Painting Cabinets

Ever since I started reading home decorating/renovating blogs, I've been fascinated with how wonderful painted cabinets can look. I say can look, because I've also seen some not-so-good cabinet paint jobs. So I was hesitant to do this project myself. If I screwed it up and it looked bad, what would my other options be? A whole new vanity? Then we'd need a new counter top. Then we'd be spending more cash than we wanted to. But I decided to go for it. It didn't look very hard. I thought I could do it. And I'm very happy to report that I was right! Seriously you guys, anyone can do this. It just takes a little time and effort.

Before

Here's what you need:

• Screwdriver
• Sandpaper
• Paint and painting supplies
• Adhesion primer

Step 1: Take all the doors off and the drawers out. Then remove the hardware. If you want to change the placement of the hardware, this is when you would putty those holes using wood putty. Also, inspect the doors for any chips or gouges and putty those, too. Let the putty dry completely. Thankfully, our cabinets were in pretty good condition, so we didn't need to do any puttying. I did, however, need to glue the corner on one of the drawers because it was coming apart. Dang, those corner clamps come in handy!

Step 2: Take the doors/drawers outside and sand the crap out of them. Well, actually, you just need to do a light sanding so the primer will stick better. Then go back inside and lightly sand the surface of the cabinet frame.

Note: I did the majority of this project after the kids went to bed, so that's why it's dark outside. My neighbors probably thought I was crazy, sanding cabinets at 10:00 PM. Whatever. They don't know my life.

Step 3: Brush everything off with a stiff brush or a broom. I would like to take this opportunity to show off my adorable little walrus hand broom, because that's what I used to brush the sawdust off. Isn't it cute! The snout comes off, that's the brush part, and the head is the dust pan. I love it.

Step 4: Prime it. You want to get some adhesion primer. It's made to be used on smooth surfaces and it sticks really well. It's pretty thick, but works like a charm. I got mine at Lowe's. Most likely, you'll only need one coat of this. That's all I did. It doesn't have to look even, you're just using it as a base for your paint, something for it to stick to.

Step 5: Paint it. You want a high gloss paint for this. I used Sherwin Williams All Surface Enamel in a high gloss finish. The color is Black Bean. Two coats did the trick for me, and it's a super dark color being painted on white primer, so I can't imagine that you would need to do more than two coats.

Step 6: This is the hard part. You should wait as long as you can to put the doors back on. Latex paint take a month to fully cure. We waited a week, and then we tried to leave the doors/drawers propped open as much as we could to prevent them from sticking.

Step 7: Install the hardware before you put the doors back on.

Step 8: Hang those doors back on! Then you're done!

We have no natural night in our bathroom, so I had a hard time getting a picture that showed the true color. This is pretty close, but it doesn't look quite as shiny in real life. I am so happy with the results! And it was a lot easier than I thought it would be.

Framing a Bathroom Mirror

Okay, so it's been a few months since the bathroom mini-makeover, and I still haven't posted about the details. I said I would, and I like to keep my word, so here it is. Hey, I never said when I would post about the details, I just said that I would do it. And I am. So there.

Our bathroom makeover was easy. A little sand paper, elbow grease, and paint and just about anyone could pull it off. I mean, this project was MY brain child and if I can do it, so can you. That being said, building a mirror frame is going to be difficult for the average Joe to do if he doesn't have (or know someone who can lend him) the right tools. Namely some sort of electric saw, like a miter saw or, as we used, a radial arm saw. It is also helpful to have a corner clamp to hold the corners together while the wood glue is drying.

Here's what else you need:

• Trim
• Wood glue (paintable)
• Liquid nails
• Paint
• Corner clamp (not necessary, but helpful)

That's it!

About the trim: You can use whatever kind you like. Just pick what will give you the look you're going for. We used chair rail, but you could use window casing or whatever. I would recommend MDF, which stands for medium density fiberboard. It's still wood (not that cheap foam crap), but it's like composite. It's lighter than the solid stuff, so it will work better for this type of project. Also, I like to get my MDF pre-primed. It lets me skip the priming step, so it's less work later.

Here's how you do it.

Step 1: This is the hardest part (and it's not even really that hard). You have to measure the height and width of your mirror and decide how big you want your frame to be. We made it so the frame is slightly bigger than the mirror, so it hangs off the sides and top just a little bit. You don't want too much overhang or you won't have enough mirror to attach the frame to. Use your best judgement. Then you need to cut the trim to fit. Make sure you have 45 degree angles on all the ends, so they will fit together.

