Refreshed.

It's been just over a week since I officially moved in with Brandon. Things are going well and it already feels like "home" here. Our apartment is actually a townhouse style, so we have a full upstairs, full mid-level and full basement. Our townhouse is connected to 3 others in one long building and we have an end unit.  I noticed early on, before I actually moved in, that the front and back of the building were looking a worse for wear. When I say, "worse for wear," I am actually being kind...it looked pretty run down; we had grass and weeds growing under all of our bushes, the bushes were overgrown and the paint was peeling off in large sheets from the wood trim around the doors. I mentioned it to Brandon and he said he forgot about it as soon as he was inside.....Not me.

Because we were having a big BBQ "come see the place" party with our friends this last weekend, and more importantly, because I couldn't sleep at night, I made it my mission to clean up the place a bit. I first asked the office manager here if we could add some patio stones to enlarge our patio a little bit; our grill was taking up a lot of space and was way too close to the privacy hedges we have around our patio. She basically told me I could do whatever I wanted as long as it was an improvement (HA....wasn't gonna be able to do much worse) and I took her words to heart.

Mom came over last week to help me get started and so we made a little trip to Lowe's. We bought paint, patio stones, and mulch and headed home to get started. We started in the front, cutting the sod away from the bushes flanking our entrance. She shoveled out the sod while I took hot bleach water and a scrub brush and attacked the mold and lichen growing on our front steps. We then filled in under the bushes with dark brown mulch. I added some potted mums in bright red and gold that I had planted a couple days before, along with a new welcome mat. The front was looking infinitely better, but still needed to be painted, which I saved for the following day.

We then headed to the back to work on the patio. As we were getting started, Brandon got home from work and came out to help us. We began pulling the mountain of weeds and morning glory vines that were suffocating our bushes and air conditioning unit. In the process, I managed to locate a rather large, in-ground, yellow-jackets' nest which derailed the work for a bit. Brandon and I had to go buy a couple cans of Raid because we were out and we wanted to let the swarm die down a bit. After we returned, we doused the nest and rested for a little while. It was getting late into the evening, so Mom headed home and Brandon and I got back to work. We cut out the sod from in front of our patio and laid down 3 rows of 1 foot square patio stones, 6 stones wide. This gave us plenty of space to move the grill out from the main patio and rearrange our table and chairs. We then put edging out in front of our bushes and filled the area with more brown mulch. To finish the space, I added two more large, orange potted mums to either side of the patio and solar lights along the edge to light the space at night.

The next day I put down sheets and painted all of the wood trim around our doors and the kick plates...what a difference it made! I was worried that the staff here might say something to me, but then what could they say... "Quit making our stuff look better!"? I didn't think so.

Unfortunately it rained on the day of our BBQ, so the festivities were held inside and we didn't really get to show it off. I guess that just means we'll have to invite everyone over again when the weather will cooperate.

 Looking out from our screen door at left side of the patio with our table and grill

The view of the patio and back of the apartment from the back lawn

I cannot even explain how much I love this space! I am currently blogging about it while I sit out here enjoying the breeze and the sounds of the birds. I love to sit out here with a cup of coffee in the morning, when Brandon grills dinner, or with a glass of wine in the evening while enjoying the glow of the candles on our table. People keep asking why I put so much effort and money into an apartment, but for the time being, this is our home and I want it to be a space we can be proud of and, more importantly, enjoy using. So far, so good!