Christmas

On November 2nd I turned on my Christmas music. It's the year 2012 and I am sooo excited for Christmas! Rewind 1 year.

Christmas 2011. My kitchen was ripped out. No baking...no smells of cookies....no Christmas tree. Christmas was in my heart-yes, but I was still missed the sights and smells of Christmas.

So, this year I determined to celebrate it for an entire 2 months. On Saturday, I baked for 13 hours straight! Yum!

I am also loving finally decorating my house for Christmas. I mean, green shutters and a red door?....This house was meant to be decorated for Christmas!

Yes, Jesse installed some exterior lighting just so my wreaths could be seen at night. Isn't he wonderful?!

We love having people over now. I can just close the door to the rest of the house and can pretend it's finished. 

Here's some pictures of it all fancied up. :-)

I feel so blessed this year that we've made it through this far! I finally have a Christmas tree. If I get nothing else this year, I will be happy!



Thanksgiving

This year we are having both of our families over for dinner. I absolutely love having people over now that I can close the doors to the unfinished parts. I know, I know, families love you anyway but I like having those doors closed :-)

I wanted to do something a little different.
I made some caramel-covered apples....

And...I made a little welcome sign.

 

 

 

Happy Thanksgiving!

The Living Room

I'm late I know. It's been waaay too long since I posted on here. 
Between:
my job at school,
         working privately with a child after school,
                           working on a house
                                   and my other blog,

this little guy has been on the back burner. Thanks for sticking with me.

I'm finally writing about the living room on here. We finished this in June so I'm very behind. If you're wondering what we've been up to since then, I'll tell you. We took a break during the summer and went to Ireland. Then, we started back on the house in September and are currently working on the bathrooms. We're building a bathroom upstairs (directly above our downstairs full bathroom) and closing off the full bathroom downstairs to make it into a master suite :-). Yay!

Now back to the living room. Here are some before pictures. We were hoping we wouldn't have to tear all that plaster down....but....just like most things, we underestimated the task. The plaster was in bad condition and had to go.

In addition, there was a wall that completely blocked the front entrance-yuck! I felt claustrophobic walking into the house.

 

 

The wall had to go. So it did. So did the carpet :-) I like to play "I Spy Toto" with these pictures.



The day finally came. It was time to rip out some nasty plaster. Jesse's flexes his amazing muscles to get ready for the task. And me? Well, I took Toto and left to spend the weekend at my parent's, being the loyal wife I am. I can deal with a lot but I cannot cope with a house full of plaster dust.

How to control plaster dust: you can't. Even taping off areas and covering them with plastic, this stuff has the amazing ability to squeeze itself into areas you never thought possible.

And...drum roll please? Here is the house after the plaster and lathe demo.

Did you know your house probably looks this ugly too? No offense-it's just the way it is. Beauty is only skin wall deep.

Next comes the insulation and (my favorite) drywall. Are you starting to get used to the routine yet?
Demo. Electric. Insulation. Drywall. Finishing. Paint. Flooring.
No? Me either.

Another thanks to some of our amazing friends who came and helped us!

And now for paint! Later, I added in stripes which you can view HERE.

I feel like I skipped a lot there in that last picture. Putting up a picture makes it look easy. However, Jesse had to work hard perfecting those walls by finishing them and sanding the drywall to make it smooth and even. What took me a second to just post, probably in reality took a month to do.


Next up was the flooring. We wanted tile to mark the entryway :-)

And finally-carpet. Ah.....We had not gone barefoot (or with only socks on for that matter) since we had moved in (9 months earlier). We discovered that carpet is quite a luxury and were ecstatic to finally have some we could walk on!
And...we we weren't the only ones....

I love our carpet. It has gorgeous specks of color throughout and hides everything. The name of it is "Cookie dough." I know what you're thinking-no I didn't just pick it for its name. Okay maybe just a little :-)

And...Here is how it looks now coming through the front door.

And a view of the front door. I love the windows :-)

Last, for an added touch of "ourness," we have "Jesse and Nicole's Mission Statement" next to our door as a reminder of our values and blessings when we come and go.

Thanks for stepping into our living room for a while!

The Breezeway-Love this Room

Tonight I am sharing with you my favorite room in this old house. At first, you could say it was the only room we had. Since the rest of the house was being taken over by renovation, the breezeway became our:
living room
kitchen
dining room
office

Here is how it looked the day before we moved in:

And here is how it looked the day after we moved in (yes Toto snuck his way in):

Can you see how this room took on so many "hats?"


