It's Getting Hot in Here

So I told you on Tuesday that we had replaced all the insulation in the attic above the main room (where we had to replace the ceiling).  I've had the pictures forever, but I haven't showed them to you yet.  They aren't super exciting since I had to stay away (we discovered doing the baffles that I'm super allergic to fiberglass insulation), but I did get a few.

The insulation in our attic is all blown in, which is different that what I'm used to.  The house I grew up in had insulation that came in big rolls, so this blown in stuff is new.  It was also very messy when they took the ceiling down.

But we got the new ceilings up, and rehung the walls.  It was right before we moved in that we decided to go ahead and replace the insulation that had come down because it was getting cold in the main room, especially at night.  So we bought what seemed like a ton of packages of insulation, picked up the blower machine from Home Depot, and went to work.

Landon got to go up into the attic to blow it in, which meant he got to suit up.

The blower was actually outside the Master bedroom window, and we ran the hose in the window, out into the hallway, and then up into the attic.

I tried to get a picture of the insulation being blow in, but the attic was dark and I didn't want to get too close, so this was about all you could see.

It also didn't help that the main room was at the other end of the house from the attic access, hence the never ending pink snake.  Landon is down there somewhere blowing the insulation in while Alan was outside feeding the packages into the machine.  Overall, it didn't take too long to do the entire main room.  We still have to put some back over the Master suite where we had to replace some of the ceiling, but that won't be too bad.  We actually discovered that this insulation isn't as itchy as the old stuff, and it settles pretty quickly.

But it is nice that the main room stays warm now, and we are always one of the last houses in the neighborhood to have snow on the roof when it does snow (which it has done a lot this winter).

Framing the Issue

Now that we are starting to get the furniture settled a little bit, we can begin hanging some things on the walls.  Since Landon had a grand total of one thing hanging on the walls at his house in Lexington, despite living there for several years, it's been mostly up to me to figure out where to put things.  Luckily, a few weekends ago my Dad and Step-Mom came to visit and, while the guys were working on tiling the floor of the master bathroom, Kathy and I hung up some frames.

The one wall that I was having the most trouble figuring out what to do with the stretch of wall in between the craft room door and the first door to the family room.  It's in the foot path to the kitchen area, and so we can't put any furniture there, but I wanted something there since it's one of the first things you see when you walk in the front door.

While I was showing Kathy the collection of frames that we had, she mentioned the idea of doing a whole grouping of frames on that wall.  And we went to work.  We started with the one piece of art that Landon had, a photo he took in Maine, and worked off of that.

We added a poster I was given as a high school graduation gift many years ago as well as a framed score sheet from a game of hearts that was a college graduation gift from my church group.

Once we had the three major pieces, we tried to find some things to work with them, but there wasn't really anything that fit just right.  I went a few days later and got a new frame for my lighthouse poster as well as a square shadow box frame for and a regular 5 x 7 picture frame.

I found a photo I had taken in Charleston, SC for the small frame and balanced it out with another frame the same size that we already had in which I put the score card from a game of mini-golf that Landon and I played on our second date.

As for the square frame, I decided to use a project idea that I got from the Young House Love Book--Project 124 "Whip up some Custom State Art".  I found an outline of Kentucky online and downloaded it and sized it to the dimensions I wanted.  Then I printed it out and traced it onto some scrapbook paper I found at JoAnn's for $0.69.  I used some blue scrapbook paper as the background and then mounted the outline in the center to get a really nice (and coordinating) piece of art that cost about $15--nearly all for the frame.

I was the perfect thing to finish off the grouping and now I love looking at my wall of art when I come home every day.

We may eventually add more to the bottom, but for now I like it.  And, since it's nearly the only thing we have hanging on our walls at the moment, it makes things feel a little more like home.

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.

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!