Are y’all ready to behold the best makeover a driveway could ever receive?

Okay so maybe this wasn’t exactly the type of makeover you were expecting ;) But the new van did improve how our home and driveway look! And we did do some improvements such as painting the garage doors, adding a new light, adding house numbers, and cleaning the oil stain on the cement. Either way, it is a HUGE improvement.

Yes, we got a “used-but-new-to-us” van!!! And honestly, I was not planning on posting about it here at all. BUT……. when our old van died,  I reached out to you on facebook a few months ago and asked for advice on shopping for a vehicle. You guys were amazing! I had so many comments and I seriously read through them with my husband and made notes. You guys helped so much.

So I wanted to show off my new-ish van and say thank you for your help. It was my first time car shopping for me and I was terrified. The last vehicle we bought a friend of a friend picked it up at an auction and so we didn’t see it until after we bought it. And the first car we bought as a married couple my husband just showed up with one night. Uhhhhh, yeah. And I am still married to him :P  I had been shopping with my older sisters before I got married and I didn’t have a good experience. I felt like I needed a shower after getting home.  I am sure you know what I mean.

The first couple of places we went were the big, huge dealers than mainly sell new. It was the exact experience I was expecting. Then we went to a smaller lot. They had a TON of Honda Odyssey vans. They had other things as well, but I couldn’t help but notice the plethora of the Hondas. Since that is what we were in the market for, I got a tiny bit excited. But I still put up my “you aren’t going to bully me in to something I don’t want” front and prepared myself. The place was called Forrest Motors and it is in Orem, Ut.

And guess what? I love them. Yep. I had such a FUN, good experience I kinda want to invite the owners, Forrest and Sammy,  over for a backyard BBQ. The experience I had there verses the other car lots was night and day people! Night and day! I could have chatted with them all night. I trust them completely. And I loved them so much I offered to have them as a sponsor. So Look over at my sidebar. Maybe even click over and say “hi”. ————————–>

Alrighty, back to the makeover of my driveway…..

Every year I change up my outside décor. One year I was feeling extra patriotic and did red, white, and blue. One year was all white, one year was blue. You get the idea. This year I went with yellow. Remember my side porch that got freshened up? The yellow plaque for the house numbers and yellow flowers tie into the lemon wreath and yellow flowers on the porch and the hello mat. I also have yellow flowers on the front porch which I just realized I have yet to show you.

Our old van had an oil leak. We took it in a million times and had every thing replaced and it still leaked. It baffled two different mechanics. We gave up hope of ever having an oil free driveway. Once we sold the old van I scrubbed the driveway with Dawn dish soap and a little bit of water. I cleaned up the dirty suds with paper towels and then rinsed it off. I went through almost a whole thing of Dawn and 4 big rolls of paper towels! It looks pretty good now. You can still see where it was. I am thinking a round two may do the trick.

I realized that I hosed off all the mud (mud pie making mess from my 3 year old) and then hurried and snapped pictures but never got a good shot of the cleaned up oil. It was by the little door so this is the best I have. We bought these plastic planters at Home Depot. They were originally black. I used plastic spray paint to paint them red.

The old light on our garage never did work. And then one day it just fell. Kind of like its head hung in shame. The wood was rotted so we added a board and a new light.

We got this light at Home Depot and it is the kind that automatically comes on when it starts to get dark. I think it is called a “dawn to dust” feature. It will act as a spotlight to our new house numbers! I cut the plaque out of plywood, painted it, and added vinyl numbers.

We are happy with the new look of our driveway… and the van :) The only painful thing was that we have not had a car payment in almost 7 years. We have only had ONE car for 10 of our 13 years of marriage. So the decision to buy a car was HUGE for us. We took it very seriously. We took into account all of your advice. And we opted to go for a 2006 van with several miles on it so that our payment was low. Luckily we had just refinanced our house and our mortgage payment went down more than $200. So as much as I HATE going into debt, it will not affect us as far as the monthly payment. I am hoping when we have a good month we can pay more than the payment and pay it off quickly. My husband and I have NEVER had a credit card. We have never gone into debt for anything other than a few student loans and our house. But when you have little kids and you travel out of state to visit family, you need something that won’t keep dying on you. In fact, the last few times we went anywhere past an hour away, we had to rent a van because our mechanic said it wouldn’t last!

But we couldn’t pass up the awesome deal we got at Forrest Motors and we feel so safe driving all over. AND it has air conditioning! Summer is going to be so much more enjoyable this year.

I wrote this post before My husband was laid off from work. I feel confident that since the last 3 times he was laid off we were able to maintain our mortgage payment that we will be fine this time too seeing as the van payment + the new lower mortgage payment = the old mortgage payment. I do not regret getting this new van. I have faith in our ability to be resourceful until Shane can get a new job.