Furniture Update!

We ordered our bedroom furniture almost 2 weeks ago. We found a simple dark cherry solid wood (no veneer over plywood) bedroom set that we both loved. If you follow the link that should take you to my dresser. Love the door front in the middle. You open it and there are 3 drawers inside! Our bed is the panel bed without drawers in the footboard. It has brushed nickel hardware and is very simple. I love it! We bought 2 nightstands, a king sized bed (YIPPEEE!!!), a dresser with mirror and a chest. It is absolutely beautiful. It isn't a red cherry - it is darker. It has whisper close drawers- so when you start to push a drawer closed, it finishes closing on its own. Wowzers! When we looked at Oak*Factory and Hav*erty's the furniture quality wasn't what Andy had in mind. He did some research and found that Kin*caid furniture is still made out of solid wood. We didn't think we'd be able to afford it but when we went it was half price! We looked, thought about it and made sure we could swing it before we went back a few days later to order it. Thank goodness for tax returns! We also ordered our mattress through a co-worker's son who helped us to get an AMAZING deal on a tempur pedic mattress and pillows. (Thanks Brenda and Kevin!!!) Our bed is going to be heavenly...we can't wait! Now we need a new comforter, sheets, and 2 bed side lamps. I can't wait to have a real night stand with drawers for things and a lamp right next to me for reading! We will probably paint our bedroom this spring/summer to match whatever comforter we find and like.

The Bathroom

The downstairs bathroom is done! It is beautiful! I'm in disbelief at what Andy was able to accomplish all on his own. Replacing cast iron pipes with pvc, drywall, priming, painting, tiling, and installing the toilet, vanity and mirror! I love our new bathroom! Yesterday he finished up the baseboard and quarter round. He has passed all of the inspections - plumbing, building, and electrical. So proud of you baby!

Now I just need to buy towels in the slate blue color to match the shower curtain. It is so handy having a bathroom in the basement! Although many times the boys or myself have forgotten about it and gone upstairs to use the bathroom! Take a look...

On the left is a bi-fold closet door. I guess we still need to put in shelving. But that isn't necessary quite yet! You can see a little of the light (which has a hidden fan inside of it!) and the pretty shower curtain. It has khaki colored velour stripes running vertically.


This picture shows our new vanity and mirror, lights above the mirror, and new toilet. Check out the tile - you can see just a little bit. The color of the walls is a light khaki.

We have a working fireplace!

Terrible picture of me...but it shows the fireplace and my little karate chopper reading to me for his reading log!! He is becoming such a good reader!!

Yipee! Our fireplace works! We had it inspected and cleaned in November. Last year we didn't get to use the fireplace because we had just moved in and didn't have the extra money to have the fireplace inspected. So we waited a year (Andy patiently, me impatiently!) to have a beautiful fire in our cozy basement. I loved decorating the Christmas tree with a fire crackling and Christmas music playing! My mom said it was so Norman Rockwell! But it was nice. We've enjoyed many fires over the past 6 weeks or so.

P.S. How long will I think of this as the "new house" for all of my blog post tags??!!

P.P.S. See the black coal bucket in the background? This came from Andy's grandmother's house. It has coal in it from when her house was heated with coal. It's a pretty cool antique.

Downstairs Bathroom

This is the before shot...so glad it doesn't look like this anymore!

Greenboard for the sink/toilet area.

Andy's fantastic drywall job - this will be a closet! Tub is on the right.

The beautiful tile I love. Plus my chuck's. Which I also love. But notice the floor around the tile -clean and level for the tile job!

First Andy redid the plumbing, behind the scenes work that you might remember from the previous posts. The old cast iron pipes have been replaced with PVC pipes. Then came floor leveling after repairing the concrete he had to drill up. Now he has been drywalling and sanding...repeat, repeat, repeat. The new drywall is primed, the light/fan combo is installed, and he is working on the tile today. Next comes painting- we picked out a putty color like a khaki with a hint of gray in it if that makes since. I love our tile choice! The bathroom is going to look so nice. We picked out an espresso colored vanity, mirror, and cabinet to hang over the toilet at Lo*we's. I told Andy I might just start getting ready downstairs in this bathroom! Ha!

It's been one year!

We've lived in our "new" house for a whole year now! Time has flown. It feels like we've been here forever. I am so happy with the location - close to work for both Andy and myself and we absolutely love being on a court. It is perfect for our family. There is no traffic and there are tons of neighborhood kids that the boys like to play with outside. We are so blessed to have our home. In the time that we have been here Andy has worked on many projects. We've also had the stove replaced and the windows replaced. He built a laundry room and redid the cast iron pipes under the concrete floor of the garage as PVC pipes. Andy built a treehouse for the boys in the backyard which is 90% done and cut down a dead pine tree. He has fixed countless problems from the previous homeowners home fix-its that were done incorrectly! We have hung some things on the walls and have curtains only in the living room but we are getting some important projects done!

Things I still want to do in the next few years: repaint the upstairs, get a new front door (the big door, not the glass door), new shutters, redo the soffit with vinyl, drywall the basement so there isn't paneling, paint the play room, landscape the front yard and stump removal for 3 stumps in the backyard. Some of those are a bigger priority than others but those are the things that quickly came to mind!

We are so happy to have found the right home!

Andy's current project

Andy feels best when he has multiple projects going on at one time. Just kidding! He has known the french doors going out to our deck weren't installed correctly for a while. So when I came home from work on Tuesday, this is what I found!

It was a big surprise but definitely needed to be done. They had filled a gap between the door frame and the floor with DIRT. I mean what on earth! No wonder we had ants coming in from this spot last year...Andy says the previous homeowner knew enough about remodeling projects to be dangerous! Everything that was updated was done 1/2way. So it looks decent but isn't going to last without Andy fixing the previous owner's mistakes. Very thankful for a handy husband who is motivated to fix everything as time and money allow. The doors are back in so now he just needs to put up the trim and finish the outside screen doors that are on the deck side. Thanks for all of your hard work Andrew!

Finished Laundry Room!!

Before






After

It's done! The shelves are installed and now we are getting things organized on them to free up some of our other closets. Andy has done a phenomenal job! I am so proud of him! Thank you so much for all of your hard work babe!

Laundry Room

Taken from the doorway - I love the paint color we decided on! Bright and cheery!

Luke's crazy pose!

Andy's project from the summer continues! To see the past project posts see here, here and here! The past two weeks he has done the mudding on the drywall, tons of sanding, priming, painting, electrical, laid the laminate floor, put up the baseboard, and now he is installing shelving. He is amazing. I can't believe he knows how to do all of this. Plus he did all the plumbing this past summer to move the washer/dryer from the back of the garage to the laundry room he built! It used to be part of the garage but he put up a wall in the garage and cut out a door in the basement and poof! a laundry room was created. Can you tell I'm excited? We haven't been able to do laundry for the past 2 weeks at our house. He did 2 loads to get us through at his Uncle's apartment last weekend but that's all we've done in two weeks. My washer and dryer are both running right now! That is a good thing! Once all the shelving is installed I'll take a final picture and post that. His next project he plans to return to is the basement bathroom. That project was going on in tandem with the pipe replacement and laundry room etc.

An Expensive 2 Days

Expensive but good...!!

Yesterday Andy took the Jeep to get new tires. They've needed to be replaced for 1.5-2years probably. You know it's bad when your parents are both sides are telling you that your tires are needing replaced! So, a year or so later we've gotten it done! I do feel safer driving the Jeep now that the tires actually have tread on them. Thankful!

Also, we've been waiting on our new windows since about November. We finally made the official decision then and today our windows were installed. They were 6-8 weeks behind for installation back in November. Then add in all the freezing cold temps and tons 'o snow and we finally have our windows on March 2nd. But hey, no complaining, we're just glad to have them installed. They look great! I got home and walked in every room oohing and aahing over them. It was like a brand new house! We had original windows (~31 years old) single pane glass. They were old, drafty, & noisy (in the boy's room 1 window rattled loudly in the wind). So thankful! So now you know where all of our tax return went plus some!!

Christmas Decorations!

Check out some of our Christmas decorations - we've had so much fun figuring out where to put everything in our new house!

Here is the big family christmas tree down in the basement with all our ornaments.

Here is our first fire place and mantle! We were thrilled to hand our stockings! I also set out a lot of my snowman things across the top.

In our split foyer you look up and see this cut-out into the living room. I hated this when we bought the house and wanted to cut out the knee wall. Now I'm thinking that is way too much work! It will probably stay like this forever...so I made the best of it with more christmas decorations! Candles and figurines I haven't set out in years b/c of little fingers grabbing... :)

In our new house I set up 2 trees! A first for us! I've had the wish for a snowman tree for several years and always said when we move into a bigger house I was going to put all of my snowman ornaments on a tree. Here it is! I love it. This is an old tree we inherited and it works for now. I would love to have a taller skinny prelit tree eventually for this room.

Laundry Room & Ipod!

Andy fixed my Ipod! He shaved down some needle nose pliers so they would fit into the headphone jack. Then he used a tiny drill bit to shave off sides of the piece stuck inside my ipod. This created a taller piece in the middle. He used superglue on the pliers and stuck them to the piece stuck in my ipod and it finally came out! He tried so many creative ways to get it out and his perseverance paid off!!! Last night I got to run with my ipod instead of my watch. I'm 1/2 finished with the C25K!! I plan to run in a 5K on Sept. 26. Thank you so much baby!!

