Officially home owners.

So, as of two Sundays ago, we were officially moved into our house. We no longer have keys to our apartment, which in many ways is totally awesome. We no longer have to key lock doors from both sides, and we only have to enter/exit via one door to get into our dwelling; we don’t have to worry about the raccoons destroying our garbage and piling it all over the driveway (b/c we have a garage now); we get to fix the stuff that we don’t like, such as the mauve colored seashell sink and fake wood countertops; we don’t have to call a landlord again and listen to 3 minute messages about the electrician coming and the coupon she needs to make sure that we use when the guy comes (because EVERY message she left us took up most of our answering machine!). On the flip side, we now have to pay for the stuff that we want to fix, and pay for the electrician that needs to come out; but so far it’s been way worth it!

Quick home-owners schooling (many of you already know this stuff):

1.  Sometimes your funace will just quit working, like on the first night that you actually wanted/needed to turn it on. Had to call a furnace company and get someone out there – we got lucky and it was an easy fix and not that much mulla.   Pilot light problems, no big woop.
2. Sometimes garbage disposals sound like they're working, but in reality they aren't doing anything and your food is just beneath the sink flange and just sitting on top of the disposal, but your hand doesn't fit down there (nifty, this creates a great breeding ground for fruit flies).
3. Sometimes your dishwasher is not hooked up properly, and when the drain hose is loose or rotted through, or just not attached ... your dishwasher will simply drain underneath it, wherever that may be.  In our case, it's our basement, and in between the 3 layers of flooring stacked up in our kitchen.
4. We have mold in our bathroom (to be fair, we knew this before buying the house though). We had a contractor out there to talk about remodeling the bathroom. Only option really is to gut and redo the bathroom – but, will be completely worth it since we don’t even open the door to that bathroom right now.
5. Ceiling fans and lighting fixtures are WAY overpriced. Seriously, $800+ for some dining room lights … we will NOT be buying you, Mr. Tiffany chandelier with matching colors that would look ultra classic in our newly re-decorated house. We will be buying your semi-flush mount cousin that costs a small fraction of your price and will look 80% as good as you do.
6. Also, end tables and rugs – RIDICULOUSLY priced. And I mean ridiculous like any movie you might watch on the Si-Fi channel kind of ridiculous.

Anyhoo … so we are in the process of unpacking and organizing. It’s been slow, but it's coming along.  By the way - it's hard to unpack stuff and figure out where to put things and where to hang things when you don't have any furniture?  I'm trying to organize around 2 recliners in the LR with TV trays for end tables, and an office that has no furniture and needs to be set up as a rec room/den; a guest bedroom that has no bed, and a linen closet being used to store the kitchen cabinets ... it's not a good place to start.  Plus, it didn't help that since we ended up moving earlier than we were supposed to, we just threw stuff in boxes and brought things over (to be fair again, this is probably the way that it would have gone down regardless, but at least now I have something to blame the chaos on!).

BUT, this is what we've gotten done since the last post ...

1. MOVING!! (the garage is packed!)
2. Hardwood floors completed with shoe molding
3. Carpet installed in guest bedroom
4. Hung the wallpaper in the DR (Thanks to my mom for teaching me how!)
5. Replaced the smelly garbage disposal (Thanks to my dad for helping! - Also, just so ya'll aren't so grossed out, we only lived with it all backed up for 1.5 days until Saturday when we had time to replace it ... we just got lucky that my dad was in town, who had just bought one for their house, installed it, and helped to make things go faster by knowing where the best deal was and exactly what we were going to need - because we have yet to accumulate the dad size tool box/room.)

So, here are a couple of pics of the craziness going on in our home now, and the new floors - both hardwood and carpet (what you can see of them!). I’ll try to start posting more frequently again ... just have to set up wireless and find some free time to organize this mess!

Side note ... the moving was seriously the worst part of the whole ordeal. I made a deal with Patrick that I would pack and unpack everything if he did the majority of the moving. I felt as though I was totally getting the way better end of that bargain - the fun parts (especially unpacking & organizing a new home!). He whole-heartily disagreed with me, but then he got DOMS; yet, now his part is mostly completed, while mine is still fully ongoing. I'm excited to get everything organized though!

Second side note ... we will either be living here for the rest of our lives, or we will be paying someone to move us in the future. I've said that every time we've moved (4 times now) - but this time I mean it. Seriously.

Parting note ... Having a home with a dishwasher is the BEST. THING. EVER!  Having a home with a dishwasher that doesn't work is the WORST. THING. EVER!



The wood floors before we had moved in all the way - they look great and we love the color!



My dad and Joey with her cat glasses on!

Wallpaper up in DR ... still need to add chair rail.

The floor pics above are a more accurate color - it is not this red!

floors in Den where the different wood meets

It's an air matress bed ... but at least it looks a little more organized!

Something borrowed, something blue, something old, something new ... SOMETHING AWESOME.

I did not have any of those first four somethings on my wedding day.  I didn't really even stop to think about it until the day of, to be honest.  I guess I had a new dress and new necklace (thanks, Pat!), and new lots of other stuff bought just for that day.  I guess I had old shoes and old earrings.  I guess I just didn't have anything borrowed or blue.

