New Mini Backyard Garden - DIY Style

 First step, a daddy who loves you.

Second, treated lumber and a way cool pneumatic nail gun and a willing Daddy as a teacher.

Third, a loving mother who has mad skills with a shovel and rake. (We took a 4' x 8' corner of the yard and turned the ground to loosen the soil.

Fourth, newspaper. Hopefully this will kill the grass underneath.

Fifth, lots of garden dirt and black cow manure. (And a strong Daddy to dump the bags.)

Sixth, a cute baby to crawl and walk all over new garden bed to pack it down.

Seventh, scrub down above mentioned baby and sit back and admire the work. ;-)

Hopefully now AO can learn more about her southern "roots" and take up gardening! Her NanO is a certified master gardener, and her Poppy plows and plants acres and acres each year.  AO has to have a green thumb in there somewhere!  The way she likes the dirt....I think we are off to a good start!

We grew up gardening each summer and composting. I want AO to see how food is grown so she understands it isn't just unloaded off a truck at Publix. Important life skills that are dying with the generations.

Laminate Flooring - Living, Kitchen, Dining, Hall

The great floor debate for 2013.

It's no secret I want new floors. We moved into our house new, but I didn't get to choose the flooring. The living room and kitchen open up to each other in a great-room type of way, but they are separated by a cheap linoleum in the kitchen and carpet in the living room. Three months ago, as AO was learning to crawl and walk, I thought carpet was the way to go. But now that she's up and running, and hauling mess and stomping bananas into the carpet, it's gotta go. My biggest reason is probably allergies. I've always been anti-carpet because it holds every little dust-mite imaginable.

But we're still debating what we want exactly. We're sure a laminate hardwood. But that's as close as we get to the same page.

Have you seen laminate lately? It's come SUCH a long way from the fake oak inexpensive stuff of years ago. This stuff really looks like hardwood. And it's 10 times as durable. 

If I had a message to flooring stores and to Lowes - it would be to PLEASE put different full room flooring pictures on your websites. It makes it so difficult to visualize without those pictures. I'm a very visual person, and do a pretty good job picturing the space. But picturing it off a tiny chip doesn't do much justice.

I'm thinking I want something in the middle of the specturm, but more on the dark side that looks like hand-scraped flooring. But not so dark it shows every spec. And we a fairly certain we (Well I'm sure) don't want a gloss finish just because it will show everything as well. But we are not on the same page with tone. John likes light and I like mid-dark. Decisions, decisions.

We're also leaning towards having these installed instead of DIY. It's such a large space, and I would be heartbroken if it didn't do right.   (These images are courtesy of google search. Hickory Laminate flooring.)

It's not cheap either.... We're still discussing budget...Because of course we're on different pages as well. :-)
Decisions, decisions, decisions.