Weekend Update #19

This Weekend We:
-moved in 95% of our stuff (this last week in our apartment is very sparse, we are sleeping on air mattress!)
-bought All The Things
-our dads put together the arbor that we're getting married under and Corey's mom & brother stained it!
-Corey's dad mowed the lawn because the tractor is finally fixed
-my Dad worked on the porch
-installed the water softener
-fixed the bathroom sink
-unpacked almost all the stuff we moved
-painted some porch stuff
-put together the new porch furniture

This weekend was Memorial Day and our 95% of our stuff Move In Day.  We rented a U-Haul trailer for the move and wanted to take advantage of the ability to easily haul home Big Stuff.  So off to the stores we went for Memorial Day sales and we bought a:
-washing machine (being delivered next week)
-water softener
-weed wacker
-step stool
-2 rakes
-metal shelving unit (wish we had bought 2!)
-5 60lb bags of mortar for the porch stone
-chocolate brown exterior paint 
-2 cast iron sandwich makers for fun camping food
-bags of mulch
-play sand for a wedding project
-hose & sprayer
-sprinkler
-paver stones for a landscaping plan
-random screws
-porch furniture

As I said on Facebook we bought All The Things.  Here's the water softener in place and Corey hooked it up himself!:

Corey also fixed the major clog in the bathroom sink that has been stumping us all since we bought the house in September.  Look at that running water going down the drain!

In other water news with the water softener hooked up we set up the ice maker!  The softener is taking care of the iron in the water and the eggy smell so now as long as I have ice and some lemon I can drink the well water!  After about 1 million plastic water bottles in 8 months this is big news!  Thanks for the ice maker Mom & Dad!

Sorry for the blurry cell phone picture

Just for fun here's a before and "during" shot of the front of our house.  Here it is on the inspection day:

And here it is this past weekend. Man I love that porch:

This weekend my Dad worked on patching over the unsightly holes leftover from taking down the old porch walls.  Here is the yucky before:

And here it is with the lower patch installed.   (He had to temporarily take down the shutter so ignore that dirty patch of siding).  The long skinny patch above this lower patch is coming soon, I think next weekend. 

And now that it's primed (to be painted soon) it blends right in:

I also worked on the porch this weekend.  These upper beams are original to the porch and were very dirty and gross looking. Look:

So I washed them with the TSP cleaner that we used on the inside walls before painting them.  Just this made them look so much better:

And then I primed them.  I was going to also caulk some weird seams along the bottom (not pictured) and then do the exterior paint, but then it started storming so I worked on inside projects (aka unpacking).

Next weekend we move in 100% of our stuff and Corey (I don't move in till mid-June due to my work schedule and a bachelorette vacation).  And then the mad dash of finally finishing all the partially finished projects and speed landscaping begins!

*The arbor and porch furniture are not pictured due to me wanting some surprises left for people coming to the wedding next month