Home Progress

 Here are a few pictures of rooms we painted to prior to moving in.  The entire house was Contractor White--booooring.  I tried to be bold, especially for me.  (I am used to white or light tan walls.)  The "Cranberry" accent wall we did in the Master bedroom is my favorite so far.  Oh, and I'm excited about the "Blueberry" in the kitchen.  Kylene and the cousins came up with food names for all the colors:).

 Above are a few random shots I took during the move-in process.  The refrigerator was the biggest feat, I think:).  Kyle and my brother, Alva, painted the entire garage, which still had the sheet rock exposed.  They primed it and painted it eggshell white.  It is so nice to have a completely finished garage!

The biggest transformation has been in the backyard.  It had never been landscaped, so was full of weeds as tall as me and lots of left over construction "junk". Oh, and a "cute" little family of mice.  Ugh.  It is still very much a work in progress but it is starting to look like a backyard.  I am so excited!

We started by doing LOTS of weeding and digging out the huge weeds.  Then Kyle used Round-up to kill the weeds....three times.  Then weed whacking, more weeding, and lots of moving rocks.  Spokane's soil is VERY hard, rocky, and made of hard clay.  Perfect opportunity to build muscles:).

 The next step was to purchase a trampoline and put it together--no small feat, I might add, if you've never had that particular experience.  The base of the trampoline was work, but pretty straightforward; it was the safety netting which was particularly confusing and time consuming.  But, we did it, and the kids are very excited to have something they've been asking us to buy for a very long time.

 The next step was to dig the hole in which the trampoline now resides.  First we tried digging...then using a pick axe...but with this soil, the process was back breaking and painfully slow.  Finally, we rented a large rear-tine rototiller and hired two young men so we wouldn't break our backs (as much).  Finally, the hole was ready (and we really were only digging out one side, since the yard is sloped).  It was so exciting to put the trampoline in place.  (And from where it will never be moved--I promise!  Hee hee)

We have since built the retaining wall, brought in 50+ yards of dirt to level the yard, and planted 37 trees!  Irrigation will be installed starting this week!  More progress pictures to come.

I have to send a shout out to my amazing parents, especially my dad for his incredible landscape design and amazing help. He has led us through every step of the process and it has been invaluable.  My parents spent a week helping a TON with the labor and we got soooo much done in a very short period.  Such a blessing and gift to us!  Thank you, mom and dad!