Closure

Okay, so I'm guessing that at this point, I have no actual "followers." And that's cool. I'm a realist. The fact that I average like 4 posts a year warrants that. Sooo... that said, this post might seem a little silly, but I don't want to leave this project open-ended. I am basically writing this post for myself as a sense of closure (and if I happen to have a follower or two, forget I said that - this is ALL for you!).

Alright, admittedly, the house is really a far cry from "Finished." We have definitely reached a "good enough" point, however. I will post some before and after-ish pics in the next few days. The projects that are finished are truly beautiful. From the hand hewn hickory floors, to the amazing home decor that we have picked up in Europe, Canada and South America, to the handmade Mexican satin curtains currently being finished by my talented aunt; it really looks great.

We have poured a ton of work into this place. Between crazy work schedules, expanding and redeveloping my business and Jordan transitioning to a new job, all while working on this renovation, time has not been our ally. Regardless, the time has come to make peace with where we are. It's not easy for me. We still have numerous projects that we want to complete - but fate has thrown us a curveball. While this project moves to the backburner at a whopping 80% complete, we have taken on another massive project.


We have been talking for years about purchasing an income property when we finish this house. We were anticipating maybe Spring 2015. Well, about 6 weeks ago, the house across the street from us foreclosed and immediately came up for sale at an amazing price. The place is a serious eyesore from the outside, and I have been scheming since we bought our house how to fix it. I thought of everything from bringing in a show like "Curb Appeal the Block," to starting a neighborhood association that would force them to do something about the skanky place. With the foreclosure, came the chance to "throw two rocks at one bird," as an old friend used to say. Although it was 6-9 months early, we placed a bid and bought the house! As of Wednesday, we now have an income property and the chance to vastly improve our view.

As a result, we have hit the "pause button" on our cute home, and we have hit the "fast forward button" on this new adventure!

Please join me in a moment of silence as I grieve for all of my unfinished projects...... Deep Cleansing Breath.........  Okay! Now, let's do it!! New house, here we come!

One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

 We were so proud of ourselves last week. A project actually went as planned and we did the entire room in only one week! We removed stubborn wallpaper boarder, filled holes and prepped walls, lots of taping, painting (even an accent wall), sanding the sub-floor, laying the black paper, laying the hardwood (we literally had three or four 6 inch pieces left - cutting it SO close!), installing molding, moving in furniture and hanging artwork. Whew! Lots of work, but now that I'm working from home full time, I have almost 10 extra hours a week - awesome! That extra time made all the difference on this project. Well... admittedly... we had to put a time limit on this one. I really needed a place to work from home and the dining room table wasn't really cutting it.

I wasn't totally sure about the blue wall in this room - I'm not really a pastel paint kind of girl. But this is a small room wit only one window (the one in the door) and it's pretty dark. I actually had to mix this color myself. I think we had a bit of a miscommunication at Ace. Somehow, I ended up with sage green paint... Not so hot in this room. It kind of looked like moldy bread. Yikes. I had some cobalt blue from Jordan's bathroom, so figuring it couldn't be much worse, I dumped some in the can and mixed it up. Voila! The creamy blue was born. It actually matched the blue in the pillows almost exactly, and the blue in our artwork perfectly. I'd like to claim skill, but I think I just got really lucky.

Monday morning, my Dad had a rare day off, and surprised me by stopping by to see how the study looked with all of the furniture and art. He was impressed and pretty proud of himself for that pretty floor! He offered to take me for pancakes, so as I dashed off to brush my teeth, he decided to run down to the basement to grab some of his tools so he could work on some projects at home that afternoon. When I looked up from brushing my teeth a few minutes later, my dad was standing in the doorway with a soaked pant leg, squishy shoe and a dripping wet Madison... The basement was flooded. With the dim lighting, he didn't see it until it was too late. He stopped two steps from the bottom and he was soaked to his knee. At least three feet, he said. Maybe more. Madison, his constant shadow, had followed him downstairs, slipped on the steps and splashed into the water. She was not amused.

Needless to say, Dad and I missed out on the pancakes. Poor Dad. He spent his whole day off helping me chase down hoses, set up a back-up sump pump, turn off breakers and drying his shoe and pants. He was so sweet, but I couldn't help but laugh. His one size 9 foot in his shoe, and the other in Jordan's size 12 shoe, was just too much. Once again, my Dad saved the day. I treated him to a late lunch the local Chinese buffet, but nothing can ever repay a dad.

What's that? Tan paint...?

Madison, helping Jordan sand the floor.

Madison helping me design the layout of the floor

Jordan Prepping the floor for hardwood.

Laying the planks down "for real"

Almost Done

Thanks Madison, but that piece is a little too small.

All Finished - Feeling Victorious!

