No longer

Shutters stained
Originally uploaded by kellidmarks

Thanks to Tru Value (The only place in the state that had my stain color in the quart size!) and the industrious efforts of my husband, we are no longer 'those people.'
He stained the shutters and they look great!
Now, about those dead plants in the flower bed...

House as is

So, we have been in for two weeks now, I can't believe it has been that long (well, we moved in two weeks ago Saturday, but still).  Most things are settled in, the kitchen is unpacked, the bedroom is [mostly] unpacked, and we have piles of storage hanging out in the bonus room.  And this week we managed to clean out the garage and park our cars in there!  Which was exciting because it has been since last AUGUST since I was able to do that.  And I missed it terribly!

You can see that the bar has become a place to hold junk [for a lack of better word] but that will NOT be the case!  I am determined to keep it spotless.

And in our dining room, that mirror needs to be hung on the wall, and I have to find candles and stuff like that.  

We have since moved the dog kennel into a spare bedroom.  

This is just a peek at what it looks like with furniture.  I will eventually take beautifully staged, fake photos to post!  And don't worry, the projects arent over.  We are working on the backsplash this weekend and apparently Brad has plans for a built in entertainment center (that we are to build!) We will see how that goes!

The grass is greener...

In my yard.  Or at least it is now after all the rain!

We moved into the house a week ago Saturday.  Everything is in, but not necessarily in its place.  This past weekend we had rain.  But not just any rain – torrential, can see to drive rain all day Saturday.  So, we thought that would be a great time to head to Home Depot to get some plants!  OK, truth is, in order to close on the house, it has to be appraised and in order to do that, the yard must be landscaped.  So it had to be done, rain or shine (literally).

Here is the finished product:

We have one flower bed in front of the garage, another that wraps the other corner and a large one out in the front.  We used brown metal edging from Lowe's, a double hammered hard wood mulch (that we got by the truckload! from a nursery just up the road from us.  The mulch was cheap, $30.00 for what they call a 'yard,' which is enough to fill up the back of a truck bed.  But the plants were WAY overpriced.  i.e. the hosta's I picked up at Lowe's for $4 each were $32 each there! And they were even the same size.) and most of our plants came from Home Depot  – not that we don't love Lowe's but now HD is closer!

I adore these spiral topiary trees!  The green pops against the rock and they have an elegant look that I really love.  

Here, we had to put a bed of river rocks against the house to help with drainage.  Another 'swirly' tree, hostas and some evergreens.

We used a lot of azelea's, mostly because they were only $3 each!

The purple grass-like plant is called cordaline, but we just call it purple grass (clever, I know).  The tree is a Japanese maple.  We both really like the red/purple ones, but that variety is a bit more expensive and we wanted a more mature (read taller) tree in this spot, so we chose this one instead.  I like it.  The tips of some of the leaves are reddish, and will probably turn that color in the fall.  Also, both of our neighbors have the purple Japanese maples, so this makes ours different.

We're moving in!!!

Well, Brad waited around the house today for the inspector and walked through the house with him.  Due to some staffing issues at their office, they were actually able to sign and hand over our certificate of occupancy.  We can officially live in our house now!  So, we will be moving tomorrow.

And of course, I have a work conflict.

But thats another post for another blog ;)

Final touches on the kitchen

We have been getting the final little bits done lately.  And it's been hectic!  (On another note, Brad's mom broke her hip and is in the hospital, so we've also been working with that).

Last Friday was a busy day.  We got the marble vanity tops installed in the master bathroom, the appliances installed in the kitchen, the carpet was worked on, the front door was installed, the deck was started and the cedar shake siding was installed!  WOW!  Busy! 

Here are a few photos of the kitchen to hold you over! 

This is a faucet I picked up on Ebay (love it!!) for $150.  It retails for $250.  It was new in box.  The faucet pulls out.  You might be able to look close at the granite- between the faucet and the soap dispenser, there's another hole.  :( We told the granite guy to put three holes (faucet, soap and air gap) BUT, apparently the code does not require an air gap if you have a garbage disposal. So, we have an extra hole.  Which I am not pleased about.  It's fixable- another soap dispenser, covering it with the metal flange thing that came with the faucet kit (if the plumber can find it...I gave it to him!) or putting a fake air gap on, or just putting an oil rubbed bronze plug.  It's not the end of the world, but I'm not super happy about it either, and it's totally our fault.