But, just because I didn't have the first four somethings, definitely DID NOT stop that last one something from describing every. single. thing. that happened to us on March 20, 2010.  We couldn't have asked for a better wedding day; the ceremony, reception, music, photographers, flowers, and of course ... family and friends!

And, this post is about something so freakin' sweet - something so awesome, I had to share it on this blog.  It's about preservation of our wedding day.  I have the photos, and I have some tokens - the vase, the cake plate, the dress, and the flowers.  Yes, the flowers.  And, I didn't just have them dried and put in a frame ... I had them painted into artwork. Yes, painted into artwork.

I had read somewhere about drying flowers and having them added into a custom painting to preserve them; so, after that, I always said that when I got married, I would do that with my bouquet.  Some of you may not know, but Pat proposed with a bouquet of roses and the ring was on a ribbon tied around the flowers; so I decided to get a painting made out of those as well.  We got that back a while ago (over a year), and it is great.  Very deep red, with the petals and leaves from the roses, with some black.  We were very impressed to say the least - it is a great painting, with sentimental value, and something that we'll be able to have and pass down.

So, fast forward a year, and some months later ... and we just got our painting with my wedding bouquet!  And, IT. IS. UNBELIEVABLE.  I can't say enough about how flippin' super this painting really is!  It is way above and beyond anything I ever expected, and I am in love with it.  Missy did an AWESOME job, and I'm so glad I decided to preserve my flowers this way.  (We would have sent Pat's boutonniere to be included as well, if it hadn't gotten so wilted and disheveled at the ultra-fun reception!)  So awesome, in fact, that I thought I'd share it here, along with a few of our favorite pics.

I also want to say that Missy & Heather at Flowers into Paintings were great to work with through the entire process.  They were very responsive to my emails, and always kept me up-to-date on the status of my flowers and paintings.  They asked for my input and any suggestions I had, as well as certain aspects I was looking for in my painting ... and then they did their work and Missy added her artistic talent, and Patrick & I ended up with two unbelievably awesome paintings!  We just love them both and we can't say enough great things about this whole experience and the artwork!

Some vendor info for those that might want to see or pass along ...

• Flowers into Paintings, Lafayette, Louisiana
• Owner: Missy Cannon & Office manager: Heather Morgan
• http://www.flowersintopaintings.com/

Also, all of the above pics were taken by Mattson Pictures of Michigan ... www.mattsonpictures.com. BEST photographers (also did our heading photo with our engagement session)!!!

Flowers were designed by Jen Cummins at Beautiful Blooms by Jen ... www.beautifulbloomsbyjen.com.  GREAT flower designer!

THANKS!!

It's really only been 3 weeks?

All last week, and all this past weekend, we have been busting butt to get these front four rooms done because the floors get refinished this week!  It was a super task to take on ... and we didn't quite get it ALL done, but we did get the vast majority of the high priority work done!

We have cleaned all the wallpaper up and painted all four of those rooms!  The cracks have been repaired and the baseboards have been fixed.  The walls are painted; the Den trim is painted; the baseboards are painted!  The floors are nail, staple, and carpet free.  The fireplace is painted and the dirty, rotten logs have been removed and cleaned up! 

We kind of felt a little defeated this weekend.  We were SO tired and exhausted.  Our hips and backs hurt from being on the floor so much fixing and painting baseboards.  Our arms are like jello from holding the paint brush above our heads painting ceilings and trim.  But, when we stopped to really look around and think about it - we've gotten a lot done in 3 short weeks!  Considering the fact that we both work full-time, and this has been a second job for both of us - we've gotten really no time off and haven't quite finished everything we wanted to before having to move - we've gotten a lot done!  And we've already learned a lot, so I think that we're going to be pretty good at this home ownership thing.  At least we'll be better than those who lived there before us (which at this point, we just hate those people; really, actually not funny ha ha anymore - we just hate them for not doing anything right. ever.).

Pat did a GREAT job on the ceilings - and yes, I'm going to say it again.  Because this weekend we painted the dining room ceiling, which was by far the worst to start with, and it looks awesome!  He also replaced the missing sections of baseboard in the den and they also look super!  (with a little help from work friend Paul B. ... thanks for helping!)

Stuff still on the list for those front rooms that will have to wait until after we move in:

1. Paint the closets (interiors).
2. Paint the crown molding in the LR/DR (might get to this).
3. Paint the doors & door trim.
4. Paint the windows & window trim  (The windows all have the pulley systems in them, and most of them need to be repaired.  We plan to repaint the windows one at a time, as we repair the pulley systems to keep the original windows.  Maybe a few this fall, probably most next spring.).

So ... here are the final weekend photos.  Enjoy!  Hopefully the next photos I post will be with the newly finished floors!

The ceiling still needs some touch-up.

 

Baseboard before ...

Baseboard after ... and it looks even better painted!!!

Baseboard painted!!  (needs touch up, but trust me ... it looks great!)

Fireplace is clean, and actually has some cool grates!

Wallpaper has been ordered, and will hopefully be up in the next few weeks!

 

The house is starting to smell better every day!

CEILING BEFORE ...

AND AFTER, AFTER, AFTER!!!