Our awesome hide rug from Canada and
Jordan's family "heirloom" leather couch.
He picked out the pillows: Impressive, huh?

I'll be doing lots of work at this desk!

And, the very next day...

"Good Feeling Gone."

- Marlin (Finding Nemo)

Burned up the element in our water heater.
Two days with no hot water while we pumped out
the basement and waited for the electric to dry.

At least three feet of water. Madison tried to
follow my dad down the stairs, she slipped on
the steps and went for a cold, involuntary swim.
She has avoided that basement ever since!

Pfffffttttt - Or, in other words: Bleh...

So much for my excitement of getting the living room and kitchen done by Christmas.

We got our living room furniture in, it was beautiful, except for the fact that the cream color portion of the paisley print came in as a mustard yellow! Worst thing is, it's not even supposed to be available in mustard yellow. According to the lady at the furniture store, it was a problem with the dye so there is no guarantee that it won't happen again if we reorder it... I took the pieces home and tried to make myself like them, but I just couldn't do it. I can't be so desperate to have furniture for Christmas that I accept furniture that I will hate for the next 5+ years. We took the pieces back and asked about ordering my second choice set. Sure, no problem. It will be at least 6 weeks... Ick...

I know I'm impatient, but I REALLY wanted to enjoy Christmas in my "new" living room. I guess we'll be opening gifts while we sit on the hardwood floor Christmas morning. The living room looks so bazaar  Christmas tree in the corner, a coffee table in the middle of the room and two awkward end tables placed in random places- all just waiting for the beautiful furniture. Sigh...

Then, there's the kitchen. Oh dear, the kitchen... Well, of course I had to rearrange the placement of the appliances and as a result, move cabinets, and as a result of that, we had to run new gas lines and stove ventilation  What I expected to be a one or two evening project turned into a week long fiasco of missing pieces, wrong pieces, mistakes, miscommunications, misalignments and misplacements. Both Dad and Jordan requested not to (aka: refused to) begin on any of the cosmetic projects until these were done properly.

Needless to say, with the holidays, Amy's wedding and hectic work schedules, this is all we have gotten done since my last post. I am definitely feeling pretty "Bleh" about the whole thing at the moment. With Amy's wedding coming up in like 11 days, I'm guessing we're going to be so busy that we are pretty much at a stand still on the house for the rest of the year. Hopefully the new year will look brighter

Worth the Wait!

Jordan eating romain noodles in our
partially demo-ed kitchen with his fridge

So, a bit of a break from my normal "observations" that this house project is taking WAY too long. We were able to purchase 3 of the 4 main kitchen appliance during the Black Friday sales (been planning on doing this for almost a year now - I thought it would NEVER come!!)! We bought the appliances Jordan picked out, so,  in the spirit of how our marriage works, it was only fair that if he got his way on something, I get my way on the next thing. After, rather creatively, figuring out which pieces would fit in the room, we ordered my living room furniture last Thursday. It will be in this Thursday! I want to leave work early to go get it! I'm really excited. I literally picked out this set 9 months ago - before we even bought the house.

Minus the tree - all of this plus an
armoire went into 2 SUVs

Much to my parents' relief  we went yesterday evening and moved all of our dining room furniture out of their storage shed. We brought a gigantic armoire, a dining room table, 4 chairs, a bench, various artwork, a sofa table, the 3 piece living room coffee table set, a large mirror, a desk, 4 roman shades and countless odds and ins - all in two SUVs. That was no small feat! Not to mention, by the time we got off work it was completely dark (the shed has no electricity), 34 degrees and extremely muddy from the freezing rain from earlier in the day. We were not going to let that stop us! We are so ready to start finishing some projects!

My dad was hilarious. He kept walking around the shed asking, "how about this" - "are you ready to take this" - "don't forget that" - both my dad and Jordan's dad do this every time we take something of ours out of their attic or shed. They are like, "PLEASE, take more!!!!" I promise, Dads: We are trying!

Utilizing the dining room for work the very first day the table moved in.

We are very excited to finally be moving furniture in. I wanted to have the entire new addition done by Christmas. That doesn't look like it is going to happen - but, on the up side, we should have living room, dining room, front hall, guest room, laundry room and guest bathroom totally done - including artwork and furniture. We'll have our master bedroom almost finished and have a solid start on the kitchen. Not exactly what I was hoping for, but not bad. We are moving slow, but I am happy with every room so far. I guess it's a long process when you make sure a job gets done right (and when you have 15 rooms!!).


We will get to have Christmas morning in our new living room and dining room!

Our first Christmas tree in our new house

A Git 'R' Done Weekend....?

Okay, so another very stagnant week. I'm helping my sister with wedding planning - she and her fiancé decided a couple of weeks ago that they want to move their wedding date from late June 2013 to January 1^st, 2013! EEK! So, we are re-configuring a June garden wedding to a January "winter wonderland" wedding for 150-200 guests - And we only have 2 months to do it! 

