Working on Resolution #2

This weekend Troy and I worked on gutting the rest of our shower in our master bath. When we bought the house in April we knew that it had a leaky shower pan and could not be used. So, we have never even taken a shower in our bathroom. But, not for long. Troy and I figured we could save ourselves some $$$ and do the demo ourselves and then pay a professional to come in and put in a new shower pan and re-tile, etc. Okay, seriously, this was HARD work. I don't know who put in that tile...but they should win an award because it was not going anywhere. We used sledgehammers, crow bars, and a chisel powered by an air compressor and that was barely enough to get it done. We also unearthed a giant ants nest when we removed the tile around the threshold of the shower. I think they were harmless little ants (not carpenter ants)...but there were alot of them. Troy sprayed them with poison while I waited in the kitchen...I think they are gone now.
We plan to raise the ceiling and put in a new light fixture, we also plan to raise the shower head and get new shower fixtures in addition to all the other regular shower work that needs to be done. :)
These pictures show when the work was almost done...don't know why I didn't pick up my camera until 3/4 of the way complete.



ANTS!!!

a BIG birthday present

This year we decided to get Rett and Ellie a BIG birthday present. One they will surely enjoy for years to come...what better to get them than a wooden playset??!! After looking at hundreds of playsets online and in catalogs we had exhausted our search and hadn't found "the one". All of the playsets we found were really long and would take up more than half of our backyard. Unhappy and exhausted we did a search for "custom wooden playsets" and found an individual who builds custom wooden playsets. We met with him and designed a "space saver" playset that fit our backyard. Since we designed it, we were able to choose which accessories we wanted on it. The final product has a 10 ft slide, 2 swings, a trapeze bar, a climbing wall with rapelling rope, a firemans pole and a decked and railed bottom floor in addition to the fort above. We plan on staining it...but the builder suggested we wait about a month for the wood to settle.

Here it is:
All of the pieces:


Partially Constructed


The finished product:

Living Room Before and After

Here are a few pics of our living room before and after. Most of the updates were cosmetic...new carpet and paint (Sherwin Williams Killiam Beige @150%), a new ceiling fan, and all new furniture! Granted, we still have a few things left on our punch list for this room: New fireplace screen (it's really hard to find these in the middle of June), decorative accents above the couch, and knick-knacks. It is 95% finished. So here are the pics:

View from the kitchen:




View from far corner of room:




Fireplace:




The new ceiling fan Troy and his dad installed...well mostly his dad with a little help from Troy on his lunch break. :)

View as you enter the room from the front door:

Kitchen (before and after)

Kitchen updates included: New paint on the cabinets (Sherwin Williams French Roast), Trim and wanescotting(Sherwin Williams Maison Blanche), and walls (Benjamin Moore Camouflage). A new sliding glass door and window above the sink(Foster Exteriors), a new glass cooktop, stainless steel dishwasher, and stainless steel double oven (Whirlpool). I also hung two panels of paisley curtains (Pottery Barn) and a photo holder(Southern Living at Home) to the left of the fridge. Oh, and I bought new barstools (Garden Ridge) to match my dining room table. Eventually I would like to replace the countertops and possibly lay hardwood floors in the kitchen....but that will have to wait for now.
Before:


After:


Before:


After:

First thing: Clear out, Haul off

After we left the title company this morning Troy headed to work and I rode with my dad to get some new keys made. My mom took off work today and watched Rett and Ellie. After getting keys made we picked up my mom and the kids and headed to my new home. After a picnic lunch on a quilt it was time to get to work. The previous owner left alot of junk in the house. It literally looked like he just woke up and left one morning, never to return. There were dirty clothes in clothes hampers, old food in the pantry, framed pictures on the walls, and a raggedy queen sized mattress in the master-bedroom. Part of our contract was that we would accept the house "as-is", therefore we had the burden of clearing out all this junk. We each got black trash bags and began filling them with as much as we could and taking them outside. We made two piles: one pile of potential garage sale items, one pile of trash. We also began pulling back the carpet so that the painters can paint the entire baseboard since we are replacing the carpet anyways. When my dad pulled back the carpet in the corner bedroom we had quite a surprise. Pink, Orange and Yellow linoleum straight out of 1972! This was the only room with this type of flooring which leads me to believe this was originally a girls bedroom. This is also going to be Ellie's bedroom so I was happy to learn it was originally intended for a girl! Troy said he thinks we should leave a little bit of it exposed in the closet to display some of the homes original features (I'm thinking lets just carpet over all of it again). Troy came back after work just in time to load the pickup truck with all the trash.
Rett and Ellie were FANTASTIC today. Rett really did help...we kept handing him items to walk to the trash pile and he kept making trips. Ellie took a 2.5 hr nap in the pack in play and then I put her in the Ergo where she stayed for about another 2 hrs without any fussing. Below are a few pictures of the junk we cleared out and that "gorgeous" flooring we discovered.

The trash we hauled off:


The garage sale pile:


The retro original floor:

On the eve of the closing

Tomorrow we will go to the closing for the new house we are buying in Lake Highlands. It sure has been a long road getting to this point. A "short sale" is anything but easy. I can see now why most of them don't go through. It has taken 4 months of processing paperwork, sending emails, negotiating, inspecting, appraising, etc. to finally purchase this home from the bank it is owned by. Luckily my dad's morgage/real estate expertise steered us clear of any "short sale" pitfalls and we are ready to close tomorrow.
It is a little bittersweet. I am so extrememly excited about all the new house has to offer. Space, most importantly. Closet space, countertop space, garage space and tons of storage space, oh my! I can hardly wait to see the transformation that is about to take place.
On the other hand we have alot of memories in this house. It's the first home Troy and I lived in together. Troy proposed in the backyard. I brought home both my babies from the hospital to this house. I still love this house...it's just time to move on and make new memories. Because that's all they are, memories. It does make me a little sad that Rett and Ellie will never remember living here. Rett will never remember swinging in the swing in the front yard or riding his tractor all over the backyard. We will make new memories and make the new house feel like home soon. :)

So, tomorrow the landscapers show up and begin the transformation. Here are a few pictures of what the before looks like. Tonight is the last night this yard will ever look like this.

Guess What?

Ready for some exciting news....We're MOVING!! Yep, after lots of looking we've finally found our diamond in the rough. Our new home is in a wonderful Lake Highlands neighborhood with a fabulous Elementary school (exemplary rated by TEA) just down the street. The neighborhood is chock-full of little kids for Rett and Ellie to play with. As you can probably tell, this was our motivation for the move. We wanted our kids to attend a school with a great reputation for academics, AND sports. We wanted them to share classes with neighborhood kids that they could ride bikes with to the park, and walk to each others house on the weekends. We have looked periodically as homes came on the market for the past two years (we really wanted to find the one that we could see ourselves living in until all our children are out of school) and found this one on January 15, 2010. We viewed it on a Saturday, obsessed about it until the following Friday when we submitted our offer. That's when the waiting began. The house was being sold as a "short-sale" so we were communicating directly with the bank rather than the individual owner. Apparently, banks work very slowly. We finally heard back from them on March 15th (2 months later!!) that they accepted our offer! Pending a good inspection we should close mid-april and we have a projected move-in date of May 1st.

What's the house like you ask? It is a spacious 2,100 sq ft home with 3 bedrooms, 2.5 baths, a playroom and office! It has lots of potential. I will divulge more later as I plan on documenting the enire renovation/move on my blog. Here's a sneak-peek of what you'll be driving up to when you come to visit: