Housework Wednesday

Nov 10, 2010 by Lindsay

I know that I have been slacking on the new house updates, especially sharing pictures! The problem is that it still just looks like a big construction zone, even though lots of work is being done!

I snapped some pictures with my phone today while the cabinets were being delivered, so I could show some of the big changes that are happening!

This is frame for my soon-to-be laundry room! Woo hoo!

Gutted master bath

Master bath with new drywall, and pocket door frame. There also used to be a door that went to the garage from the bathroom that is now closed off!

Some of the new drywall in the kitchen

Our new kitchen cabinets…..in the living room! Just waiting on the drywall to be done and then the cabinets will go in!

Hopefully in the next few weeks there will be lots and lots of updates to share as the work starts being more cosmetically noticeable!

read more

Week Recap

Nov 6, 2010 by Lindsay

What a busy week we have had! I am sure that is going to be the normal for awhile until we get moved, settled, baby comes and we get settled again!

Some big things happened this week and I wanted to make sure to share!

On Tuesday the boys started going to “preschool” two days a week! Spencer and I had been talking about sending them somewhere for awhile now and I just hadn’t made a priority of calling and checking into it. Between the new house and the baby and the just the fact that the boys are busy and need some more interaction during the days I made time last week to take them and check out a local preschool. It’s the school that Spencer and his siblings went to when they were little!

We took some “first day of school” pictures that just crack me up!

Andrew was so excited to go to his “new school!” The first day he ran right in and just went to town playing. When I picked him up his teacher said that you would never have known it was his first day. She said they went to music class and he just danced around and sang the songs like he knew them! He told me about his “friends” and was just so excited! His second day went just as well. When I dropped him off he ran into play and turned around and ran back and said, “Oh, my have to give you a hug and kiss!” Then he took off to go play. I am so thankful for my sweet Andrew!

This picture just makes me laugh out loud! His back pack was way too heavy, but he wanted to carry it, he also wasn’t really into getting his picture taken This little guy had a rough first day, rough as in he cried the entire time he was there! His teacher told me that when they were on the playground he took her by the hand and tried to take her to Andrew’s classroom! It broke my heart when she said that, but she reassured me and said that it just takes a little time. On Thursday when I took him he cried when I left but then had a great day! His teacher was surprised that he had such a good day on only the second day, but I was just glad to hear that he had enjoyed himself!

I am so excited that the boys are getting this chance to go learn to play and work with other kids, make friends, take instruction from someone other than mommy or daddy and just have fun! I know that I am going to enjoy the time I have to get stuff done!

On Wednesday my aunts came into town! I picked them up from the airport and we went to lunch at a restaurant on the water and we got to enjoy some great food and the beautiful Florida scenery! They came to help us do some work at the new house, and boy did they help! They worked their tails off and in about 2 days we got the entire inside of the house painted! We even painted the ceilings in both living areas and the master bedroom. The bathrooms and kitchen weren’t ready to be painted, but that will be an easy task in comparison to the work they did for us!

It was so fun to spend time with them even though we were working for most of it. We did have time on Friday night to go to dinner and do some Christmas shopping together. I am so thankful that they took the time to come down and see us and help us in such a big way!

I have yet to take pictures of the work we’ve done on the house lately, but huge transformations are taking place and it feels so good! I am starting to realize that before too long it will actually be our new home!

read more

Hi ho, hi ho!

Oct 18, 2010 by Lindsay

Saturday was demo day at our new house! We had some seriously hardworking friends and family show up to help us get some of the big jobs done. Our goal was to remove the kitchen cabinets, bathroom sinks and vanities and then work on taking out flooring and trim if time allowed. We knocked all those things off our list with the exception of some tile flooring that still has to come up!

We advertised on Craig’s list all the stuff that we were getting rid of and people came for EVERYTHING! It’s amazing what people will take!

After 3 hours of hard work my mother-in-law had prepared a lunch for all the workers. Spencer’s grandma stayed with the boys all morning so I could work and then after lunch she sat at the house while they slept and allowed me to run and get paint and fabric for curtains!

It was a wonderful and productive day and we are sooooo grateful for all those who helped!

This is what the front of the house looked like before we even had everything taken out! It didn’t take long for people to just start stopping and taking stuff! We even had two guys show up and ask about the toilet we had listed on Craig’s list, we told them that we hadn’t gotten a chance to take it out yet, but that they were welcome to do it if they wanted….so they did! haha!

