Kitchen Reveal!

Our kitchen has to be our favorite room in our house. Before it was hideous and now it's so funky and neat! We started off with a kitchen that looked like this:

We painted the kitchen walls, painted the kitchen cabinets, installed a back splash, and even painted the window trim white b/c it was a hideous shade of tan before.

 Here are some in progress pictures:

 

one more time.... before & after (in progress)

House Reveal....

So we have been in the house officially 4 months and I don't think I've posted a single picture of the house. I really wanted to but I was afraid someone would see the "before" pictures and never see the "after" pictures and just assume my house still looked like it did when we moved in. The house was toe-up! From the bright red walls, to the cheetah print walls.... things were a hot mess! The house is finally coming together! We can see the light at the end of the tunnel and it's awesome. The pictures I show you of the house are still "in progress" and not really the "after" pictures. I still have a lot of plans for these rooms but I figured I'd go ahead and post some pictures because it will be a while before I get around to making the rooms look any better.....

So, the first room you see when you enter our house is the entry. When we bought the house it was a bright orange with brown cheetah prints all the way up the 30 foot walls to the ceiling. We called and got paint quotes and it seemed hopeless due to the cost..... but we don't give up very easily so we borrowed the church's 30 foot ladder and went to town... Hamilton came very close to breaking his neck a few times but in the end it turned out pretty good.

BEFORE:

And here is the AFTER (in progress):

I know the after picture is pretty boring but I think the change is pretty dramatic. We primed the banister and trim, switched the door around so it opened the opposite direction, took off their window film and applied our new window film, primed & painted.... etc. We still need to paint the door and replace the light switch and put the vent back on the wall (we are in the process of spray painting the vents...)  

Here are just a few pictures of Hamilton up on the ladder painting........I will be back later to post more pictures!

 

HOME RENOVATION

We have been in our house for almost 4 months now and we are loving every minute of it! We I am obsessed with decorating and DIYing around the house! I am constantly blog stalking and looking at before and after pictures from people who are also fixing up their houses. So I decided it would be fun to do that myself. I think it will be really cool to look back in years to come and see how our house has changed. Since we have moved into our house here are some of the things we have done:

• painted kitchen cabinets
• installed kitchen backsplash
• painted every inch of trim (they had a puke tan color on every piece of trim in that house!!)
•  switched the way the front door swings open
• fixed a crack in the guest bathroom tub (long story how the crack got there in the first place..)
• built our own pantry out of our hall closet
• ripped down mirrors & backsplash in master bathroom and installed new mirrors
• installed window tint on front door windows
• caulked every single crack or hole I could find in the house.... (caulk is my bff)
• washed the walls, sanded the walls, primed the walls & painted the walls for the following rooms:
• kitchen/dining- walls were FIRE TRUCK RED
• living room/entry- the entry walls were BRIGHT orange with like a cheetah print pattern?
• guest bedroom
• hallway (don't even get me started on that!... let's just say we painted the hallway about 8 times...)
• master bathroom
• guest bathroom
• laundry room
• linen closet (don't judge me... I'm OCD and love attention to detail)

There are about a zillion other things we have done but I can't think of them right now. Our to-do list started off at 3 pages long and now we have it to ONE page! Here is what we want to get done pretty soon so that we can finally start decorating.

TO-DO LIST

·         Master Bathroom

o   Frame mirrors

o   Caulk & sand baseboards & window

o   Spackle/sand holes

o   Re-tile around bathtub/vanity

o   Center vanity over mirrors

o   Re-paint bathroom gray

o   Paint baseboards

o   Make roman shades

·         Master Bedroom

o   Prime

o   Paint (inside closet too)

