We're Still Alive!!

So, it's been awhile.  A long while.  I swear it seems like the last month or so has flow by, probably because I've been so busy with school, the house, and hosting a baby shower.  Wait, what?  How can I host a baby shower when I don't have a house?  Well, we do.

Just before Thanksgiving, we moved into our house!  It's not finished yet; we still have major work to do on the master bathroom, the master bedroom, and the family room as well as small things to do around the rest of the house, but we're in.  So far, we're loving it, but we still have so much unpacking and decorating to do.

When we first moved in, things look like this:

Total Chaos.  And this was after a lot of the boxes were unpacked.

The kitchen counters weren't in yet., so I had two small pieces of plywood.
This was all my counter space for a couple of weeks.

At least the TV was working.

Note, we don't plan on leaving the bookshelf in the middle of the floor.  

Things have come a long way since then.  We've gotten two of the bedrooms settled enough to feel "finished" at least in terms of being able to use the beds.  And the office is getting somewhat more organized as well.....although it is still the catch all room, so it's a bit of a mess.  The guest bath (which is currently the only one) is also finished, and looks great.

The current master bedroom, at least until the real master gets done. 

The guest bath.  Sorry for the crappy pictures, it's so tiny that it's very hard to photograph.

I love the shower curtain, though.  It works perfectly with the tile in the shower.

My new IKEA towel bar/shelf.
 The solution to only having room t hang one towel bar in the whole bathroom.  

The middle bedroom (Bedroom 2).  If you look closely,
 you can see a cat butt peeking out from under the bed.

We also finally got our kitchen counters installed, and they are beautiful.  I love them!  And it's so nice to have so much space to work.  I've been cooking up a storm, and I've yet to run out of room, even with cookies spread all over everywhere.

The kitchen.  Please look past the cereal box on the island.
  I forgot to move it in the first photo.

My beautiful island with my beautiful counters.  Quartz all the way.

So much space, even next to the stove.
This is more than was in the house when we bought it.

The view from the sink.
You don't get a close up of the sink since it's still full of dishes from the baby shower, but trust me, it's beautiful.

And my beautiful pendant lights.  

We've also been working on the rest of the living area.  We love that it's all one big room and that I can be in the kitchen cooking and still watching TV or talking to Landon while he's on his laptop on the couch.  It's so nice.

Looking from the hallway toward the kitchen.

Looking from the foyer toward the kitchen.

The Christmas tree in front of the window nearest the foyer.  

So there you have it.  We've been busy, but now that things have slowed down, I'm going to try and update you on a lot of the little projects that have been going on to get us to this point.  Stay tuned.

Moving on Up....

I promised a big update, and you are going to get it, but not all at once.  There's been a lot going on at the house.  We're entering the home stretch now (at least for most of the house) and it's all starting to come together.  Which means, of course, that we now have DOORS!  Yes folks, we have doors in the house again.

Now, this may not sound super exciting to anyone else, but if you've not had doors in the house for the better part of the last three months, having doors again is a big change.  Sure, they aren't painted yet (or most of them aren't anyway).  And true, they don't have handles yet, but let's focus on the big picture here.  I can now use the bathroom without worrying about someone walking in on me since with the curtain up it was hard to tell if someone was in there.

Also, we have trim!  The very first thing we took out of the house (after the nasty carpet) was the trim.  It was wood, but not nice wood, and it didn't meet in the corners at all.   And it all came out and is now living in the basement.  And now we have nice new trim.  It's pretty and white and, while it's not all in yet, what is in actually meets in the corners!  Yay for small things.

And I promise that other big things are happening (like kitchen type things).  But I'm not going to give it all to you at once.  So you'll just have to wait for that update.  But to tide you over.......

Young House Love

I'm finally writing a post that is long, long over due.  Well, technically 15 days overdue I guess, since the event we went to was on October 20, but better late than never, right?

Anyway, on Saturday October 20, Landon and I took Saturday morning off and, instead of working on our house, we went down to the Books by the Banks festival in downtown Cincinnati.  Why?  Well, it had a lot to do with this:  

Most of you are probably wondering who those people in the photograph with me are.  They happen to be John & Sherry Petersik, the couple behind the blog Young House Love which I love.  They also happen to have just written a book and were speaking at the festival.  I'm a regular reader of their blog and I was excited to get to meet them, so I drug Landon downtown with me.  

It was a fun time.  The talk was great, and really helped put what we are doing here in perspective with  tips like "Don't Rush It" and "Don't Worry About Making Mistakes."  I think even Landon enjoyed it.  

And then we stood in line forever to get a chance to meet them. I was hoping to snag a copy of their book, but they were sold out, so they signed a book plate for me, (and one for my friend Andrea who introduced me to their blog) and we had a chance to chat for a second.  I would have loved to tell them all about the house, but the line was still really long, and I didn't want to take up too much of their time.  I guess I can only hope the find my little blog and enjoy it.  

