Grassy Update

Back in mid April, I shared that we over seeded our backyard in a couple of steps in hopes of having pretty green grass and less weeds for Summer. A quick reminder of the steps we took: 

1. Raked up all the thatch on our yard & pulled larger weeds
2. Hasani used a power Aerator to loosed up our soil 
3. Hasani used a large lawn spreader to apply the seed evenly to our yard
4. Next we used 1 bale of weed free to hay and spread it over our lawn to help the grass grow and keep moisture in.
5. Lastly we watered watered and watered our seeds and grass like crazy

Before I show you the current state of our backyard, here's a reminder of how it looked right after we Aerated our lawn. Yup, very dry and patchy weedy grass and lots and lots of overgrown bushes.


Mid April 

Here's the current state of our backyard. Much better! Look at all the green grass! I'm very happy, the ratio of weeds to grass is so much better. I'd say 75% grass and 25% weeds much better that our previous ratio of 90% weeds and 10% grass. Gone are all the huge weeds, were left we smaller patches of weeds and as of right now I'm OK with that. We have one area closest to our patio that's a little dry, that maybe how the sprinkler is hitting that area and its not getting enough water. Here's our grass progress, big difference over last month huh.  


Mid May Progress

We still want more green grass, to mimic our pretty sod in our front yard. I'm thinking we will mostly likely to another round of re-seeding our lawn in September just before fall. Since are Summers are so HOT in Northern California 100+ it will be best to wait. 

Mid April

Mid May Progress

In the meantime there is still more more work to be done! We will need to weed and feed our backyard if its not already to late before Summer really hits. This week and over the weekend we have a lot of bush pulling up that needs to be done. See the row of bushes forming along our fence line, yeah we have no idea where they came from they just appeared and started growing. 


Mid May Progress

After those funky bushes are pulled up we plan on laying down weed blocker and covering the area up a lot of the area underneath the trees up with mulch. We are hoping it gives a more clean semi landscaped appearance. I also want to cut done that funky dead looking pine tree 9not sure when that will happen) I seriously hate that thing, its all wrong + I hate pine needles. Oh and we need to trim back lots of the bushes and trees that are becoming overgrown and Hasani needs to edge our grass (get those tight spots the lawn mower can't reach)


I also to need to re-paint our old terra cotta pots (that have been hanging on the tree house way to long) and add some pretty flowers and move them onto our patio. Avery's first birthday party is in a few weeks, so I have just enough time to add some more pretty to our backyard. Parties = motivation to get stuff done!

What you think of our progress? Are you working on any grassy updates? Or are you prettying up your backyard too?


We welcome all lawn care tips, to keep our grass bright and green over the Summer and though the Fall/winter!! :)

Counter Samples

Its finally happening after living with our current counter tops for more days than I care to think of ( well over a thousands days) we are finally giving them the heave-ho and having new counter tops installed!! Yep, that sentence required two exclamation points :) I'm beyond thrilled, picture me with a sledgehammer dancing around my kitchen ready to start demo, lol 


We want to get our counter-tops replaced in June, which is right around the corner! Right now were not to far into the process regarding who's going to install them. Here's what I do know: DIY the counter demo, install new counters, DIY white subway tile, installing a stainless steal kitchen sink, replacing our facet and getting a new garbage disposal. Replacing our counter tops has been on my mind for quite sometime, in fact a six months after moving into our home went to a few local tile shops and got some samples. The timing wasn't right ( we were planning our wedding and doing lots of DIY projects around the house and then we got pregnant and demo and my pregnancy didn't mix) Now I feel the timing is finally right and want to get started on this project asap. 


I want our kitchen to feel clean and fresh, right now the area is very very dark. Our current cabinets are dark brown, and the current counters are white with dark brown thick grout (yuck!) and our floors are dark brown (faux wood floors) even with our good sized kitchen window, the area is dark. Our plan is to lighten everything up, and say bye bye to its current gloomy state. We have decided not to spend the extra money on Granite or Quartz both our nice but, way more than we care to spend on our small kitchen. My personal goal is to spend less than 1k on new counters. With that budget in mind, solid surface is our best option. Here's a look at the counter top selections, the lighter natural counter samples with decided to to nix, we picked those ones long ago when we were first thinking of replacing our counters.  


Samples left to right skipping the ones mentioned above: Corian Night Sky, Corian Rain Cloud, Corain Glacier White 

Option # 1

I really like the look of Corian Rain Cloud with the white subway tile, the tile really picks up the softer white tones in the Rain Cloud sample. The tones are more noticeable in person. Corian Rain Cloud is so pretty I love the subtle grey veining. 

Option # 2

This is how the white subway tile looks with with the Glacier white Corian. The glacier white is pretty and so much whiter than the softer white subway tile. 

Option # 3

Another option that I've always liked is going with dark almost black counters and white subway tile. The look is classic and clean. The black Corian reminds me of satin finish granite. 

Not An Option

Lastly, this is my dream 'A girl can dream category', gorgeous marble slab of pretty with subway tile!! I love the look, but it would blow my budget away lol, but I still had to share!! :)

After going back with and forth with the options. I really think I prefer the white on white look of Option # 1 & 2. I really love the look of pretty much white counters with white cabinets and eventually stainless steal appliances. 

On Sunday evening we stooped on Lowes to get the pricing on the samples we liked, because in the end it all boils down to square footage we have roughly 25sq + feet of counters that need to be replaced. I'm also not sure how they take into account sinks and free standing stoves into the overall counter measurements. I'll know more when we have them professionally measured soon. Here's the price per feet breakdown at our local Lowes in Sacramento: Option # 1 falls into the E category at $72 a square foot total $ 1800.00 for kitchen budget blown!  Option # 2 falls into the A category at $ 39 a square foot total $ 975.00. Both of my totals don't include pricing on sink cutouts and holes for facets. I'll know more about the extras when I speak to a CSR at Lowes. While we where at Lowes, I noticed LG HI-MACS also has a solid white counter option. I need to see how the counters compare against Corian, but I'm liking the pricing, two dollars less per square foot can add up.  

I also snapped at picture of Allen + Roth pricing - the white counters I like are $ 33.00 a square foot. I need  to do some research on the warranty, but the total would be $ 825.00. 

Now back to the backslash, I've love the look of white subway tile for eons. I LOVE it, the look is timeless, pretty and clean. So if we go with Option # 2 white counters and white subway tile, white cabinets, I think we can pull the look out with out our kitchen feeling sterile. Here's some white kitchens I love.


I love the white counters (OK they are marble, but from a distance they look pure white) look pretty with the white cabinets and white backsplash. I'm also a fan of glass doors on cabinets, we got the middle sections of our cabinets cut a while back, next we'll be adding glass once the doors are painted.

{via Pinterest}

This kitchen is almost perfect example of the look I want (but on a much much larger scale!)

{ via Pinterest}

If we stay on budget with the other items we need to make our counter makeover complete (new sink, new facet and new garbage disposal) I would love to have marble subway tile for the backsplash. That would be PRETTY! 

{ via Decorpad }

I plan to make a lot of headway on our counter project this weekend, I will be stopping into a local kitchen showroom and getting prices vs. going with Lowes. Right now I'm leaning towards Lowes because we can use our Lowes card and save 5% on our counters, of course we'll make a payment right away and pay the credit card off.   


What do you think our countertop selections? If you had your counters replaced did you go with the Big box store or keep it local? Do you know if the included free standing stoves in the square footage when measuring for solid surface counters??