Portrait of Home

I have not been painting a lot lately, and the other day I had an itch to make something.  I remember seeing a post on my fav blog, Young House Love, a couple fun little portraits done of their homes.  I liked this idea, and thought I would take a stab at a quick portrait of our home.  Nothing too detailed, just a quirky little painting.  I also thought, why not show you my process of making the portrait while I was at it?

I started with a generic 8×10 canvas from Michaels.

Then, I sketched out our house from a photo that I had on my computer…

Next, I just added the main background colors.

From there, I just slowly added some details…

I also was sure to paint all of the edges, since I don’t think this painting will be frame worthy.

What do you think?

It’s def not perfect, but it’s just the quirky little painting I was going for.

And for fun, here is a slideshow of the process…

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Living Plants, they’re really alive!

I know, you’re shocked.  I have managed to keep some plants alive! Even with this black thumb thing I have going on.

Now, let me tell you about these easy/almost no maintenance plants. When summer came around (yes summer, this post has waiting to be written for too long) I thought it would be nice to bring some color to our back yard.  I thought about getting some flowers and putting them in the gardens in the back, but Justin was currently working on those gardens.  So, I thought my best bet would be to get some pots and fill them with flowers instead.

Once I was set on potted plants, I picked up two large pots at Lowes.  Also, I picked up some potting soil. Once I got home, I just plopped the soil right into the pots. Like so…

While at Lowes, I also grabbed some flowers…

Aren’t they pretty?  From there, I figured out an arrangement for the flowers that I liked.  It wasn’t too complicated, considering both pots got the same exact flowers.

I then popped them all out of the containers they came in, and planted them right into my new bigger pots, adding more soil as I went.

I love them, we needed some color out back and I think this is a start.

While I was doing my planting flowers thing, Justin was hard at work making new gardens and re-mulching.  He’s such an overachiever.

Before I explain this new garden bed, I figured I should show you what this part of the yard used to look like.  The photo below is last year, right after we had irrigation installed and our yard re-sodded.

Even after the irrigation was installed, we still have some water hanging out in this corner from time to time.  Justin figured we should just add a garden bed, that way we don’t have to deal with this muddy corner.

As you can see, the grass was still coming back to life at this point, also Justin had just aerated the yard.

He planted 6 podocarpus plants…

And two small bottle brush trees…

While he was at it, he decided to re-mulch all of the garden beds in the back to match the new brown mulch we had used in the front.  Here is what our gardens were looking like post winter…

Not looking so hot (once again, please don’t judge our poor grass, it was having a rough time coming back after winter).

Here are things after Justin mulched…

See how the grass is coming back now?  Woot woot!

And here is where my new planters live…

Oh ya, while I was at it I planted these little succulents.  They hang out in the patio.These guys are so easy to take care of, they require very little water and lots of light.  I think even I can manage to keep them alive, fingers crossed.

And just because Justin likes to make me look bad, he also planted a new garden in the front on the side of the house…

 

I’ll leave you with what our front is looking like nowadays…

Thanks for checking out this super late post!

Ceremony Location and Such

We did some serious searching as for where to have our wedding ceremony, and by “we” I mean myself and Justin’s mother, Sandy.  Justin did not see the location until the day of the rehearsal.  Let’s just say he’s not that into wedding planning, thankfully I had Sandy.

I had just two things I was looking for in the location, I wanted it to take place outside and preferably near some trees.

We checked out the Bulow Plantation Ruins, which is close to Justin’s parent home, which is where we had already determined we would have our reception.  The Bulow Plantation is mostly associated with it’s history, being the ruins of a former sugar mill plantation.  It is very rustic and pretty, take a gander for yourself…

It was definitely in the running for our ceremony location, but I wanted to check out a couple more places before hopping on board with the plantation.

We then headed to Washington Oaks State Park, which is equally, if not more beautiful.

