Home Improvement

“To plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow.” – Audrey Hepburn

One of my favorite things to do when I have some downtime is to watch home improvement shows (Joanna and Chip all the way!) and/or browse through Pinterest at houses and their decor/paint schemes/gardens.  Ever since we bought our house back in January, I’ve been dreaming up some ideas of things we could do around the house.  Lately, I’ve been daydreaming of planting a garden in the front of my house as well as staining my back deck that needed a little TLC.  So that’s just what I did this weekend!

With the help of my two favorite men in my life (my husband and dad), we were able to accomplish both huge projects on Saturday!

Our first project was staining the deck.  This was the before picture taken right around 10:00 a.m.:

The previous owner, before selling the house, did some renovations including putting a new wood railing on the deck.  As you can see, the balusters below the new wood piece look freshly painted.  If you look at the deck floorboards themselves, you can see how worn and discolored they are.

Our first step was to sweep off the deck because it hadn’t been done since before we moved in (whoops!).  Second: sanding.  The absolute worst part of the whole process. My dad, husband and I took turns using the sander and sanded three floorboards at a time.  On his breaks, my dad would use part of his time to sweep up the sand from the sander.

It’s amazing what a difference the sander made!  We didn’t realize how bad of shape our deck was in, but after we were completely done with sanding, we noticed a huge difference!

Altogether, sanding probably took about 1 1/2- 2 hours.  After taking a breather and sweeping the remaining dust off of the deck, our next (and last step for this process) was to stain.

We had some trouble at first picking out the stain from Lowe’s based off of pictures of the deck we took, but we settled on a pretty mahogany color that we believed would match the balusters.

As soon as we started painting the new wood piece, I fell in love with the color!  It was absolutely perfect.  It matched the balusters perfectly and it just made the wood pop.

Staining was definitely the easiest part of the project.  It may be strange, but I think my one of my favorite things to do is painting/staining.  There’s just something so relaxing about moving a brush across an object and watching it either change or brighten in color.

We were nearly finished when we realized how low we were in the stain.  We only had about four or five boards left total when we got low on the stain.  Luckily we just had enough to finish the rest of the boards as well as putting a second coat on the railing.

Here is the finished product:

There are some places where we have to do some touch-ups, but otherwise, it looks so much better!

So the next thing on our agenda was turning the ugly patch of mulch in the front of our house into a beautiful garden.  We heard recently from a neighbor that the previous owner of our house actually had a beautiful bush out front but was told to tear it down by his realtor.  Regardless, we decided to brighten up the front of our house.

This was before:

I spent about an hour or so last weekend pulling out all of the weeds that had cropped up in the mulch.  That gave us a nice start.  After buying the plants Saturday afternoon at a local store called Stauffers of Kissel Hill and enjoying a nice break to eat dinner, we started planting the flowers.  This is the outcome:

I love the hanging flowers because they bring a pop of color to the front of the house.  The lilies in the back, when they bloom, will be beautiful.  My favorite part of the garden so far, though, are the daisies that will bloom every year in the Spring.  We did add a few annuals in the mix just as filler/to add more color, so I’m already looking forward to next Spring when I get to plant more in our garden!

Overall, it was a great (but busy) weekend and I absolutely love how everything turned out.

Have you done any house projects recently?  Share in the comments below!

Writing Prompt Wednesday: Perspective at a Funeral

**Disclaimer: This is a writing prompt I found off of Pinterest.  This is all original work, so please do not alter or copy any of the details included.  Thanks!

I never thought I’d be dead at the age of 23.  I guess that’s what texting and driving gets you.  My guess is I look pretty bad considering I’m in a closed coffin.

I looked to my left at what my hand was touching.  Someone must have seen me at some point because my older sister’s college graduation photo is beside me.  And beautiful flowers are lying to my right.  Lilies.  White lilies, my absolute favorite.  I wonder who gave me these?  It’s nice of them to put me six feet under with my favorite flowers to keep me company.

