Water here, water there, water everywhere!

I have been blessed with a nephew born on my birthday!  What an exciting day!  I was also given a surprise 30th birthday party by my husband and family.  All of those awesome things happened in the span of four days!  Between these huge events I am still trying to unpack and get my Christmas on...it has been interesting.

In between all the wonderful craziness going on in life we are trying to remodel the master bathroom.  Of course this is not without drama.  I worked late yesterday evening and noticed my husband running around grumbling (grumpy mumbling).  While cleaning up in the bathroom he noticed a little puddle of water...  Fast forward a couple hours and we had no working shower or bath.  Hubby had to shower hillbilly style with me handing him pots of water!  I am not as brave but ventured to dear 'ol mom and dad's facilities!  Something went awry with the hot water heater, pipe? and valves.  Andy took a personal day today to fix our issues.

At this point the bathroom is all about bathroom "design".  Not so much design as redesign with fixtures stuck in there places.  We are tiling the floor and around the tub but Andy has been on me about picking out a vanity.  Easier said than done.  We have always wanted a double vanity because we always get ready for bed at the same time.  Unfortunately our options are pretty slim because the opening for the vanity is 58 and half inches and double vanities are around 60 to 72 inches standard.  Yuck!  I have seriously been thinking about doing a his and hers style bath with two separate vanities.  Opinions please! 

 

I am actually saw these exact vanities and am considering them.  I want to go with a dark finish. BUT I am not wild about the white cabinet in the middle...I think nothing between them would be a much cleaner look.

Welcome Home

Well we are finally in and I have a computer!  Thanks to many friends and family the house is clean and safe for my babies.  I learned a lot of things in this move but the most useful tip was how to wash walls.  I thought I knew how to wash a wall, just scrub it down and done...boy was I wrong.  Thanks to Kate's clean wall technique my ugly kitchen is sparkling clean.

Unfortunately even the clean wall technique couldn't help the fact that the cabinets are rotting at the bottom!  I thought the dated fridge and dishwasher would drive me nuts.  The fridge is a side-by-side and I HATE it with a passion but a happy surprise is the dishwasher works great...even better than my newer one at our old house.

The best part of moving was showing the boys their new home, rooms and playroom.  The first time they saw the house was Saturday, moving day.  It was a huge hit!

Boys in the playroom! & Toby's bedroom below.

I have so much to unpack.  We packed in stages, first there was bins in my parent's crawl space (that are now in my basement), then there was the items in the storage unit (that are now in my basement) and last the items in the old house (that have been put away for the most part).  My goal is to decorate the Christmas tree we put up this evening and then tackle the other bins as time allows.  I hope to be completely unpacked by new year's.  Cross your fingers...

Special thanks to all of our many friends and family who helped us so very much!  We are very blessed!

A Blessed Day

Day 3 was supposed to be washer and dryer delivery day but Home Depot doesn't deliver to our new zip code on Thursdays so the washer and dryer are coming tomorrow.  Other than that we are right on track with everything.  Our main goal was to finish up painting so it wouldn't interfere with the carpet install (today was day 1 of installation and tomorrow it will be finished).


My day started out early (left the house around 6:30, Hubby had to meet the pool table moving people so he watched the kids until Mom came).  I went to Walmart and got contact paper to line the cabinets and a few other things we needed including some goodies for the guys.  While I was in the quick check out line I was chatting with a lady about the goodies in my cart and how I was making the guys chicken potpie for lunch (yummy!) and while I was leaving she said to have a blessed day.  Boy was it!

It was a day of opportunities.  After the unfortunate news that our planned "addition" could not easily happen I had an epiphany on the drive from Walmart to the house about how we could accomplish our goals of having a bigger family room.  I figured out how we could do it and my father in-law thought it was a brilliant idea.  When Hubby arrived he was not as excited but later in the day tweaked my plan to make it truly brilliant and a lot less expensive!  The kicker is I get my new kitchen too!  Stay tuned this spring (fingers crossed)...