These are the bathroom vanities that we advertised on Craig’s list. Blue is the guest bath, yellow is the master.

In the guest bath we are keeping the blue tile, bathtub and toilet, but the wallpaper, flooring, vanity and sink will all be new.

In the master bath we are taking out a wall to make it larger, so the whole bathroom will be re-done.

This is an up-close shot inside one of the closets, I wanted to remember the grossness

This is the family room floor, there was a tile perimeter with carpet in the center, there is still some tile to be taken up.

A before shot of the kitchen.

After most of the cabinets were out….

And down to the bare bones.

I am so thankful we decided to completely re-do the kitchen. If not, we would not have found the mold that was growing behind the corner cabinets! It was so gross! By the end of the day, the guys had the moldy drywall ripped out and even tore down a small wall that we didn’t want!

The whole house looks about like this picture! A real construction zone!

It was amazing what we were able to accomplish with help! Last week I had been starting to worry that we were in over our heads but now we can see huge progress being made and it feels good!

Tonight Spencer and I are going to double check measurements and then go order our new kitchen cabinets…..I am so excited I can hardly stand it!

read more

The Tunnel

Oct 13, 2010 by Lindsay

You know how sometimes people buy a house and just do a little painting before they move in?

We did not buy that house.

Now, I will be honest and say that some of the work we are choosing to do is not absolutely necessary. But some of it is. I also know that it will be much easier to get work done before we actually live there than it will be to try and live in a construction zone down the road.

But now that we are actually in the house and doing some of the work I feel like that phrase, “there’s a light at the end of the tunnel” applies to us, except we are looking down a really looooong tunnel.

Yesterday I spent the evening taking anything that was attached to the walls down. Curtain rods, blinds, light switches, etc. Then tonight I filled in all the holes on the walls and started on the closets. Tearing out the homemade, rigged up shelving they had in all the closets. I did what I could without injuring myself and then I started tearing out baseboards in the family room.

The realtor said the first time she saw the house that the owner was a hoarder. I can completely believe that based on the amount of shelving they had in each closet, the stains on the walls and floors and the outlines of the 15 pieces of furniture left on the master bedroom carpet. The garage even has shelves lining every part of the wall, left over free standing shelves and shelves suspended from the ceiling!

I know I am whining a bit, but I am so thankful. Tonight as I was walking around turning lights off before we left I got all choked up asking the boys if they were thankful for our new house. I get excited when I picture what it will be when all the work is done and I can’t believe that we are actually getting to make this move.

Prayers for endurance, renewed energy and cooperative children would be greatly appreciated over the coming months as we are in the heat of this huge project that we have taken on. I will make sure to post updates often enough that you will wish I had something else to talk about! For now I will leave you with a few pictures, not too many though!

These are the “before” pictures of the kitchen. Hopefully this weekend all the cabinets will be out and the new ones will be ordered!

read more

Hodge Podge Tuesday

Sep 21, 2010 by Lindsay

I feel like my brain is a hodge podge of thoughts, ideas and plans lately so I suppose it’s fitting that this post be the same!

Before we went to Ohio I had shared about our plans to switch rooms with the boys for when Zachary arrives.  Those plans are temporarily on hold because we have actually been house hunting. We do not know that we will be into a new house before the baby comes, but if we aren’t it will hopefully be soon after. Switching rooms would mean getting rid of a lot of our master bedroom furniture and we don’t want to get rid of it and then have to replace it in the near future.

That brings me to my first point. I have been checking Craig’s List the last few weeks and got really excited about a new desk I found. It is too big for our room now but hopefully we will have more room soon, so I figured it would be good to go ahead and buy it while it was available! So we said goodbye to the desk we bought when we were first married….

and welcomed some newer (and larger) furniture into our room! I knew I would love the furniture because Spencer’s grandma has the exact same desk and hutch. You can still buy it in the store so if we ever want to add pieces to it, we can. It is in perfect shape and so we got *almost* brand new furniture for $400 off what we would have spent if we had bought it at the store!

This is just the file cabinet and hutch, I couldn’t get a good shot of the desk because, well, it’s too close to our bed! haha! The great news is that we already sold our other desk on Craig’s list!

Remember when I got a great deal on matching crib bedding a few months ago? Well the set comes with a bumper, sheet and quilt but no skirt. So I am getting ready to make two new crib skirts out of…are you ready for this?

A canvas drop cloth.

