I think I'm in Over My Head

Today is the first time I think the house we bought was too big.

Coming from 600 something square feet of a condo, we knew when we were looking at houses we wanted something that we could grow in to.  Hence, the 3,600 something square foot mansion.  And when I say mansion, I'm comparing to the condo.  I don't actually think I live in a mansion.  Though, wouldn't that be nice ;-)

But everyday, I have a new project idea.  And everyday, I go home and am exhausted from work and don't do anything house related.  But the next day, another project.  Or another 12 project ideas.

On the plus side, I did score some awesome Craigslist/thrift store finds today.

When I started night stand shopping for our guest bedroom, I was HORRIFIED at how much a simple piece of wood furniture would cost.  And, considering I can't seem to buy a piece of furniture (new or used) without tearing it apart and changing it's appearance, thrift stores seem to be a lot more economical on the budget.

I blame Pinterest. Maybe I should have given that up for Lent instead of clothes shopping...

I found this great table for $5 -- solid wood and everything is sturdy. And refinished I think it will serve a purpose. 

$5

I also found these candle sticks for $1.99 each.  I am thinking they would look great painted teal and possibly even turned into lamps.

$2 each

Since our guest bedroom is navy, yellow and white themed, I couldn't turn down these navy blue frames for under $2 each.  They are darker than the picture looks.

$2 each

And for my final thrift store find, I found this lovely little statue.  So far, no one that I've shown seems to like him but I just adore him.

$2

Then for my splurge of the day, I found this great mirror on Craigslist.  I'm picking it up from the lady tomorrow evening.  I'm thinking this will look great over my future buffet in the dining room.

$65



All for less than $85?  I'm stoked.

Small Changes

I am QUITE proud of the small amounts of progress I made this weekend.  Our I should say we made this weekend.  Most of Saturday was spent trying to get the husband's garage in a somewhat usable order.   The power tools are in place, the tool box has a home and the totes are all labeled and up on the shelves.  It's quite a nice change.

I also took advantage of the President's Day sales going on and got some items needed for my projects.

This is what our lovely guest room looked when the previous owner's lived in our house.  I really don't want to know what those doll heads were doing in that bedroom, especially since no females lived in the house...

Then I found a great deal on some clearance bedding and the room looked a bit different than when the previous owner lived there. I really tried to like it.  I did.  The price made me want to like it.  Unfortunately, I just didn't like it.  At all.  Luckily, since I only made the bed with the items, I didn't feel too bad returning them to BB&B. 

Now the room looks not nearly as put together, but clean.  The bedding is all white and has a bit of a striped texture to it (not shiny stripes...actual textured stripes).  Then the dark navy will be curtains and the yellow be the upholstered headboard.  We are going to use the same light gray paint as the rest of the house is.  We have more house guests starting on March 16th so we are hoping to get the room in lovely condition by then. I found a great nightstand I thought would look cute.

Unfortunately I'm not having an easy time tracking one down as it is a discontinued item that is on a ridiculously good sale.  Story of my life.







We also started hanging our curtains! I really think that the room is looking much more finished than it did.  I scored the rods and curtains at Ikea for under $25 for both pieces.  This is what our windows look like without panels...  (side thought -- I forgot to take a picture of the actual windows that I hung the curtains on before I hung them up.

After:

And yes, that sexy ladder is STILL hanging out in our family room.  Bring it up with my husband.  I've tried.  You see how far I've made it.  The curtains could use an ironing, but other than that I am quite happy they are up.

I also hung a rod for in the dining room.  With the third set of white, cheap Ikea curtains I purchased, I am going to make some of these:

http://www.theyellowcapecod.com/2011/01/bold-striped-diy-drapes.html

I found some black, flexible paint so hopefully my curtains turn out half as nice as the inspiration.

What a Freaking Weekend

All week Scott and I had plans to go snowboarding this weekend.  But after his first week at his new job, he was BEAT.  So somehow he ended up napping and watching DIY network all weekend while I painted.   And painted.  And then painted some more.  You can catch a peak of him sleeping over yonder in that picture.  I was trying to document that absolutely demolished state that our house was in. 

