WELCOME!

We love our home.  If a home had to replace our PA home, "the party house" does a really good job.  The only problem is that the house is 20 years old, and as many people know, a lot of things need to be renovated or "freshened up" at 20 years.  Thankfully, the previous owners repainted the entire house for selling and updated some of the light fixtures, but much was left to us.

Before we had even moved in our furniture, we refinished the wood floors (from dark red to the natural wood).  We've replaced some carpet, and it feels that we are constantly updating light fixtures.  In fact, one Saturday I added this line to our legal pad list of things-to-do:  Buy new chandelier for family room.

The previous owners are suckers.  They took so many things out of the house.  Important things.  Like lights.  So for the last year, we've had no overhead light in our family room which is fine when we're watching a movie but which stinks when we want to, say, read a book.

So John and I headed to a lighting store, plunked down $800 for a chandelier (it was priced at $1,000, and John just casually said, "Is that the best price?" to which the sales lady said, "I'll mark it down 20%), and waited two weeks for it to come in.  You better believe John wasn't going to pay for installation, and wouldn't it figure it needs to be installed on the ceiling of our two story family room?  Yeah, a picture is worth a thousand words.

  

I love it.  It's not everyone's cup of tea, but it works beautifully.  And it's just really cool.

But back to my story.

We love our house,  The outside though....

Twenty year old landscaping is OLD landscaping.  Not only has the style changed, but the plants are just old and overgrown.  WE HAVE SO MUCH OF IT.  In addition, the walkway to our house was a problem for me from the start.  It was a skinny walkway (just one person wide), and it had tall railings on each side, so on any given snowy day, it felt more like a bobsled chute ;-)  I asked John if I could get some quotes to rip up the old walkway and install a new.  He gave me a very hesitant "yes", knowing that with enough time, he could actually do it himself.

The first guy showed up decked out in a thick gold chain.  He hardly even looked at it, and gave us a quote  of $8,000.

Let that sink in.  Some bricks.  $8,000.

It was then that John and I had the same idea.  Call our pool guy and ask him if he recommends anyone, seeing as people install brick and concrete around pools.  Sure enough, he sent Melvin over.

Melvin is exactly whom we were looking for.  Hispanic, a small private business, he does the work himself.  He talked to me for a good 20 minutes, finding out exactly what I wanted (I held nothing back), and he came in with a quote of $3,000.  As Meg said, I could write a check for that ;-)

We had to be flexible about the dates which wasn't a problem because there was no hurry.  Eventually, he told us to go to a brick business nearby and pick our brick.  He went and picked it up and started the job.

Meanwhile, he had looked around our yard and said, "You don't want to keep this landscaping."  It wasn't a question.  It was a statement, and one that I was happy to hear, because John had been balking at the idea over the past year.  John looked at him, "Really? It's not good landscaping?"  Melvin smiled at John with the look in his eye, "Oh, you poor man.  Are you for real?"

Melvin came in with a quote for the landscaping too.  Our entire front yard for $16,000.  

We can't exactly write a check for that one.  We told him we would think about it.

The walkway took three days to install, and it was on the second day that John took a look and said, "We can't just leave the walkway by itself.  Let's have Melvin landscape the walkway."  Melvin came in with a quote for $2,800, and John figures we can see if we really like his work.  Sure enough, Melvin was ready with the boxwood the next day.

John agreed to pay cash so the price was even lower (yet another reason we love Melvin), but it was pretty funny seeing John laying out the thousands of dollars on the kitchen counter.  It always reminds me that he comes from poverty where piles of cash just looks REALLY cool.

It's so ridiculous, but I love our walkway now.  It's the one area of the house outside where I feel like it's us.  It's our aesthetic, and it brings peace to my soul (instead of a million thoughts of what we need to do to change things).  I wish I had a "before" picture, but I think I was just really excited to get rid of what was once there.  I have to just ignore all the crappy, rocky landscaping that still exists outside of this teeny tiny area, but I'm glad that when people come over, or our UPS guy delivers a package, or even when the girls come home, everyone knows they are welcome and wanted.