Wait, what was I texting about anyway?  What was so important that I couldn’t wait?  What was so important that it landed me here, in my very own coffin?  My eyes diverted to the top of the coffin and I realized- James.  A picture of James was taped to the top of my coffin immediately in my eyesight.  I was texting James, letting him know I was five minutes from the flower shop and- oh no!!  I was only a few months away from getting married.  No, God no…poor James!  He must have waited for me for hours before realizing that I was never showing up- I can’t believe I did this to him.

I heard a sniffle immediately outside my coffin as a voice drenched in sadness whispered into the dark walnut, “I will always love you.”  It was James.

“I love you too, James, and I’m so sorry!  Please forgive me!”  No matter how much I yelled or screamed, he was never going to hear me.  I wanted nothing more than to hold him, but no matter how much I wanted that to be true, I was never going to be able to hold him again.

It was then that I looked down at my clothing and saw they (James, my parents, Hallie?) had buried me in my wedding dress…the one that I wasn’t supposed to wear for another two months.

“Casey,” a gentle voice outside my coffin said.  “Why did you have to do this?  James needed you, your father needed you, I needed you?  Why couldn’t you just wait five more minutes?”  My heart shattered- well, figuratively, because I’m not even sure I have a heart anymore, and if I do, it sure as hell isn’t working.

It was my mom’s voice I was hearing now.  Her small, disappointed and heartbroken speech was interrupted by hysterical crying.  It’s my assumption that my dad came and got her and took her to her seat.

My assumption was confirmed as only a few minutes (were they minutes? hours?) later, I heard a rough, deep voice talking to me.

“Casey, what were you thinking?  Why couldn’t you just wait?  Your mom- well she’s drinking again and your sister won’t even return our calls.  She’s too upset to even-.  You were only-well, James is a mess.  I’ve never seen him look more thin.  I don’t think he’ll ever love- well, I love you, Case…Heaven better be good to you.”

Heaven.  Wait.  Why wasn’t I in heaven?  Did I do something wrong?  Did I sin too often and not ask for forgiveness enough?  Why am I still here?

Minutes passed as I heard voices I could barely recognize, voices of my best friends, and those of people I had fallings out with, talking to me about how they’ll miss me, how I impacted their lives, how sorry they were that we had fallen apart.

Now the preacher was going on how it was my time, how God had a plan for me, and that no one should worry as I was in God’s kingdom now.  Little do they know that I’m here, trapped in this box, listening to every word they say.

After an hour (or was it minutes?) of the preacher talking, the crowd singing hymnals and speeches of those individuals closest to me (except James who I can only assume is so heartbroken he couldn’t bear to talk to me), I felt the coffin lift up.  I must be getting carried to the neighboring cemetery.  I guess it’s time for them to lower me into the ground.

James decided to speak at the cemetery.  He went on about how I was his better half and how I truly cared about the people in my life and how I always made him laugh and how I was his soulmate….and lastly, how broken-hearted he was because I will never share his last name.  A dream cut short by merely two months.

It was truly beautiful.  I wish I could cry.

I guess the speeches are over because an obnoxious hum filled my ears, one that could only be the machine that the church has to lower the deceased six feet under.

Suddenly, I heard a feint “Wait!  Wait!  Don’t lower her yet!” off in the distance, somehow over the loud machine that had begun lowering me into my final physical resting place.

The yells got louder and finally the machine turned off.  My sister’s voice was clear to me now.  Hallie- she came!  After everything- our constant bickering, her silent treatment of mom and dad, her never having the chance to stand next to me on my wedding day as my Maid of Honor.

And it was then that I realized I was waiting for closure from her- my best friend and oldest confidant, Hallie- before I could make way to Heaven.  She was the person who had been missing, since I heard from everyone else.

She said a few words on her journey to even get to the cemetery (losing her keys, missing the turn, traffic- ironically caused by a car accident)  but also how she couldn’t let me go before saying goodbye.

“Goodbye, Casey,” she said as I heard dirt fall onto my coffin.

“Goodbye, Hallie,” I wanted to whisper but nothing came out.  Instead, the coffin disappeared and everything went silent.  Finally, I saw a light in front of me with hundreds of individuals ushering me towards them.

I walked into the white light and was greeted and embraced by deceased grandparents and those family members I never had a chance to meet.

I was home.