Move. That. Tree!

We have lived in this house for 3 1/2 years now and in that time I've done a lot of projects. I've taken the deck off the back of the house (read about it here), I've updated the kitchen and the bathroom (read about it here and here), renovated the whole basement (read about it here) plus dozens of other projects. I've never tried anything when I was 9 months pregnant though. Last night I had a sudden burst of energy and since my husband was home and cleaning stuff up around outside, I decided to do something that has been on my "wish list" for a while. Cut down a tree and bush at the front of our house.

The front of our house has looked like this for years:

There was a random Manitoba Maple (I don't know what you call it in the U.S.) that was growing up out of a scraggly bush. It blocked part of the driveway and the walkway into the house and just looked terrible.

Here it is from another angle:

The tree was growing nice and straight and tall. Just in the worst place possible.

I set up my sawzall and got to work. There was no way I could've cut it down with an axe. There were too many parts of the bush. I basically cut it down piece by piece. My husband dragged away pieces of the brush as I cut them off and in about 45 minutes I was done. I don't know what I put it off so long.

Here are the afters:

Now you can actually see the front of the house! There is still a bit of work to be done with pulling up the root system so I can plant grass there, but that can wait for another day when I have some more energy. In the meantime, every time I look out the front windows, it looks so much more bare! And clean!

And because we all like the dramatic side-by-sides:

What have you been up to lately? Any big projects that you've finally tackled?

What I'm Loving Lately - Melody's Version

The flu bug hit our family again over the weekend. After a few days of nursing our family back to health, I'm working on getting my house back into order. The mounds of dishes, laundry and general chaos seems to have taken over our house and I'm not liking it.

So needless to say, I haven't tackled any major projects around here. Just mostly dreaming. So today I thought I'd share a few of my favourite things (I bet you sang that line!)

I love this little outdoor getaway. I would drink my morning tea there while the girls ran around the yard like hooligans. Sounds relaxing, right?

                                                                                Source: purlbee.com viaMelody on Pinterest

I love this blanket from the purlbee. I'm trying to decide if I want to make it for our little boy or if I should pick a different design. I have 3 1/2 months left to decide!

                                                                       Source: extraordinaryhealth.com viaMelody on Pinterest

These cookies don't have any flour or sugar in them. I haven't tried them yet but I'll probably try them today... If I can wash a mixing bowl and cookie sheet!

                                                                 Source: themeadowbrookblog.blogspot.com viaMelody on Pinterest

I'm seriously considering painting all the lids of my mason jars so that they look this pretty! Next time I'm at Home Depot I might have to pick up teal spray paint, and maybe a soft yellow, or coral. Or maybe all of them. If you don't have a lot of mason jars, you could also pick up these types of jars from the dollar store.

What are on your "favourite things" list lately?

Thanksgiving Photo Shoot

On Thanksgiving weekend, my wonderful little sister Sara (remember her wedding here?) took our family pictures. She is the most amazing photographer and we're so lucky to have her in the family. I thought I'd share a few of the pictures with you (she took over 200!)

This one is my favourite. Even though Bella isn't smiling, at least she's not angry! :)

I hope they'll always be good friends like this.

So proud to be walking!

Me and my best friend.

I hope you enjoyed our family pictures. All of them were taken at Macarel Point in Prince Edward County. Our absolute favourite spot for photo shoots! 

I have a lot of projects on the go this week but none that are finished enough to even talk about. My husband and I are determined to organize our house this week. We'll see if that happens! 

My Autumn Outdoor Decorating

With the weather being so beautiful lately, I decided to get outside and do a little more decorating. You'll remember that I created this little outdoor play area here but I wanted to spruce up the front of the house too. I saw that mums were on sale so I grabbed a few planters last night in anticipation. Mums are beautiful and easy to care for. My favourite fall flower! I picked containers that hadn't really bloomed yet since I want them to last longer. When you're picking them, look for lots of blossoms!

I took down the wreath that had been hanging on my front door since July and stripped it right back to the simple grapevine wreath underneath.

 I took a little bit of burlap and some white flowers and put them together with some wire, just adding enough to make sure they were secure.

