MOVING SUMMER 2012

At the end of July 2012 we were able to close on our house.  We were so grateful to be out of our little rental.  The property management was difficult to work with and the house was really run down.  So we found a house that fit our needs and had a great location.  No houses behind us and  a park and bike path behind our lot.  Which is perfect for the girls to be able to play and explore.  With houses built so close together here, I feel like they wouldn't get that opportunity otherwise. 

 

We decided not to move in right away and take advantage of the fact that we had one more month on our rental and we could do work around the house without furniture and trying to unpack.  I had BIG plans with painting and such.  But unfortunately the house had other plans.  We found problem after problem.  It was  a little discouraging.  The garage door spring broke the day after we moved in, the light in the family room didn't work, the downstairs bath sink leaked, the carpet upstairs wasn't tacked down, the mother board for the salt cell system for the pool quit working, we had a leak in the upstairs toilet, Livie's window wouldn't open or close and it was off center so bugs got in (the screen had been taken off).  The flanges on the toilets all needed to be replaced since they were dripping.  And to top it off Tim found a couple of scorpions.  This was within the first few weeks of owning the home.  So needless to say, my plans for prettying the place up were put on the back burner so we could repair and replace all the problems.  So much for the inspection.

 

A funny to us now story (it wasn't funny at the time.)  Tim wanted to replace the locks on the house and so we went to Lowe's bought the locks and he went to install them.  He took the screws out of the lock expecting it to come apart.  No such luck.  After 1/2 a day of trying to remove the lock, going back to Lowe's to buy tools to try and remove it,   and ruining the paint on the door, he was able to get it off.  The lock had some internal screws that we didn't know about and couldn't see from the outside which was the cause of the lock not coming apart.  We spent the entire day working and at about 9pm we decided to call it quits.  He had the door lock on and we were exhausted.  But, to our dismay, we couldn't find the keys ANYWHERE to lock up the house.  I couldn't believe it.  We searched and searched the entire house.  We drove back to Lowe's to see if maybe we dropped them and someone picked them up.  No such luck.  We finally had to call a lock smith that Monday to come out and key us some new keys.  Luckily he was super nice and charged me very little.

 The dreaded lock! 

 Here's my little helper painting the kitchen.

 I realize all of these are before pictures and I don't have any after.  I guess because I feel like I'm still in unpacking, decorating mode even a year later.  (It's been a crazy year.)

 Here is the reason I HAD to get painting this place.  Look at this awful fireplace and wall.  You can't tell from the picture but it was a rusty red color.  The tile around the fireplace doesn't match the floor tile.  We have big plans to get rid of this eyesore.

 This stairwell was painted mauve.  Yeah, another paint emergency.  After we moved in, I was talking to the realtor that was selling the house next door.  She said how much she loved our house and that she had shown it a few times.  She told me the biggest comment that she got about the house was how much people liked all the paint in the house.  I told her that I had just painted over all of it and she looked a little surprised.  Seriously, who wants a mauve stair well? 

 The view from the dining area.

 I don't know if you can tell very well in this picture but the mauve color on the stairs is on the right side of this wall and then they changed to another color for the room at the top of the stairs.  The did that diagonal paint line at the corner.  Awesome!  (yes, that's me being sarcastic.)

Oh, and I need to do a shout out here for my friends, Kimberlee Dana and Colette Seagle.  They came and helped me paint.  Colette came to the house even when I wasn't there to help me paint.  We were able to get the whole downstairs done except the laundry room and the bathroom, the stairwell and most of the upstairs hallway and loft area done before we moved in.  Oh, and the little girls bedroom, I painted the day we closed. 

 The shower in the master bath also leaked where the glass and this wall meet in the corner.  It was damaging the dry wall on the outside of the shower.  So I decided since it was yellowing and had stains on the caulking, I would just re - caulk the whole thing.  It looks SOOO much better and the leak is gone. 

I almost forgot that my parents came down and took the girls home to their house so that we could work on getting these shelves done in the garage and other things that we hadn't been able to get to.  It was such a relief to be able to just focus on getting these projects done and get ourselves a little more organized.

 I also wanted to do something with the laundry room.  Here is a picture of one wall before.

Here it is painted.  Tim also made me the stand for my washer and dryer.  Notice that I can put my baskets underneath instead of on tope of the machines.  I like it so much more. 

 This has been such a busy year, I'm glad that we've been able to get as much done as we have.  The problem I have is that I want it all done right now.  And now that I've posted all this, I realized that I need to do some after pictures and post them.  Some day!