Step 2: Use the wood glue to put the pieces of the trim together to form the frame. This is where the corner clamp will come in handy. Use it to clamp the corners together and let it sit overnight.

Step 3: Once the wood glue is dry, remove the clamps. Put some wood putty to fill any gaps you may have in the corners. You could also use caulk for this, but whatever you use, make sure it's paintable.

Step 4: Once the putty is dry, it's painting time! We went with a deep, rich brown - Black Bean by Sherwin Williams. I wanted an I'm-not-sure-if-this-is-black-or-brown type of color, and this certainly fits the bill! I only needed to do two coats. Once the front is dry, flip it over and paint about 1/3 of the way from the edge on each side (the inside and the outside). When you put the frame up, the mirror is going to reflect a little of the back side of the frame, so you want it to be the same color as the front or it will look funny. (I forgot to take a picture of it after it was painted. My bad.)

Step 5: It's time to put this baby up! We have a pretty big mirror, so we used a whole tube of Liquid Nails. Just apply it to the back where the frame will touch the mirror.

Now you will need to either tape it to the wall for 30 minutes, or sit and hold it yourself. We chose to do the latter, because we had just painted the bathroom walls and the frame, and I didn't want to risk the tape pulling any paint off when we removed it. We stood there, holding it up for 30 minutes. The entire time, we were admiring our handy work.

What a huge difference! In my opinion, this project made the single biggest change in the bathroom.

 

The Reveal: Mini Bathroom Makeover

Alright, so the last time I posted, I talked about our plan for our mini bathroom makeover. Now here we are 10 days later, and the makeover is complete! This really could be a weekend project, but I only had the opportunity to work on it when the kiddos were either napping or in bed for the night (except for Sunday night when we painted the walls, my parents had the boys overnight so we could do all the painting at once) so it took us a little longer than that. I have to say, I'm pretty thrilled with the results!

So here it is, the big reveal!

Before:

After!

I am so proud of us!

So here's a list of the stuff we did:

• Painted the vanity
• Changed the vanity hardware
• Framed the mirror
• Painted the trim
• Replaced the outlet with a GFI outlet
• Replaced light switchs and plate
• Replaced air vent cover
• Replaced the door stopper (you know, the little springy thing that kids like to play with)
• Scraped off the texture on walls
• Painted the walls
• New shower curtain
• New towel bar (we also hung it a bit higher than it was before)

I know I said we were going to replace the closet door, but we haven't done that yet. We might try to do it this weekend, but I'm not sure if I want to take that on just yet since I have to go back to work on Monday. We'll see what happens. I will certainly post pics after we do it, whenever that is. In fact, we will be replacing all the doors in the entire house at some point, hopefully within the next year or so. They're really eye sores right now.

James and I have both caught each other stopped in the middle of the hallway (on our way to the bedroom or somewhere) staring into the bathroom. LOL! It feels like a totally different room! I love the white trim, I love the frame for the mirror, I love the color I chose for the vanity (I was nervous about that one). I am so happy we did this!

And in case anyone was wondering, the wall color is Sherwin Williams Upward. I used their Duration line in a satin finish. The vanity is Sherwin Williams Black Bean. I used their All Surface Enamel in a high gloss finish. And the Trim is Benjamin Moore Simply White (matched to Sherwin Williams - it 's their trim and door line, can't remember what it's called exactly, in a semi-gloss finish). All are latex paints. I don't do oil based.

I'll make posts later with more detail of each individual project, but I was just so excited to show before/after pics that I couldn't wait!

Here's some more!

Vanity before/after:

 

I already showed the following pictures at the beginning, but I like side-by-sides of before/after pics. I think you can really tell the difference more when they're next to each other.

 I really wanted a before/after pic of the mirror, but half way through the project I realized I forgot to take a before picture of just the mirror. So this is really more of a during/after picture. But WOW, what a difference a frame makes!

And since we're talking about bathroom changes, since we moved in we've already replaced both light fixtures in the bathroom, and changed the light/fan combo to be on two separate switches instead of one. I'm pretty sure the previous owners wouldn't even recognize this bathroom. And it's mostly just superficial stuff, not a huge remodel! It was totally worth the time and effort!


