Yard Before and After, yr2012

It doesn't seem like it's only been 3 1/2 years since we moved in, but it has! And we're just about to move out. It didn't turn out to be our permanent home like we thought, but we're really going to miss this house.

Here's the front yard when we first moved here:

 

And now it looks like this:

 

 

I just love it so much more. I'm going to really miss the light Texas Sandstone exterior. That was my favorite feature of this home. Farewell, beautiful house!

 

 

A Touch of Sad News

The house we're building will very likely not be ours. It is done...and our house is not sold. There are ways to work around it, which a lot of people do, but we're just not those kind of risk-takers. I can handle not getting what I wanted, but I can't handle the stress of two mortgages and hoping that the house sells before we go broke. That kind of scenario just makes the pit of my stomach ball up and ache. I want stability and peace. Not risky.

Am I worried? Surprisingly...no. I can't explain it. I have a real peace about this that just boggles my mind and I think it's a change that's happened in me.

I grew up moving often--I'm talking by the time I was 15 years old we had moved 13 times, only one of which was within the same town. I changed schools nearly every year! My DREAM is to settle. I mean, once I move into a house I want that to be IT. I want to retire there if you catch my drift. And I thought that this house was going to be that settling place until it really worked it's work on Josh and I. Josh is so stressed out here he can't hardly think straight. And I think that's where the change in me came in. It's just not about me. It's about them. I want a place now that will make my family happy. Yes, I have wants and needs too, but the bottom line is...I want a place that will make life easier and better for my family where they are NOW. I think I was seriously looking at houses thinking about retirement. At 34. With three kids, none of which have hit their teen years. Homeschooling.

So, I look at this house we've built--and it's gorgeous--but I'm just not sure it fits the bill. Then, after all of this falls through, and they start taking pictures to market the house we designed, we get to looking on HAR (realtor website of Houston). Oh my goodness. We could get SO much more house for the same or less money if we bought a 5-10 year old house!! The possibilities start flying and it makes me even more at peace about the house we built not being ours.

The most important part of all this is simple. If God doesn't want us there...then we don't want to be there. I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that God is Love and God is Good, by His very nature. So, why if this didn't work out would I be sad? If this wasn't where He wanted us, and we forced it into happening, we'd be missing out on God's best and that mystery awaiting us is so much better--I just know it is.

I started this blog to teach people how to live a debt free lifestyle (a lifestyle where a mortgage and possibly a cheap car are your only debts). I didn't know it when we started building this house that this opportunity would come up to teach this aspect of it, but here it is.

Do you want to live a lifestyle of freedom from debt? Then don't get attached to possessions...especially before you even own them. I have a feeling that a lot of debt in our society is mainly this very thing. People get attached to a picture in their head of how things are supposed to work and when they don't, they force it using debt or "creative financing" or some such other way of making things happen their way. I think these people are potentially putting themselves in chains that can hold them captive for a very long time. I think they also miss out big time on what God had planned for them. What would it have been? What will it be for us? They might never know. I can't wait to find out!

In our sermon on Sunday the preacher was teaching about how God doesn't punish us, but that the principle of sowing and reaping is still going strong. Usually when people think God is punishing them, it's really a weed they planted in their garden that's now really hard to pull out (my own paraphrase). How incredible that such a sermon would come right after we had made the big decision to allow things to play out God's way and not to grip onto what we thought would be ours. It's like God was standing right there, invisible but present, saying this is a bad seed you could've planted and good for you that you didn't. It could've been a doozy of a weed.

I know this is bound to hit hard on a few people. We made a choice that I hope others who have a choice in the matter will also make. But please...I am not here to judge those who've already made that kind of decision. First of all God doesn't turn into another person when you make a bad decision. He still blesses and helps anyone who seeks Him get back on their feet. God is full to the brim with grace as we've experienced time and time again when we've fallen back into bad habits, financial or not.

So...does anyone want to see the finished product? It's not going to be my house, but I designed the choices I had to reflect me...so I'm still proud of it anyway.


The front elevation really reflected my personality for Southern simplicity. A front porch, old-fashioned-like shutters, simple without being boring. And I love the light color brick I chose. I also purposefully chose a door with an oval and laid a curved sidewalk to offset the square house. Most Cervelle homes didn't have a lot of charm because of the boring elevations. With limited choices, I think I did well.

I love the Maple, but if I could've afforded it they would've gone to the ceiling. Also, I chose the best granite they had, but there weren't any that I loved. We even completely left off the tile backsplash because we were going to put in our own after moving in.

