Today marks my first week down here at the ranch. I’m exhausted, so I’m taking a little break. I thought I’d share some before and after pictures with you. Just for fun.

After getting settled in, Emma and I loaded all of our suitcases into the two smaller bedrooms. It’s actually fun having all of our clothes here. It’s also a huge mess. It wont be forever.

That seems to be our motto.  It Wont Be Forever…

So far, I’ve spent every morning in the yard weeding, and I’ve spent every afternoon in the house painting.

I originally wanted to start all the weeding of the property from one corner to the last. Instead, I’ve decided to start at the house and work my way out. I’m so glad I did because it’s been nice to look out the windows to see weed free beds.

This is the front of the house. I had a neighbor who turned off our water to the lawn while I was gone. I had a rogue sprinkler so he turned off ALL the water and the lawn is on it’s last leg. I’m still holding out hope for it.

Check out our side yard where our little mother-in-law house is.

Back to the front…

I realize people lay down all that rock to hinder weed growth, but here it has not been effective, in fact it’s made it so hard to get the weeds out from under it. Eventually I’d love to be able to get rid of all of it.

Most importantly, I’ve cleaned off the back driveway so Emma can get her roller skating on.

Needless to say, there are a lot more weeds to be pulled. I’ve been assured that all the surrounding ranches had a weed attack this year because of the unusual amount of rain in the area. I’ve even seen it as I drive around. It still doesn’t make it any easier to deal with them. If you look at the main image of this entry, you’ll see the whole ranch from the back side, and you’ll see the insane amount of weeds that are covering every area. I am happy to see them dying off, and I think that’ll make burning in some areas very affective. OK, enough about the boring weeds.

Let’s look at the painting job of the week.

I like to start with the hardest jobs first. This is the original ceiling. I thought about leaving it and painting the beams. I hate the dark color of the beams, and I just don’t have the fortitude to sand/strip them. Then, I thought about painting the beams and leaving the natural pine boards. Then, I saw a few pictures of the same ceiling but painted all white, and I was sold.

Beams painted.

This is where I am not and tomorrow I’ll go over everything one more time! Then on to the second part of the beamed ceiling. I am so happy I decided to paint everything. It really opened up the house.

So, that’s it for week one on the weeding, painting projects. Tell me what projects you’re working on!