Making Our New House Our "Home"

We are slowly working on making our new house our "home" and our first big undertaking was putting up a privacy fence in the back yard to keep our little rascals (Cassidy and Judah) contained. Steve's parents graciously took Judah for a whole week so Steve and I could put the fence up. I say Steve and I but really it was all Steve. I was merely the post-holder/leveler and I hammered a few nails. Steve was the mastermind and muscle behind the entire project. Might I add that, for a couple of amateurs (and for how steeply sloped our back yard is!), the fence turned out pretty well. Here are some before and after pictures.

Our next big project was creating a walkway at the bottom of our deck stairs that lead to the back yard (our deck is on top of our garage if you were wondering why it is so high off the ground). We decided to create the look of paving stones using colored concrete poured into a cobblestone-look mold. It turned out pretty well too. We will need to put some shade plants in the mulch alongside the walkway to complete the project but, for now, it serves its purpose of keeping the mud and dirt from coming inside. As you can see, Judah thinks its purpose is to serve as a road for his trucks and diggers. :)

The rest of the pictures are of the living room, dining room, office, Judah's room and foyer window seat. We still need to paint, replace all of the screens in the 3-season room, etc. etc. etc. but we're well on our way to feeling like this is home and we're meeting lots of our neighbors, which is great.