hour deadline and even got money back from our initial deposit!  So, all in all, breaking up our old concrete cost us $66.

Of course, now comes the real fun!  We have to move allllll of the debris to a dump area we have near our house.  I am not looking forward to all of the wheelbarrowing we have in our future, but since it's saving us just over $1,400, I'll suck it up! :)

This all brings us one step closer to having an outdoor space we never thought we'd have!!  Woohooo!

Planting Party!

What did we do last Saturday night after showing our neighbors some love??  Shower, re-energize with a Diner dinner and hunt down the perfect plants to spruce up our em-BARE-assing yard at Home Depot, of course.

Thanks to some smart thinking by my mom, we took a couple minutes to map out our beds on paper before we left the house.  We took note of how many, what size and what type of plants we'd need to purchase.  This step was super helpful, and totally eliminated some clueless wandering that definitely would have taken place.

Luckily for us, HD had an awesome selection of plants, at the perfect prices.  Before I knew it, the sun had set, the workers were desperately trying to close the lawn section of the store and we were trying to check out with two, fully loaded carts.

{Hubby with our carts...}

Once we paid, it was on to renting a Home Depot truck.  Thank gosh for those rentals because there was noooo way we were fitting two trees, multiple bushes, a pitchfork {for our future mulch delivery} and a bunch of mountain pinks into either one of our cars.

{Hubby and Papa Dukes locking up our precious cargo...}

With only a couple minor heart attacks {trees falling over, told you they wouldn't stay standing...the bed popping open....our scotch broom bush almost flying out the back...eeeek}, we made it home safe and sound.

The next morning it was time to set all the plants where we wanted them to go.  Plotting everything out before we started digging any holes ensured that we didn't make any mistakes with placement. 

{Hubby and Mom hard at work.}

Before we could get it just right, a poorly placed plant needed to be removed.  Lucky for us, our neighbors were more than happy to help out on Sunday after we painted their house on Saturday.

{Our neighbor easily ripping our sad looking rhododendron out of the ground.}

Since we semi-planned before we even went to Home Depot, it didn't take too long to figure out the perfect layout.

{Bed to the left of the front door...}

{Bed to the right of the front door...}

{Small section of the bed to the left of our front door.  A few tulips and hyacinths growing wildly in our backyard also got transplanted here.}

{Bed along the back of the driveway...}

{Bed along the front of the driveway.  See how much needed to be weeded out of there!!  And we already cleared this bed out a couple months ago.  I can tell we'll be battling this one for years to come...}

Once the layout was taken care of...it was time to start digging!  Well, the strong hubby's started digging. ;)

{Pete planting one of two white azaleas given to us by his mom.} 

My neighbor and I began weeding the AWFUL bed that runs along the driveway.  Thankfully, it wasn't long before the plants were in, watered and the boys were joining us to help clear out the huge "nightmare" bed.

After a couple hours of hard work, our yard was finally starting to show some life.

And don't worry...I know that our beds still look very unfinished.  But never fear!  We had a friend who does landscaping, drop off 8 yards of mulch...and the boys got busy spreading it this past weekend. 

After we get an additional 4 yards {12 yards in total}, we'll finally have our place fully mulched!

 {First 4 yard delivery in the driveway...}

BTW, I was hoping to have some fun pictures, and possibly videos of some major tree work on our property from today, but that plan has been put on hold.  The nor'easter that brought torrential rains to the East Coast yesterday caused our tree people to reschedule for Friday.  Fingers crossed that I'll have some fun updates from that work for you guys by early next week!