We are making our first attempt at a garden this year!
Ross has been busy tilling and tilling and tilling up the ground getting it ready for planting. He picked up a few seeds from the Feed Store this week and we're going to Walmart and Lowe's this weekend to get the rest and some plants as well.
Wish us green thumbs and good growing weather. I want to try and can as much as I can this summer to help save on our grocery bills. That and home grown food tastes so much better. I'll try and remember to take some pictures along the way and let you all see how we're doing!
Hope you all are having a wonderful weekend, enjoy the beautiful sunshine!
Showing posts with label House. Show all posts
Showing posts with label House. Show all posts
Saturday, April 17, 2010
Thursday, April 1, 2010
At Last...
...the promised pictures from our remodel. But, only some of them. The girls room is complete, our room still needs to be decorated. The bathroom isn't complete yet either. Sink and toilet are working, but we have some tile work to do in the shower still and all the fixtures need to be hung.
We'll start with some before and after pictures and then a whole bunch of the stuff in the room itself. My husband worked so hard, and did such a wonderful job. I smile every time I look around and see how nice everything is!
We'll start with some before and after pictures and then a whole bunch of the stuff in the room itself. My husband worked so hard, and did such a wonderful job. I smile every time I look around and see how nice everything is!
The steps before
and after
Before shot of window/door. I didn't get a picture before they cut out and put the door in, but you can see from the plywood where the windows were and now there will be a door instead.
After
Another before shot of the girls room, you can see where the closet used to be to the right of the door area.
After shot, the closet was taken out and the room was made bigger on that side.
Before view of the room looking towards the door.
After view. This is where the closet is now.
And now here are some more pictures of the room. This one is looking into the room from the doorway.
The closet. We still have to get closet doors, but that wasn't necessary to move in.
Alexis' chest of drawers that matches her bed. Her bed is actually part of a bunk bed set. We just don't have the ceiling height needed to bunk them.
Isabel's chest. This is the one we bought for Alexis when she was born.
Alexis' quilt from my Grandma Redburn and her letters from Aunt Jaimee!
Isabel's quilt and Aunt Jaimee is working on her letters while she's on spring break!
Alexis' rocking chair from Grandma Carol and Papa Bill for Christmas in '09.
Alexis' age progression frames. Carol gave me one for both girls when they were born. I have Alexis' filled, but obviously Isabel's isn't yet. I have them hanging on either side of the closet.
This cute frame was hand made by Aunt Sera Kate!
Alexis' bed.
Isabel's crib.
And one last parting shot of my beautiful Alexis!
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Back To Normal...Whatever That Means
Our life is somewhat returning to normal...if there is such a thing.
It's been high excitement and busyness around here the past few weeks.
As you all know, we got the carpet laid upstairs on February 22nd. We spent that week getting our things moved upstairs and getting settled up there. We also started the process of moving things around downstairs and making the preparations for carpet to be laid down here on March 8th.
This past weekend (March 6th & 7th) was crazy busy getting all the last minute things done before Monday morning. Here's a rundown of a few thingswe Ross did!
During all the craziness, Ross took our computer to a buddy of his from work to have him clean it up for us and remove any junk it may have collected. It's 4 years old now, so it's about to become obsolete I'm afraid. I think we'll upgrade to a laptop when we do need a new computer and get rid of this big ole desk and get something much smaller that takes up less space.
Back to house stuff. We had to get everything up off of the floor that could be easily lifted and then the carpet installers were going to move the furniture out, rip up the old carpet, lay the new and move the furniture back in......or so we thought.
Monday morning comes, we're ready. The installers arrive and are surprised to see furniture and carpet. They weren't expecting to have to do that because apparently that cost an extra $234 over what we had already paid to have the install done. When we purchased our carpeting, Ross made sure that they knew our upstairs was empty because it was new construction, but our downstairs had furniture and old carpet to be ripped out. They said, "Oh, that's fine." Something got lost in translation....bummer.
The installers were nice enough to help us move the little bit of furniture that we had out and rip up the old carpet, simply because they didn't want to come back another day, because we were not about to pay to have them do it.
That process took no time at all and soon they were on a roll getting the new carpet laid out. It was a gorgeous day out, so we all just hung out on the front porch and Isabel played in the pack-n-play and Alexis ran around being crazy. Everything seemed to be going smoothly. The installers got one of the seams glued and then had to wait for it to dry, so they left to take a break. When they got back, we ran into Subway for some lunch. By the time we got back they were almost finished. They helped Ross move the big, heavy entertainment center back in and then he and I did the rest ourselves.{It was only living room furniture because the other room was already completely empty from being painted and the we had the office so crammed full of stuff you couldn't even get into the room.}
We're checking things out and being all super excited about how great it feels to have new carpet and be "done" with our monster of a project that took almost a year to complete. I haven't decided if we are being to critical or if the installer did a bad job. We started finding things we didn't like. In the kitchen doorway, it looks like he cut the carpet just a smidgen shorter than he should have and you can see a little blank stop under those little transition strips when you go from carpet to some other floor type. The carpet in the closet of the playroom doesn't even look like it was stretched at all. It's real loose and bubbly in places.