I have read about people using these as curtains and other decor, and it actually fits the look I want for the crib skirts…and the $10 price tag doesn’t hurt either! We’ll see if they actually turn out!

Speaking of bedskirts – I have been keeping my eye out for some new bedding for our bedroom. When Spencer and I got married I had never decorated anything before….ever. So silly me picked paint for our room before picking bedding and then had to find a bedspread that coordinated. Bad idea. So we have had a tan/brown quilt on our bed for the last 4 years that I have never really liked, but didn’t know how to change it without re-painting. Now that we are thinking about moving that means that I get to learn from my mistakes and buy bedding first and then pick my paint

While at Target yesterday I found about 3 different comforters that I really liked the only thing I didn’t like is that they come with a fitted bed skirt or no skirt at all! I like a nice full ruffled skirt (I think it’s because the other ones never stay perfectly ironed and straight.) So when I saw a king sized ruffled bedskirt in the clearance aisle for $13 AND found that it matched all three of the comforters that I liked I figured it would be a good purchase! I also got the twin size so I can cut it up and make some pillows to tie it into whatever bedding I end up with. Now, nothing kills a good deal like coming home and finding that your super duper deal of a bedskirt had been not only opened, but stained!? Yuck! I thought about taking it back, but after looking at it I figured I could get it out in the wash. I am happy to report that I just took it out of the dryer and the stain is nowhere to be seen

(I am starting to think this post isn’t so much of a hodge podge post…it’s mostly about random decor stuff, so let’s pretend I titled this post “random decor stuff!”)

Around the same time that I got the super deal on crib bedding I also bought twin bedding for Andrew’s (soon to be) big boy bed. Every time I look at said bedding I think, “I like it, but I don’t love it.” But it was cheap, it coordinated with the crib bedding and I already had it so figured I should just deal with it. Then on Sunday night I went to Burlington Coat Factory and I found bedding that I loooove. It wasn’t quite as cheap, almost, but not quite. But since I loved it, I decided it was worth it!

Meet Andrew’s new big boy bedding.

I love that it has orange and navy in it, I think it will be so fun to decorate a room around this bedding! I even think that I will get to use more drop cloths for curtains and bedskirts

Does anyone get the feeling that I am ready to decorate something…anything!?!?! I haven’t re-decorated our house since we moved in, with the exception of Andrew’s nursery and I never really felt like I “decorated” it. I have so many ideas in my head that I hope I get to act on soon!

read more

The Big Reveal

Apr 7, 2010 by Lindsay

Woo hoo! I am so excited that I can FINALLY share before and after pictures of the project we have been working on!

Three weeks ago we started re-doing our back porch. I wanted the boys to have an area to play that is outside but still enclosed. We started by pulling up the nasty old carpet

We ripped out the screens

We scraped the metal

We scraped the floor

We then painted the metal, painted the floor, replaced the screens, got a new sun shade, pressure washed and here you have it…BEFORE

and…..AFTER!

Once we started on the porch one thing led to another and I ended up re-doing ALL of our landscaping. It was no small task. Here is a picture after ONE DAY of raking and pulling out the old stuff.

But, I am so happy with the way it turned out, it’s exactly what I pictured in my head!

BEFORE

AFTER

I planted boxwood bushes all across, used purple salvia in the back, planted orange merigolds in the corners and planted herbs in urns.

In this planter I have chives, rosemary, thyme and oregano

In this planter I have basil, parsley and cilantro

I moved all of the bricks back about 3 feet and put down pine mulch.

Now for the front. When we started on the back I didn’t think I was going to mess with the front because there was just so much landscaping to re-do I thought it would be crazy expensive. But by cutting back the amount of landscaping to about a quarter of what it was I was able to re-do it for not much money. I also have my grandparents to thank because they worked like dogs helping me with pulling out the front and re-planting it all.

BEFORE (This picture was from 3 years ago, it’s the only picture I could find of the whole front of our house!)

AFTER

As you can see we moved the bricks back A LOT and it will be much easier for me to maintain the yard myself this way! We will have to spread some grass seed where there was previously landscaping so that the grass will fill in. I got all my boxwoods at the flea market for $7 each and my Meyer lemon tree there as well for $25! I can’t wait to have fresh lemons! The two bushes on the far ends were already there, we just cut them way back. I also got a new welcome mat and wreath!

I never thought I would enjoy working in the yard as much as I did. It was a great workout and I got a little bit of a tan! There is a ton of satisfaction doing a project this big and I look forward to enjoying the fruits of my labor

read more