As you may have figured out, I have a thing for moss covered oak trees. L-O-V-E them.   I actually loved Washington Oaks so much, that I requested to book our ceremony there.  Unfortunately, our date was already taken by another couple.  Thanks a lot other couple! I guess it wasn’t meant to be.

I went back to good old google and did some more searching and found a place called Princess Place Preserve.  It is a nature preserve that is on the Matanzas River.

I pretty much fell in love with the old oak trees immediately.

It also has a charming old lodge on the property.  I ended up checking if our date was available and it was, so we were in.

Next, we had to get an isle to walk down and some decorations to make it look like a wedding was going to happen! So that’s just what we did.

Sandy made this amazing hydrangea wreath to hang on the tree that we decided would be our backdrop for the ceremony…

We decided to use shepherd hooks with hanging mason jars filled with more white hydrangeas to line the isles.

And in case you are dying to know(I know you are) the chairs are rentals from Rentaland.

I also made reserved signs using chalkboard markers and small chalkboards I found at Hobby Lobby, but I’ll tell you more about that later.

One more chalkboard sign that I made that I’ll explain more about soon.

We also decided to use our friend Mike Shackelford as the musician for the wedding ceremony and reception.  Because let’s be honest, who doesn’t like live music better than pre-recorded music?

I am so happy we chose the preserve.  It ended up being a nice sunny day and we both showed up.  Score!

PS it was a great back drop for pictures!

 

Hit the Lights

 

Wanna see a couple outdoor lights that have seen better days?

Ok! Coming right up…

These guys are the outdoor lights that were on our house when we purchased it.  They are so worn from the sun and weather.

They are not horrible and may look a lot better with a nice coat of paint, but we also weren’t digging the style of them.  So we decided it was time to retire them and move on to something we are more jazzed about.

We took a stroll through both Home Depot and Lowes and settled on a couple of these guys…

They are the Allen + Roth Castine Rubbed Bronze Outdoor Wall Light from Lowes.  They were more our style, being rubbed bronze and the bubbled glass stole my heart.  Fo real!  They were pretty much middle ground for pricing considering there size, they are almost 21 inches tall.

Justin did his electrical thing, while I held them up to the house(that’s my helping when it comes to electrical) and we now have this…

Much better!

 

What do you think?

The above photo is the day we moved into our house on top, beginning of our first year in the middle and beginning of our second year(currently) on bottom.  Making progress.

Garden Party

Can you believe we have been in our house for a year now?  Me neither!  I mention this because we have replanted our front gardens and I can not believe this is our second time planting them!  Crazy stuff I would say.  Here is what we managed to come up with last year…

The only survivors are the two gardenia plants in the corners and the sago palm, which has no leaves in this photo.  So, as you can imagine we had a lot of space to work with since most of our plants didn’t make it through the cold weather.  We decided to go a different route with our plant choices this year and also our mulch.  That is actually where this all began because Justin jumped the gun and ordered a boat load of mulch and had it delivered to our house…

Justin started by removing most of the red mulch that was left from last year…

Poor guy always gets the hard work!

Once he added the new mulch(we decided to change it up to brown), we had this…

Awesome new mulch… no plants.  That’s where I come in to this story.  We picked up some plants at Lowes…

Then I planted my little heart out.

Justin did help out and planted two of these guys next to the front door.  They are small croton trees.

We also got some gerber daisies, petunias, lilies, a couple more podocarpus and some grasses.  Here is the set up I planned out before digging…

It was Justin approved, so it was time to dig.  Here are the results…

You dig it?  I do.

I also wanted to mention that I got a new garden flag.  I am officially that cool because I have multiple garden flags.

Yup, it’s a tree flag and the leaves look like the world.  Pretty sweet right?

And here are some before and afters because I’m really into those.

These two gardens were pretty bare before, so the update was much needed.

