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!

5 Simple Ways to Unwind After a Stressful Day

Stressful days are not unknown, nor are they uncommon, especially to young adults struggling to get to where they want to be in life.  The past few weeks have been particularly stressful for me due to wedding planning as well as a full workload at my day job.  However, I try not to let my stresses get the best of me.  Here are some of my favorite ways to unwind after a stressful day:

1. Sit out on your porch and get fresh air.  Or, if you don’t have a porch, sit under a tree or on a bench or wherever is most comfortable for you.  There’s something about sitting outside and breathing the fresh air that does wonders for me.  Listening to the birds chirp and the nature around tends to calm all of my worries/stresses.  Ironically, as I write this I’m currently sitting outside on my apartment balcony and I can easily tell you I’m feeling much better than I was earlier today.
2. Read a book.  I know not all of my followers probably read, but sometimes it’s just nice to get away from your life and live someone else’s.  By reading, I escape into another world and focus solely on those characters rather than what’s happening in my life.  I disregard all of my previous stresses of the day and instead attempt to solve the puzzle in the protagonist’s life.
3. Watch TV and drink wine.  If you’re not really into books that much, pick a new show on Netflix or find something on cable to watch, and kick your feet up and relax.  I normally watch one or two hours of TV per day and during that time I try not to work on anything else or even think about anything that’s left on my to-do list.  I normally always pair watching TV with a glass of wine because what’s the harm in that?  Wine helps me to relax, and it makes me tired so I fall asleep easier, which a better night’s sleep would alleviate the stress of being tired the next day.
4. Take a nap.  There is very little that I feel that sleeping doesn’t cure.  Today, for instance, I was so exhausted after my stressful work day that I didn’t feel like exercising or watching TV or cleaning or even writing a blog.  So I took a short 15 minute nap after I got home and I woke up more energized and less stressed.  I was able to finish my workout and now I’m sitting here typing this list up.
5. Exercise.  Last but not least, I love to exercise to alleviate stress.  I know this isn’t for everyone, but exercise does amazing things for my stress levels.  I workout in the evenings for the sole purpose of having the ability to let out all of my frustrations and stresses during my workout.  Using my frustrations and stresses also fuels me and helps me to work out harder and put more oomph into things.  And afterwards I feel more relaxed and calm and am ready to settle in for the rest of the evening.

 

So, after reading this list, are there any things that you do that are the same/that are different than what I do to relax after a long day?  I would absolutely love to hear your thoughts.  Share in the comments below to discuss!