Sleep eludes me...

Hmm, apparently having a new camera isn't helping me as far as posting pics goes:) I'll get on that soon. Our back yard is now all finished except for one fence that I still need to stain. The sod is looking GREAT except for a few brown pieces that are slowly turning green. We (Jerad) mowed the new lawn for the first time last night and it made it look a million times better.

The fence is finished for now. We are waiting a few months for the boards to shrink up, then are going to insert one more board (I already have them all stained) so there will be no gaps. Then there is a board that will go across the middle on each side to hold all the slats straight.

The side of the house with the dog yard is now all finished except for the shade cloth. Its not too big of a rush since the fence is soo tall, between that and the house they always have shade back there.

The side of the house with our driveway is all cleaned up except for a small load of stuff that needs to go down to the basement.

The bathroom is finished sans shower. We will tackle that monster after the party. Wow, I can't remember what its like to have 2 bathrooms anymore, I seem to remember it being really nice? We are installing 2 shower heads (one at each end) so that I can't hog all the hot water.

Yesterday evening I went to Home Depot and picked out paint and tonight Jerad and his dad, who is a painter, are painting. Before the party the laundry room needs another coat of yellow, and the trim and beadboard painted white. The bathroom needs another coat of green and white trim and shelves. Guestroom yreen, office yellow, one wall in the living room grey, and the baseboards in the kitchen repainted white. After the party we will re paint our bedroom, the hall, hall bathroom, kitchen, living room, and mud room.

Side rant; what people who have a large dog and 2 children under the age of 3 think its a good idea to paint the house in FLAT paint??? Thanks previous owners. I love the current wall color and was going to keep it the same in the main rooms of the house and our bedroom just buy a semi-gloss instead since I am always cleaning off Jerad's finger prints, dog mud etc. Have you ever tried cleaning flat paint? Ya, it just comes off. Anyways, I was going to get semi-gloss paint then Jerad pointed out that we still had 2 gallons of the flat left over from the previous owners and paint is freakin expensive. So since we will be painting the guestroom, guest bathroom and office in a semi gloss and the hall bathroom and kitchen are already a semi gloss in the taupe color I like it would really be just the living room, hall and our bedroom that were in the flat. Which would be okay. The living room walls don't get dirty and the hall doesn't get too bad. But our room gets HAMMERED. Jerad is like a kid that puts his hands all over the walls... usually after working on cars or something like that. I have pretty much scrubbed off most of the paint in there I think. But a fresh coat should last awhile. Or while we were down in the basement I found a few gallons of old paint that I had that I love. One of which is lavender but I don't want the back of our house to look like an easter egg so we'll see.

Hmm, are you still with me after that boring diatribe? Good job you! I am just really excited about the whole house having new paint. We have been finishing projects for 2 years now and everything is just about done and new paint will be the icing on the cake. After the guest bathroom shower is finished the only projects left are a new fence on the driveway side of the house between us and the WT neighbor, but it will be a simple dog-eared fence and will only take a weekend. Then Jerad wants to build a 12'x12' shed in the backyard with electricity and whatnot so he has a place for projects and to park his motorcycle but that will be a few months off so we can financially recoup and rest and get some overtime in. NEXT year we need to put in a sidewalk and curb in front of the house but thats something the city makes you get permits for and jump through all these hoops so we won't have to worry about that for a bit. Really the only pressing procect we have left is finish up a few things in the house before the party, paint, and then finish the shower and more painting afterwards.

Then I can sit on the couch all evening and eat bon bons and watch reality television. Sounds good to me!