Projects

Part of our recent craziness and my blog neglect as been due to several summer projects (and 3 small children....) Here are a few projects we have been working on.

For Rylee's birthday, my mom said she wanted to do something fun for her room. So, in April, she and Darren set to work on a little project. Since Logan's birthday was coming soon and it was easier to do 2 at once, they did his, too. Above is Rylee's room before....

And here is the after. I love it! I will love it much more once we get it painted, but that is a project for the fall. We had way too many summer projects. I am still trying to decide how to paint it, too. I think I will do the bottom white, but can't decide if I will leave the top or try and do something else....

Here is Logan's before picture

And the after...

It also still needs paint. I can't decide, but I think I want to do his room baby blue, orange and brown. Any suggestions on how to paint it??? I am terrible at this kind of thing!

Project #2 started in early May. (May 2) Our swingset! What a fiasco!!! First of all, the swingset I found that I liked went on sale online. I was debating about ordering it but couldn't decide and on the last day of the sale, Darren and I decided we should just do it, since it was 40% off and would save a ton of money. It said FREE SHIPPING on like 4 places on the website, so I was going to order online. Well, I should have read the fine print that said, "Free shipping up to $25", so when I put it in the cart, it charged $500 for shipping, and then took $25 off. Well, I was NOT paying that much for shipping! The closest store was in Layton (an hour drive), but they were out, so I called a few more stores and found the model we wanted in Salt Lake (an hour and a half drive). Darren won Father of the Year award by offering to make the drive and got there just about an hour before closing. He took our van and took out all the seats, but when he got there and saw the measurements on the boxes, he called and said "there is NO way this is going to fit!" Luckily, he read them wrong and the box wasn't really 7 feet tall like he thought. Somehow, they made it fit and he got it all in one trip! That night, we spent 3 hours after the kids went to bed unloading 5 boxes of wood and labeling them for assembly. Not ONE piece was put together. The above picture is our garage and it was pretty full of wood! Looks like we had our hands full! Darren won Father of the Year Award a few times for taking on this project!

This is Day 3 of swing set assembly. (May 4) I think Day 2 he put the frame together and assembled the rock wall in the garage and then Day 3 he assembled the frame. I decided to make a little photo journal of it since it kind of took over our lives for awhile. Darren would get up early the days he worked late and go out for an hour or 2, and on the days he worked early, he would go straight out and work until dinner or dark (or until it snowed!) What a great daddy! The box said it would take 2 people 14-20 hours. It was MUCH more that that! I stopped counting around 40! Darren spent just about every spare minute he had for 2 weeks and then about 10 more hours on the slide a few weeks later.
Day 4 - (May 5) Darren got all the floor boards put in and one wall of the clubhouse

Yep...More evidence for the Father of the Year award. Working on the project in the SNOW!
May 6 - Even in the snow, Darren finished all the walls and also the little picnic table. What a trooper!

May 8 - Darren added the small roof to the playhouse

He also built the big roof in the garage that day. We had to wait through the weekend to get it put on. He needed some help for that step, but that was the first time he had any help (besides me handing him a few things) for the whole project.

May 11 - We got the roof on! It was pretty tricky to get it up there without a real ladder. Darren, me and one of our neighbors got it up there and I was pretty impressed that we were able to do it with only 3 of us. It was a tight fight and we had to really shake it in there.
May 13 - The crows nest is added on

May 14 - Darren got the rock wall put on and the ladder

May 15 - Darren added the canvas tarp to the top and got the swing portion added on and the whole thing staked down! After TWO weeks, we were starting to look like we might finish soon. It was almost done, except for the slide... I was reminded SEVERAL times that we could have been done at this point if I hadn't insisted on the twisty slide...

The kids were so excited to finally try out the swings! It was a hit!!!

Logan likes the view from the crows nest. The big hole for the slide is a little bit of a safety hazard though.

The first ride on the glider

(May 17) The next project was assembling the slide. It was a MUCH bigger job than we expected. We were missing a few pieces from our box, so we had to wait a few days to put it together. While we waited for the parts to show up, Darren put together the different sections. The kids thought they were a great place to play and loved hiding in them!

He got the top of the slide attached, but had to wait for the parts to finish, and then it was REALLY hard to assemble!

May 29 - Almost a MONTH later, it is FINISHED!!! I kind of slacked off in the photo documenting process, but the slide finally got done! It was a pain to put together! For some reason, it would have Darren put a section together, drill some holes, take it all apart and then put it back together again. It was crazy! It was also really hard to get all the seams lined up and the angles just right so that the slide would make it around and not hit into the swing set. It took me, Darren, my mom and 2 brothers to get the dumb thing all attached and put into place. Who knew a twisty slide would be so much trouble? I just thought it looked cute and wouldn't get so hot for the kids. We were SO happy to have it done!!! First time down the slide! Yipee!!!

Ry loves it!

The next project was our patio.

The great thing about this project was it required very little on our part. Some guy just showed up and it was done the next day! It only hurt our checkbook.... We expanded it quite a bit - I should have taken a before picture, but I didn't. It is much bigger and ready for some summer BBQ and now I don't have to look out my dining room window and see Darren's grill! My favorite part of the patio is the border. We wanted the whole thing stamped and stained, but it was expensive, and we would have had to just tear out the old part which seemed like a big waste, so we went with just a stamped and stained border, and I loved how it turned out!

The next big project was SPRINKLERS! I also had NO idea what a big project this would be or how long it would take. I for some reason thought once the guy came and trenched, you just throw some pipe in there and you are done. I was wrong! Poor Darren worked his bum off to get them in. He did a great job and only had a little help. I think he was pretty proud of his work. I think it took him about 2 weeks to get them all finished.

Here is a final picture of our patio border. You have to wait a month between pouring the stamped part and putting on the final stain, so we were really happy when they came back and got it all finished up.

Last, but not least, our final project was GRASS!!! See how ugly and brown and dirty our yard was...

June 22 was a BIG day at our house! I almost cried when I came home from errands and saw this truck in front of our house! YEAH!!! GRASS!!! It took us 14 months to have grass and I was EXCITED!!!

Doesn't it look SO much better GREEN??? Our ward was fabulous and had the whole thing done in a little over an hour. I seriously teared up a few times when I looked out the window and saw GREEN GRASS instead of dirt. It is probably silly, but I was SO happy for grass!

Ahhh... Sprinklers working and green grass! Just in time to enjoy what is left of summer!

This will be our soccer field, I am sure....

We kind of ran out of time, energy and money for the rest of our projects this summer, so maybe we will get to them next summer. We didn't get a garden or any plants or flowerbeds in and we still have a lot of little things to do. I really need to post a picture of our swingset with the sand and the mulch in. It looks so much better than just in the dirt! We just finished that last step a week or so ago. Having a yard is so much work sometimes, but it is so great! We are really enjoying it!!! It feels SO nice to have a FEW projects done. If only I didn't have a MILLION more to go...