Home Improvement 2012

This last month Levi and I were able to refinance our house at a lower interest rate (yes, we bought in 2007, yes we drastically overpaid, and yes, we'll be stuck in this house until we're old and gray...) but we decided to make the best of it and use some of the money we'll now be saving and update a few things around the house.
First up was the fence. I've been wanting to expand our backyard by moving up the fence to be flush with the front of the house, instead of the back. This would make all that side yard next to our house part of the backyard, giving Hadley about twice the space to play. Zane was sweet enough to come help dig post holes (in fact, he was so amazing I didn't get a picture of him while he was here because he was here at 6:00am and they were done by 8:00am!) Levi got a great deal on wider fence posts at home depot and put up the entire thing himself. Hadley helped supervise and got into lots of dirt and other dangerous things while he completed it. We now have an amazing backyard and I think our front yard looks even better! Thanks, Levi!

Before

This will have to serve as the "after" shot, since I have yet to take a pic of the completed project. Trust me when I say that it looks good and I am so blessed to have a handy husband.
Next up was the living room. We've never been decorator types and we've always just collected whatever was affordable and easy to deal with. Now that we have a toddler, our current "look" wasn't cutting it, with toys strewn everywhere and our super heavy, super cheap bookshelves threatening to topple over.
Here's a heinous "before" picture (don't JUDGE ME!)

We needed something to make the area look lighter and also contain storage. Enter: Ikea. I sent Levi down to Utah on a Friday after work, where he spent the night at Laurie's house and got up early to grab stuff at Ikea in Draper and make it home at a decent hour. Again, I marvel at Levi's dedication to our family. Even though he was only at Laurie's for a minute, he managed to eat some Utah donuts and visit with this cutie:

I don't know how, but my little Elantra managed to fit a giant bookcase, a handful of storage baskets, and other bric-a-brac, without exploding.

Probably because of the amazing packing skills of this guy...

Next up: putting the damn thing together. This was not without swearing and without injury.

I dropped one of the heavy shelf boxes on me and it scraped along my shin, taking my skin and all of my swear words with it.

Almost done... We actually had a good time putting it together, watching a funny movie while doing it to keep our spirits up!

Now that the shelf was up, I needed something in the corner. We had this ten dollar Ikea chair in Hadley's room that we never actually used. We bought a cheap pillow from Hobby Lobby, along with some fun frames, and voila a little nook is completed.

Here is the completed bookshelf and nook area. I'm very happy with it, though it is still maybe a little too crowded and I need a couple of better storage boxes down below, but it will be just fine for now. I need to back off on buying more books, unless I'm willing to throw out more (which I did when we put this up, giving up about 100 books, none of which I will actually miss.)

I also moved our scrapbook paper/Mod Podge "Gates" letters to the fireplace mantle, but I am still trying to figure out how to make them look less flat. I guess they're okay for now :)

And finally, we found this great fabric at Ikea that we thought would look nice framed. The hard part was picking which part of the scene to frame. So fun!

Well, we are done with decorating and home improvement, at least for a little while. I will mark this one in the books as a success!