Estate Sale Sunday

Oh, we love us a good estate sale!!

Mark was looking for a chipper to help move our backyard cleanup along and lo an behold what did he find?

He got himself a nice chipper for only $60!! It was the last day of the estate sale and everything was 50% off so it was $125!  It was a great deal and works really good.

If you can believe it Mark was the big spender (that NEVER happens!).  I spent $2 and got two things: a mirror for my youth group's room and this:

A pretty, pretty chair that needs a little love.  I have been looking for a chair or stool of some kind to eventually sit at my old vanity that is in my bedroom, and I think for a whole buck, this one is going to do the trick.

I think it will be just lovely when its done.

Flowered Front Porch

Now that you've seen my new bistro set and the new wrought iron fencing, here's what my front porch area looks like.

I bought bunches of annuals from the best kept secret of my neighborhood, but unfortunately, all of my planters are the old, gross plastic ones.  I was thinking about spray painting them all the same color (like one of those awesome textured spray paints) so they'd go together a little better.  But, until we fancy up the outside (new siding, new windows, new concrete paint that isn't brick red), I don't care that much. It looks like someone actually inhabits this house of ours now! 

Don't fall...

...off our porch!  I say porch, I mean cement walk way thing that leads to our front door.  If you haven't noticed, our front yard has levels - three to be exact.  To make our insurance company very happy, we decided it was time to install a fence they had asked us to do...oh...11 months ago.

We knew we wanted to use wrought iron, since we felt that it would go the best with our house as it was built in 1948.  The problem is that wrought iron, especially custom made fencing is expensive. Like, seriously.  I called one local company and they would charge almost $2,000 to do what we did below for about $300.  Crazy.  (Granted, custom always looks better...)

So, we found a place that sold wrought iron fencing and, um, creatively made it work with our totally wonky, crooked cement area we do not want small children, elderly, or people sneaking around our house in the middle of the night falling off of (well, that last group might deserve to fall off, I guess).

{We now call our house "the fortress".}

One of the funnest things poor Mark had to deal with was the fact that whole cement area is sloped. There was a difference of 9" from the post nearest the door to the post nearest the stairs. That's a lot. Especially when the fencing you just purchased doesn't account in any way for a slope.  For about an hour we were wishing we'd forked over two grand, but then we used our brains and figured out how it would work and look ... okay. We're pleased with it.  And it will prevent you all from going over!