o   Paint baseboards

o   Make a headboard

o   Paint furniture

·         Living Room

o   Tile fireplace

o   Seal crack in fireplace

o   Sand above fireplace/repaint

o   Clean fire place flue

·         2nd Guest Room

o   Paint room & inside closet

o   Sand window/spackle

o   Paint trim

·         Basement

o   Rip up the carpet

o   Paint

o   Replace ceiling tile

o   Prime & paint doors/trim

o   Sheetrock bathroom

·         Front Porch

o   New Mail Box

o   Replace front door

o   Stain front porch

   ·         Guest Bathroom

o   Frame mirror

o   Replace light fixture

·         Hallway/Laundry room/Pantry

o   Build pedestals for washer/dryer

·         Dining room/Kitchen

o   Replace fixtures

o   Make roman shades

o   Paint tables & chairs

·         Entry

o   Paint banister

o   Put hardwood on stairs

·         Guest bedroom

o   Paint trim

o   Paint inside closet

o   Make headboard

·         Outside

o   Stain back porch

Yeah I know it looks like a lot but it's an on-going thing and we aren't in a hurry to get most of it done. We are just having fun and keeping busy doing it. I plan on posting some before and after pictures of the house pretty soon!

Element-ary Learning....

It's been about 3 months since we moved into the new house. It's awesome! We have been super busy adding our touch to the place. I plan on updating the blog with before and after pictures of the house really soon! But for now, I will just leave with you the first of many stories of things that go wrong being a home owner.

It was Thanksgiving morning and I turned the shower water on and waited for it to get hot, just like normal. Except this time it didn't get hot... at all. So, we didn't have much time to trouble shoot since we were suppose to head to Macon for the day. So, we boiled some hot water on the stove and bathed the old fashion way... and it sucked. To make matters worse... and don't ask me how he did this.... but in the process of bathing Hamilton broke our guest bathtub. Put a crack right down the side...

So when we finally get around to fixing the hot water heater we buy 2 new elements and crossed our fingers that the elements were the problem...
 
here is what an element SHOULD look like:

 

annnnnnnd here is what our elements looked like....

 yeah, that's right....  only 1 1/2 elements came out. The other half? Well... it's still in there. Soooo make sure you drink filtered water when you come to my house :)

We are homeowners!!!

.... and I'm still warming up to that fact! I love being in a house but I had no idea the terror that would come with home-ownership! I think that once I get over this "scared" stage that I will be a lot more gung-ho about it. Don't get me wrong, I love having a house but I am not 100% excited, I am like 95% and 5% scared to death. I guess the reason I am scared is b/c we had a huge reality check this weekend when we moved in. That stupid tropical storm came up in our grill and jacked us all up. Well, it could have. We had a huge tree in our back yard that was dead as a doornail. It was spongy and literally looked like it would fall any minute. So,  my awesome lumber jack deddy decided to cut it down.... I kinda regretted asking him too as soon as that chain saw cranked. I took off running down the road to avoid seeing my brand spankin' new house get smashed by a tree. Thankfully, it fell right in the backyard.... and will probably stay there for months since we have a million other things to do that are more important than tree clean-up. Anyways, that was enough to about give me a heart attack. Then it rained non-stop Monday! We live at the bottom of the hill and the inspector said we need to make sure our drainage is working properly to avoid a flooding. It seems to work fine, but it still is really scary when you see water pouring and rushing out over your retaining wall out in front of your garage. So far we have gotten moved into our house and still have a few items left to get out of the apartment. We primed the basement and most of the entry... but the entry is about 30 feet high and it was previously painted bright orange... which is hard to get rid of... especially if you are on a 25 foot ladder stetching your arms just as far as you can to cover it. Hamilton did all that he could after standing on a ladder 3 hours yesterday, but we still have a few orange corners we can't reach. Not sure what we will do.... but we still have like 4 or 5 more rooms to prime and paint. Anybody wanna come over and help?

Our Kitchen

This is our kitchen. It's not a very good picture b/c you can't see the entire thing, but we will work with this for now. This kitchen is really nice, but small. The #1 thing on Hamilton's house wish list was a big kitchen... (my #1 was a basement) but when we found this house we realized that we could not pass it up, even if the kitchen was small. After looking at this picture for the past month we've decided exactly how we want it to look. We are soooo excited about personalizing it! The first thing we are going to do is paint the cabinets. GASP! I know, I know. But we hate oak cabinets. We decided we will paint them a dark brown (bittersweet chocolate). We also are going to change out the knobs with some cool, modern, stainless steel kind. We bought them on eBay and just got them in the mail. This is what they look like:

                   They match the curves of our appliances and the stainless steel matches our applicanes so I thought they would look awesome in our modern kitchen. We also bought the back splash for the kitchen.We got it on sale the other day at Home Depot and are in love with it. That will be a challenge to lay it, but we are just excited to do it!!! Then we are going to paint the walls, b/c the red just ain't working for us. Eventually we will replace the sink & the light fixture and maybe one day if we stumble upon some money then we will replace the counter tops. I can't wait to post before and after pictures of all of our rooms. We plan on painting like all of them (b/c the previous owners were obsessed with orange & red).......