On a plus side, we can finally officially say we have made some painting progress.  The family room, dining room, eating area and stairwell are all complete.  OK, I'm slightly lying on the stairwell.  We have 30 foot ceilings in the family room, living room and stairwell and my version of "done" is when it's too high for me.  So with the extender pole I went up about 3/4 of the way but the rest is up to Scott.  So where the stairwell is concerned - I am DONE!  I've done the majority of the entry and living room, but finally gave up when there were too many boxes to get around. 

Yup.  This is what my house looks like right now.  In the background, you can almost see my COMPLETED dining room! That reminds me, I need to go pull the tape!  Scott will eventually be putting in wainscotting and crown molding in there.  We also still have to hang curtains and change the light fixture.  Oh, and maybe buy some furniture.  We have a lovely circle/oval table that we love but no chairs, china cabinet or anything like that.





Now, please forgive my lack of graphic design skills - but this is an option of where we are going to place "the clock."  I think the clock may be bigger than how it looks here.  The railing will be getting a makeover as well to be white which I think will contrast nicely with the dark wood and dark clock frame.  Since the carpet is going to be ripped out (SOON!) and replaced by dark hardwoods, we will have to see what we can do about lightening the dark up with a rug.  I am  also going to have to find a way to organize the junk that lands on this table.   Since it's the first place we see when we walk in (both the front door and the garage door) it gets our keys, purses, water bottles, etc. on it.

I can't wait until we have more afters.  Many, many more afters.

Before and After

I don’t have many “afters” to post yet, but thought I’d include the only things we’ve actually sorta/mostly completed.

Now, forgive my images for their lack of attractiveness.  My lazy friend needs to beautify them but she’s far too busy running 2 businesses while working full-time to provide any assistance to my blog.  Ok, she may have created my header.  And she may be pretty much amazing. 

The fireplace mantle has been painted white from the original and hideous wood color.  Eventually, we are going to install some shelving into that large hole to the right of the fireplace.

I found a great deal on a light fixture at Home Depot and was also able to get that switched out.  Light fixtures weren’t on our hugely important to do list, but it is amazing how much one little change made.  And for $40 something, it was well worth it.  We have 2 more fixtures for the hall that are sitting on the counter waiting for my husband to get motivation to install.  He happens to hate electrical.

And I also had to include a picture of my stove in all it’s shining glory. 

Finally!

As of 1/18/12, Scotty and I are official homeowners in Colorado! Now, I would have announced this sooner but we ran into a few hiccups with the previous owner.  We were sitting at closing just about done and it was time for him to sign the bill of sale.  The bill of sale mentioned all the included appliances.  Dude looked at us and said, “I got rid of all of those.  They weren’t in the contract.”  While Scotty and I mentally freaked out at each other, we decided to not react to that statement until our real estate agent was in the room.  Luckily, she happened to walk in about 30 seconds after he said this.  I quickly caught her up.  His real estate agent verified it was in the contract and the agents discussed.  We weren’t quite sure what was going to happen but decided to wait and see what the previous owner did.

Closing concluded after that.  The agents asked for the keys so we could take possession.  The seller said no.  He had for some reason decided not to vacate his property.  Uh… what?!  Can you do that?!  Turns out legally, no.  We talked to the agents and the police department.  We could not legally have him removed until 24 hours after closing.  So we waited.  Scott drove by multiple times during that 24 hour process (probably close to 10) to make sure that he appeared to be leaving.

4:30 PM on January 19th rolled around – and the house had a new door lock.  I love having a handy husband.  Last night we brought the dogs over.  They ran like crazy animals through the whole house up and down 2 flights of stairs and around and around.  They were super funny.  We also put up some paint swatches and started pulling down the kitchen desk.  Kitchen desks drive me NUTS.  Talk about dating a house.