And then one more of last year and then this year…

Sorry about the clarity of the photo on the left, it was hard to catch a good time of day to get this photo.  But I had to show that our flowers have bloomed and the sago now has some new palms!  Yay for us!

 

Taking it out back

Justin took advantage of this cool Florida weekend and did some work outdoors. Since this weekend didn’t make it over 90 degrees, we were happy to be outside doing some quick updates.

If you can remember the side of our yard was looking like this…

Well, Justin thought it would be a good idea to add some more plants in this area. He was thinking that if we added some more taller plants we wouldn’t have to look at the air conditioner from the patio. So he headed to Lowe’s and came back with some supplies to make a small garden under this side window.

At this point he had already removed the sod and laid down the gardening fabric that we use when adding new garden beds. Want a closer look? Okay…

As for what plants he chose, he purchased 4 Podocarpus…

Also 4 Aztec Grass.

And 2 Super Blue Liriope.

He went right to it once we decided what the best placement was for each plant.

As you can see we decided on 3 Podocarpus in front of the AC unit and the last one in the corner. The other grasses were just spread out in between, apparently they are ground cover so we are sort of worried that they may grow out of control. I guess we will just have to wait and see. Once he had everything in the ground and the new mulch spread this is what we were left with…

And this is the view from our patio…

We are pretty pumped about our new little garden, fingers crossed that those Podocarpus grow a bit more so we see even less of the AC unit. Here’s one more look…

Landscaping Phase #3

Last I showed you our backyard was looking pretty good…

Look at all that pretty green grass.

Anywho, there were a few more things Justin wanted to accomplish out here since the new drainage and landscaping were finished.  A few of the solar lights we had previously installed were broken.  So, Justin purchased some new outdoor lights for the garden beds back here.  He decided to go with regular electric lights.  He moved the remaining solar lights that were still trucking along to the front yard.  He purchased the new lights from lowes.  Once he got home he started installing them…

Since the sod was freshly laid, Justin was able to run the cords from one garden to another right under the top layer….

While he was burying the new cords he came across this little guy…

He was just sleeping under the mulch and Justin dug up his bedding!  So he buried the cord and then buried him under the mulch again.  We saw him later the same night once the sun went down, we’re all friends now.  Once Justin had finished installing all the lighting he added new mulch to all of the garden beds…

Charlie also helped…

This guy showed up too…

Isn’t he handsome?  Love these little lizards.

After hanging out with the lizard I got some photos of the freshly finished backyard…

And you know I can’t help but give you some before, middle and after photos…

Check out how much the plants by the patio have grown!

I don’t have a before photo from this angle, but here is the mid way point and after…

We also got to see the new lights in action that night…

Aren’t they pretty?

Char man also hung out to check out the lighting…

It was already past Zack’s bed time.

We are thrilled with our backyard now.  We may have some other ideas for the the fence and possibly another little garden. For now we are just happy to sit on the porch and enjoy the unflooded yard!  It’s a far cry from this…

Don’t you think?  PS the drainage works.   Here is a photo I took immediately after a down pour…

BOOM! Do you see a drainage issue?  I think not!

Plants Plants Plants

Apparently I can’t get enough plants for our home, or maybe it’s the fact that I kill so many of them.  Either way we have some new additions to the clan.

It all started with this guy….

Justin’s grandmother gave me this plant for Easter and it is actually doing great.  It has gotten a lot bigger since coming to live at our house and I really like it.  It is a mandevilla, it is a viney plant that grows pretty pink flowers.  Only problem is that it has out grown it’s little trellis that it came with.  It was now reaching for anything else to grow on, including itself.  All of the vines were wrapping around themselves.

Poor thing, see all of the vines twisting around themselves on the left side of this photo?  It was doing that everywhere.  I did try to be a good plant mom and purchase a new trellis at walmart, but they did not have any.  They only had tomato cages…

So, I took one of those home and popped it around the mandevilla.  It seemed to help somewhat and it started to climb the plant cage, but soon it started to outgrow it’s pot and it was starting to tip to one side in the plant stand.  I knew it was time to plant it in the garden and give it a better home with a real trellis, not an imposter tomato cage.  I removed the tomato cage and look how sad the plant then looked…

My plants always look so sad, I am really trying here though people!