Another blessing was having enough carpet left over to carpet the small area between the playroom and kitchen!  The warehouse the carpet guy uses was busy and instead of cutting the amount we needed off the roll they gave him the whole roll!  It is going to be the same carpet as in the bedrooms but who cares...new carpet that I didn't have to pay any extra for.  He laid the carpet in the playroom, office and has it ready to lay in the master bed room and one of the boys rooms.

 

Office & Playroom

 

 Master Bedroom & Boys room

 Hall area that will get the free carpet!  The doorway where the tool boxes are will be blocked off for demolition.

Also, I believe I overheard talk that the roof can wait until the spring!  Very happy about that winter roofs are no good.  The blessing kept rolling all day.

I met a neighbor!  He works at the Ace Hardware where we bought the paint.  He and his wife may stop by after we are all moved in to take a look at the carpet because they need some too!

I also found another house like ours on a different nearby road - this one had the center front door too.  They had the breezeway clubbed in as well and in the same sort of fashion as the other house (the cosmetics were different).  Seriously thinking about knocking on some doors bearing Christmas goodies for a glimpse at their interiors to see what the house originally looked like.  We think our home's previous owners added a wall because it is completely out of square and makes for an awkward entrance.

To wrap things up...we painted the other boys room The Big Chill (color)...well we painted what we could.

Hopefully tomorrow I will get most of my kitchen unpacked (including lining the cabinets) and get to that hall and stairway carpet (it is one of the only things in the house that still smells like dog).


Special thanks to father in-law, AJ and Mom for watching those boys!

Not quite what I expected...

This was supposed to be today's agenda:


 Day 2: Pool Table Day

Pool Table is being moved (one solid piece of slate)
Carpet man coming to measure rooms
Paint ceilings
Paint playroom, bedrooms, office


Apparently no one told Mother Nature this.  Throughout last night to mid-day today we got a ton of rain dumped on us (mud, mud, mud).  Day 2 was all about painting.  The pool table was not moved because of the rain...they are trying again tomorrow.

Carpet man arrived and measured the rooms and a few hours later dropped off the carpet and pad.  Unfortunately the carpet we selected for 4 of the 5 rooms was discontinued!  We had to get a lighter color...scary with the boys but I really didn't want brown carpet so tan/off white it is  (aka Almond Bark or Basketweave).  Luckily the price was within very close to our original quote.  Installation is set for Thursday and Friday.

Father in-law painted all the ceilings while my Mom cleaned like a freak.  I must say that kitchen was foul!  The rain did give us one gift: Dad's time as he couldn't work in the rain and came to help us paint.  We used all Ace Paint and LOVED it.  The playroom is Banana Smoothie (and the office since we had a lot left over), one of the boy's bedrooms in Greenwich (that will need a second coat), Master Bedroom in Maple Sugar (that will need a second coat too).  Unfortunately we didn't get to the other bedroom that will be in a blue shade but there is a lovely hole that needed to be patched.

Horrible surprises included:
(1) Cleaning up the disgusting mold in the walk-in closet from a LEAKY shower!  The shower cannot be used as it leaks under the tile floor.  Hubby thinks the floor needs to be ripped up and subfloor replaced as well as the shower stall...ugh!  (2) Mom found a bubble in the middle of the dining room wall...what caused that?  (3) It was raining inside of our house...yes the chimney to the stove leaks.  Hubby thinks a chimney cap will take care of that.  (4) The icing on the cake is learning that the addition we wanted to extend the living/family room is going to be close to impossible because it is a load bearing wall and the height differential.  Ummm...why didn't anyone mention this sooner.  Poor Hubby is so aggravated and I don't blame him that family room is smaller than our existing one!  We could still club it in but the biggest opening we could easily have is a double doorway (great for conversations don't you think?).  However on a bright note I found a house on a nearby road that is our exact house (except the front door is on the side instead of the middle) and they have a clubbed in breezeway...nice to see what it could look like.

   

Maybe tomorrow I will get to clean those stairs and Hubby will get to go in the attic to see how our roof is faring in this yucky weather.

Special thanks to Father in-law, Mom, Dad, AJ, and Aunt Cathy & GG for watching those boys...boy did I miss them!