Here's another picture of this room I wanted to include. I don't know how Jesse feels about me including this one (I didn't ask) but I wanted to make a point that two people can still love each other when they are going through a renovation :)

 

I will also add that this was our most controversial room in the entire house. Everyone had an opinion on what should be done with it. I've come to the conclusion that there are two different types of people in this world: paint lovers and wood lovers. I'm a paint lover. Jesse's a wood lover. Wood lovers love their wood. I mean, they seem to me (a paint lover) very possessive over wood, even if it's not nice wood. In general, the men who stopped by our house voted on keeping the wood. Some even went as far as saying it is an absolute sin to pain wood! They (Jesse's friends) loved this room in its original state and had the "grand" idea of turning it into a man cave. In its original state, it sort of already was. Jesse called it "the boat room." It looked like it and had rope trim to match. Yes, I did say the trim around the ceiling is ROPE.

But, with some womanly support, I finally convinced Jesse to let me paint it. It is, after all part of our main living area. I conceded the room above the garage to Jesse for the purpose of someday being his man cave.

I have to tell you, this room was a lot of work and I had some regrets after putting on the primer. First, I sanded all those hundreds of knots in the wood. Then, I applied BIN primer-the stuff that gives you a headache in just a few minutes. When I applied the first coat of primer, the room literally took on the look of a torture chamber-way worse than a man cave or boat room.
Here's how it looked:

 

 

 

Yikes! Once again, my mom-in-law saves the day and came over while I was working to apply the second coat. Unfortunately, I forgot to take pictures until after we had carpet installed which makes this room lovely :)

 

 

 

 

I absolutely love this room because of all the windows. This was the only room we have not replaced the windows because there are so many! We replaced 18 in the entire rest of the house and this room alone has 8 (not including the two door windows). So...this room's windows will just have to wait until our budget grows some more.

 

Here's how this room looks now with my added touches :)

 

 

 

 

 

First, I added a picture/favorite verse/card display above the desk. This is super easy to do. Just buy a lot of one color of frames and arrange them how you like!

 

 

 

Then, I made a comfy sitting area complete with my favorite plants and coasters to enjoy (yet another) cup of coffee. Oh, and this love seat also converts into a day bed! I love things with double purposes! You can find it at World Market :)

 

 

 

 

Finally, I bought some baskets and arranged all of my card-making materials here. Mason jars are great containers for storing beads, buttons, and thread. Oh, and all those books? Those are all "Bathrooms for Dummies," "Electrical for Dummies," "DIY Kitchens," etc. types of books. So no, we are not pros.

 

 

 

 

Last, but not least, I made use of a hook that had come out of the ceiling (yet, another reason it was called "the boat room") and have placed a cute little air plant here dangling from the ceiling. These guys are neat and low maintenance so here he is!

 

 

 

 



 

 

Thanks for letting me share my favorite room with you! Hope you got some fresh ideas :)









 

Renovation Realities

So....are latest project is an attempt to get on the show "Renovation Realities-a show that spotlights the many mistakes typical homeowners (like us) get into while dyi projects. We have lived in our house for over a year now and have most of the downstairs finished (kitchen, half bathroom, laundry room, living room and den). We took a break this summer and went on vacation (yay!) and are now starting our second stage of the renovation. This will be renovating the only full bathroom, turning our bedroom into a master suite and adding a bathroom upstairs (scary!)
We finally sent in the video application and will keep you updated if we are chosen!

Dirty Days-Part 2

I love working outside...From my last post, you know this. My neighbors probably think I'm crazy. I mow, edge, weed, plant, dig, trim, and prune. Last week I asked Jesse if he could show me how to hold the weed-wack. He looked at me and said "You're weird."

Funny story- The other week, I went to a place a few miles down the road to a place I've never been to look at buying some topsoil. I step out of my car and start talking to the man there. Half-way through our conversation, he stops and asks "You look really familiar. I know you from somewhere." I told him I live in town and the light floods his eyes. "Oh you bought the auction house! I see you working outside all the time. You moved from..." and on and on he went. I guess you know you live in a super small town when people you've never met know all about you. Anyways, the point of the story is that I'm outside a lot.
You've seen the amount of work the front of the house needed-mind you, this doesn't happen over-night. It took a solid year before progress was seen. (I always like to point that out so nobody thinks we're superstars or anything. Things take work!-whew!)

Now for the back. I loved our back yard. It has mature trees-one of which is an amazing fushia crabapple tree.






But...it was also overgrown with every vine imaginable.

And here's a close up of under the deck in case you didn't believe me :) It even had a full-size tree growing out from under it!

My dad and I got right to work pulling out all of those vines and wonder of wonders-we discoved a hidden treasure. Cut sand-stone right underneath.

We then took the ivy section from this:

to this- (We trimmed it back and my dad placed a little stone walk-way from the door.) Cute isn't it?

