Living Room ceiling lights

I went back and forth between at least 3 different lighting options for the living room. One was too small for the space. Another got lost in the ceiling. I love the look of the ones we put up, my only complaint is that they are halogen bulbs. First a picture of what was up there when I bought the house, and then the new lights. Ignore that wire hanging down on the right side, that will be cut off when I decide for sure how far down I want the lights to hang.

Stinky and green

The hydro-seeding was done yesterday. It stinks and it looks weird., but I should have grass shortly. Woo hoo.

Here's the yard all filled back up with new, safe dirt:



And after it was hydro-seeded:



Apparently the hydro-seeding apparatus isn't very precise.
Now it just has to be watered daily. The EPA is going to water through the end of the month, rather than the 2 weeks they were suppose to, but after that they are not working for a week because of the RNC. I guess they need to be ready to go at a moment's notice should we have some kind of biological or environment issue. *sigh*

Goodbye stumpy.

Yeah! The stump is gone. The stump is gone!!

I went on Craig's List and found a guy who could do the stump today. I was a little nervous, not knowing what to expect, but Ken, the guy I called, was awesome! He was really nice, he was quick and he did a good job. If you are in the Minneapolis area and need a stump grinder, shoot me an email and I'll give you his information!

Here's Ken grinding it out, followed by the absence of stump. :)

The saga of the stump.

Well, the EPA doesn't want to pay to have my stump ground down any further. As it sits right now if they don't do anything there will be jagged pieces of stump sticking up into the yard when this is done. So, I've had them stop their work for now and I'm going to have the stump ground on my own. I just know I will not be happy the way they were planning on leaving it and if I'm going to go through all this I want to make sure I'll be happy with my yard in the end! I am meeting with a guy in about a half an hour, hopefully he can get it out of there today or tomorrow and the EPA can finish up their work.

EPA clean up - Day one

Everything went well, they have made a lot of progress. I did have an odd moment today when I was in the house and they had put the plastic over the dirt for the evening. Seeing the white ground outside the window made me feel like it was the middle of winter for a split second and actually made me a little disoriented. haha. Anyway, here are some pics of what's going on back there.
The only thing I am concerned about is the stump, you can see it near the chain link fence. I hope they are able to get it further down than it is right now!

3 more days of weeds...

and then in 2 more I'll have a newly hydroseeded (back) yard!! I am so excited! I met with my contact person at the EPA yesterday and she told me what needs to happen and when it needs to happen.

My first step is to go through my back yard and write down everything that is there, plant-wise. How many, what types, etc... My uncle, who went to school for forestry, used to be a landscaper and actually knows what kind of plants they are, will be helping me out with that today.

Then tomorrow I get to take my list to Gerten's and figure out just how much it would cost if I wanted to replace everything that is currently there. Gerten's sounds great, I appreciate they aren't making me go to Flip's Discount Plant Shack and Taqueria to price things out.

Once I've done this (by Monday evening) I send it to my EPA lady, we hopefully agree on the amount, she cuts me a check, and then on Tuesday they show up, remove part of my fence, and start taking out the yard, and then replacing it with new soil. This is going to take a couple of days. Then if all goes well, by Thursday the landscaper will come by, hydroseed the soil, and then come back and water it daily for two weeks. And I should have a glorious, green, plain (back) yard!!

Then, hopefully next year, we get to do the whole thing over in the front.

EPA meeting tomorrow!

I got an email from my contact person at the EPA, she is in town and they are ready to roll on the clean up project. We are meeting tomorrow at 1pm. I assume this is when she will let me know exactly what will happen and when, and hopefully she will take the inventory of all the plants in my backyard. I guess this is when I get to negotiate and make sure that they remove all that I want removed. I hope this goes well and that my yard will be dug up in no time! Keep your fingers crossed.

More progress made, dining room completed!

Yay! Thanks to my awesome mom, the dining room has been wallpapered and is looking great. I couldn't be happier with the way it looks. Check it out. It's come a long way from this:




To this:

Weeds galore!

Here are some pictures of my back yard that I mentioned in my last post. This yard is a mess. I'm more of a minimalist when it comes to landscaping, so I'm very excited to get rid of a lot of this stuff.



Here's a close up on the south corner of my yard. There is so much crap growing here I have no idea what is supposed to be there and what is not. There appear to be raspberries, but they aren't edible due to the arsenic in the soil. You can see some of the ferns in the bottom right that I've already managed to kill. I don't have a green thumb, that's for sure!



Here's the north side of the back yard. Those bushes back there are in some sort of depression, the yard goes down about 8 inches out there, where the grass is greener. You can also see the huge stump in the upper middle right. My neighbor said the EPA will negotiate and I should be able to get them to grind it down 12 inches when they removed the top foot of soil. The stump was on her side of the fence as well but they did grind down her side, so I hope they will do the same for me.