Hello!!! Sorry I've been MIA for a few days, I've been working and sleeping and working some more. Mike and I went over to the house tonight to tackle pulling out the staples and tack strips from the carpeting that had covered the majority of our flooring, may its dirty remains rest in peace, and figured we could get it done in a day or so and then get started on refinishing. HA! Oh the fact that we are amateur DIY'ers is flaunted in our faces at every corner. After having been to the house for the better half of 3 hours tonight we hobbled back to my parents with three steps and a closet done. Three steps. Three hours, three steps. If I'm not mistaken that's an hour a step!!! Lord help us in this journey...
One huge thing we did get accomplished today though was ripping out this homemade coat closet that is at the entry way of our back door. There is hardwood floors underneath it and they had just screwed 2x4's into the wall, covered the front with paneling and slapped some metal bi fold doors on the front. I asked my sweet handyman to tear those suckas out so I could put this in its place...
No Mike, I'm not on the Pottery Barn website AGAIN!
Well, I have another LONG workday ahead of me again tomorrow and our sweet little bean has a doctor appointment. Hopefully one of these days I will remember to start taking some before and after pictures! Until the next post have a wonderful day!
xoxo
Hello! I meant to get a post up about us FINALLY CLOSING ON OUR HOUSE but we have been going NON STOP since it happened that now was the soonest I could squeeze it in.
Yesterday was spent showing it off to our family and then assessing up close and personal just exactly what it is we need to do to the place to get it lookin top noch. Turns out, a lot.... After the initial daunting shock wore off we went home and slept on the fact that we were finally homeowners and just how exciting it is and all the things we have in store for us in the near future.
Today my dad and I went over and spend the better half of 5 hours cleaning up the yard. 5 hours. That is a looong time doing yard work folks! I think it may be the most physical labor I've ever done. Ever. We started off by cutting down a huge burning bush by the side of the house. This thing had gotten so overgrown that it covered almost one entire living room window and you could see about a half a foot of top branches through the master bedroom window which is upstairs. Yeah yeah, that's right the burning bush burns no longer. When I told a few coworkers that at work they were all like "awww. But burning bushes are so pretty." I had to agree that a few weeks ago when I saw it I couldn't believe how stunning it was in all its vibrant glory but it soon passed and then all I was left with again was a bunch of overgrown branches. It looks much better now, trust me. After we were done doing that we raked the front and side yard which took FOR-EVER! Phew! Then we weeded a millions years worth of weeds out of the front flower beds. I can't thank my dad enough for lending me his helping hand and getting this all done. It looks so much better now!
Tonight Mike and I went over after supper to work on getting some cleaning done inside the house so we could get started on some prep work for all the patching and painting we have in store. I'm on one side of the living room just dusting and minding my own business when all of a sudden I hear a riiiiiiip! I turn around to find Mike on a ladder pulling down this panel of bead board! It turns out it had been gaping ever so slightly when mister Mike got a little curious. He apparently started by just cracking the edge ever so slightly to see what was behind it and when he discovered that it was not great but somewhat decent plaster and drywall he tore the daggum thing down!
There is the portion of the wall that has been ripped down. Green bead board on either side.
So now Mike and his brother are going to be scraping the wall tomorrow and then hanging quarter inch drywall to cover up the imperfections and make it look like a wall that always was instead of a wall that had wallpaper goo on it and was just covered with paneling because they couldn't get it off. Which I suppose in a sense is what we are doing too but.... whatever.
After he pulled part of the wall off he decided he was going to make his way upstairs to "look around a bit." After just a few short minutes I was called upstairs to see what he had found. There Mike was, on the floor digging at the carpet with his screwdriver. There in all its seemingly perfect glory was hardwood floors. Later in the night after we had walked around the house a million times with Mike's brother talking about all the projects we were thinking about doing we found ourselves upstairs again picking at the corner of carpet. Well, one thing led to another when all of a sudden Mike stands up with the corner of carpet and pulls! He just couldn't stop himself, he kept pulling and pulling and tearing up all the carpet to reveal beautiful hardwood floors!!!
BEFORE
AFTER
The pictures don't do them justice. For one they were taken on my phone, and secondly they really are just so nice! There is a bunch of carpet dust and floor taks but once all that is cleaned up I think its going to be perfect. These things aren't even going to need refinishing! They are still shiny and everything!
After we took a step back and assessed what we had done we moved onto the stairs. We weren't quite sure what we were going to do now that we had ripped up the carpet as the stairs in the house are also carpeted. We had wanted to put down hardwood stair risers at some point but that certainly wasn't something we had planned on tackling immediately. For one we don't have the money to do those and all the other projects that really needed to be done first and secondly, we were hoping to get a few other DIY projects under our belts before tackling something as daunting as building your own hardwood stairs. We figured we had better bite the bullet though and just rip off the carpet and see what we were facing. This is what we found.
BEFORE: nasty pet and kid stained carpeting.
AFTER: Hardwood steps!!!!
Can't you even believe it?! Again the picture doesn't do them justice! They need a good cleaning and a little care due to the tacking strips from the carpeting but the main point is they are hardwood. Finished, beautiful hardwood stairs. I die!!!!!!
I am so dang excited about this little house I can't even begin to tell you. Mike is too. He can't wait to get started and see the finished project.
This may possibly be the longest blog post ever. I have much more to post but think I had better turn in for the night (seeing as though its 1am). Tomorrow I will post more, also I'm going to bring my camera and take some good before pictures since everything is getting ripped down before I can even get a chance to show anyone what it looked like!
Also, I've been meaning to take a picture of my new plant on my dining room table to post but its on my parents camera and all the picture I've been able to upload are from my phone. Thanks Theresa! Can't wait for you to come and see it!!!!
Hope everyone had a wonderful day!!
xoxo
Hello everybody! All 5 of you who currently read this :) As most of you know we are in the process of purchasing our very first house! Which we should ALREADY be in, but I digress....
Yesterday was the day we were suppose to close but things got messed up and now it looks as though we can't close until next week, Tuesday being the projected day. We were all a little disappointed to say the least. My parents were pretty down about it too saying that they really wanted to see our house and that they had such big plans. A bit later in the day my mom asked me what I wanted to eat for supper, I wasn't sure so I just kept saying "I don't care." Well, my mom just kept on asking me over and over again so finally I just blurted out "I have no idea! Fine, Steaks!" Figuring that if I asked for something as ridiculous as that she might get the hint that I really had NO idea what we should have. She goes, "alright. Steaks it is." So the funny part of the story is they had planned steaks for dinner for us all along, she had them and potatoes and salad already for grilling out tonight as a celebration. What we didn't know was that they had planned to have it all waiting for us at our new house with our housewarming gift....
They were so disappointed we didn't close tonight too because it ruined their plans. But it was still really cool, they had us go help them "haul" something in the garage and they had the grill with a big bow on it waiting for us. This thing is so cool, it has about 4 or 5 different inserts that go into it so you can grill a bunch of different things. The one insert we are most excited about is a pizza stone insert, grilled pizza?! Can I get a yum yum! Its also has a wok, veggie, and chicken stand inserts. We can't wait to get into our new place now and invite our parents over for dinner as a thank you for all they have done.
Thanks again mommy and daddy!!!!
Off to enjoy this beautiful fall day by finalizing paint colors which Mike is so excited about by the way. ;o) and then we are having a date night; dinner and a movie!
Hope this was the best Saturday of your lives!
xoxo
Stephanie
