Pepper Design Blog

A Little of This & That... Renovating, Decorating, DIY Projects & Family

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Curb Appeal: Transforming the Side Yard, Part 3

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We are making huge progress on the side yard! The goal is a new wall, a new deck and a new flagstone walkway before Europe. Plus, finish painting the house! Which has turned into quite the beast.

Back in the spring we made a goal to really focus on and tackle big projects on the outside of our house this summer – we dubbed it the Curb Appeal Transformation (even though a good chunk of it isn’t visible from the street :)) and while it’s nearly fall, I’m so happy with how on target we actually are. Even if that means we’ve had to bring in reinforcements here and there (in the form of friends, family and even a few tradesmen) when absolutely necessary.

A quick reminder on the jungle that was our side yard just a few weeks back:

Here’s where I left you last in the part 2 post on laying the new foundation for the wall that would box in this new space:

Amazing how many details and how much time a project like a cement block wall can take!

Here the boys are slowly building the wall up and up! Two levels…

…quickly turned into eight.

Safely barricaded behind a door and glass, I’m observing some heavy duty cement block slicing to create the very top layer of the wall. This wall is one of those projects that I left to Kevin and was happy to do so.

Finally a “brown coat” (which isn’t necessarily brown) was applied to give the plaster a surface to adhere to, the final layer will be a tinted plaster. More troweling, measuring and leveling ensued:

Woohoo! Now that’s a wall!

Kevin designed the wall so that it stair stepped down from the back of the property to the front of the house, where it is only 4 feet ish high. We can still have friendly conversations with our great neighbors without them being Wilson-style (Home Improvement, anyone?), but the tall back wall will allow us to enjoy the dining portion of the future deck in privacy (and keep music, etc contained).

Here’s where the new wall meets with the existing wall:

A day’s work is done!

The toughest critic was probably our little building inspector…

She questioned the use of gravel over our built-in irrigation system for the future planter box, but was pleased overall.

Speaking of planter box, Kevin applied a watertight sealing over the area that would soon hold veggies and flowers to ward off potential water damage.

The last part of the actual construction of the wall was the planter box itself. Here’s the footing being poured into place:

And the entire cement block process was repeated to build a mini wall.

Finished!

Sometimes it’s cheaper and more efficient to bring in a big cement truck to help out, like we did here, but sometimes it’s more cost effective to mix up that cement yourself (stucco, too):

Helps to also have a cement mixer in your toolbox (er, garage), I think we found this guy on Craigslist a long while ago and have used it for many, many projects.

The soon-to-be entrance to the side yard from the front:

And here she is! Plenty of room for a big deck and dining space:

Liv approves, and plays with her best friend while we all check out daddy’s hard work at the end of the day.

Bodie is such a good dog. I can’t believe he was just a little puppy when we moved into this house.

More side yard transformation posts here: part 1: breaking ground, part 2: foundation. And more outdoor projects/curb appeal progress right here!

Making My Day Right Now…

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This might be the happiest purchase I’ve made this month. It was a little pricey and I was a bit skeptical, but I bit the bullet and ordered a reed diffuser for the house (and since have bought one more). It is absolutely amazing.

If your home, like mine, suffers from the smell of dogs, babies and husband feet, and you’ve tried every nose adjusting cure from here to this side of the moon, this is the missing link.

I promise this isn’t a sponsored post. I’m just that enamored with my little diffuser at the moment.

I’ve tried candles (I eventually grew tired of the fire hazard – once leaving a vanilla candle to burn while running errands (!) and the growing cost of purchasing more and more), plug in air fresheners (which Kevin declared to be absolutely horrible smelling much to my chagrin) and the little motion detector mechanism that poufs Glade into the air when you walk by (my almost-best solution).

But then one day while house shopping with my parents (they’re moving to San Diego!!) I came across the most fabulous, refreshing, neutralizing fragrance. While everyone else pointed out decorative molding and beamed ceilings, I snooped around for plug-ins, candles and potpourri. How did they do it? How did the house smell so darn fresh and delicious? And then I saw it. A little glass bottle full of a lavender-vanilla oil with little reeds poking out of the top. And the house was covered in them. Sure enough, this was the smell-infusing device that my nose had fallen in love with.

My first thought – how did I not know about this magic??

That night I did a little Amazon review research and settled on Nest Fragrances in Moss & Mint (which smells nothing like moss or mint but instead a delicious ‘clean’ that makes you want to float. The reviewers were right). One week later and my second for the back of the house has just arrived in the mail and I couldn’t keep it a secret any longer.

