The List vs. Summer

I'm so torn between enjoying my summer and working away on the house.

On one end, the house is still so new and I feel like there's so much to be done.

On the other end, it's summer. Enough said.

We finally have our living room completely furnished and I've finished up two big paint projects (you can check those out here and here), but every time I look at the house I feel like I'm torn in a thousand different directions.

Do I work on the mudroom first?

Do I start working on something new upstairs? Tackle the boring laundry room or start working on one of the bedrooms?

I still have that awesome pendant light from Target that I need to figure out how to hardwire and hang over the kitchen sink.

The swatches for our front door makeover have been finally removed from the front door and a paint color has been picked. Now those swatches are taped to a cabinet in our kitchen for no apparent reason. WHYYYY?!?

It's the perfect beach day, but there goes an entire Saturday.

I think I'm settling on the best of both worlds for the rest of the summer and focusing on projects that are in the yard or things that deal with the exterior of the house. This way we get our outside time AND still feel productive and like progress is being made.

The list is looking like this so far. These are all things I WANT to do, but I don't think we'll get to all of them. There are only like, eight more weekends for the summer, can you believe it?!

Front Yard

I guess there is really no excuse for not having my own photos
and continuing to use the MLS photos, is there?

• Paint the front door (red). Hopefully we can take care of this in the next couple of weeks!
• Replace or spray paint all the hardware on the doors.
• Replace the exterior light fixtures (one by the front door and one by the garage).
• Fancy up the garage door.
• Plant a few more perennials in the fall so we have more of a lush garden feel in the flower beds by the front door.
• Tear out a few bushes that grow a little too aggressively for my liking. We've already trimmed them back several times, but their roots are sprouting new bushes that are taking over the beds. I'd like to put some boxwoods there instead, since I feel like they'd be a bit more manageable.

Back Yard

MLS photo

It pretty much still looks like this. WAHHHH.

MLS photo

• Build some sort of pergola or find a way to provide some more shade over the patio (yeahhhh, I'm thinking that this won't happen this year. But it is on my list because it will happen eventually).
• Stain the concrete patio.
• Replace the light fixture by the sliding glass door.
• Create a designated "grilling area" off the patio so both of the Denny's grills (yes, he has two charcoal grills!) don't take up any valuable real estate on the concrete pad.
• Add flower boxes under those windows.
• Dig out flower beds along the long side of the patio and plant some decorative grasses and taller perennials to provide some privacy.
• Finally figure out how to get some grass to grow in our giant dirt patch without going broke on sod.

Denny and I are nursing some sort of wicked mutant illness and are a sad bunch. Here's hoping we pull it together soon and get healthy!