Those things probably aren't that big of a deal really, but then I found something else that ticked me off. They put a hole in our wall, patched it very poorly, and didn't even bother telling us about it. It really doesn't bother me that it happened, our house is old and the drywall in the living room isn't the best, but they really should have told us about it happening. It reminded me of the time when my brothers broke something on the wall and were desperately trying to glue it and blow drying the glue before mom got home, trying to fix it so they wouldn't get into trouble. It was just very unprofessional in my opinion.
So, while we are very happy that we have new carpet, we are unhappy with the service we received. Someone from Lowe's will be out on Monday to look everything over and decide what needs to be done.
Moving on....
It feels so nice to have come so far with our house. I finally have a living room again! There is tons of floor space for Isabel to roll/drag/crawl around in. And there is only one small basket of toys out there. The rest are in the playroom.
I love it that I can tell Alexis to go play and make a big mess and I don't have to pick it up 15 times a day just to be able to walk across my living room! We are working on getting her to understand that she needs to leave the toys in the playroom, because we made it just especially for her and Isabel to play in.
It's felt so nice to have this complete feeling about the project that I've kind of slacked off the past few days and not done much, but it's felt so nice. I know Ross is so relieved that it's finally "done" (still have those little odds and ends things to finish up), he was getting so burnt out on doing it.
My head is such a jumble of things right now, I'm having a hard time organizing my thoughts and getting them out on the keyboard, so I'm going to end this post and start another one about different stuff that's been going on.
PS. I didn't proof read this, so I apologize if there are any huge mistakes in it. Thanks to Firefox I know my spellings okay!
It's been high excitement and busyness around here the past few weeks.
As you all know, we got the carpet laid upstairs on February 22nd. We spent that week getting our things moved upstairs and getting settled up there. We also started the process of moving things around downstairs and making the preparations for carpet to be laid down here on March 8th.
This past weekend (March 6th & 7th) was crazy busy getting all the last minute things done before Monday morning. Here's a rundown of a few things
- Moved the computer desk into the girls old room and starting setting up our new office.
- I began moving a lot of my books from the bookshelves in our old bedroom onto the shelves in the office.
- Making piles in the living room of all the rest of the books that had to be emptied off of the shelves so
weRoss could paint our old room/new play room for the girls/guest bedroom. - Going through all the massive piles in the living room and deciding where their permanent home needed to be. If it was going to be in the playroom/guest room, it got piled into the office until after the carpet was laid. The office didn't get carpet, we're eventually going to put hardwood floor in here.
- Ross laid some bamboo wood flooring at the front door so we wouldn't ruin our new carpet tracking in and out the front door.
During all the craziness, Ross took our computer to a buddy of his from work to have him clean it up for us and remove any junk it may have collected. It's 4 years old now, so it's about to become obsolete I'm afraid. I think we'll upgrade to a laptop when we do need a new computer and get rid of this big ole desk and get something much smaller that takes up less space.
Back to house stuff. We had to get everything up off of the floor that could be easily lifted and then the carpet installers were going to move the furniture out, rip up the old carpet, lay the new and move the furniture back in......or so we thought.
Monday morning comes, we're ready. The installers arrive and are surprised to see furniture and carpet. They weren't expecting to have to do that because apparently that cost an extra $234 over what we had already paid to have the install done. When we purchased our carpeting, Ross made sure that they knew our upstairs was empty because it was new construction, but our downstairs had furniture and old carpet to be ripped out. They said, "Oh, that's fine." Something got lost in translation....bummer.
The installers were nice enough to help us move the little bit of furniture that we had out and rip up the old carpet, simply because they didn't want to come back another day, because we were not about to pay to have them do it.
