Archive for the ‘before’ Category

Landscape inspiration

Thursday, June 26th, 2008

Its hot. Like unbelievably hot here at The Brick House. So it seems that any plans for landscaping will have to wait till the end of summer. I’m actually dreading that part of the house rehab. I know nothing about plants or growing things in the desert or how to landscape so it looks nice and not like a sad cactus garden and I can’t afford a designer. (And I surely wouldn’t want to do any book learning to figure that stuff out. Really? Gardening? Sounds B-O-R-I-N-G).

Since we are so close to Palm Springs I thought I could take some inspiration from them…






Sassy.

These images below are definitely fitting into my idea of what I’d like to do.
(**I’m so sorry if I used your image and don’t credit it here. I started collecting them months ago and have no clue were they came from…)

I’m not really sure how attainable this look is. We fortunately (or unfortunately) have about 10,000 sq. ft. of property that needs LOTS of tender loving landscaping. All I see are dollar signs…

God I want that pool so freaking bad right now. Its so perfect – I would totally copy that for my side yard.

Do you remember our fence?

Its so awesome! I look at that monstrosity everyday and die a little inside. So anyhoo – fence inspiration:

I want horizontal wood. Everywhere. Or hard troweled plaster…

Just for giggles…

Above is our sad driveway and front yard…and below some inspiration to remedy that situation:

This project will take FOREVER to finish. It is just so overwhelming in its scope and cost that I’m frozen in fear to even start pricing materials out. I think the fence and driveway are the first on the list to complete…check back in like 3 years and see if we even started, I have a feeling we won’t.

Fireplace…update.

Sunday, June 22nd, 2008

Well. Yeeeeeeaaaaaahhhhhh.

I was super into those dark fireplaces so I got a couple of colors. The top is Glidden “Obsidian Glass” and the bottom is Behr “Dark Cavern”.

I thought the bottom color was too brown and freaked out and the Boy voted for the top “Obsidian Glass”. I must have been tired and agreed with him…

Even though I said its way too blue…

And it was.

I HATED it. So I painted over it with the Behr “Dark Cavern” in a semi-gloss.



I like it a lot more. Its dark and neutral but warm. Next is the mantel though, still hating that stupid f*ing mantel.

BEFORE paint and AFTER paint…like 4 coats…oh well, the brick is dead.

ooooohhhhh…

Friday, June 20th, 2008

I had a bad day at work and decided to take it out on my fireplace.

Oh well, no going back now. The fireplace is primed with one coat of Glidden Masonry & Stucco primer and still needs another coat. I removed the old vents and plan on installing some new fancy looking ones.

I still HATE the mantel. HATE HATE HATE and more HATE. I bought some really dark gray paint, and will test out a patch after the priming is done. I kind of dig the white though…