I also ran to Lowes and picked up a new larger trellis…

Look at that beauty, I think my little mandevilla plant will be very happy.   I also picked up a bag of top soil and another bag of red mulch.  I then dug a decent whole for the new trellis and the plant.

As I went, I pulled up all the weeds that were pooping through the mulch and any rocks that I came across.

I swear we will never be rid of all of these asphalt rocks that the previous owner had in the garden.

Next I plopped the trellis in the newly dug whole…

Next in went the plant.

I surrounded the plant with top soil and then recovered the hole with any remaining dirt that I had dug up.

Still looking oh so sad.  I am really mentally willing the poor little plant to turn around and realize it has an awesome new tall trellis.

I then added the new mulch…

There she is all planted safely in the ground, hope she does well here.

Since I moved the mandevilla to the garden I now had an empty plant stand.  I felt compelled to fill it, so while at Lowes I picked up a hibiscus plant, they are so beautiful.

It’s orange and pink, I mean come on, tell me that’s not pretty!

Fits perfectly next to our front door.

One more…

Zack decided to hop in this one.

And here is our front yard with the new additions…

Lovely.

I wasn’t quite done there though.  I also picked up a new hanging plant for the backyard since I have managed to kill all three of the petunia hanging baskets.

It is a purslane hanging basket, apparently it blooms for summer and fall.

I love all of my plants and I am hoping I am getting better at taking care of them, wish me luck!

More Yardwork

Remember when we said we were going to add some more plants to our front gardens? Which we left looking like this…

Poor little lone palm tree.

Well, Justin picked up these plants at… wait for it…. Lowe’s.

First up he got two Rhoeo plants. I LOVE THEM.  I love that they are purple!

He got two Gardenia plants, which grow the best smelling flowers ever.  He also got two more sanchezia plants, the same that we have in our back garden.  The few we planted in the back are doing so well and growing in nice, he figured why not a couple more for the front?

Lastly, he picked up some more mulch and a bag of planting soil.

Justin went solo on this gardening job, I was keeping busy cleaning inside.  He started by digging the edging up a bit so the mulch wouldn’t fall onto our front walkway so much.

Here is the garden on the right before.

and this is the garden on the left before.

Next thing I knew he was done!

Boom! He’s quick!

He put one gardenia plant in the back corner of the right garden, along with the two sanchezia plants in the front.

I bought two new hanging plants because our hanging flowers had seen better days.  These are green leafy plants that will hopefully last in my care!

I asked Justin to put the two purple rhoeo plants right by the front door because I LOVE THEM! The other gardenia plant went in the other garden on the left.  The gardens could still use a couple more plants but I think they are now looking a lot less sparse.

One more street view…

Yardwork Yo (frontyard edition)

We were on such a roll with the backyard, the next day we decided to just keep our hard work up in the front yard.  Which previously looked like this…

Needs some work huh?  We knew this was going to be a big project.

Look at this mess.

I started by moving all of the old white border bricks our of the garden to the road.

Meanwhile, Justin was shoveling out roots and stumps from the old holly bushes that he cut down a while back.

Did I mention that these front gardens were filled with rocks instead of mulch, black ugly rocks? So we went to it shoveling and shoveling and shoveling rocks into contractor garbage bags.

These bags are all filled with rocks.

Initially, we planned to head to Lowe’s once things were cleared out.  This process took so long that we decided adding the new plants would have to wait till another day.

Once things were semi manageable we started adding in mulch.

And with all the mulch in…

BAM!

So once our backs stop aching and our calluses heal we will add some plants to these gardens.  And guess what? We will keep you updated!