That process took no time at all and soon they were on a roll getting the new carpet laid out. It was a gorgeous day out, so we all just hung out on the front porch and Isabel played in the pack-n-play and Alexis ran around being crazy. Everything seemed to be going smoothly. The installers got one of the seams glued and then had to wait for it to dry, so they left to take a break. When they got back, we ran into Subway for some lunch. By the time we got back they were almost finished. They helped Ross move the big, heavy entertainment center back in and then he and I did the rest ourselves.{It was only living room furniture because the other room was already completely empty from being painted and the we had the office so crammed full of stuff you couldn't even get into the room.}
We're checking things out and being all super excited about how great it feels to have new carpet and be "done" with our monster of a project that took almost a year to complete. I haven't decided if we are being to critical or if the installer did a bad job. We started finding things we didn't like. In the kitchen doorway, it looks like he cut the carpet just a smidgen shorter than he should have and you can see a little blank stop under those little transition strips when you go from carpet to some other floor type. The carpet in the closet of the playroom doesn't even look like it was stretched at all. It's real loose and bubbly in places.
Those things probably aren't that big of a deal really, but then I found something else that ticked me off. They put a hole in our wall, patched it very poorly, and didn't even bother telling us about it. It really doesn't bother me that it happened, our house is old and the drywall in the living room isn't the best, but they really should have told us about it happening. It reminded me of the time when my brothers broke something on the wall and were desperately trying to glue it and blow drying the glue before mom got home, trying to fix it so they wouldn't get into trouble. It was just very unprofessional in my opinion.
So, while we are very happy that we have new carpet, we are unhappy with the service we received. Someone from Lowe's will be out on Monday to look everything over and decide what needs to be done.
Moving on....
It feels so nice to have come so far with our house. I finally have a living room again! There is tons of floor space for Isabel to roll/drag/crawl around in. And there is only one small basket of toys out there. The rest are in the playroom.
I love it that I can tell Alexis to go play and make a big mess and I don't have to pick it up 15 times a day just to be able to walk across my living room! We are working on getting her to understand that she needs to leave the toys in the playroom, because we made it just especially for her and Isabel to play in.
It's felt so nice to have this complete feeling about the project that I've kind of slacked off the past few days and not done much, but it's felt so nice. I know Ross is so relieved that it's finally "done" (still have those little odds and ends things to finish up), he was getting so burnt out on doing it.
My head is such a jumble of things right now, I'm having a hard time organizing my thoughts and getting them out on the keyboard, so I'm going to end this post and start another one about different stuff that's been going on.
PS. I didn't proof read this, so I apologize if there are any huge mistakes in it. Thanks to Firefox I know my spellings okay!
Friday, February 26, 2010
Not Fat Friday
It's been a rough week. The weekend started out with a birthday party and dinner at Red Lobster, so I didn't even count points this week. I did manage to lose .6 though, so that's better than a gain. I'm up to 6.4 pounds lost.
Back on track today counting those points. Going to Pizza Hut tonight for dinner with Ross' parents, sister and his Uncle Vance who is in from Montana. I already calculated what I'm going to eat, so as long as I don't decide to have anything else we're good to go.This will be the first time Ross' uncle has met either of the girls so we're excited about that.
We're still knee deep in the re-arranging process. Ross moved the desk and computer into the office yesterday and I've been working on getting things settled in here. Today he started emptying the closet in the office and the one in our bedroom and I'm a little overwhelmed at all the stuff that came out of there and trying to figure out new homes for it.
I have a lot of stuff I've kept over the years that I just can't part with, so I'm trying to figure out a good storage system for it. I have tons of boxes of pictures too, I love them all, but they take up space.
I don't know if I'll post this weekend or not, we are going to do our best to get as much done as possible to prepare for the carpet coming on March 8th!
Back on track today counting those points. Going to Pizza Hut tonight for dinner with Ross' parents, sister and his Uncle Vance who is in from Montana. I already calculated what I'm going to eat, so as long as I don't decide to have anything else we're good to go.This will be the first time Ross' uncle has met either of the girls so we're excited about that.
We're still knee deep in the re-arranging process. Ross moved the desk and computer into the office yesterday and I've been working on getting things settled in here. Today he started emptying the closet in the office and the one in our bedroom and I'm a little overwhelmed at all the stuff that came out of there and trying to figure out new homes for it.
I have a lot of stuff I've kept over the years that I just can't part with, so I'm trying to figure out a good storage system for it. I have tons of boxes of pictures too, I love them all, but they take up space.
I don't know if I'll post this weekend or not, we are going to do our best to get as much done as possible to prepare for the carpet coming on March 8th!
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Just Stuff
My brain is so full of stuff that you'll have to forgive this very random, rambling post.
I've been very busy today working on getting the girls room set up and I think I'm finished. I have a few more things to sort through in the closet of their old room and that's about it. I need to hang things on the wall, but I'm going to let my Dad help me do that when he has a chance to come down. Ross has plenty on his plate now, so I don't want to bother him with it, but I just can't wait any longer to decorate and make it look homey. I feel like I've been waiting forever for this and it's finally happening!
