All Moved In!

I finally feel like I can take a deep breath!! We're finally moved in!! After 4 months of hard work, we are all moved in. It was a stressful time, but totally worth it! As you can see on the right, Basil likes her new house! The week we moved was very busy. Our girls that had been living with us all year went home on Sunday and Monday morning. After I dropped the girls off at the airport Monday morning, I turned around to go home to help load up the moving truck......well I guess it was more bossing around the people loading the truck! Then I spent Monday afternoon and Tuesday morning cleaning our old house, with the help of my lovely friends & family. Tuesday and Wednesday my mom was here to help me unpack. We made a lot of progress! On Thursday, my sister, her husband, son, & her son's friend drove down from Portland in their motor home....which they parked outside our new house! Then on Friday night, my brother and his girlfriend drove down from Portland to stay with us. Then on Saturday, my other sister got married!!! It was a crazy week, but so much fun! I was so glad to see some of my family, even if we were barely moved in. This past month has been filled with planting our lawn out back and doing lots of little stuff around the house. We're still working on getting all our doors up. We've been without a bedroom door since we've moved in! It's ok though...since it's just been the two of us. We did get our front door, which I love! Anyways....enough with the boring part. In the post below if a photo tour of our house. If you're ever in the area, come let us give you a real tour!! Thanks for reading!

Moved in Pics

Our new front door!



The living room. I love how the colors turned out!




Everything fits good!

The kitchen!

This went where that low, weird counter was.

This is an extra seating area. The dining room was so huge I wasn't sure what to do with it.

The dining room.

The shelves in the hall.

Our bedroom.

The bathroom.

The lights I painted white. I love how they turned out!

I found cabinet pulls that matched! Next project....painting the cabinets!

Our new interior doors!

Josh's herb garden. He's making a water feature with the bamboo.

Our newly planted back yard. Isn't it gorgeous!!

Sigh...the cabinets are done!

When I look at this picture, all I can do it let out a long sigh. These cabinets literally have my blood, sweat, and tears in them. I love them!! This has been my project for the past 4 weekends. When we first looked at the house, I saw the ugly kitchen cabinets and said, "Oh, we don't need to buy new cabinets. I can just sand them and paint them. No problem...it will be easy!" I can't believe how naive I was! During spring break, Josh was going to be out of town on a YFC trip. So, I thought I would get a lot of work done on the house while he was gone and he would be so impressed with me on how much I got done! HA! Was I wrong! To start, I thought I would just rent a sander. No big deal, I can do it by myself. I went to pick it up and was shocked by the huge power tool the guy took down off the shelf. Oh...did I mention it was a belt sander?? Not a little palm sander that I thought I was renting. The guy who worked there tried to talk me out of renting it, but I told myself I could do it! He gave me a little (and by little, I mean about 30 seconds) tutorial on how the "beast" worked and then sent me off with a wish of good luck and a warning to be careful or I would gouge holes in my cabinets. Gee thanks.....that helps a lot. What did I get myself into??!! I worked for 8 hours that day. My goal was to get all the doors and drawers sanded and get them all primered. I was so clueless! In the 8 hours I was there, I got 9 doors completely done and 9 half way done. In total there are 30 doors and 8 drawers. You're laughing at me right now, aren't you?! When I got home that night, I could barely move. I was so sore from being jerked around all day by the "beast". I don't know how I did it, but I got up the next morning and did it all over again. My lovely friend, Aprill came over with her boys and they helped me get the rest of the doors done. I don't know what I would have done without their help. Aprill, you are the best!!! The next 3 weekends were full of more sanding, painting, more sanding, and more painting, painting, painting. Today we spent a few hours trying to figure out where each door went. Lisa was smart and numbered all the cabinets for me while we were taking them down. However, I got frustrated moving the tape with the numbers on it back and forth while I was sanding, so I just took them off thinking it wouldn't be that hard to figure it out. Well, that was stupid! So if you are ever in the same situation....don't do it! It was like a giant puzzle. Not fun! But, it's finished and I am so happy! I am ready for the next project! So...for your viewing pleasure, I added some pictures. The first is an up close pictures of the drawers, then the kitchen with the island we're going to put in. We're still playing around with the placement. We'll see if Josh and I can agree on where it's going to go. :) Next is a before picture....and man, that was one ugly kitchen!!! And last, the disaster of during the project. The pictures don't really show the color well, but the cabinets are an antique white and I painted all the handles and hinges a chocolate brown. The color contrast is beautiful...I like it a lot! We still have some painting to do in the kitchen. Above the cabinets and around the window is going to be painted the same green that is in the dining room. I think that will make the cabinets look even better. Then we still need to paint the ceiling (not looking forward to cleaning that ceiling...it's pretty nasty!). After that all we need is a dishwasher, stove, a couple light fixtures, and maybe a new faucet and BAM! It should look like a brand new kitchen!! I can't wait! So, on to the next project! Next is more painting (sigh). Painting walls, ceilings, baseboards, cabinets in the hallway, and I'm sure we'll find more things that need paint. As always, check back again. Hopefully the next project won't take as long as this last one. Thanks for reading! :)

New floors!

Our house looks so different! Our new floors got installed this week. I am in love with the floor!! :) It looks really good. Our friend Carl has been helping us out with everything and he installed them. He did an amazing job! The paint colors are growing on me and they look even better next to the floor. I've decided I LOVE the colors when it's bright and sunny out. When it's cloudy and raining, I'm not so sure. Not very good for Oregon, but I think once we get our furniture in it will look great. Everything is starting to come together. My next big project is sanding the kitchen cabinets and painting them. I'll probably get started on them next week. Check back soon!!

Color, Color Everywhere!

This has been a busy week! We began our work this week and we are exhausted! We have a deadline to get the flooring in the living room, dining room, kitchen, and hallway by the end of this week. So, we got busy cleaning, scraping the ugly ceiling and painting. Today, we had an awesome group of friends and family come over for a "painting party". We had fun and got a lot of work done. We couldn't have done it without their help. We now have a very colorful house!! I'm trying to get adjusted to all the colors, but in the end I think I will love it. April painted a blessing on our floor, then all the girls wanted to paint their names. This will be in the house covered by our new floor. I'm glad they were able to leave their mark on the house! We still have lots of painting to do, but we should be ready to get the flooring in most of the rooms. I'll update when that's done. The house is starting to shape up. Being a homeowner is exhausting!! But well worth it!

It's finally ours!

Wow! Who would have thought we would ever be able to own a home? We sure didn't! I had finally given up my dream of buying a house and that's when the Lord blessed us with this opportunity. With the help of our amazing realtor, Sandy Fisher (who I recommend....she's awesome!!!) and Josh's parents, we are the proud owners of a cute little house. All three of these people went above and beyond anything we expected....we love you and cannot thank you enough for all you did! It needs some work, but by the time we're through with it, it's going to be so cute! I'll add some "before" pictures. I'll keep this updated with all the changes we've made, so come check back soon! The next 2 weeks will be filled with cleaning, scraping down the popcorn ceiling, painting, and adding some of the flooring. We should be busy!