I’ve heard that I can sub out these economically priced reeds when the Nest versions dry up. And that will make my new smell solution price-point perfect and will keep me in happy spirits when I pass by the little glass bottle every day (and every day thus far it makes me sigh and smile). Stinky construction socks, diaper pails and dog food bowl smells be gone.

PS My fiddle leaf fig is healing well! Just a few bruises left but I think she’s going to turn out just fine.

And yesterday was Labor Day! Hope you had a great one. We spent ours with Kevin’s family in Phoenix and this coppertone-baby shot about sums it up:

Liv was hop-skipping with joy over a giant inflatable water slide, while I dug the handmade wood fired pizza, cold lemonade and time with friends.

Weekend Fun: June & July

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Wow this summer has gone by so very quickly! I cannot believe it’s *almost* fall. Before summer completely slips away, I thought I’d share a few of our weekend road trip (and other miscellaneous) photos. It’s amazing just to see Liv’s transformation over these two months! She’s already two inches too big for the pjs in the ‘nana’s house’ pictures at the bottom of this post.

This summer was our summer of weddings – we had the privilege of attending four (4!) in June and July alone. Let’s start with Kevin’s cousin Anne, who married her sweatheart Alex.

Such a beautiful wedding! Also full of those rustic, organic details that are so pretty and popular right now (note: I did not make that cake at right but I thought it was so pretty).

Two weeks later we traveled up to Monterey (in the greater San Francisco area) to witness the vows of Madelene and Joel.

The grounds of the chapel were absolutely beautiful!

And check out this handsome fella. I met Jack, a friend of ours’ new baby, for the first time.

This also happened to be the weekend of our five year anniversary, so we took an overnight trip to SF to celebrate (read more about our must-sees here).

Next up were a few days at Camp Powell, a summer camp that Kevin grew up attending and one that he volunteers at now. Liv was old enough this year to run around and to play in the mountains, too! Here she is with daddy and there’s a pic of Kevin entertaining all of the kiddos at campfire. His character was a Scottish ballerina. Amazing.

The following weekend we headed back to the bay area for Nick and Clare’s wedding, an adorable couple with a beautiful backyard reception that I can’t wait to share more of. Hoping to post more on the dessert table that they designed once I track down those pictures…

Here are a few photos from a weekend brunch at our house! Had to share this picture because it’s a perfect time lapse moment, we can retake these three little munchkins sitting on our porch again in a few years and admire their fast growth.

Liv and her buddies.

Back up to Santa Cruz we go! Let me take a moment and introduce you to my hometown. Before leaving for college ten years ago, these were my stomping grounds:

Beautiful. I love going back to visit.

Here’s a picture of that pier stretching all the way out to the water, this shot is taken on the walk from my parents house down into the village of Capitola.

And once you enter the village, you’ll come across a beautiful lazy river that meets the ocean (just. don’t. swim in it). That green restaurant on the water is where I worked as a hostess in high school.

Just across from that restaurant is this shot:

With brightly colored vacation homes lining the sand and another picture of that pier that I shared above.

My sister traveled up to Santa Cruz with me on this particular trip, here we are walking through the Capitola village.

My childhood home was actually further back in the hills of Santa Cruz, but it really is nice to be so close to the beach these days! When we visit nana and papa we try to walk down to the village at least once for appetizers, a glass of wine or a stroll through the shops.

Speaking of nana’s house, here’s Liv playing with her grandma in the morning while I’m at work (yup, when I travel for work I travel back to my hometown, so Liv gets to play with nana a lot!). She’s become quite the little photographer, and check out that morning hair (I’m pretty sure she’s also drinking her breakfast smoothie out of a plastic restaurant-style ketchup bottle. Must have forgotten the sippy cup.)

Liv’s getting ready for Europe!

Last wedding of the summer was for Katie and Danny, you might remember the cake project for this special day.

No trip to SC is complete without a trip to Harts Fabrics! I adore this store. Picked up that little stack on the right for a future project.

I don’t know how I missed it, but we had two different sets of cousins in town plus friends from AZ with their brand new Emmett and I don’t have any photos! Ah well, that’s enough weekend for now.

And finally, this friends – this is Kevin’s latest project/adventure and one that he traveled out to Iowa for in July. More to come…

Happy Labor Day!

PS More weekend fun (and other random family adventures…) here.

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