I'm so tired, but so completely satisfied with all that's going on. My house is in utter chaos and a disaster area, but I don't even care. It's going to be so fantastic when we get it all done and together! March 8th is when the rest of the house gets carpet, so a few days after that and my home will be fresh and pretty and clean and new feeling and I will have so much more space! You have no idea how that excites me!
I've always been a fan of organizing and somewhat anal about how things are, but I've never been that way since I moved in after we got married. I know some of the reasons why I haven't been and one was that I just didn't care, because this house didn't feel like mine.
*Brief history lesson for folks who don't know me - Ross purchased this house during our engagement and I really didn't have anything to do with it or a say in it at all. It is the house he grew up in and he bought it from his parents. He got a really great price for it, so there's no complaint there, but I've never really felt like it was mine. The shadow from his parents lingered for quite a few years and then we began making changes that made it feel more like our own home. And this project has been the biggest change and makes me feel like I have a brand new house!*
I'm super excited about finding a place for everything and keeping everything in its place! The girls room is so cute, I can't wait to get all the stuff up on the walls and take pictures to share with you.
I need some decorating help in our room though, I'll be calling on my Momma and sister's for some advice on what to do up there. But, it's so nice to be able to walk around the bed without brushing against the wall like we did in our old room.
Our old room is becoming the guest room/playroom. Guest room just because we are putting our extra full size bed in there, mostly just a playroom for the girls. My living room will once again be just a living room. We'll have so much more room to entertain now without feeling like there is no for people to go.
The girls old room will become the office, getting the computer out of the living room and making room for the piano that is out in the garage that will hopefully be repairable and working again so Alexis can take lessons soon!
The girls are sleeping sweetly in their new room, so I'm off to do some more cleaning down here. I can actually make noise and do stuff after they go to bed and I'm not afraid of waking them now!
I've been very busy today working on getting the girls room set up and I think I'm finished. I have a few more things to sort through in the closet of their old room and that's about it. I need to hang things on the wall, but I'm going to let my Dad help me do that when he has a chance to come down. Ross has plenty on his plate now, so I don't want to bother him with it, but I just can't wait any longer to decorate and make it look homey. I feel like I've been waiting forever for this and it's finally happening!
I'm so tired, but so completely satisfied with all that's going on. My house is in utter chaos and a disaster area, but I don't even care. It's going to be so fantastic when we get it all done and together! March 8th is when the rest of the house gets carpet, so a few days after that and my home will be fresh and pretty and clean and new feeling and I will have so much more space! You have no idea how that excites me!
I've always been a fan of organizing and somewhat anal about how things are, but I've never been that way since I moved in after we got married. I know some of the reasons why I haven't been and one was that I just didn't care, because this house didn't feel like mine.
*Brief history lesson for folks who don't know me - Ross purchased this house during our engagement and I really didn't have anything to do with it or a say in it at all. It is the house he grew up in and he bought it from his parents. He got a really great price for it, so there's no complaint there, but I've never really felt like it was mine. The shadow from his parents lingered for quite a few years and then we began making changes that made it feel more like our own home. And this project has been the biggest change and makes me feel like I have a brand new house!*
I'm super excited about finding a place for everything and keeping everything in its place! The girls room is so cute, I can't wait to get all the stuff up on the walls and take pictures to share with you.
I need some decorating help in our room though, I'll be calling on my Momma and sister's for some advice on what to do up there. But, it's so nice to be able to walk around the bed without brushing against the wall like we did in our old room.
Our old room is becoming the guest room/playroom. Guest room just because we are putting our extra full size bed in there, mostly just a playroom for the girls. My living room will once again be just a living room. We'll have so much more room to entertain now without feeling like there is no for people to go.
The girls old room will become the office, getting the computer out of the living room and making room for the piano that is out in the garage that will hopefully be repairable and working again so Alexis can take lessons soon!
The girls are sleeping sweetly in their new room, so I'm off to do some more cleaning down here. I can actually make noise and do stuff after they go to bed and I'm not afraid of waking them now!
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
The Carpet Is In!
The carpet installers came yesterday and we have carpet upstairs now!!! It feels so incredibly nice to have that project "almost" finished. We are done enough to move up there at least. Here are some really bad cell phone pictures of the carpet.
We spent some time today getting some stuff moved up there. We have all of our beds up there and 3 out of the 4 dresser's that are going up there. Ross had to stop to go to work, but I'm going to continue working up there tonight as long as the girls allow.
We are so, so happy to be getting up there finally. We have a lot of work to do over the next two weeks, but it will be so worth it. We've got a lot of rearranging to do downstairs and some painting before they come back to lay the carpet down here in two weeks. Can't wait to show you pictures of the final result! Now, it's back to work for me.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)