I grabbed an extra crate (I seem to have a lot of these around!) and placed one of the pots of mums on top it to give it some height.

Now it makes me smile whenever I see it. We're excited for doing more "fall" things around here. This weekend we're planning on going apple picking and having a day to celebrate all things "pumpkin". Yum!

What have you been up to? Have you been enjoying this beautiful weather? Any apple or pumpkin picking in your future? Come share with us!

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Outdoor Reading Nook

Whenever autumn comes, I instinctively start thinking about bringing everything inside. I love to make my home cuddly and warm for the winter with blankets, books and hot drinks.

This year, I decided to make a tiny space outside to be with the girls enjoying every last bit of the warm weather that we could. Since we're pretty much cooped up for 7 months of the year, it's nice to be outside for as long as possible!

I gathered some things from around the house got to work.

The bench was in our storage shed along with some weather-proof cushions that I made a few years ago. I grabbed a pot of mums for some fun colour. Lastly, I grabbed an apple crate from the house and filled it with a few items that I consider essential when you're outside in the fall such as books, bubbles for the girls to play with, a few extra pillows and an afghan to cuddle up with when it gets a little warm.  I'll be bringing in everything at night so the crate is essential for easy gathering!

I'm determined that we'll use this area more than once until it gets cold!

Wouldn't it be lovely to have some pumpkin spice lattes and a few danishes out here??

My Exciting News

I hope that no one minds that this will be a short post today. My whole family has been fighting a virus that just doesn't seem to want to leave. Despite that, I did promise on Thursday that I would pass along my exciting news. And believe me, it is exciting!

I have been asked to talk on "The Down and Dirty" radio/video hybrid show. So exciting right?! We will be talking about my current deck renovations and what has been happening with that and why we decided to renovate and what the past owners did for the deck, etc. 

Please listen in this Wednesday, May 30th at 12:40ET at www.blogtalkradio.com/diy . Let me know what you think!

And just in case you're wondering how my deck reno is going, we're still waiting to hear back about permits and all that wonderful stuff. We're excited and ready to go otherwise!

The Hostess With the Not-So-Mostest

When we were growing up, it seemed that my parents were always having company over. It was never a formal affair, it was always an open invitation for anyone and everyone to just stop by. It didn't seem to matter to anyone that there were kids running everywhere, or the floor hadn't been perfectly swept or the garden wasn't always perfectly weeded - it was just a nice place to be with friends.

So often as an adult, I seem to get caught up with having the "perfect house". Heidi actually posted about that a while back and I thought I'd just touch on that again (read that post here).

I focus too much on not having the nicest furniture, or the paint on my walls or the nicest accessories when really, I should be focusing on making my house a warm and comfortable place to be. If you have friends over, are you constantly fussing and trying to make things perfect, or are you focusing on making good memories? Are you worried about what they'll think about your not-so-new furniture or that you forgot to pick up the crumbs off the floor from supper-time? I don't really notice those things when I get invited out to a party, so I'm not too sure why I think that people care about those things at my house. It's not really the point of going out and being with friends!

So in the spirit of being a good hostess, yesterday we had friends over for a beginning-of-summer bonfire. It didn't seem to matter to anyone that you can't go out the back door to a beautiful new deck or that there might have been some Cheerios on the floor that were dropped from my daughter's snack time, or that I forgot to pick up the mounds of grass that were left over from mowing the lawn. We focused instead on the food and the company. The boys played an impromptu game of soccer in the yard and the girls sat around the fire and roasted hot dogs and marshmallows. Everyone seemed to like it because they stayed till midnight!

So because I can't be the only one who worries too much about what their house looks like, why don't you try inviting people over to your house, no matter what the state it's in? Just focus on enjoying your friends instead of making everything perfect. Make some good memories!

Deck Disaster

Here in Canada, the long weekend in May is typically used for sprucing up the outside of your house and getting it ready for summer. This year I'm especially looking forward to it because the back of my house needs a lot of sprucing. The back looks like a junk yard. I'm not even kidding. The pictures show it all.

All of our stuff that was on the deck originally. 

