A couple of before and afters.

So we closed on the house on October 1st. We weren't moving in until Tuesday October 6th. To say we were excited is an understatement. We were giddy. We went to the hardware store the morning of the closing and bought all the paint for our bedrooms. It was our plan to paint all the bedrooms before we moved in- that was the plan. Upon arriving at the house for our walk through our spirits quickly deflated. The house was in far worse condition than we remembered. We already had Stanley Steemer booked to come in the afternoon. The Stanley Steemer guy tried to quit 2x. Each time Marc made him go back in and keep working. Marc finally told the guy that at the very least- we won't puke now if we have to rip out the carpets. Many of the stains would not come out and the smell of dog was VERY strong. I tried to accept the carpets- I did. But it just grossed me out so much that within 48 hours it was clear we were ripping out all the carpets. We would love to put in hardwoods down the road, so for now we are on subfloor covered in area rugs- better than smelling like dog. There were far more projects that needed to be addressed that weekend. The first was the laundry room. This is what it looked like when we closed.


The floor was coming up and very gross. We couldn't just pretend it was fine and move everything in on top of that disaster. So this became the first project and our first finished room. Marc and his dad ripped up the floor and then watched a cool video at Home Depot and bought a new floor and installed that floor. Marc patched and painted the walls- and voila! new laundry room.



Our next finished room (well almost finished room) is Jessica's room. Here is the before/ before picture- what the room looked like when we bought the house.

Here is what it looked like on closing day. Aren't the carpets lovely?

Here is Howard painting away. He came up to help and we made him work all weekend without a break!


Jessica chose two different colors of blue- the wall behind her head is a lighter color. Not sure these pictures do it justice, it is actually a very pretty color. Jessica has the bed I had growing up. Unfortunately there is a top piece that has broken- so it is on the list of things to be fixed, but I still think it looks very nice.


One of my favorite things about this room? The closet. Originally it was just a shelf, but Marc indulged my closet organizer request and now it is a thing of beauty!

Justin's room is just about complete as well (accept for the flooring of course). I will take those pictures soon. The rest of the house is a disaster. There are so many thing on our "to do" list that I can't even keep track. Plus I have so much to do with my business right now that I can't even begin to cross things off the list.

Which brings us to- do we like our house? The answer is that we love this house, well we love the potential of this house. We know that in the long run we are so happy with our choice, but the short run- whoo it is a lot of work.

One of my favorite things about this house is this view from my front door in the late afternoon.

Not bad, huh?

Remember me?

Goodness it has been SO LONG since I blogged. Rule of thumb- if this blog is moving slow most likely there have been a lot of posts on my other blog. So feel free to skip on over there and you will see some of what has been keeping me busy. We have moved into our new house and I am going to blog some of those pics too- but thought I would share our first Halloween pics. This year Justin is Mario. For those in my circle not familiar with all things Nintendo and Super Mario you may not recognize the costume. Justin already had a Mario Baseball cap and a red shirt so all I needed was some overalls and voila! he would have a costume. Much to my dismay you cannot find overalls for the over age 1 crowd. I made these overalls for him out of fleece- I am very happy with how they came out, very cartoony.

After posing nicely he then did some cool Mario moves!



Here is Justin this afternoon at the school costume parade. I have to say one of the best costumes was a little girl dressed as a tornado- very clever.

It is supposed to be in the 60s tomorrow. Let's hope that Jessica's fever doesn't keep her from being a vampire witch!