And if you are confused as to how I have a copy of the book that was sold out, I have one word for you:  Amazon.  I've already gotten through most of it, and I love the tips and tricks they share.  I can't wait to use some of the ideas I have in our house, once we get to the decorating stage.  (Which shouldn't be too long.  Big things have been happening.  Stay tuned.)

Paint with All the Colors of the Wind

I realize that we've done a ton of painting in this house; so much so that even I lose track from time to time.  To help everyone keep things straight, I figured I'd do a rundown of what we've painted so far and what color everything is incase anyone is interested.

All the colors are Sherwin Williams and I'll try to give the numbers along with the colors just in case anyone wants to know.

First off, outside we went with Mega Greige (SW 7031) for the main part of the house and Brainstorm Bronze (SW 7033) for the trim.  They are both warm grays and look nice with the stone (which is yellowy) and the red/orange shingles.

Then we have the guest bedrooms.  Bedrooms 1 & 3 (the craft room) got painted Wool Skein (SW 6148). It turned out to be a kind of greenish/khaki color that's a nice neutral.  It's hard to see in photos, but it looks nice in person.

Bedroom 2 is the only guest bedroom painted a different color.  It's Discrete White (SW 6266) which is a very very light purple color.  It almost looks white until you put something white right up next to it.  The reason for such a light color in that room is that the bedspread that is going in there is a very dark purple and I wanted something that wouldn't compete with it for attention.

I swear the walls are painted.  

The Guest Bathroom is painted Filmy Green (SW 6190) which is my designer friend Ann's go to bathroom color (just kidding Ann).  It is, however, the color of at least two of my friend's bathrooms.  It has a really awful name, but it really is a great bathroom color.  It goes really well with our accent tile, and I'm super excited about how well it goes with the shower curtain I got for the guest bathroom.

The Master Bedroom is maybe my favorite color in the house.  It's called Languid Blue (SW 6226).  It's the most perfect relaxing blue.  Just dark enough, but it doesn't really make the room feel super dark.

The middle is Languid Blue.
The Left is Meditative and the Right is Sleepy Blue
 (which will be the Master Bath Color I think).

The accent wall is the living area is painted Clary Sage (SW 6178) which I also love.  It is probably my second favorite color in the house and will almost certainly be the paint color for the family room when we start painting it.

The rest of the house that has been painted so far is painted a color called Kilim Beige (SW 6106).  It's a very nice neutral color which goes well with everything.  The foyer still needs to be painted the same color, and there's a very good chance the Master closet will get a coat of this too.

So, if you are keeping score, the only parts of the house that still need paint are the foyer (Kilim Beige), the Family Room (Clary Sage), and the Master Bathroom (Sleepy Blue).  We also still need to do the trim on the sides and back of the house as well as the siding on the back of the house and above the garage.  Oh yes, and we've painted every inch of ceiling in the entire house so far.  Literally every inch.  I have a feeling by the time we're done with this house, I won't want to paint anything for a very long time.

Witchy Woman....

So, the title of this post has nothing to do with anything except that it's a great song by the Eagles and it always makes me think of fall.

I finally got back to the house when it wasn't raining and got some good after shots of the work I did last weekend outside.  It really does look a lot better.

First the Before shot of the front of the house.  This was before we took down the tree in between the windows or did much of anything other than weed the flower bed.

And the After.  There is still more work to do, but you can actually see the house now.  We haven't painted the wood over the garage yet, but once we get that done, it will finish off all the painting on the front of the house.

The crazy trees on either side of the garage are gone now too, so you can actually walk down the sidewalk and see the stone on the sides.  Why anyone would want to cover that up is beyond me.  We're still not entirely sure what color we'll paint the garage door, but just getting the wood painted and the light replaced will help out a lot.

Also gone are the giant green bushes that dominated the big flower bed next to the driveway.  They were huge and scratchy and totally blocked everything.  Now they are gone!  We left the juniper though.   I like him.  He's small and tidy.

Before:

And After:

There's still a little more do to outside.  We need to replace the trees that were on either side of the garage with something and I need to pull up the weed paper in the bed along the house, but it looks a lot better than it did when we bought the place.  We've even had some neighbors stop by and thank us for all of our hard work.  Hopefully we won't ever be "that house" on the block again.

Stop Baby, What's That Sound?

So the last two weekend (and the week in between) have been crazy busy.  It's midterms for me at school, so I've been swamped with homework, papers, projects, and exams, and work at the house has accelerated dramatically.

Last weekend was Landon's birthday, but that didn't stop us from getting a lot done.  Work continued on the ceiling in the living area with lots of drywall mud and sanding.  The ceiling also got primed on Sunday (which made both me and Landon sore for two days after).  It might have had something to do with the fact that we also primed and painted the master bedroom ceiling.

