In light of yesterday’s news, Aaron and I have just been trying to cope as best as we can. This means spoiling the heck out of Sawyer, but we also have to keep up with our house renovation. I figured I would give you all an update on that.
Pex Repipe
When I last shared, our re-pipe was still in progress. I’m happy to report that the repipe has since been completely finished. All the praise hands for that. It took the crew about seven days to completely finished. We could not be more thrilled with the end result. The water pressure in the house is better than it’s ever been, and we don’t have to worry about pipes freezing again should severely cold weather ever return to Houston.
Now, the good news is that the new pipes are in, and they even replaced all outside fixtures. The bad news is that they left about 22 holes in the walls to install these pipes. This isn’t uncommon and they tell you they are going to do this upfront. Some companies have a sheetrock vendor they work with so you pay for the patch and repair, along with the piping. But, because we have a contractor we are using for our other repairs, we are using him to patch and paint the holes from the repipe.
Word to the wise: if you are planning to repipe your house, know that you will end up with holes in your walls. Also know that your house might be kind of a disaster zone when they wrap up. Our crew was as clean as possible, but they were in and out of the attic, and all of the holes meant a lot of dust and debris. Just be prepared for that.
We are going to pay someone to deep clean our house once all of our repairs are done, but for now, I have my new favorite toy. And if you would have told me I’d be talking about a mop on my blog several years ago – I just wouldn’t have believed you. But, here we are. I bought this bad boy to help get the dust off my floors. And it’s amazing. It’s quick and does the trick. My floors have actually never been cleaner. It’s that easy to use. I mix hot water and a teaspoon of tide ( a la @gocleanco), and it works like a charm.
You don’t believe me, here’s my dirty water to prove it. This is the one I have. You need it, and it’s only $30.
The Yard
My pipes weren’t the only casualty of the freeze. Many of our plants were victimized by the cold also. The result: a ton of dead debris that we needed to cut out. So, we set aside this weekend for anything yard-related. That way, we could be home with the dogs and let them hang outside with us. The above photo is a picture of my beautiful (still very much alive) yard prior to the freeze. We have boxwood shrubs and some pretty plants in the front beds. The grass was also looking pretty good.
Here is a (really bad) image of our yard after the freeze. Everything was brown and dead. So, let it be known that our plan was to divide and conquer. I was going to take one for the team and make the trip to Costco for some food items (note: I said food items here), and Aaron was going to make the trip to Lowe’s for yard items.
Well, I didn’t even make twenty feet inside Costco, and I saw all of their lawn and garden stuff. These blue planters caught my eye.
These solar lights caught my eye. And Mr. Simplywed was on the receiving end of all of these photos. So, he decided he should probably come to Costco to stop help me before I went crazy. I did end up bringing home two packs of the solar lights, which my yard has been needing for awhile and two of the blue planter for my door.
Mr. Simplywed also decided to pick up some soil for said blue planters (some nice man educated me that there is soil for the ground – and different soil for the planters) and some grass seed and fertilizer. Aaron got to work seeding and mowing the yard. I’ve mentioned before that Aaron likes to do the yard – and I’m not complaining one bit!
And I got to work – clearing out alllllll the dead stuff. I had no idea how much dead stuff and leaves we had until I started to clear it all.
Alllll the leaves were removed so you can see my pavers again!
I trimmed back all my dead plants, and I’m really hoping they might be able to make a comeback. I see some green poking through, so I’m hopeful.
We got my blue pots situated, and I just need to add some flowers (preferably ones that I can keep alive).
And, you can see some of my surviving plants starting to come back to life.
You can see some of my sprouts of my spider plants – and our crepe myrtle should maybe start to bloom soon? I’m not expert here.
We gave everything a good water once it could all breathe again, and now, we wait. If things don’t start growing, our plan is to add some new landscaping in. But, we want to give our original plants a chance before we go crazy. Aaron also installed our solar lights, which I love. Our street can be kind of dark at night, and these are actually pretty bright. Super happy with that Costco purchase. Costco never lets me down!
So, that’s the update for now. We plan to start putting walls back in on the first week of April. We want to watch to see how our sweet Sawyer reacts to his medication this week, and I don’t want a ton of people in and out of the house. Stay tuned – we are on track, and I’m hopeful the end result will be worth the wait.