Over the past few days, my extra-wonderful little brothers have been helping me to finish demolishing our deck so that when my husband comes home this weekend, he can build a new one.

The view from my kitchen doors

I love the end part of a renovation but the beginning when you take off that first piece of wood can be a little daunting. I first posted about my husband taking out our old pool. That left a major gap in our deck for about a month but now I feel like there's actually progress.

We now have our deck design finished and I love it! It will have a nice patio area, a barbecue area, and an area for lounging. The best part is that it will be safe!! While we were taking apart the deck, we found that most of the deck was actually held up by a post that was not even secured in the ground. Extremely scary!

The basic idea of what we want it to look like with two levels and the dining area to be ground level.

Just like with Heidi's backyard, I'll keep you updated on the progress. Hopefully it will be completed in the next few weeks!

Deck Destruction

In our attempt to clean up the outside of our house over the weekend, Seth decided that a major thing that needed to come out was our pool. I know, I know. I just gasped along with you. Why would we want to get rid of our pool?! First of all, I'll show you a picture of what the back of our house looks like:

1) The pool - see all those lovely dents in the side? That's courtesy of the last owners. 2) The back door that leads from the kitchen/dining/living room onto the deck 3) A random wood shed with no access to the house. 4) The scariest stairs they could have put on a deck. When you look from the top, you can't see where they start or end and they only cover half the deck. I have definitely fallen a few times!

Yeah, pretty gross right? Here's a picture of what it looks like beyond the deck and the pool.

The dead weeds there are some seriously dangerous thorns. They grow to be about 5 feet tall and unfortunately, no matter how many times I've dug them up, I can't seem to get rid of them!

Unfortunately, the person who built the deck did not believe that building codes were actually needed and so completely disregarded them. When I step out onto the deck, it sways dangerously. Now I love a little bit of adventure as much as the next person, but wondering whether or not I'm going to bring the whole deck down every time I step out the back door, is not my idea of fun. Especially since Bella is walking more this year and will probably want to be playing on the deck.

So, I finally agreed to get rid of the whole back deck as long as we could get a beautiful new deck, and perhaps some patio furniture! We drew up a basic design of what we wanted out of our deck and sent it off to the designer (haha, actually just Seth's dad who is a general contractor). Seth then proceeded to get out any frustrations that he could while taking an axe to the pool. And this is what it looked like:

This was my adventure over the weekend. Seth wanted to tear out the whole deck, but I convinced him to leave it until we were actually ready to put the new deck in. I'm excited to see what it will look like. I know Seth has some great ideas for how it will look and hopefully it gets done before the end of summer! 

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Gardening With A Black Thumb

I love flowers and spring and the smell of rich soil. To me, they smell like opportunities to make things more beautiful. Even the not-so-attractive houses can be transformed by beautiful flower beds! My grandmother has the most gorgeous flower gardens. To her, gardening comes as natural as breathing. I've always wished that I had that gift, but unfortunately, it seems that I have the "gift" of impatience and forgetfulness instead!

This year, I'm hoping to spruce up the outside of our house a little bit and make it as welcoming outdoors as I wish it to be indoors. Instead of being ambitious and trying out the newest things in gardening, I've been pinning things for the "beginner" gardener. Now that I've lived in this house for a few years, I know where the sun hits at certain times in the day, what type of soil is where, and what will and will not work.

So instead of posting a project that I've completed, here are a few of my ideas that I'd like to accomplish throughout the spring and summer.

Please remember that if you'd like to pin any of these pictures, go to the original source to re-pin. Thanks! We don't want to take credit for any of these wonderful ideas!

                                                                                     Source: bhg.com via Melody on Pinterest

                                                                  Source: addicted2decorating.com via Melody on Pinterest

                                                                     Source: myhangingbaskets.com via Melody on Pinterest

                                                                                      Source: bhg.com via Melody on Pinterest

                                                                                    Source: bhg.com via Melody on Pinterest

I'll keep you updated on how the outside of my house looks throughout the spring and summer. But how about you, are you an excellent gardener or are you like me? Does your house have beautiful flower gardens or just a few shrubs here and there? Remember that we love your comments!

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