***UPDATE***
Click HERE to see how we framed the mirror.
Click HERE to see how I painted the vanity.

The Plan: Mini Bathroom Makeover

I've been totally into planning updates for our house lately. I've been checking out a lot of home decorating/renovating blogs, and I've found it to be very inspirational. My favorite is a blog called Young House Love. It's a young couple blogging about all the updates they've done to their home. Since starting the blog, they've owned three homes and they've done SO much work in all of them. I am totally in awe of the vision they have. They can look at a room and just know what would make it look 10x better. I wish I had that.

Anyhoo, like I said, it's been very inspirational for me, and now I have a long list of things I want to get done around the house. But making a list is infinitely easier than actually doing the things on that list. So this coming week, I'm going to start doing. And I'm starting with the bathroom.

 

Ok, so it doesn't look that bad in the picture. But I think it really needs a facelift. At first, I just wanted to paint it. We decided on a color called Upward by Sherwin Williams.We need a light color because we have no natural light in our bathroom, and I don't want it to feel like a dark dungeon.

Upward by Sherwin Williams

Before I continue, I have to take a moment to stress how incredibly terrible the previous owners of this house were at painting. I like to call them the "One Coat Wonders" because they obviously felt  that one coat of paint was enough, no matter how it looked afterward. They also must really have had something against painting tape, which is fine if you can take your time (they didn't) and have a steady hand (they didn't). Needless to say, the trim in our entire house is covered in paint. They literally just slopped the stuff on the walls without regard to anything they might get paint on, the trim, the floor, the counters, whatever.

See, I told you it was bad.

So I'm going to be painting the trim in the entire house white (I've always had a thing for white trim)  and I might as well start with the bathroom, since I'll be painting in there anyway. And if I'm painting the trim white, then we'll need to get new doors that are white. So we decided to just replace the closet door and leave the entry door for the time being (until we decide to replace all the doors, which is on the list for the future). 

Then I mentioned to James how I thought a nice frame around the plain ol' builders grade mirror would look great, and he figured he could probably make one pretty easily. So we searched a bit and found a few good tutorials on how to do it.

 

Then I took a good look at the vanity, and I said to myself, "Self, this vanity needs new hardware STAT!" But you see, it has those pesky little plates attached to the doors/drawers under the handles that were oh so popular in the 70's. And for some crazy reason that I can't comprehend, the builders stained the cupboards after they put those plates on. So there is no stain under it. So if I want new hardware, I need to either try to match the stain, or paint it a different color. So I'm thinking I'll paint it a nice deep brown, and paint the mirror frame to match. Sounds like a "fun" little weekend project. (I really hope you can sense my sarcasm.) 

In my head, it looks something like this, only less black and more brown:

And that, my friends, is how a simple idea to paint the bathroom snowballs into this list:

• Paint the walls
• Paint the trim
• Paint the vanity
• Frame the mirror
• Change vanity hardware
• New door for linen closet

Wish me luck!

Houston, We Have A Patio!

You guys, I am SO pumped to be able to finally write this post!

First of all, I am going to apologize in advance for my overuse of caps and exclamation points.

Now, if you are friends with me on Facebook, then odds are you know that we were working on building our patio A LOT about a month ago. We are really stupid and cheap and decided to do all the work ourselves. And let me tell you, it SUUUUUCKED! James took a few days off of work, so we completed most of the work during that time. We had already done the digging prior to that, so we "only" had to fill it with gravel, tamp it, fill it with sand, screed and tamp it, then lay the pavers, tamp again, fill cracks with sand, tamp again, then fill the cracks with sand again. I don't know WHAT I was thinking when I thought we could do all that in only a few days. It was brutal. Thank goodness for my parents! My dad helped so much with the work and letting us borrow his pickup, and my mom was the designated babysitter so I could help with the patio. We wouldn't have been able to do it without them.

Anyway, at the end of James's third day off, the patio was complete. But we still had a giant pile of dirt in the back yard from what we had dug up, and we needed to level out the area between the pavers and the lawn with that dirt, so I didn't want to get all camera happy and post a picture until that was done.

Well my friends, as of today it's DONE! James just finished filling in the remaining empty space with dirt and leveling out the ground around it. He also tossed some grass seed on top and I watered it. I mean, we still have the giant pile of dirt, but we're working on getting rid of that. I'm hoping I'll find someone who wants it, who will just come a take it away. We'll see what happens. But at any rate, the patio is now picture worthy!

 

 

 

Now I just need some patio furniture, which I'm hoping to find on clearance sometime soon (did I mention I'm cheap?). We have some nice folding patio chairs, and a hand-me-down plastic table, but I think my beautiful patio deserves a matching set. :)

 

And here's the pile o' dirt I mentioned earlier.