We also unfortunately (at least unfortunate for our budget) decided we will have to rip the carpet out.  It really is just unsavable.  In a few months, my husband will hopefully be laying beautiful new hardwoods throughout the whole downstairs.  It will look so much better.  I’ve decided I can probably wait on a fridge to get those new and much more sanitary and clean floors.  Right now, we are starting our research on hardwoods versus bamboo.  I’m leaning towards bamboo even though supposedly all hardwood is produced in an eco-friendly way these days.  I just don’t believe it.  Especially since I’m a penny pincher and will be ordering from the cheapest wholesale place I can find.

We officially have a house!  As I told my husband, we now have a 3,618 square feet project!

Ugh!

Well, after waiting and waiting and waiting some more, we were almost ready to close this last Friday.  We have been through a whirlwind of back and forth, delays, and more delays with this loan.

Both our loan officer and real estate agent said they have never seen so many hurdles come up for such well qualified buyers.  I guess that’s life eh?

Cherry on top of the whole situation – the house will go to auction on Wednesday if we don’t close.  We are in a waiting game waiting for a condition to clear with the IRS.  Either we get the house VERY soon, or this whole process was waiting and fighting for nothing.  Hopefully Wednesday will be a GOOD news update!

On a brighter note, Scott and I discovered the neatest store today! It’s called a Sears Outlet.  They essentially sell floor models and scratched and dented appliances.  We looked around today through there and realized we will be able to save a BOATLOAD if we are able to deal with a few cosmetic flaws.  To give you an idea, I fell in love with a $3,000 stove today.  It was KitchenAid, dual fuel, convection, and double oven.  There was a TINY dent on the bottom the second oven.  And I mean TINY.  It was most visible from the side view.  The sales person had to show it to me since I couldn’t find the blemish.  Price tag on this bad boy? $1,500.  Now, I don’t want to run out and spend $1,500 on a stove but there are some great deals to be found in there.  The same fridges we’ve been eyeballing for nearly $3,000 were $1,300 and came with all the bells and whistles.  We decided we could probably live with some minor flaws as long as our eyes weren’t drawn to them, they were coverable (aka fridge art) and they didn’t affect the performance of the machine.  What’s even better is they are still completely covered under normal manufacturer’s warranties and you can purchase an extended protection plan.  We were stoked to find such a place as we have 6 appliances to replace.  6!

Boy how time has flown!

I haven’t been able to update much due to a large remodel project I’m in the middle of….
Here’s a quick run down of what my first weekend looked like:

• Saturday - taped/repainted all the molding on the bottom level (except the tops of door frames), raked leaves up
• Sunday – started painting actual walls on the main level (Scott even was able to do the 30 foot walls in the family room most of the way!), picked up our new stove and new dishwasher
• Monday – our personal belongings were dropped off!  I started unpacking and painting the kitchen cabinets white
• Tuesday – unpacked and worked on the cabinets

When I write it down… it really doesn’t look like much! But let me tell you, I was BUSY! Naturally it was the 1 weekend of the month that Scott had to work so I didn’t even get much help.
We still have quite a bit to finish, but it is nice to see some progress!

Our new dishwasher: KitchenAid Superba Series

Our new stove: KitchenAid Dual Fuel Double Oven Range

The second weekend my mom and her boyfriend were in town visiting.  It was nice to have a break from the house.  All I feel like I do is work and come straight home and paint walls or cabinets.  I’ll be glad when my kitchen is back together!

This past weekend (our third weekend in the house) we again didn’t get anything done to house guests.  I LOVE have house guests since I get a break from the house.  Though it sure does drag our projects out farther and farther.

On a plus side, the cabinets are 85% done.  The bottom ones are 100% done and we only have 3 cabinets left to paint.  I can see the light at the end of the tunnel!  We also were able to put together our guest bedroom this weekend.  We ordered a nice memory foam mattress and frame so when our guests come over they aren’t stuck on the floor (or bringing their own bed like my mom did!)

On the projects for this week/weekend is to make an uphoulstered headboard for the guest room.  We bought some plywood and are going to mess around with fabric and foam for an economical headboard option. 

After about 3 weeks in the house I can say we fall in love with it more everyday!