Carpet, landscape, and what else?

April and May have been project months. I am pushing a deadline for heading off to Disneyland but let's see if I can at least share in photos of what has been happening in Hyde Park.

April -- basement redo month

As anyone that ventured into our basement, it was high time to replace our carpet. But, of course, tearing out the carpet meant that the baseboards would have to be replaced. Then came the question, do we do just the bedrooms and hall and not the stairs and family room. What is an extra $1000 anyway -- do it all!

I tried to go less expensive (who would have guessed that?) by purchasing finger jointed baseboards for staining. However, when they arrived and the pieces of wood were each from one to two feet long, I returned them with the 20% restocking charge and got nice finished wood. Following staining and two coats of polyurethane, they looked great. I felt like a real carpenter installing them and they look very nice. We had our friend Danny Roskelley install the carpet.

May -- front yard makeover

I have been stalling for one year on redoing the front yard. I said I would do it when we had a plan and once we finally committed to doing the north and south of the sidewalk, Janae had a plan to us the next day -- which was last week. She was kind enough to let us use her account and we got some beautiful plants (thanks Jeff for picking them up) on Saturday. I spend all day on Monday and Tuesday (7 A.M. to 8:30 P.M. yesterday) with marvelous help from Jared. With a sigh of relief, we completed it yesterday.

BEFORE

DURING

FINISHED

DONE -- FINALLY!