Here are the cabinets with our double oven!  The oven is a 30 inch, and the cabinet is 31 inches.  Needless to say, it's a tight fit.  Technically, a 31 inch cabinet is for a 27 inch oven.  We should have gotten a 34 inch cabinet.  It looks fine, but it was so close!

You can also see the hardware, which I installed all by myself!  Got them from Target.  The handles were $9.99 for 6 and the bin pulls (on the drawers) were $4.99, but totally worth the extra cost. Thanks again to Amy for picking some up for me out of town!
Here is the shiny, new refrigerator.  We built this cabinet using two pieces of MDF and wrapping the outside with bead board.  We bought the top 24 inch cabinet and it doesn't actually reach the back of the wall.  It was the cheapest option to have the built-in look without the built-in cost! 
More to come soon.  We are having an issue with rain/dirt/sod and a tiny run-in with the EPA! Oops!

Seeing their new home

We brought the puppies with us to visit their new home for the first time.  I was in the great room with them, Brad was working on scrubbing the grout off the tile floor in the hallway.  He kept walking in front of the house. 

This is Presley, he is a Shih Tzu-Poodle mix.  

And he's slightly bow legged when he stands up!

The pups went crazy watching him.  They are definitely going to love these giant windows.

They are just tall enough to get their tiny paws up on the window sill and peek their tiny noses over.   

Phoebe is a Miniature Daschund, and had beautiful coloring.

So close, I can taste it

We spent this past weekend doing the most painful thing we have had to do. 

Laying 1,000 square feet of bamboo floors.

We started on Sunday, laying down four rows.  You have to establish a base to work off of.  It should be just a few rows.  We needed to get down four to go around a bump out pillar and make sure that the flooring was straight all the way across.

This had to dry for at lease 24 hours.  We let it sit until the next weekend.  On Friday, we swept and mopped the concrete again and started. 

That was about 8 hours of work.  We had a few spots where the floor was unlevel, so we placed the heavy buckets of glue there to hold it down.  We finished almost everything by Saturday around 10:30 p.m.  After a good 12 hours of back-breaking work! All that we had to do on Sunday was inside the refrigerator cabinet and in the pantry.

We used three rolls of blue tape!  The tape helps hold the boards together while we were working on another area.  Those little guys would slide around and leave tiny gaps, so the tape was helpful.  But a bit of a pain to get up.  OK, the tape wasn't a pain, but my knees were definitely hurting by day 3, so any movement that wasn't laying on a couch was pain!

Here is the kitchen floor, with my beautiful, antiqued cabinets. 

And from the other side.

The dining room.

And this is what it looks like right now. We put down paper for people to walk on.  There won't be very many people in the house besides us (plumber, carpet guy, trim guy to install the front door), but it's nice for us to have too.  I took my shoes off so many times on Sunday!  Walking to and from the garage cutting the baseboards.

It's almost done.  I can just imagine what kinds of meals I can make in my kitchen.  What my couch will look like in the living room!  

This is what is left:

-The grinder pump needs to be finished and turned on. (they were working on this yesterday at 6 when I stopped by the house.  Unless MAJOR catastrophe hits, it will be done today)

-The driveway needs to be poured.  They framed it Friday and promised to come back Monday.  They did not.  I heard they were pouring someone else's foundation, but would be out today.  We'll see.

-Granite in the master bathroom counter tops.  It's been two weeks, and they haven't gotten to ours.  Apparently all the great things we told everyone about them got them too busy and they haven't had time... (Today?  Tomorrow?)

-Plumber needs to install all the fixtures.  This cant be done until grinder pump and counters are in.

-Level the lot. [again] My uncle did it, but the rain washed it all away.  So he will be out next tuesday/wednesday.  (depending on the weather.  These April showers are killing me.)

-Sod.  Of course this is waiting on the grinder pump, driveway, and of course, leveling. We are planning to have it delivered Thursday of next week.

-Install the front door.  He will be there on Wednesday to take care of that.  Can't wait.

Then we can move in.