Jackhammered.

BOOM.

We've finally begun the demolition destruction in our backyard! After the backyard had gone to sh_t for the last couple of years, Daniel and I are super, duper, duper stoked to have a yard to entertain and play in! It's a surprisingly good size and overlooks the city garden which is awesome for privacy. For the longest time, though, I wasn't sure the sprinklers even worked. Part of our backyard would stay fairly leafy, while most of it was dead. The grass dirt has been a huge inconvenience, and I think our dog has been out there three times total since he's lived here. (He freaks out in dirt, runs/rolls all over the place and stirs up giant, stormy dust bowls.) 

Here's a rundown of the before that I snapped quickly this morning before all the workers came to start all the demo: 

Right outside our double doors to the yard

Same area outside of the double doors from inside the house

The giant Podocarpus trees with giant roots lifting up the existing concrete.

Looking into the house. (Hi, Fall pillows!) 

From one side of the yard 

The angle from the other side---hey Mickey!

The other side. Covered with old flagstone and dirt errrrrrwhere.

I was surprised with how much was accomplished in a few hours of work. The guys came around 1 PM, left by 5 PM, and had basically demoed all of the concrete, moved a giant tree, dug up the gas line to the built in bbq, chopped down a HUGE lime tree, and then some. This was the final product right after they left: 

Haul away happens tomorrow morning!

Gas line to the BBQ in the middle!

The front planter is also getting a full makeover

One issue that was discovered whilst digging up the BBQ line, was the gas line from the main pipe to the chimney was originally connected with a plastic pipe: 

Seriously. WHAT THE???? Who does that?? Our guy said it was a cheap (not to mention illegal) way of putting in a gas line. I'm absolutely dumbfounded. In any case, I was on a business trip last summer when I found out about a gas leak on my main gas line. The gas repair company apparently capped my chimney gas line while I was away, and I didn't discover it until recently. Unfortunately, we'll have to repair the whole line with "legal" pipes--a few hundos later. On the bright side, though, we'll have our gas back in our fireplace--just in time for winter. (Not to mention a new outdoor bbq!) 

Well, that's that. The guys are coming back tomorrow and finishing even more work----hooray! 

And with that, I leave you with a couple goodies I found today at my local Homegoods store: 

Super cute, fabric bound photo albums for all of our travels.

Scored on this succulent centerpiece for our dining table. 

Almost as cool as my REAL succulent. ;)

Time to catch some shut eye and get ready for my long day of home showings tomorrow with clients. Oh, and Sunday, I get to visit our new baby niece. Can't wait!! Goodnight, y'all.

Fall in Full Force!

After closing five escrows last week, I've found my schedule just a wee bit slower this week. (Thank God!) For a couple months, I thought I would seriously lose it with all the chaos. With time to breathe a little bit, I'm at a loss for what to fill my time with. While I was driving to an appointment the other week, I heard a radio commercial for Rosetta Stone, and decided to give them a call. I've always wanted to take Mandarin language lessons, but at $600 a pop, buying the 5 cds have always been difficult for me to splurge on. (Kicking myself in the butt now for not listening to the p-unit growing up. SHOULDVE stayed in Chinese school. ugh!) Anyway, there was a great promotion going on, and I just happened to nail it in the last day of September. The whole Chinese language course....for $299!! I got super excited and called Daniel right away, and he ended up ordering the Spanish course. Between the two of us, we're pretty much tri-nternational-lingual. ;)

I've already started the first lesson, and having to pronounce words out loud is surprising. (I can't believe I never knew how to say "sandwich" in Chinese. Weird.)

Since I've had extra hours in the day to fill my time, I've gotten started on some fall baking and decorating. (I love, love, love Fall time, Christmas time...basically the next 3 months straight.) The other night I was craving pumpkin pie, so I had Daniel pick me up some pumpkin puree. He came back with about 4 cans of puree, pumpkin pop tarts, and pumpkin butter. (It's a good thing we share the same appreciation for errrrrrthing pumpkin!) Oh, and the first pumpkin pie and macarons baked this season---success!

Not to mention the Fall decor I've already started working on: 

 

 

Oh, and one last non-seasonal item that I found while shopping at the mall that literally made me laugh out loud:

 

 

Well, the countdown officially begins down to our trip to Thailand. I'm so excited you wouldn't believe. Cannot wait! I'm off to get started on healthy dinner planning for tonight (since Daniel's gotten his wife back) so until we meet again, au revoir, and happy Fall!!!!

 

 

 

 

 



SONOS Soundbar and Then Some

The home improvement continues.

Remodel kitchen-check!
Change out floors-check!
Reposition tv-check!

Change decor, clean up family living space, decorate walls, check..check! check!

They say once you start remodeling your home, it never ends. There's always more, and more, and more, and it just keeps going and going. The hubby and I had the intention of just resurfacing the cabinet doors to our kitchen which lead to demo'ing a whole wall. We ended up doing that and then some. (reflooring, getting a new tv, ahhh, its endless!!!)

Next up---we've ended up rewiring our tv to the wall above our fireplace, added a Sonos wifi HIFI soundbar system which is all controllable by bluetooth on an app from our PHONES. Oh em gee. Mind blown.

http://www.sonos.com/shop/products/playbar

I'm definitely loving the ability to cook in the kitchen and seeing the tv so I'm not entirely excluded from whatever conversation is happening in the family room. (or likewise on nights where Daniel cooks!)

Our awesome p-unit decided to hand down a chaise that fits perfectly in our family room. We ended up selling the Restoration Hardware parisian media console since our tv is now mounted above our mantle. (Someone super scored on that one since we just purchased it brand new in February, but there was simply no room left for it, so out it went!) Now that the wall above it was completely empty, I naturally had to fill it with something incredibly oversized for how large the wall sits. (Found a really cool wall piece that now sits handsomely. Thrilled!)

Before (the RH Media Console we had to sell. Sad.)

THAT wall now. Murrrrica! (Dont mind the cords. Eek!)

SONOS Soundbar!

Now that we finally took care of all this, we're working on our backyard landscaping next. Three bids, and a few drawings later, we should be rolling into action on our new yard space!

Woo woo. Stay tuned!