Mailbox Take 2

Remember when I had this great idea to make the mailbox easier to mow around so I dug up all the grass and made a flower bed around it?

These were my favorite! So adorable!

Well, then things started to go downhill. I killed two mandavillas.

And those cute little succulents grew up and got ugly! Like gross looking ugly with a red tint on top of the green that made them look like they belonged in a haunted house.

Fast forward to yesterday morning and my super easy to maintain mailbox bed looked like this.

Oh yeah. I know my dad is proud right now :)  Can you even tell where the purposeful plants are among the weeds? I know where they are and I can't even tell.

So, with a big party coming up this weekend I stopped by the nursery after a showing yesterday and gave myself an hour to whip the mailbox bed back into shape. The hour deadline was just because I got home at 6:10 and we were meeting friends at pickleball at 7:30 so I just embraced the challenge and went for it.

First up....weed! Yep...compare this to picture above and you can see how much of that bed was weeds.

Then I decided the succulents had to go. I wish they would have stayed cute but they just weren't. I transplanted those into a equally ugly pot and they are sitting on the front porch as scary Halloween decorations right now. You wish I was kidding.

I bought some lamb's ear, some spurge (seriously??) and re-used the little greenish/red guys that were already there. I also bought 4 bags of soil conditioner and two bags of mulch to build the bed up a little bit.

Better right? I mean..nothing super exciting but you can tell that all of these plants were intentionally planted there which is a vast improvement on what we had.

Don't you just want to rub your face all over that lamb's ear?

Spuuuuuuuuuuuurge!

The lesson you should take away from this post and all other gardening/landscaping posts you might have read here: go somewhere else for your gardening advice. Laurie is not good at this. Trial and error equals error and error at Bayless Ridge. At least it looks presentable for now.

Scotts Push Reel Lawn Mower Check In

I totally meant to mention our lawn mower in my 1 year housiversary post but I forgot. Derrick and I decided to take a chance on an eco-mower instead of a gas powered mower when we bought the house so I thought I'd do a quick run-down of what we think now that we're a year in to using it.

Here is the one we bought:

Overall we really like it and are super happy with this choice though there are a few cons.

Perks: 

-The mower is light weight and easy to use. I do most of the mowing because I tend to be home more during the week and our evenings and weekends are busy so it's nice that it's easy for me to use. 

-No gas! We don't run out and don't have to store it. Major plus in my book.

-Storage is easy and compact. We don't have a huge garage or a shed so it's nice it doesn't take up a lot of space. 

-Price. When we bought it it was $108. Can't really beat that. 

-Maintenance. There is hardly any. I've hosed it off before and just let it dry out really well before putting it in the garage and we do spray the wheels with WD-40 about every 3rd or 4th mow but other then that we don't do anything and it's still working like day one.

-Low noise. It's not very loud so we don't feel bad mowing super early in the morning and Crosby isn't scared of the mower. She is not keen on the idea of doing the mowing herself though. Maybe a con?

Cons:

-Can't let the grass get too high. We've got ours set on the medium/high setting because we have fescue but if we get behind on mowing it can push our grass flat instead of actually mowing it. We had to borrow a gas mower right when we moved in because our grass was so long and I also hired a guy after our Europe trip because our grass was 3 weeks tall and our mower wasn't going to cut it.

-Gets hung up on sticks and pine cones. I'm just cruising along and then I get a handle to gut when a stick gets caught in the blades. Not big sticks either....like a large piece of mulch can cause this so just be aware you may have to stop and unclog every once in a while. This only happens to me like one time per mow.

-Not self propelled. I put up in the perks list that it was easy to use. This is true...I've mowed with a gas powered that also didn't self propel and I think it's just as easy if not easier to use. I've also used a self propelled mower though and it's definitely not as easy as that. It is a little bit of a work out but who can't use the exercise? Our lawn is about .27 acres and flat....we probably wouldn't have gone this route if it was hilly or too much bigger.

Anyways...this is in no way sponsored. Scotts doesn't even know I'm a person but I thought it could be useful if anyone is considering one! We love it and would purchase again.

Happenings.

Happy Monday! We had a fun and busy weekend. We were originally going to be out of town this weekend visiting Jeff and Courtney but the hurricane rains kept us home and it worked out for the best. Two houses under contract in 12 hours makes for a good weekend :) The rest of the weekend turned out pretty great too and I did actually take some pictures.

1. First thing this morning I checked on our little baby grasses and they are growing!!! I am so relieved! After getting a foot of water dumped on them for 5 straight days I was sure they were going to wash out or drown but they're alive!!!!

2. Despite a loss this weekend we finally got some NC State pride at our house so all of our neighbors know where we stand.

3.  Parade of homes started this weekend and goes every weekend through the end of October so I'm hoping to go again. Derrick and I saw two houses on Saturday and then Nikki went with me to probably 7 or 8 others on Sunday.

This closet had a trap door for seasonal clothing storage!

Love the glasses pillow cases.

Nikki said this closet would probably fit all of her shoes.

I loved this sunken living room in a townhouse. It was super dramatic and very unique for a townhouse!

4. While driving around to the parade homes on Sunday I slammed on the breaks when I saw this sitting by the side of the road! I knocked on the door and the owner said I could have it! It's going to be awesome when it's dried out and painted. Perfect for when Ellie or Sam come to visit!

