The first thing that we worked on after we moved in was a backyard area that worked for our family. We went back and forth about whether we wanted a deck or a patio. Ultimately we ended up going with a patio because it was easier and less expensive. It has served us very well!
As soon as we had the concrete pad poured, we added a set of stairs and finally removed the safety rail from the back door. This was so wonderful to finally be able to use this door as a door!
As soon as the concrete pad was in, we had a fence put in around our backyard. We had been using a temporary fence from the basement walk out for our dogs so this was quite the luxury when it was finished. We had gotten so used to walking down into the unfinished basement and it was so nice to be able to just let them out from the kitchen.
As I said in my last post, it took a really long time for our grass to grow. After this picture was taken, most of the grass died and we had to put topsoil down over most of our lawn and then seed it again. We have also hired a lawn company and the grass really started to come together after getting it aerated and overseeded. We still have a few small patches that need help, but for the most part, the lawn is finally full and lush.
On the inside, we added some lovely lights into the kitchen. This particular light came from Costco.
It took a few years, but we finally have MOST of the first floor painted. I'd love to say that we painted it ourself, but we hired a painter to get most of it done.
We also gave our fireplace a much needed upgrade. We love the stone fireplace look, but were unimpressed by the options that we had from Ryan Homes. We knew we would be able to do it exactly how we wanted it for less money eventually. Our eventually finally came. We found this amazing old hand-hewn wooden beam off of Facebook Marketplace. We stained it and had someone come in and put it up along with the stone. It turned out even better than we had expected, especially after we were able to finish painting the living room when it was all done.
The dining room was a project that we took on ourselves. We installed the crown moulding as well as the chair rail and wainscoting. This is also one of the few rooms that we opted to paint on our own. It was a labor of love, but we love the finished product. We knew that this was something that we wanted to do when we built the house, so we had the builders put in the outlets on their sides along the trim so we wouldn't have to mess with those when it came time to install the picture frame moulding.
(The moulding under the stairs was the absolute most difficult part of this project!)
In an attempt to be more "green", we had solar panels installed on our house.
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