mason jar champagne: under $500

Showing posts with label under $500. Show all posts

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

animal house

** update 11/16/11: i saw that Sears will have a Black Friday special on the DC25 animal, priced at just $399. (see page 13 of the scanned flyer) that's a $200 savings! if you've been waiting for it, now is the time. it looks like it's good fri & sat while supplies last. costco will also have it for $100 off the listed price of $469, so an even better deal if you're a costco member. sears also has a deal on the non-animal dc24 for $299. **

yes, folks. we are now officially an animal house. not in the sense of keg stands + panty raids, but in the sense of the dyson.

we held a garage sale a few weeks ago with an end goal in mind: the dyson dc25 animal!!

i love my husband. and i love that my husband loves to vacuum. it makes us a good pair.

so i don't know much about our old vacuum except that i bought it 5+ years ago & it had an awesome pet hair attachment. it wasn't anything top of the line, by any means. but it worked very well and kept Lula from ruining my new "grown up" furniture. after a few years, the sucking power, well, sucked. and not in the way is was supposed to.

these days, cricket prefers the shop vac to our vacuum cleaner, so it gets awfully loud on cleaning days. but at least it works.

so sears had them on sale online, so away we went. we made just enough in the yard sale to cover the sale price of $439.99 (regularly $599.99). of course, when we got to the store, it was listed at full price. the handy-dandy iphone came to the rescue and the clerk confirmed the sale price. apparently, each register has a little flyer, but they haven't marked anything in the store--weird.

i guess it goes to show the value of shopping (or researching) online. i wonder what other deals may have been in the store that were invisible to the uninformed eye?

[cricket assembling his new toy. what's not to love about a man so excited over a vacuum?]

so of course we he used it immediately. i even took her for a spin. the ball's swivel steering took some getting used to, but it picked up everything in its path. the foot mechanism is kinda funky, but that's no big deal.

and here's the little hair monster, not sure what she's got coming.

["i will conquer you, dyson."]

we are dog-hair-free!! at least until Lula scratches. but i furminated her this weekend, so hopefully there's a little life left to the fur-free zone. i'm crossing my fingers that this means we can return the shop vac to the basement. otherwise, i may need some creative ideas for how to turn it into a nightstand in our guest room.

our couch has never looked newer (even when it was delivered), and it's sucked up SOOOOO much hair from the jute rug--which is a pain to clean. it's a winner winner chicken dinner.

Sunday, November 13, 2011

30 day resolution

so i never shop at sears. we went specifically for the dyson sale a few weeks ago. as we walked into the store, i think i said "the last time i was here i was considering buying an elliptical machine." cricket laughed.

cricket wanted to check out the free weights as we passed that section en route to the vacuums. and there's a nordictrack elliptical on clearance. originally $800, now $240. what? so i played on it and it didn't feel cheap. i didn't worry that i'd tip over. i could actually use it at a normal pace without thinking i'd fly off of the wheel thingy. hmmm...

so yeah, we went home with it. it was missing the battery pack cover, but the associate said we could call for the replacement part. (for now, there may be a duck tape solution.) we loaded it up (love having a truck!) & brought it home. i was even able to help get it up the stairs (maybe i don't need to work out afterall, i'm buff. hah, right.)

we have the space for it, and it's literally the ONLY piece of gym equipment i like to use. with winter coming, i expect it will be very useful. we have an awesome new gym at work, but well, it's still a pain to get there, work out, and then get dressed for work there. and working out with co-workers is a little odd to me still. i'd rather do it all in the comfort of my own home, right as i roll out of bed. and i can still take advantage of the free gym classes (and YOGA!!) at the office to mix up my routine a little.

we have 30 days to decide if it's a keeper. cricket says i have to use it 3x/week or it's going back. our decision period ends this week. so far, i've been really good about using it--usually in the mornings. the time change has helped me motivate, too. it's not the prettiest thing in our master bedroom, but i love rolling out of bed onto it. i mean, it's hard to ignore it en route to the bathroom. no excuses.