Jordan and I are back on track for 10 hour work days, so we could work on the house, if it wasn't for the mild-panic wedding planning. I have spent 5 out of the past 7 evenings with Amy and/or vendors working on things for the wedding and shower. It’s totally fun, don’t get me wrong, but I’m afraid that our goal of having the house done by Christmas has gone up in flames… Sniff, sniff…

I still want to have the living room, dining room and bedroom done by Christmas, so we can enjoy Christmas morning in our real “first” house. And if we get lucky, I’d like to finish the master bath and guest bath (which is almost finished – yay!). So I am trying to pack every spare moment, not at work and not working on the wedding, with the house projects. 

I have very possessively guarded our weekend this week. I am dress shopping with Amy tonight, but as for the actual "weekend," we might be in luck... Aside from church Sunday morning and lunch with friends after, I think we may have protected our schedule enough to get something accomplished!

Stagnant Progress

Well, let me start this blog post off with this: Huuuuuh, sigh…. I desperately want to sign in and start typing about all of the wonderful projects we’ve gotten accomplished since my last post, but unfortunately, that isn’t going to happen. We have become victims of feeling sorry for ourselves… Absolutely packed 12+ hour work days, plus working on the weekends have somehow convinced us that we are completely justified to come home at the end of the day, change into PJs as quickly as possible and crash on the couch with take out and Netflix – not moving until time to brush our teeth and go to bed. I think this week all we managed to motivate ourselves to do was clean up after ourselves and take out the trash a couple of times. We’re pathetic…

On a lighter note, our three nieces are coming over tonight! We’re pretty excited about that. We used to spend tons of time with them, but with their cheerleading, dance and basketball schedules and our schedule with work and the renovation, we never see each other anymore. Planning a fun night to make up for it, though. Taking them out to dinner, then at our niece, Maddie’s, request, we are going to attempt to make cookie bowls for our DIY sundae bar. Our other niece, Anisa, is very 'crafty' and very into DIY. So, I’ve been trying to think of a project we could do on the house that would be unique – something I could show people when they came in and say, “Our girls did this.”

As far as the project ideas go, I’m drawing a blank… I thought about some of the vinyl wall graphics, but that isn’t particularly unique. I also thought about doing an outdoor project, but it’s raining. I could have them help me paint, but that sounds more like child labor than an exciting venture. I’m stumped. At least I have the next 10 hours to think of something... Hmmmm.... Pinterest, here I come!

1 Long Week + 2 Fast Food Loving Men + Only 1 Toilet (which is connected to my bedroom) = 1 Unhappy Christy

Well, as I've previously mentioned, long work hours for this family lately. Unfortunately, there isn't really a light at the end of the tunnel, so we are trying to persevere on house projects. Last weekend, Jordan started laying tile in our 10'x6'ish guest bathroom. We took the toilet out of the room and laid a few rows. But, with multiple interruptions (like a yummy lunch with the in-laws) we weren't able to get very far. Each night this week, with only an hour or so of time available to work, he continued to lay a handful of tile - Still without a toilet. 

I think I've also mentioned that my younger brother stays with us sometimes. For the most part he hangs out in his room on the other side of the house and we aren't home much anyway, so we often just see him in passing. Though we don't see much of Adam, one thing is unmistakable - there are two grown men living in this house who eat a lot of greasy food… Ahem, if you know what I mean… Up to this point in the renovation, we have had 2 of 4 bathrooms functioning: Adam &
 Jordan's "guy" bathroom - with a heavy duty exhaust fan;
and Christy's girly bathroom, where all my hair and beauty products live. With this especially delayed project, all bathroom activities are taking place in MY girly bathroom – which happens to be the master bath, meaning the door to the bathroom is literally like 6 feet from my nose when I go to bed! Sigh… Not to mention performing my getting-ready-for-bed routine in a restroom where I have been outnumbered by stinky boys all week. Try brushing your teeth in a room where someone has just “made a deposit” (as my accountant husband likes to say) after eating Chinese food, a bacon double cheeseburger or spicy chimichangas! Yikes!

I thought the nightmare was almost over, the plan was to finish up with the grout sealer tomorrow, invite my dad over so he and Jordan could reinstall the toilet and restore peace to the household once again. But…. (always a but) … Jordan has to work tomorrow – ick. Now, I might have to be the one to help Dad reinstall their icky boy toilet! (By the way, I checked it out yesterday – new rule: Each guy has to take a turn each week cleaning that toilet! No more “every man for himself” cleaning methods!).

Oh well, I guess - A quick stop for rubber gloves (maybe some pink ones!), a clothes pin and a ponytail holder and I’m on it – Apparently I’d do almost anything to get my bathroom back!