Trees, toilets, and garage.

What's been going on lately?

Garage-Now you see it....

Yes, that huge pile of cardboard boxes came outta the garage. Was saving them for relatives that are moving soon.

Now you dont! I placed an ad on Craigslist for free garage materials for any one who wanted to demo it. I got about a dozen replies and a guy showed up later that evening and got started on it. My son was more than happy to lend a hand and destroy something.

Evil maple tree that was knocking over the garage. Here one day.....

Gone the next. It took 2 days, 3 guys, a boom truck and many trips to get this tree down and theres still a ton of wood left in our yard. Hope they come back tomorrow and finish up!

Heres a pic of the catalpa tree thats directly behind our house. Its huge and the neighbors say its well over 100 years old.

Sorry old tree, but yous gotta go. Cant have your roots invading our basement walls :(

Then I was going to start painting. Above the chair rail-Benjamin Moore's Shanker Beige, below the rail- Hale Navy  OR

Shaker beige over Seedling (green) I love the navy blue color. Its a dining room so it can handle a dark dramatic color. BUT before I could gets started on this project..............

 Freakin toilet in half bath sprung a leak (ok, been leaking for awhile but I assumed the wet spot on the floor was my oldest missing the pot) and soaked the subfloors. I got mad and ripped out the tile. Then.....

Said hell with it and took toilet off too. Ive now got a fan in there with the window open to dry out the floor. Hope its just a new wax ring and re-tile it fix.

I've also found a solution for all my wooden dining room chairs being destroyed by my kids and husband- galvanized aluminum indoor/outdoor chairs. Ha! Take that!

Will post more pics when back yard is cleaned up. Also going to tackle the bushes in front yard this weekend. yay



Now the fun begins

So we are all moved in and 99% unpacked. All thats left to do is hang pic and accessorize. We had a few plumbing issues that's taken up our budget to do fun stuff like paint and install fencing in the back yard but oh well. Good plumbing can't be beat :)

My bro in law installed a new chandelier above the dining room table (a 1800's library table). I'm using galvanized garden chairs as dining chairs. Ha! Just try to wreck those ya heathens!!!

The above the island pot rack my bro in law installed (loves my BIL).  I am short on cabinet space and had no where to put all my cook ware and there was an ugly outdated fixture in the kitchen. Viola! 2 birds, 1 stone.

Another view of our kitchen and the 1950's cabinets. I hate em. Can't wait for a kitchen remodel. Hubs says after we build a garage we can demo the kitchen. Mmm hmm, we'll see.

The dishwasher was jacked up from the previous owner removing the door and replacing it with a diff door not realizing ALL dishwasher doors are universal. Ahem. He was no Bob Vila. Anywho, we gotta great deal on a stainless Frigidaire Gallery dishwasher. Yay! (pardon my hubs' backside in the pic)

Living room in progress. Installed bamboo shades on all windows in living room. Its a long skinny room so its a furniture arranging nightmare. I've already removed the bookcase from that corner. The room has berber (ick) carpeting. I had Stanley Steamer clean them the day before we moved in and they looked brand new. 2 Men and a Truck moving Co tracked them all up(and scratched up the nursery furniture, and folded our mattress in half and ripped it open so the springs hang out now) and they look like crap again. Thanks guys. Good job.

Sorry bout the crappy cell phone pics. Blackberrys are great for organizing all your appointments and facebookin' but suck at taking decent pics. More pics to come(when i find the camera)!



Ideas for Mr. Baby Tudor

It's nap time here so I got to thinking about what kind of nursery I want for the bay-bay. He's getting is big sister's bedroom set. It's not shabby hand me downs by no means. It's a convertible crib, dresser and armoire in beautiful mahogany wood.

I've got a few diff ideas (when dont I?) for him. The one I'm liking best is a vintage cowboy and indian theme. Gotta watch it though cuz it can get super cheesy quick. I'm thinking vintage Lone Ranger toys, horse shoes, vintage indian post cards and some bandana prints.

Vintage wild wild west-

Old b&w prints framed in rustic wood. Old cowboy hats hung on a wall, horse shoe over the door for luck, cute plush rocking horse, comfy rocker, and oodles of cute fabrics.

An accepted offer! Finally!!!

Our offer wasnt accepted for Hope Farm Rd. I was so bummed by it! But I kept on looking and still wasnt finding much. Then our agent reccommended a house in the Lakeside area we love so much. Crazy thing is this is the very first house I looked at months ago. I dismissed it because back then I had a laundry list of things our home had to have, not knowing that our budget wouldnt get us all of that. So I thought ewwww and walked away. So we looked again and its like I seen it through new eyes. Its been listed since November 2010!! The price has dropped almost 10 grand!! Its moderate fixer upper.
I offered the sellers my first bid and they came back at $1000 less than asking. I offered $3000 less than asking and they pay for a survey and they agreed. We hope to take possession in 30 days.