Sunday, May 8, 2011

Grassy Pavers

With the pavers installed, we needed to lay the grass between the pavers to help hold the pavers in place. I wasn't sure if seeding or sod would be the best way to go. I was concerned that sod would dry out against the cement pavers. But I was worried that seeds may not grow in fully enough in time for the shower in a few weeks. I couldn't have guests tripping around on the pavers.

[ta-da! the new patio]

So I decided on sod. I was torn between grass types. Bermuda or Fescue or Zoysia? Well, the area is too sunny for fescue. And Cricket isn't crazy about Bermuda. Zoysia it is!

Unfortunately, NO ONE SELLS ZOYSIA IN GEORGIA. Unless you need an entire pallet, that is. Which, we certainly didn't. Ugh. Cricket called his contracting buddy, who was apparently having zoysia installed at a project soon. We hoped the landscaper would add a few pieces to the order for us. Turns out, the landscaper was installing that week--and he had extra! FOR FREE!! SCORE!!!!! We'd just need to pick it up on the day he installed it....whenever that may be.

We just didn't know when we'd get "the call" to come pick it up. But on April 27, "the call" came. In case we needed any motivation, this was right on our heels:

[weather radar of the tornadoes in AL, heading our way]

We were already worried about getting the sod in before the rain came so our sand wouldn't wash away...but this storm was SERIOUS. When I got home from work, we switched into super-fast mode. Cricket was cutting the sod pieces as I laid them. He used a rusty machete, but honestly, scissors would've worked too.

Luckily, the whole pieces of sod were perfectly sized for the larger gaps between the pavers. That wasn't planned, but I encourage it for anyone planning something similar.


[almost done...here come the storms]

we finished just before dark. the rains came shortly after to give the sod it's first good soak.

before:

after:

[to do: build the bench, find a few accessories, grab a cocktail!]

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linking up to Kate's summer outdoor party so check out the other great ideas!

Paver Prep

The tiered planter was just the beginning phase of the patio transformation. The overall plan includes:

tiered planter
built-in bench seating
creating a lower patio, to serve as a seating/lounge area
improving drainage; reducing water flow into the crawl space
installing a french drain
creating a "flow" from the backdoor, through the upper patio, through the lower patio, into the lawn

With the tiered planter complete, we prepared the grassy area for its transformation into a patio.

We rented a tiller and tilled up all of the grass & dirt between the house and fenceline. Once tilled, we moved the dirt around to level out the area as much as we could. At this point, we installed the french drain.

[cricket moving dirt]

We wanted to maintain some slope away from the house, to avoid standing water or water in the crawl space, so it isn't 100% level. We also ran into a ground wire that we had to work around.

Then we laid landscape fabric to help with weed prevention.

[after about 15 bags...plenty more work to be done]

We spread about 40 bags of sand throughout the area to help fill in major holes and provide a paver base. We tamped the sand to compact it and [hopefully] reduce future settling.

[this was the 2nd batch of sand we bought. so. much. sand.]

I called ahead to pre-purchase the pavers and extra sand, and they had it ready to load with a forklift. We rented a flatbed truck to bring these suckers home from The Home Depot, and found a few friends to unload the suckers into the yard. We were able to rent the truck, load the pavers, unload the pavers, and return the truck within the basic rental timeframe [75 minutes], so it was a minimal expense.

Getting the pavers (37 pounds each) from here:

...to here:

...cost us $50 and 2 bottles of water. We probably also owe the neighboring churches a sincere apology for the truck's backup "beep-beep-beep" during their Easter service.

Once the sand was in, it was time for the pavers. Cricket had some studying to do, so it was up to me to put the paver puzzle together. I'd mapped out the design using a combination of 16"x16" concrete pavers and 8"x16" concrete pavers, all being 2" thick.

The pattern was designed to allow 3" of grass to grow between each row of pavers, and the pavers would start to thin out as the patio opened into the lawn.

I used a 2x4 to help level the sand. Dragging the 2x4 across the sand helped to fill in & level the area I was working with. It's much easier to work a small section at a time. I use 2x4 scraps as spacers, too. Then, I just followed my pattern and laid the pavers one by one.

The pavers are each about 37 pounds, so it was like doing squats with 40-pound weights. I paid for that the next day. And the next. And the next.