3 more weeks!!!

Just to update everyone on the house... and when I say "everybody" I mean the 3 people that might read this. Ha ha. Currently we are still waiting on the house/loan/underwriting process to get all sorted out. It feels like it's been 3 months since we bid on that house. We are more than ready to leave our apartment. The apartment itself is cute and clean, but we have the weirdest insect problem. We don't have like ants or roaches (well we have seen both before in there) but we have spiders, crickets & silverfish. SILVERFISH?! There was one on Hamilton's pillow last night before we went to sleep. How weird?? Anyways, needless to say we are ready to get into our own place and re-decorate and personalize it. We have finally decided on our kitchen colors and we are very happy! We are going to paint our kitchen cabinets a chocolate brown, add stainless steel hardware, a funky back splash and blue walls. It sounds weird, but trust me I have a vision! Our kitchen was already green and black so we are just adding blue. We got the inspiration from Rachael Ray's funky kitchen with her greens, blues & oranges! We have so many ideas and we can't wait to put them into action! Our house is gonna be da bomb. So as I sit here and wait out the longest 3 weeks of my life I think about what I am the most excited about with this house. The fact that I get to paint the walls? Have a garage? Have a basement!!? No, I am pretty sure I'm the most excited about the beautiful stainless steel appliances in the kitchen. And, about having 2 separate sinks. And having a hallway. And having more than 1 closet. And the fireplace! I am sooooo excited for the fall!! We are going to build a fire with REAL logs in our fire place and grill out and watch some Auburn football. Man, Fall is the best season ever! It needs to hurry up and get here!!!

We found a house!

Man, we are on a roll with this "pre-baby bucket list"! We marked off #2 on this list! We are currently under contract for a house that we found 2 weeks ago. We weren't expecting to find one this soon! I got a call from my realtor 2 weeks ago saying that I had to check this house out. We went to see it the next day and fell in love with it and put a bid on it that night! After one counter-offer we had ourselves a contract! We had the termite inspection & the home inspection and they both turned out great! Couldn't ask for a more perfect house... just small things to fix! The only major problem we have is the dead tree in the backyard. We asked them to cut it down and are hoping they will say yes! So.... just a little glimpse of our house:

1. Pay off part 1 of the Ed Financial Loan
2. Buy a house 
3. Hamilton get a new job or promotion
4. Take at least one more vacation to somewhere cool, like Universal Studios or Disney World (May 2012 hopefully!!!)
5. Buy a video camera & maybe even a new digital camera
6. Save up $$$ for a new (used) car
7. Eat healthier (and in the process lose the 10 lbs I gained since I've been married...)
8. Print all of my wedding pictures, put them in a picture book & in frames 
9. Savor every minute of my time without a child by doing things like this: sleep in, more date nights, mini-vacations, cleaning with harsh chemicals, etc....

Pre-Baby Bucket List: UPDATE

Not much look like it has been accomplished on this list, but paying off this little loan was a huge accomplishment for us and we are very excited! We still have about 5 more loans to go... and trust me they are no where nearly as small as this one was... which is very depressing. But I am very excited to cross something off my list! Yay! Now we really need to find a house. In the mean time, we will be saving as much money as possible up for all of the expenses involved with buying a house (like inspection, earnest money, etc...) We have our realtor looking (and we are too) but there are no houses in Bremen right now! NONE! I am hoping someone will get foreclosed on soon... is that bad? Ha ha.

Oh yeah, I have accomplished one more thing. I finally got some wedding pictures into our frames! I was so use to see those models in the picture frame, and it's hard to get use to seeing us in there! Ha ha.

