Independence Day!

Actually it was "Independence Weekend". Independence from the clutter in our house, Independence from some of the huge backyard projects we have underway, and Independence from the clutter in my studio room. We have had so many projects going on and we decided to just suck it up and go head first in completing a few off them over our four day break. Needless to say, we are exhausted and will spend the coming weekend doing very little that is work related.. If we don't have some fun this weekend, I think the kids might try to trade us in for some fun parents who don't make them do yardwork!
For starters, I reclaimed the corner in my office/craft room so that my sewing machine could have a permanent home. I love this- I don't think I need to explain this to most of you reading-the joy that comes with a space dedicated purely to sewing things. Ahhhhhh! I almost showed a before photo but I just couldn't. It was so bad! So here is the after: Then, after the kids were tucked snug in their beds, we went through the playroom with a fine tooth comb and purged 2 huge boxes (HUGE!) of toys. They haven't even noticed. Their Grandmas have very close personal relationships with Target and Toys R Us and as a result we were drowning in toys. Ridiculous! Now they are at the Salvation Army. The big project this weekend though, was finishing up the one end of the yard and starting on the other. Here are the befores:
Actually, these aren't truly before as to get to this spot, we spent a few weeks pulling out misc. trees and shrubs, rolling up the old sod, clearing things out and prepping the ground for the new grass seed. We hauled several huge truckloads to the dump, several truckloads of mulch to the space and then even more truckloads of rock. So this is where we landed-

It was so nice to sit out there last night and have it beautiful and functioning. For the rest of the weekend we worked on the opposite side of the yard. There is a pretty large overgrown perrenial garden that we did the mass weeding on. I also moved and took out some plants and added new ones here and there. The space adjacent is jut a huge empty space so we took out all of the weeds and suckers, leveled the ground and tonight we will start putting down landscape fabric and then come the cedar chips. We are going to have the kids playhouse and big plastic climb on pirate ship back there. We will also be landscape fabric-ing the garden because the weeds are out of control and we refuse to use chemicals and poison. Ahhhhh. A weekend well spent- though I am beat! No sewing but tonight maybe...