Here is Andy before the door to the laundry room was cut out, you can see the outline.

Here he is with the new door in place! Just needs to be primed and painted.

In other news, I have a working washer and dryer!!! You do not know how exciting it is to be able to do laundry at home again. After 2 months of my fabulous Maw-ma and Paw-pa picking up dirty clothes, washing clothes, and folding them I know they are thankful our washer and dryer are working too! Thank you so so so much Maw and Paw. We couldn't have survived the summer without your help!! Mom, thank you so so so much too for the help you gave with our laundry as well. We appreciate you all! I plan to have you all over for dinner soon as a thank you! The dryer isn't in the laundry room yet, but just on the other side of the framed wall. So we've been doing "loads" of laundry around here and are all caught up. Yea! He keeps on working away and finding more plumbing problems as he goes. Whoever the plumber was that helped when the house was built either didn't care about the job or had no clue what he was doing. The hall and downstairs plumbing for the toilets were done incorrectly. They sloped the wrong way making the toilet have major problems with flushing etc. Thankfully Andy is fixing everything along the way. Thus causing for the project timeline to be longer- but it is all for the good of our new home!

Here is our laundry room! Still has a ways to go...imagine shelves, tile, paint, walls, etc, etc, etc!!

The Project Continues

Framing for the new wall to divide the laundry room/garage.

All the supply lines and what not that Andy has spent HOURS on.

New concrete from the jack hammering to cover up the new PVC pipes. Just ignore the sawdust.

So, two months ago I showed you pics of my garage with the jackhammering and rusting pipes. Then I showed you pics of the new PVC pipes in the garage floor. Well, Andy has been diligently working on The Major Project. Here are some pictures to show you the progress 2 months in! You know I haven't had a washer/dryer for 2 months, right? Well last night Andy had the washing machine hooked up. The dryer is hooked up in it's old location b/c he is still working on the electric. We were so excited to do laundry at our own house to find out that the washing machine won't complete the spin cycle. It drained the water but didn't spin the clothes dry. Nice. and WHY??? Washing machines are supposed to last forever right? Like at least 20+ years or something! We've had this one for about 8 years...

The Major Project

Notice that all the cast iron pipes are gone, replaced with white PVC pipes!

Here is a look at what Andy has been working on night and day. He finished up this phase at 2am. Now the pipes are all replaced and the air condition condensation drips down into a pipe and out the cleanout drain instead of into a bucket that Andy was emptying at least twice a day. Already great progress has been made! I am amazed that Andy can do anything around the house...including major plumbing changes. He bought a book and used the internet and it looks like its professionally done. You are awesome baby!

What a Week.

It's been a rough week. Andy marked a trench from the front of the garage to the back to set the pipes for moving the washer. Then he used a concrete saw to cut the trench and a jack hammer to break up the concrete. All of this = thick layer of concrete dust throughout my house. It came in through the vents and got everywhere. In doing this he found the main clean out pipe for the house. It's old and was cast iron and now had a couple holes in it from jack hammering. He was going to just repair the holes but then decided to replace all the cast iron under the garage and downstairs bathroom to PVC pipe. This was a great decision we found out because the pipes were rusting from the inside and were nasty and narrow. He has also fixed the plumbing for the downstairs bathroom and sloped it so it will all work appropriately. So what was going to be a remodel laundry room project has now turned into something MUCH bigger - but for the best! It's been a long hard week for Andy. Thankfully my dad and his uncle have been over helping. One night Andy and Uncle Bill worked all night, until 5:30 am on the pipes. Crazy. I'll post pics soon. They are finishing the pipes tonight. So this week was rough because Andy was working night and day on the project. The house had concrete dust EVERYWHERE. I was helping with VBS every night from 6-8:30 which just makes dinner and bed time tough. The DVD player broke. I had times without water - couldn't flush the toilets or use the kitchen sink. Thankfully we can use water everywhere now. The washer and dryer haven't been useable for a couple weeks. Thank you to my mom, Stephanie, and Ma-maw for helping with the laundry this week. So I'm hoping to spend some time with Andy tonight or at least tomorrow to celebrate Father's day. He definitely needs a day of rest and relaxation!

Tyler had his 9 month appointment and weighed 23 pounds, 7ounces (87%), was in the 91%ile for height and get this...99%ile for head circumference!!

