Staining the Fence!

My wonderful brother came up from Austin and stained my entire fence for me!

Before:
Very weathered, gray old looking wood.  I have always hated the fence but I didn't know how easy it would be to fix!

After:
The grass doesn't look as good right now, but the fence looks fabulous!  We pressure washed the fence then used semi-transparent deck stain from Sherwin Williams and sprayed it on with a paint sprayer (also from Sherwin Williams).  The total cost was only about $250 ($90 to have it pressure washed by a guy from Craigslist and $160 for 5 gallons of stain) plus the cost of the sprayer, but hopefully we can use that again ($40).  The color is called Riverwood, and it's a little more orange than I was hoping for.  I think stains are supposed to start fading after a few years... if we still live here I'm going to go for a darker chocolate brown next time.

Tubular Skylights

My wonderful husband installed two 10-inch tubular skylights in our previously dark master closet.  I am absolutely in love with the results.  We were planning on only installing one, but it seemed almost like a spotlight in the back of our closet.  After adding a second one to the front of the closet, the room looks just as it would with the light on.  In fact when I walk by it, I keep thinking I need to turn off the light!  The first one took almost 6 hours to install, but the second one (a week later) took about 3.

They were $153 each at Home Depot and I think the results are worth WAY more than that.  Hopefully it adds some value to our house!!!  The brand we went with is ODL but I know there are a couple of other main brands out there - Velux and Solatube I think.

Yay for free natural light!!!