Busy, busier and busiest.

Hello! I do apologize for the absence. We have been running around like crazy here the past few weeks trying to get as much accomplished as possible to make this house feel like our home. This has been no easy feat. 

The previous tenants left the home in a sorry state, and the cleaning woman that was hired to clean up did NOT do her job. Because of all of these factors, we have had to put a quite a bit of blood, sweat (a lot of sweat) and tears (not a lot, but some ;) into making this house feel like home. I am very pleased to say that we are getting there, but we still have a long way to go.

Our house was bought as an investment property by a group of individuals, so this house was not meant to be extremely beautiful, but nice enough to keep tenants happy. Well, as a person who loves the homes that I choose to live in, this was not good enough for me. ;) We have been doing our best to put our touch into the house without spending too much money. (We don't want to pay to fix up someone else's property, especially when it's on the market!) Simple things like painting (except for the mediocre and ugly wallpaper that covers the walls of many rooms), hanging our artwork and such on the walls, and most of all...CLEANING. 

I am so happy that I am finally starting to see some progress of the work we're putting in and that the house is starting to feel like a place that we want to be. However, there are still many things on our 

To Do List that still need to be accomplished.

Right now, a big project that we are working on is a bit of additional outdoor living space. On the rear of the house is a lean-to. It was probably built to house wood for a wood stove or as a place to store outdoor equipment, tools, etc. I decided it would be great to use it as somewhat of a porch, since the only other place outside is our front porch, and it doesn't have nearly as beautiful and peaceful of a view that the back of the house has. Because the lean-to is just two posts and a roof, we needed a base so that we could put a couple of wicker chairs out there and a small table. My first thought was stone pavers, but the cost for the space we needed was not something that I was wanting to spend. We would need too many pavers, and like I said, we are not investing too much money or time into someone else's property. So while we were at Lowes, an employee told us about river pebbles that were on sale for less than $3 a bag! So for less than $50, we have a solution for our porch.

17 bags later and we have a simple and inexpensive solution for our lean-to porch.

This is only one of many items on our To Do List, but it is important to us to have a space in the backyard, close to the house, so we can enjoy the beautiful nature that we are surrounded by. I can't even begin to describe how excited I already am for autumn here!

As far as the house goes, this is all I can share now, but I do have something else that may entertain you. While painting trim in the downstairs bath the other day, I heard what sounded like thunder outside. It was a gorgeous day so I knew that wasn't the issue. Upon investigating the sound, I found THREE horses in our yard!

Needless to say, ZERO horses showed up in our yard in Huntington.

 I guess this is something that can happen when you live in the country! :)

I made some phone calls and our neighbors came and got them around 15 minutes later, but not before I had a chance to snap a few photos!

I hope you found this as funny as I did!

Here's a picture I snapped this afternoon that looks like summer to me! Enjoy the rest of your week and I hope to come back to you with some progress!

xoxo

Tim