1. Pay off part 1 of the Ed Financial Loan
2. Buy a house 
3. Hamilton get a new job or promotion
4. Take at least one more vacation to somewhere cool, like Universal Studios or Disney World (May 2012 hopefully!!!)
5. Buy a video camera & maybe even a new digital camera
6. Save up $$$ for a new (used) car
7. Eat healthier (and in the process lose the 10 lbs I gained since I've been married...)
8. Print all of my wedding pictures, put them in a picture book & in frames 
9. Savor every minute of my time without a child by doing things like this: sleep in, more date nights, mini-vacations, cleaning with harsh chemicals, etc....

My skype date.......

My favorite 1 year old in the entire world is Ava Isabella Steis. She has been my little buddy ever since she was born. Hamilton and I first met her when she was 3 weeks old. We flew out to Wyoming to meet the little monkey. I fell in love INSTANTLY!! I love all of my nieces so much and they are just as adorable and loved by me the same (which is THIS MUCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) But I wasn't there through most of their babyhood... I kinda feel like I missed Madison & Makinzie growing up. It's kinda sad but at least I have witnessed Ava growing! Here are some pictures from when we visited- my little monkey!

We got to skype with her tonight and she danced for us and sang with us and it was so fun and very sad that she lives 4 days away!! Here are some snapshots:

this one makes me laugh b/c melissa's hands look like a creeper's hands going to snatch ava....

Yearly Savings....

So I have officially been couponing for a year!!! I keep every receipt and put it into a spreadsheet every month to keep up with my savings, and I am very happy with the results!! In one year I have bought around $4,176.40 worth of groceries and only spent $1,263.57 on them!! I saved $2,912.83 which is about 70% savings!! Now tell me that ain't awesome!!!!!!!!!!!!

On a side note, Hamilton made this amazing pizza from scratch and I would like to share it with you. It's a baked potato pizza.

Great week!

Okay so this week at Publix was awesome! I spent $48.18 and saved $125.16!! I got tons of awesome stuff like milk, bacon, asprin, soap, strawberries, potatoes, chinese dinners (AMAZING!!), bandaids, etc...

 check out this receipt!!!!

Pre-Baby Bucket List

I'm not going to lie.... I have a bad case of baby fever. But I also have a bad case of BROKE! So, with that being said... don't get your hopes up because it will still be a while before we plan on having a baby. But I decided to make a list of things I would like to get accomplished before we have a baby...

1. Pay off part 1 of the Ed Financial Loan
2. Buy a house 
3. Hamilton get a new job or promotion
4. Take at least one more vacation to somewhere cool, like Universal Studios or Disney World (May 2012 hopefully!!!)
5. Buy a video camera & maybe even a new digital camera
6. Save up $$$ for a new (used) car
7. Eat healthier (and in the process lose the 10 lbs I gained since I've been married...)
8. Print all of my wedding pictures, put them in a picture book & in frames 
9. Savor every minute of my time without a child by doing things like this: sleep in, more date nights, mini-vacations, cleaning with harsh chemicals, etc....
 

 

Super Savings!!

So the Publix run today wasn't the best in the world, but  my trip to Walmart sure was! At publix I got $70.87 worth of stuff for $23.80... so I saved about $47.07. It doesn't look like I got too much but I got 4 things of Lysol wipes and those things are normally like $5.00 a pop. So I'm pretty excited. Check it:

• Doritos
• Chex Mix
• 3 cream cheese
• 4 Lysol wipes
• 2 Nutri-grain cereal bars
• 1 crystal lite container
• planter peanuts
• 2 frozen meals
• cat food (it was overage.... i dont even have a cat!)
• betty crocker potatoes

Then we went to Walmart and bought $57.86 worth of groceries for $5.86.... which means we saved like $52.00!!! That is my best ever at Walmart. In fact, it was so good that it locked up the register and required a manager to override it! Wahooo!!

• 2 Nivea shave gel
• 8 advils
• 4 dial soap
• 2 KY jelly
• 2 playtex panty liners
• 4 packs of razors
• ajax cleaner
• homestyle bake
• 1 nivea after shave gel
• 3 packs of gum
• benadryl itch stick