This DIY project has been a long time coming. We ordered this patio door for our basement (along with the lumber for our mini shed and new basement windows) back in April. It was one of our “bored and in quarantine” impulse buys. Some people buy clothes and gadgets- we buy doors! I should also…
We officially celebrated our 1 year “blog-iversary” this month! Hard to believe we’ve been documenting our house projects for a whole year, but at the same time it feels like a decade’s worth of things of changed since July 2019. The world looks a whole lot different than it did last summer! Let’s take trip…
Spring rains are upon us here in Missouri. Everyday this week has been misty and muggy. Weeds are thriving right now, and I know we complain about our unwanted plants a lot, but the worst of them all are the invasive bush honeysuckle. If you live on basically any continent that’s not Asia, you’ve seen…
This might be our riskiest DIY yet… If you remember when we built our mini toy shed, you’ll know we ordered new basement windows on a whim. We figured, “Hey, we’re paying the same delivery fee, might as well get our money’s worth!” Plus, it was early in our pandemic quarantine days and we were…
Working in our backyard is a complicated effort to establish a boundary between a nice lawn and a healthy wooded area. We love our trees and forest-y creatures, but we also want to have a lush grassy space for our family to romp around. Our fenced area is what we call our “backyard”. Beyond the…
When we took out two ginormous trees in our front yard, we knew there might be *some* moisture problems in the basement. To say we underestimated how much those trees were drinking would be an understatement. For three years we had water seeping into our basement every time it rained. It was pretty bad the…
For my birthday this year, Megan surprised me with a new Google Nest Thermostat! We’ve considered getting a smart thermostat since we moved in, but had always decided it was better to spend the money on something else. Fortunately for me, Megan found the stainless steel Google Nest Learning Thermostat Gen 3 on a half-off…
Ahh, Fall in the Midwest! The temperate transition from stifling humidity to bone-chilling cold. Bugs go into hibernation and the explosion of weeds that annually seizes dominion over our landscape slowly withers away. Weeding has been the bane of our summer that last couple years. We have an aging paver patio that was installed over…
Every DIY project has a point at which the DIY-er thinks to him/herself, “Why?” During this 2 year long landscape retaining wall project, we questioned our abilities and our sanity on a biannual basis. We would like to share with you our journey to completed, functional, and hopefully eternal, landscape retaining walls. Buckle up, guys….
We have made a huge amount of progress on our DIY retaining wall project this week and wanted to share a fun before and after! Thanks to a rototiller borrowed from my dad, we were able to break up the weeds and rocks that were slowing us down. We also found an old bush stump,…