Me, wiping down the ceiling before we primed it.
Sponge + Ceiling = not much fun.

Lots and lots of plumbing work went on in the basement with the sink in the guest bath finally getting hooked up.  Which of course means that the vanity cabinets and the vanity top went in.  Fun fact:  before you install a vanity, you should check to make sure that the wall behind it is flat.  Ours was not which leaves us with this situation:

It's hard to tell from here, but the sides are flush while the middle is about 1/4" away from the wall.

You can see it better here.  It's not a huge gap, but you can see it.  

We're working on trying to find a solution.  We're thinking (thanks to Ann again) that we might frame in the mirror and set it right down on top of the backsplash.  If anyone has any other ideas, let me know.

This week, Alan cut out the drywall in the ceiling of the guest bathroom where the old vent fan and a really bad patch was and installed a new piece with a cut out for our new vent fan/light.  It's totally awesome.  It looks like a pot light but is also a vent fan.  Best idea ever!

It doesn't look like much, but it's great!

We had purchased a vent fan/light from Lowe's but when we hooked it up to test, the light was so dim it wasn't going to work as the primary light for the room.  It went back and we ordered the one from Amazon.

We also have the vanity light installed, and I love it.  The guest bath is nearly finished.  We only need to finish the ceiling, paint it, and get the mirror and cabinet hardware installed.

Nicely sealed grout and tile.  Not a fan of sealing the grout, but it will be worth it in the long run.

Alan spent a good portion of the weekend working on putting in the baffles on the back of the house and installing more insulation.  Then he spent the next couple of days framing out the rafters so we can reinstall the soffits along the back.

The hallway also got primed, and then had more drywall work done and then got primed again.  So much fun.  We're buying Kilz by the 5 gallon bucket now.

And, because we were trying to get most of the painting done, I picked up some samples for the master bedroom and living area paint colors on Friday, applied them, and by Friday night, we were painting.  I didn't get a photo of the living area colors, but I did snap one of the bedroom colors.

From Left to Right:
Meditative, Languid Blue, Sleepy Blue

And we decided to go with Languid Blue in the Master bedroom.  It's absolutely gorgeous and makes me silly happy.  I can't wait to move into that room!  Landon and I spent this Friday night painting the room and Saturday morning it was even more awesome.

One wall done

Two walls down.

All done and dry!.  It's a little darker in person.

Saturday morning, we painted the ceilings in the hallway, foyer, living area, and kitchen.  It took about 3 hours and I had paint all over my face, but it looks okay.  We probably need to do a second coat, but I'm not sure I have it in me.

We then moved on to painting the walls in the hallway and main living area/kitchen.  I went with a nice neutral (Kilim Beige) for most of the walls and the hallway with our TV wall done in Clary Sage.  I love both colors, but the green is so nice it will probably end up being our Family room color as well.

Around noon, Alan rented a Dingo to help grade the dirt in the back/side yards and hopefully stop water from coming into the basement.  I think the boys enjoyed using the new toy.  But they did get some dirt moved and the posts left over from the pool pulled out.

Adding dirt next to the house so water flows away.

Where did the dirt come from?  The hill in the back.

Now what?

Taking out the pool posts with Brad Mattix.

Almost got it!

While the boys were outside playing in the dirt, I was inside getting the floors in the bedrooms/hallway/main living area ready for hardwood to go down.  This involved lots and lots of vacuuming, sweeping, scraping, and repeating.  And let me say this:  if you are going to be vacuuming up drywall dust, invest in the extra filter bag for the shop vac that's made for fine dust.  It's a life saver.

But, by the end of the night, all the floor were ready for....well floors!

And Sunday, while the boys were playing outside again, I touched up some paint and painted the widow frames.  And then I went outside to work on the front flower beds.  I needed to finish cutting out a lot of the black weed paper that was left behind.  About 3/4 of it was exposed now, and the rest had weeds growing on top of it.  I also moved some plant around, thinned some out, and generally cleaned up the front of the house some more.  Until it began to pour the rain!  I got soaked, but at least some yard work got done.

While I was digging in the front, the boys were digging in the back.  The chain link fence came out, was rolled up, and loaded up.  And the backyard got more grading work done and all the honeysuckle trees ripped out.  You can see the yard portion of the back yard now!

It's a muddy mess, but you can see the back now!

So much clearer

The same area before.  

Another before view.

The former home of the pool.
One day there will be grass here.

And the before.

And, while all that was going on outside, something even more exciting was going on inside.......Floors!

First signs of flooring:  Tar paper going down.

And the starter row.  

What's under the boxes?  

Floors!  So pretty!

Yup, the floor started going down.  And they look awesome!  I can't wait to see them more finished, but as of tonight, most of the hallway is done and about 3/4 of the Master Bedroom.  I love my Maple floors!