This next weekend is going to be a doozy! 4 guests, 4 airplanes, 1 wedding, and 1 Raleighwood Party to host. I'm excited to have Claire and Travis visiting for the weekend though and grateful they are laid back and will just go with the crazy around here :)

Young House Love LOVE

Last night was a dream night! If you've been reading this blog for any length of time now you've probably heard me refer to Young House Love as inspirations for a lot of our house projects and even as an inspiration for this blog. They are a DIY couple who started a blog about 8 years ago to document their kitchen renovation. They ended up getting so much support and such a following they were able to quit their jobs and blog full time. They stopped blogging about a year ago to achieve a better work/life balance but still have a huge fan base.

They just released their second book and are currently on a nationwide book tour and yesterday they were in RALEIGH!!! I was so excited when I saw the announcement that they were coming to Raleigh and I immediately put it on my calendar. 

Now prepare yourself for a half dozen paparazzi creeper pics. 

I went with Madi and Lily who were awesome to go with because they were both just as giddy excited as I was. After we had our books signed we just stood in the corner watching the and gushing about them for the next 20 minutes. Seriously guys.....we were fan girling pretty hard. 

When we got up to meet them they were as nice as we expected them to be. We talked about cupcakes then I told Sherry that I was going to touch her. True story. Awkward hand on the shoulder. Worth it. 

Signing the guest book for them.

Then came the thrill of the night. I instagrammed our group shot and Young House Love hearted it and commented on it! I screamed, Derrick came running because he thought something was wrong, then he jumped up and down with me.

Best night ever! You should order their book. I'm trying to be disciplined and get some work done today so I'm rewarding myself with book breaks. 

Grass Babies

We're working on our yard again. This year I'm trying not to miss that teeny tiny window that you get in the spring and fall to seed the lawn and transplant bushes. We decided to pay to have our lawn aerated and seeded this year. I tried in the spring and the aerator is too big to fit in our car and the cost of seed really adds up so when our lawn people called and said they'd aerate, seed, and fertilize the entire lawn for $150 Derrick and I decided that was a pretty darn good deal.

We're also entering the busiest 6 weeks of our year so far with 6 weddings, 2 of which are a flight away, work is picking up for me, and we have a lot of visitors in and out of the house for the next 6 weeks. Both guest rooms plus the air mattress have been and will continue to work overtime. This schedule meant Derrick and I were working in the yard Sunday at 6:30 PM in the rain in order to get the lawn prepped to be aerated on Monday morning.

This is what the front of our house looked like when we moved in. It was fine. But then all those bushes grew!

Here is another shot. See that tree on the right corner? Anyone that parked in our driveway would run into that tree when they got out of the car. This does show how pretty and green our grass can be. Sigh.

Fast forward to yesterday. We removed that tree in the spring and it looked a lot better and was no longer a hazard when getting out of the car. I also trimmed up all the bushes but what I've learned is the yard is pretty high maintenance and I just don't have time to work on it as much as I'd like. I do want it to look good though. So I decided that the entire row of plants in front of the sidewalk needed to go and turn into grass. I looked at a lot of houses in our neighborhood and a lot of them are like that. It looks nice and clean and then you can really focus on just making those back beds look good.  Also, look how bad the grass looks.

You're going down!

Derrick worked on getting the old tree root out while I pulled all the bushes up. Then we worked together on the rose bushes. The entire top layer of dirt came up here...the root systems of those roses and that tree were crazy!

I think it already looks better!

Last night Derrick and I got some straw to put over the seed. I'm not sure why but I've seen it done before and we're willing to try anything to get our grass growing.

Oooooo. Ahhhhhhh. Better right? Just nod and agree all you skeptics!

I did notice some poop in our yard...either deer or rabbit....so I put out a patrol to scare those critters away from our fresh seed! Crosby refused to be a team player and sit out there all day so I had to go with the next best thing.

I've read online that seed takes about 3 weeks to germinate. We're in the middle of a crazy rainy right now so the soil is nice and damp. We'll keep you posted on how it grows.

Weekending

We did a lot of weekending this past weekend. Family, friends, weddings, and yard work.

Jay and Jack both came up to visit and Derrick and I celebrated with two sets of friends getting married. Yep, two! Our friend Evan married his love Kim and CK and Irene got married on the same day. As excited as we were for them it was really tough to have to choose between weddings. We ended up going to Evan and Kim's ceremony and then attending CK and Irene's full wedding and reception which started an hour later just 5 minutes away.

Here is proof that we made it to Evan and Kim's wedding! Well that Alison and I made it :)

CK and Irene's wedding was gorgeous and so perfectly them! It felt like they just picked everything they loved instead of going by tradition and it was amazing! For instance, his tuxedo was maroon! Her dress was blush! And the bridesmaids dressed were gold sparkle. They also walked down the aisle to the electric guitar playing Phil Collins "In The Air Tonight."

CK and Irene chose this super cool new venue in downtown Raleigh. I believe they were the first wedding here and there is a restaurant downstairs owned by the same company that is known for its food. Needless to say, the food at the wedding was incredible! It was southern comfort food: chicken, short ribs, macaroni and cheese, mashed potatoes, and broccoli. It was soooo good. They had to roll us back downstairs so we could dance it off.

The DJ was awesome (a friend of CK and Irene's) and the dance floor was rocking all night. Their dog Lily was even being passed around.

On Sunday I showed some houses while the boys talked fantasy football and then we headed into Durham to do another escape room!

And guess who also joined us!?! The newlyweds!! The Kellys!!! We did a 90's themed escape room and escaped with 9 minutes to spare. It was a really fun one. We got to throw back to the Spice Girls, pogs, and the Oregon trail.

A few other pics from the weekend.

Birthday presents for Jack!

We ordered a custom picture of Crosby for the collage wall and it finally came in!