I do love the sink. And here you can see a close-up of the color combinations. My dream granite would be lighter and swirly.

The carpet we chose wasn't too light so it would hide stains.

We went with laminate in the bathrooms to save about $700.

I did like the open floorplan.

Final picture in front of fireplace. We had been taking one here through the whole process and figured we should at least complete them. I have to have a fireplace in the next house!

Oh, and I'm in love with this door. That will likely be a priority in first changes if we get an already built house.

I selected the red pavers to draw out the red in the brick. And, of couse, a porch. I would be a wee bit sad if the next house doesn't come with one. And, though simple, I love the wide shutters. Few people in the neighborhood had them.

So, what do you think??

Before and After: Front Yard 2012

As you all know, our house is on the market and we've been feverishly working to fix it up for the sale. The front yard was one of our proudest accomplishments even though we didn't have the money to finish it off. (We decided to only get out a signature loan for $10K to do any and all upgrades that we had to do to make it ready. The yard was the last of what we spent it on.)

So, here is when we moved in:

We actually had more grass then! This was about the time the drought started and a lot of our grass died. I don't know if I have a pic, I'll see. Nope--no dead grass pics, but trust me, it was brown city.

Okay, and now for the afters (I know I have more than one of those):

 So, here's what we did. First, we painted the outside of the house a much lighter beige. It brightened up everything! We also put one of my green stars in the middle of the eave (is that what they call it?) just to give it a touch of character.

 Josh and Seth got up in those trees and trimmed the Dickens out of them! That also brightened things as they were shading the majority of the yard and covering up part of the house.

 We removed all of the dead or scraggly bushes and plants and trimmed the ones we wanted to keep.

 We would have loved to put siding on the house, but that alone would have taken the majority of our renovation budget. We hired professional painters and had them put on about 4 coats of paint! Even the edges of the windows and doors are the lighter color now.

 You may not be able to tell the difference, but the grass is much greener from watering it regularly. We also uprooted all the plants that were around that left-hand side tree and put a hardy helping of mulch around the bottom of both. It looked so much better!

 I mentioned the drought before. We had to put down new grass on the back half of the left-hand side of the yard. You can actually see where the new grass ends. That was also the end of our money and why we didn't put matching grass everywhere in the front yard.

 Oh, and did you notice our door? Not chocolate brown anymore, but a much brighter lovely green. We tried orange the first try to match the pillows. Ha! It was a joke. Even the painters were laughing (after they knew I also thought it was extremely bright). I'm talking, sherbet orange!! Anyway, I went to an old hole in the wall used renovation supply store and bought a gallon of Benjamin Moore in this green for $10. I have most of it left over for a future project. Yay! Anyhow, my hubby did the painting on that door. Looks good, huh?

 We also put dirt in all around the house. That's a little bit of a story, actually. The drought had the entire foundation edges exposed! I was horrified and called a few people to give me estimates on repairing the foundation. All but one said the foundation was still stable from all the previous work (see old photos of hallway and you'll notice the big square plywood patches), but it just needed a little tweaking. It would've cost about $5K. So we had some choices to make. We found out that our plumbing was fine but very old--the iron pipes they used to do back in the '50s. Well, they said insurance would usually cover the pipes being replaced for modern PVC, but it would take longer than what we had. However, if we did the foundation work, we couldn't go back and do the pipe replacement, because they were going to pump a dirt/concrete mixture under the house. Huh! So...we decided we'd rather take $5K off the value of the house and leave it up to the next home owner to decide whether they wanted their plumbing changed out before repairing the foundation. So, we just filled back in all the dirt around the edges and disclosed the problem.

 Here's a better picture of our new door color. And see the new baby bushes? We uprooted the old and put in new. It tidied up everything with dark rich mulch and new plants.

 I love how the new grass makes the whole front of the house look newer! I also created a little seating area and we bordered around the concrete patio. It was a really awkward place, so I wanted to display it as a useful space.

I just love the way the seating area turned out! I did this myself for about $15. The chairs were thrift store finds for $6 a piece and I spray painted them in Heirloom White (if I remember correctly). Then I put out the Iron skillet Wenzel box we got at Sam's years ago. You can find that in some of my really old pictures. Then I bought that little blue box--another thrift store find, and filled it with a fake plant and garden tools that I already owned. I threw a couple of outdoor pillows on the chairs to give it some color, and wha la.

Okay, let's take one more look of before and after.

Before:

And After:

So, how do you like my front yard now? I LOVE it!!