Laundry Room/Bathroom Remodel

Above: Where the tub goes. Below: toilet/sink

When we moved into our house the downstairs bathroom had been changed from a 1/2 bath with washer/dryer to a full bath. The washer and dryer had been moved to the garage. We knew there were some problems because the dryer had no where to vent and the toilet downstairs overflowed. Also when I washed the dishes in the kitchen it smelled bad in the bathroom downstairs. Andy knew there was going to be a lot of plumbing problems. We decided we wanted to move the washer/dryer back into the house and fix the bathroom so it can be used. Andy is going to wall off a section of the garage with drywall to make a small laundry room downstairs. The pic below shows the part of the garage that used to have a workbench. Now it will have a wall to make the laundry room. The next picture shows where Andy will cut out a door to the laundry room.

Here is the tub in the garage for the time being. Anyone need a shower?

Our new furniture!

Really need to start hanging pictures on the walls! The lamp and pillows have floral designs on them. I got the pillows at Kirkland's because I didn't care for the pillows the couch came with.

A couple weeks before we moved we went couch shopping. We looked at 3 furniture stores and finally found a couch we liked! The store had great prices and we ended up getting a couch, love seat, coffee table, 2 end tables, and 2 lamps. The furniture was delivered Tuesday! We are really enjoying having somewhere to sit upstairs. After we bought it we had looked at so much that everything was kind of running together. I couldn't exactly remember what it looked like...once it was delivered we were so pleased with what we had picked out!

Life is so busy I haven't had much time for blogging. I gave up TV months ago. Can't wait for summer! Hopefully I'll be able to catch up on Grey's and Desperate Housewives.

Starting to feel like home...

We are finally feeling a little bit more settled into our new home. We're continuing to meet neighbors, unpack boxes, and get used to the house. We have ant poison placed as recommended by Cara and Jenn. The upstairs is done except for the living room- our furniture should be arrive in about 2 weeks. So right now the LR is filled with broken down boxes and stuff for the china cabinet. The basement is still a big mess and the garage is a whole different story! I'm hoping Andy can get the washer/dryer hooked up tomorrow so I can do lots o' laundry this weekend to catch up. We'll keep working on the basement a little at a time. I did not realize how hard it would be to adjust to a new home that doesn't feel like home! Thankfully things are getting better. I have lots of pictures to share of the boys in our new house. That will have to happen this weekend. I'm exhausted after a field trip to the zoo with the 2nd graders! Gotta go to bed so I can be ready for 2 more days of school this week! Next year the zoo needs to be on a Friday...!
*Ty goes to CCH on Tuesday for another glaucoma test.

New House

We love our new house! It feels like a mansion. The moving went well and un fortunately we were out of our old house not a minute before we had to be...midnight Friday. Moving took a long time! Andy and Uncle Bill went back at 11 to do a little cleaning for the new owners so it didn't look awful. We've done a lot of unpacking... I would post a picture of the living room filled with empty boxes but at this point that is too much effort! The boys bedrooms are unpacked as is the kitchen. There is plenty left to do. We keep finding things we want to fix or update but the main annoyance is the ants. We keep finding ants in the house. We're going to have to call a bug man. The first two nights in the new house have been great! We made it to Wilson's t-ball game yesterday afternoon and made it to church this morning. It's great having a double driveway to park both cars in. Everyone is doing well with the move except Lottie. She has a torn ACL (I think) and now that we live in a house with stairs it seems to really be hurting her leg. Poor thing. Other than that she is doing well. Off to unpack!

The Madness Has Begun!

We're to the point of paths...

It's fuller than it looks, I'm standing in the dining room.

So, I'm trying to not let my anxiety get the best of me in the next few days. It has definitely increased, but I am trying really hard to manage it well. A huge thank you to Heather and Jimmy for keeping Wilson and Luke for a few hours tonight! We got soo much packing done! Another big thank you to my mom for coming and helping me pack. We got a lot of the kitchen packed, the pictures off the walls, and the linen and hall closet done. I'm feeling some success and trying not to panic at how much there is left. Hopefully I'll get to sleep Thursday night!! Andy knows how I am without sleep so I'm sure he'll make me go to bed. 3 more days...

We're stressed around here...

So we move in 5 days. Here was a conversation between Andy and I after he got home from work tonight.

Andy: So what did you do tonight?
Me: unloaded/loaded dishwasher
washed dishes
gave Ty a bath
made hamburgers and homemade fries for dinner
Wilson's t-ball game
Got boys ready for bed
Andy: Is that all? (referring to the lack of packing)
Me: Yes, that's ALL.

We're stressed. So much to do for the move while life keeps marching on...still all of the everyday stuff and I'm finding it really hard to make time for packing. Thankfully Tuesday night the big boys are going over to Heather and Jimmy's so we can do some packing without them around to get in the way! Hopefully we'll still be talking to each other then. Just kidding!