So....we had a sign made for him. Hey!-I like to show people appreciation!

After some mulch, it started looking really nice.








Except.....


Do you see it? I started noticing the bright green algae on our deck once the black mulch was down. Maybe the contrast or something.

It wouldn't be that bad but well, after I noticed it, I really started noticing it and it started to look like this in my mind.
Ever have that happen to you? When you don't take notice of something and it's fine. And then all of a  sudden-bam! You can't not see it now! I guess that's why they say "ignorance is bliss..."


Well, anyways for my last 3 days of summer, I tackled this project.

I took some amazing pictures too of the entire process, but I think I accidentically deleted most of them. :(

First, I bought some deck cleaner. I went with Olympic and it worked wonders! You just spray it on and you can literally see the algae dripping off. No scrubbing or anything. The far side of this picture had the deck cleaner sprayed, the blackish-greenish, did not.
If you are attempting this though, please wear old clothes and take frequent breaks. I think I'm now missing some valuable brain cells that would've come in handy this first week of school from breathing in straight bleach for a few hours.


Next, I stained it. I went with a solid stain because our deck definitely has some wear and tear and solid not only covers imperfections, it also protects it the best from future damage.

The final result: I love it!


Our back-yard is really coming. Of course....we just took out a tree last weekend and there is now a 300 square foot pile of dirt in the back. But I won't show you those yet!

Dirty Days-Part 1

The countdown has begun....Since I work in a school setting, my days of summer are limited. Some summers I do speech therapy work in a nursing home. This summer, my husband and I looked at our finances and figured that I could stay home. So, I spent this summer spending every. spare. minute. working on the house.
Oh, and I don't think I've mentioned this before but I do all the outside work. This makes sense since Jesse can better handle the inside work. Air compressors, plumbing, electrical...they're not really my thing. So....I do what I can on the inside, mainly, pulling out nails, painting, and trying not to hurt anyone and then stick to the outside work. And...I'm proud to say, after a few wavy lines and bald patches, I have become quite the lawn "mower", "gardener" and "dumpster lady" (fancy for person who takes all the demolition materials to the dumpster). Naturally, I'm the one my neighbors recognize and see out in the yard every day. I tease Jesse that they probably think I'm the only one doing work on the house since all they see of him is pulling up in the driveway, getting the mail, and walking into the house. One of my neighbors even asked about this once. His comment took me back when he asked "Does your husband ever do any work out here?" I laughed but had to stand up for the poor guy as I heard the faint pounding away of nails inside as we spoke.
Throughout this past year, my dad has also helped my with the outside. It is still a work in progress and nowhere near completion, but I thought it would be helpful for you to get a good idea of our house, and you can't really do that without seeing the outside.

The Front
Here is what it looked like the day we moved in. It's actually a lot bigger then this, as it's had about 5 additions built on during its 125 year-old life.

Here is another view... This picture shows the breezeway going to our three car garage, which also contains a room above it.

This is Jesse's favorite part of the house....and has also come in handy for storing not only stuff that came out of the house but also things we are going to put in (drywall, insulation, etc.) It's so good at this job, in fact, that our cars currently don't fit. There is something wrong when two cars can't fit into a three car garage.
Now for progress....

At the beginning of summer, we painted the shutters a dark green, tore the bushes out, planted flowers, installed hanging baskets, swapped out the old light fixture, installed a new door (and painted it red), hung a flag, and (my favorite) bought some adorable little rocking chairs. Many cups of coffee are enjoyed here!

Okay, I'm going to show the previous picture again. Do you see the large, no gigantic bushes taking over this area? I kept thinking...."This bush looks really familiar." Then I got it! This bush looked eerily similar to Oscar the Grouch.






Can you see the resemblance?





Anyways, I, my dad, took it out. Sorry Oscar! We took out everything. The only bad part about trying to pull up vines is that they always come back. I sprayed, pulled, hoed, and I still have a few little stubborn ones that come up to say "hi." Oh well, the never-ending battle. But....weed cloth does do amazing things :). Then, I mulched and planted what I wanted: a picking garden, or garden with a lot of different kinds of flowers to fill a nice vase with in the summer.

The other side of the garage contained, yep, you guessed it: another Oscar! The previous owners sure did like those yellow, thorny, grouchy bushes! We found out later that some of our neighbors placed bets that tearing this bush out would be the first thing the new owners (us) would do to the house. Were they right? Yep.

Here is what it looks like now: mulched and replanted with some smaller bushes and my favorite: a hydrangea.





All in all, it's been a pretty good summer-load of work (and that's just the front!) Hopefully, in a few days, I'll have a post on the backyard. Talk about vines!