Decisions, Decisions

A grey house. I wanted a grey house with black shutters and white trim. You can picture it, right? So can I... on the house next door. On to plan B. But, before we get to what colors I chose, does anyone notice the overgrown shrubs? Screens? BARS on the windows? How about that window unit poking out front and center? The list obviously goes on and on... and on. Hey, at least the wreath is cute.

 

 

First on the list, my mom and dad came over to help clean out my flowerbeds. They did this all by themselves. SO thankful. Here's a few of the bags they put out by the road. 

 

 

 

And this picture doesn't even begin to show the transfomation.

 

As for the window unit in the front of our house, Josh pulled it out and it left us with this big hole in the front bedroom/front of our house. The picture below makes me chuckle every time. Can you see him? Haha :) 

 

Josh pulled some boards off of our shed to put on the front of the house. Looks like it was always like that, right? That's what we were going for. Minus the mildew look.

 

 

After this, I became very anxious about getting our house cleaned and painted. There's something about driving up to a house with a good feeling - at the least, a smile. Pink wasn't doing it for us. So when the painter showed up the first day, I was so ready to see the difference. As luck would have it, it rained... and rained. Our house did get clorox'ed in the meantime. So we lived with this look for a week. It's not that bad, I know.

 

 

I knew the decision we made for a paint color would be a big decision. It's not something you change when you're in the mood for something new - at least not in our case. In the end, I got a very grey-looking house. However, it's green-ish khaki in person. And, I still got my black shutters and white trim. Isn't it adorable? We think so. The best part about the new paint color is all the neighbors stopping to thank us for finally painting "the pink house". I love that everyone else in our neighborhood, as well as our family and friends, are excited to see the progress.

 



Move In Day

After one final goodbye, we locked up on our first needs-no-work home and were ready for closing the next day. Those were some sleepy faces... and in my case - no make-up, and apparently the brush was already packed up as well.  

 

We couldn't wait to get the closing on our house done so we could concentrate on our pink house. Here's a little glimpse at how moving weekend went. Josh and I pretty much moved all the "stuff" ourselves. Then, we enlisted the help of my brother and a friend. Thank you Ross!

 

 

We kind of just threw things around because we were so tired. One thing to be updated immediately were the appliances. Here's the before and after:

and another close-up... (don't worry you'll see the entire kitchen soon enough :) Anyone know the year on this thing?

and the after...

 

While the new appliances made things better, it certainly wasn't all peaches and roses. Is that a saying? Anyway, in the picture below, look in the window. There was one of those in every room. Yep, you guessed it, no central AC.

 

Due to the amount of projects we have on our plate and Josh's busy work schedule, it wasn't feasible for us to install the AC ourselves. Not for lack of Josh's trying to convince me :). Talk about a happy camper when I saw this.

The bottom level of the house is now fully air conditioned! Now if we could only do something about the curb appeal :)

 

 



Refinishing Wood Floors... and the dust that comes with it

Honestly, when we bought our house, as much as I loved the area, street, overall charm of the idea of a new-to-us old house - it was very overwhelming. There is so much that you want to do all at once. Your mind starts to drift from one room to the next and you have all these ideas that it's hard to keep all your ideas together! Insert Pinterest... about 1000 times a day... A girl can dream right :)

Speaking of charm, one of the major selling points on this house was that it had the original hardwood flooring and an upstairs. I grew up in a house with an upstairs - something about it just screams "home" to me. Naturally our Josh's first big DIY project had to be refinishing those beauties. I should say Josh and his dad's big DIY project - he was a big help! All I really knew about refinishing flooring is the color I wanted. Sanding, polyurethane, DUST - what's all that about? So, I ignored all those details and moved on to what I liked most. Here we are testing out stains...

Needless to say, we didn't go with either of those choices ;-) But there's a good shot of the flooring before. Don't worry, we'll get to those pink walls soon enough :) Noticing a trend with the pink yet?

 

Here is a shot of one of the rooms before. Oh, how could I forget. What was on top of these wood floors for 30+ years you ask? That would be wall to wall blue carpeting. Who filled in the nail holes? That would be yours truly.

 

Enter the sander. Isn't it crazy how just one pass with that big contraption can do that to the floor? Obviously, I don't know the correct terminology here.

 

Oh yeah, if you were wondering about that dust. The picture says it all. GROSS!! No worries, those bad boys are getting ripped out as well.

 

Then, I left for a little hiatus called a bachelorette party for my sweet friend Sarah. Yay!

 

Meanwhile, Josh was at the house. When I returned, every room looked like this. Fab, right?

 

In the end, we chose "Dark Walnut" for our floors. LOVE it! And, the after.

 

 

And voila! I will never forget the hard work that went into this project... and that's not only attributed to the stain/poly smell that won't leave my clothes. Thank you Josh for working while I was lounging by the pool and celebrating :) We finished these two days before move in - just in the knick of time.

Closing Day!

Do you ever get something on your mind and you can't.make.it.stop? That's me with the idea of moving. We purchased our first cookie-cutter home in June of 2011, and it was turn-key and just what we needed at the time. Fast forward almost two years, I'm bored to tears with my perfect-at-the-time home. After many MANY nagging comments to my husband, I finally got him to say yes to the idea of moving. Naturally, I already had my eyes on quite the gem - a sweet pink gem. Within one week, we had our house up for sale, SOLD, and a purchase agreement on our new house. Sounds perfect, right? One little catch.... we have to completely renovate our *new* house from top to bottom... ;-) Here we are on the day of closing on March 28, 2013. Ready to start our new adventure!  

 

 

 

 

Look at those optimistic, happy faces...

 

 

Last but not least, here she is - the pink house! - our pink house. She's been pink for 50 years and she's about to get a fabulous facelift.

 

 

Isn't she gorgeous? Screens, overgrown bushes, and all? So excited to see how she turns out :)

 

Did I mention it was also our anniversary? What a perfect gift for our first anniversary. I'd say this takes the first anniversary gift of paper to a whole new level - thank you Josh! Imagine what we talked about over dinner :)

 

 

Cheers to a new year of marriage, a new-to-us home, and many first adventures!