Just look at that porch. Can you already imagine the hanging ferns, a swing and old carriage house type lights flanking the front door?















Those scraggly bushes are going buh-bye. New vinyl siding and shutters would give it much needed updating.















The back side. New deck. Cut down a tree or two.....or three.






Yes, its leaning. We'll demo it first thing to avoid law suits from when it falls over on some one. New 20x20 garage!


















Front room. Front door. Most of the wood work is painted. That bums me out.

Stairway and coat closet.

Dinning room. Ick to the red wall.
A bay window? Yes please!

Out dated kitchen. Ive always wanted to design my own kitchen.

Kitchen with shot of breakfast area.

Breakfast nook. Im going to make it the mudroom.

Half bath.

Clean dry basement, no MOLD. yay

Upstairs landing.

Full bath

Master bedroom. oooh love me some paneling!

2nd bedroom

3rd bedroom

4th bedroom

Putting in another offer!

We've (I) decided to put in an offer on Hope (Hog) Farm Rd house. It fits the bill on 90% of the things we were looking for in a house.
What it has going for it=
-4 bedrooms (large rooms)
-more than 1 full bath (it has 2 full, 1 half)
-All bedrooms upstairs or downstairs. Not half up half down. I like to be on the same floor as my kids.
-Large yard
-2 car attached garage
-around 2000 square foot (its 2500+ square foot!!!)
- In a great neighborhood (walking distance to a great Christian school)
-Quiet street (on a cul de sac)
-Fireplace

What it doesnt have=
-Central air (I hate sweating. Gonna be a long summer). Has 4 window units to cool the house. Wow there goes our electric bill.
-Hot water baseboard heat.
-Carpets are shot. Sellers had about 90 dogs. None house trained.
-Ugly paint colors and border.
-Dark paneling in family room.
-Outdated kitchen. With carpet. So gross.
-Outdated bathrooms. With carpet. Should be agains EPA laws.



Here's the listing pic. It's been listed for over 100 days. It's a short sale. We hope to get it for a song. I'll post more pics after we get an accepted offer.

Still looking...............

Alrighty. Let's get this over with. We looked at these houses Tuesday. Nothing exciting to report.

Our bids on Collbran were outbid and now its way out of our budget. Oh well. Wasn't meant to be I guess but its still very disapointing.

This one was a foreclosure. Needed a whole kitchen. Yup, not a sink or cabinet in it. Huge yard that was so over grown (as you can see) that you couldnt make your way to the back door. You can see daylight through the basement wall. Nice. NEXT!

I actually liked this one. She's ugly but has a lot of potential. It needs the garage door and trim repainted. Its a weird raspberry and teal combo right now. Ick! It needs floors, paint, appliances and has a room for another bathroom roughed in already. 2 full baths and big bedrooms. 2 car garage. Living room and a family room. It's a repo so the price is right. Oh and it may have termites. Orkin is doing a free inspection tomorrow so we'll see. Big yard that needs fenced in.

If all goes well, i'll more than likely put a bid in on it.

This next one is HUGE. 4 bedrooms 3 bathrooms. Living room and family room. Very outdated and creaky. Literally the stairs and upstairs floors creaked BAD. Its only 33 years old but sounded like a 100 year old house. Out of our price range but sellers are desparate to sell it and its been listed since December.



This one is in the awesome Lakeside Park neighborhood and in walking distance to Isabella's daycare. I knew it was a no after about 5 seconds. The upstairs seems structurally unsound. Just look at that room above the carport. Looks like its leaning a bit? It is. Wow.

This house is on Hope Farm Road and hubs and I are having fun making up diff names for it- Hog Farm Road. We're dorks. Anywho, I'm looking at this one Sun. Its 4 bedroom 3 bathroom. Its a short sale and out of our price range but our agent assures us that they bank is willling to do what it takes to get rid of it. Stay tuned............

More house hunting.

We looked at four more houses today. I liked one. Sorta. It was a repo with potential. And termites (which I mispronounced terminites and then had a 15 min long giggle fit bout mennonite termites. ahem, anywho...). The wood around the windows and door was ate up.
One had no kitchen and the you could see daylight through the basement walls. Neat! Sky lights in the basement.
Another was built in 1978 but the floors creaked and groaned like a 150 year old house. Not good.
The next one was old and rickety. I was seriously scared to walk around the upstairs because the floors rolled and felt unstable. Wow.
Heard back from agent about the house on Collbran that we keep bidding on. Stupid bank countered again at the same price. Jerks. But now the house is considered an "aged property" and our agent thinks they'll reduce the price again and wait a few more days before upping our offer. Ugh. I really REALLY want that house but am losing patience quick. We've gone up 22 grand and they keep countering at the same price.
That's all the house news so far. More houses to look at on Thursday. Hopefull bank accepts our offer on Collbran and we wont have to look any more.