hammer time

remember I told you that we were working on our garage a little while back? well this weekend we decided it was time to get physical and attack the cracked concrete driveway.

so we set off to home depot and rented a jackhammer!
it weighed 60 pounds (or 30kg) so you don't really have to do too much, it just hammers up and down and works it's way into the concrete at the pull of the trigger. the hard part is the lifting it back out again - especially if you get it stuck!
Bryce got a great upper body workout!
I gave it a go
as did Hannah - just so we could say we'd operated a jackhammer really... but we were both a bit short for it, so when it came time to lift it back up it was really hard. we decided Bryce was definitely better at it than us. we spent our time filling the wheel barrow with the broken pieces and hauling them away.to our berm

which is coming along nicely!
as Saturday night fell, we gave our neighbours a break from the constant jackhammering (not to mention our hands were raw and our bodies sore)
we didn't realise just how big a job it was to dig up all this concrete... some areas were as a foot deep!

so here's the progress we made in the 24 hours we had the jackhammer, and next weekend we'll do it all over again...

lamp love

I love this lamp - but the best part is that you can make it yourself! head over to poppytalk to see how easy it is to make. I am definitely going to give this guy a go!

and by popular demand...

ok, well it was just christina (my friend) so it probably doesn't count, but here is the summer scarf I made, directions here

ps - step 3 (pulling the pieces once you have cut them is very important - you'll see why after you do the first one...)

diy summer scarf

look at this great summer scarf idea I found over at what possessed me blogPS - these aren't my pictures - but I did try one of these out of one of Bryce's old t-shirts (shh). I'll take some pictures and show you how it turned out.

don't you love making new from old?

wooden thumb tacks = genius!

kate, (obviously brilliant as you can tell by her name :P) over at design sponge posted the cutest idea today that I think would be perfect in newly organised garage. check out these push pins (or thumb tacks as I call them)

for directions on how to make them yourself go here

something old made new

I found this little rusted old shelving unit behind our garage when we were tearing down the potting shed the other week, and onto the trash pile it went. but as I was about to dump a big pile of old rotten wood on top of it, I took another look at it and thought, it does still function, and it would be handy for storing pots and gardening stuff... so, armed with a can of red rustoleum, this weekend I gave it a quick scrape to get the chunky bits of rust off and transformed it, into a statement piece for my potting area.it took a whole can of spray paint and it needs another coat, but overall I am pretty happy with how it turned out!

goodbye little potting shed

getting out of bed this morning was hard... harder than usual for a monday... because I am sore all over from doing hard labour all weekend. not that I am complaining at all, as I would much rather get exercise by doing something practical and much more rewarding than going to a gym and sharing a sweat filled room with about 300 others... we took advantage of the yearly city clean up campaign and had a very productive weekend indeed!

so it was goodbye to our little potting shed that was attached to our garage, and although I found it very useful for storing my pots, gardening tools and supplies, the poor thing was old and rotting and home to many a rat it seems, who liked to take the oranges from the tree then camp out in the shed and eat the insides out.... eeewk!

we plan to make a new and improved version once we've cleaned up this area

but for now we just have to figure out how to get these metal poles out (which I think were a clothesline in their day) out, as they are solidly concreted into the ground - jackhammer time here we come!

blog crush

here's my latest blog crush that I came across this weekend. chezerbey is the name Lauren and Kyle nicknamed their 1910 era bungalow and their inspiring blog (of the same name) documents the work they have done to it - of course being architects helps I am sure, but honestly they have done such a fantastic job on this gorgeous little house that it I am ready to get moving on ours. I am slowly reading each and every post, but have already come up with so many great tips thanks to them!

check it out over here

The Kitchen

Here are the last photos of the ceiling and drywall removal. Lat night was full of suckitude,

but at least we got partially through our list of to-do's.

I started to tackle the carpet, but we decided to leave it until the ceiling stuff was done so it could catch most of the debris. We're working on getting rid of the carpet and linoleum tonight. Again with the asbestos concerns..... Now the ceiling in the kitchen is gone. The view before the sense of being completely overwhelmed took control. A sea of dusty pink and grey insulation with no end in sight....I actually look short in this picture due to the massive amount of fluffy, dusty insulation......and viloa! Persistance and team work paid off! We filled countless bags, didn't fight, and got the floor cleaned up somewhat. Hooray Cody and Melita!!!
Now onto pulling nails out of the studs one by one.

I can't wait to see how it all turns out :)

Regretsy

so, while I was resisting the urge to post the very graphic photo of a crocheted doll giving birth (I am listening to reason and not posting it and you should be very, very happy cause it was gross.) I came across this site regretsy where D.I.Y. meets W.T.F. and am now happily looking at other handmade goods that are equally disturbing. Please enjoy!

oh so shabby

In Santa Clara every March the city has a yearly garbage dump which I personally think is just awful because people literally store all their junk for the year to dump onto the road outside their house, and then other people drive around the neighbourhood and go through the garbage to see if there is anything worth taking... So not only do you have huge piles of garbage on the road that you have to dodge when driving by but then you also have to dodge the people cruising for junk... Then there are those people who take advantage of the free dump and dump stuff outside your house! It's terrible...

That said, my neighbour last year saved this lovely table, which I had seen it in her yard and asked her about it and she said she was doing it up, which I thought was cool. Then Bryce noticed that they were throwing it out - so I salvaged it (in turn being someone going through someone elses junk.... sigh) and here it is.