Slimming down the to-do list

I'll start off by apologizing again for my lack of posts...I'm sure that you're all sulking around in despair by not hearing my jabber every day ;) In any case, my world has been busy and productive lately, so I've gotten to check a few things off of my to-do list and wanted to share the progress!

First off, our yard needed lots of sprucing up. It was starting to look like Edie from Grey Gardens was the head groundskeeper around here. Thanks to the landscaping design skills of my mom, everything looks great now! The leaning fence by the pool is getting repaired next week and then we will be planting some sort of trees against it.

We cleaned out the beds, replanted, then added black mulch (which little did I know, this part makes a HUGE difference).

We also spruced up the outdoor furniture. Some ornery little squirrels decided that they needed more comfortable beds and took it upon themselves to steal the stuffing out of my chair cushions. Since those are now ruined, I headed to IKEA and picked up these cute ones for only $13 a piece. After some Scotch-Guard, hopefully they'll hold up longer than the Pottery Barn ones that preceded them. The umbrella was a steal from Overstock.com - I think it was $100. It seems sturdy and I like the color.

Hard to see in the pic, but we planted Mondo grass and Daylilies in front of the Azaleas. 

In case you're bored to tears by yard talk, here's a sneak peek on the interior changes I'll post on tomorrow...