 

 

You guys, I am SO happy to be done with this project. You have NO idea. Now, on to the mini bathroom makeover! (Be on the lookout for a post about that soon!)

 

 

Adjustment Period & Shiny New Things

When a person moves to a new home, there are all sorts of things that you need to get used to. For example, the noise the the refrigerator makes, or how you like the thermostat set. I had an interesting experience one morning last week. Alex was sleeping, Isaac was watching cartoons, and I was in the shower, when all of the sudden, I hear the smoke alarm going off. With a body full of suds and hair full of conditioner, I jumped out of the shower and tried to find which alarm it was. It was hard to tell, because it echoed throughout the entire house. The entire time, Isaac was at my side saying, "Mommy, what that?" I finally figured out it was coming from the smoke alarm in Isaac's room, down the hall. I wondered if maybe the steam from my shower set it off, so I waved my towel in front of it, and it stopped. So I hopped back in the shower. A minute later, my shower was interrupted again by the same smoke alarm. As I was getting out to make it stop, the hall smoke alarm went off, too. I went into Isaac's room and unplugged that alarm. Then I tried to unplug the one in the hallway, but it's hardwired into the electrical system, so I couldn't figure it out. I finally tugged on some random cords and it came unplugged, but was still beeping! So I quickly grabbed my cell phone and called James in hopes that he could instruct me on how to turn the darn thing off. Seconds after he answered, it went off. I guess it has a battery backup that made it keep working after it had been unplugged. James pointed out that that must be why the previous owners had removed all the batteries from the smoke alarms... who wants them going off every time you take a hot shower? Mercifully, Alex slept through the whole ordeal. What a wonderfully hectic start to my morning, though.

In other news, we bought a new dishwasher yesterday. The one that came with the house is a piece. The soap dispenser doesn't open, unless you're able to jerry rig it so the dispenser isn't all the way closed, which usually consists of it popping open while I'm closing the door several times before I get it right. Plus it's really noisy. I look forward to being able to have a conversation in the dining room while the dishwasher is running. Plus, Isaac kept wanting to turn the dial and push the buttons on the old one. This one has all the controls concealed on the top side of the door, so he won't even know they're there. Our new one gets delivered tonight. Can't wait to run a load and test it out!

Ain't she a beauty?

Trials and Tribulations of Moving

It's done! The house is officially ours and we're all moved in. We've still got a lot of unpacking to do, but the important stuff is all put away. We already love several things about our new house. The street we live on is really quiet. Not much traffic, because the road doesn't go anywhere, it just loops around the the same street that it starts on, sort of like a cul-de-sac. We've met several of the neighbors and they all seem very nice. We love having the extra space. And the extra storage, as we have an abundance of closets in our new house. Also, I love love love my new washer and dryer that we had to buy, my new Dyson vacuum cleaner (housewarming gift from my parents), and our new Keurig (housewarming gift from the in-laws). Oh what fun!

But there is still much to be done. First of all, our basement has no furniture. It will be that way for a while, probably, although we do have grandiose plans for it. Also, lots of painting needs to be done. We're starting today with our pink bedroom. Next will probably be the kitchen/dining room, then the living room, and then the boys' rooms. After that I will tackle the wall paper in the basement. This is all going to take quite a while. Oh, and I'd like to also paint the upstairs bathroom sometime. Wow, that sounds like a lot more when I type it all out. I'm going to paint at my leisure, though. It's not something that needs to be done immediately. Also, we're in the process of trying to find a kitchen table. We have one that the owners left for us, but it's WAY too big, and the top is all scratched up and not in great shape. We want a different one right away. (UPDATE: Literally 10 minutes after posting this, I bought a table from the GF Facebook Garage Sale site for a steal! And it's exactly what we were looking for! Yippee!)

On the agenda for next summer is new windows. Not sure if we'll be doing all of them, or just some of them, but it needs to be done. Now that I know how wonderful new windows are, I'm spoiled and want them ASAP.

I feel very stressed and frazzled lately. James and I are trying to do about 1000 things all at once. We're trying to unpack, make small repairs and improvements, organize, as well as do normal things, like, tend to two small children, work, cooking, dishes, laundry, grocery shopping, etc. I am also taking a tax class so that I'll be able to prepare taxes this year. That's two nights a week for eight weeks, two hours each night, and it includes homework. Also, this week, I have another class for work (I need so many training hours every year). Life has been hectic lately, to say the least. We go to bed completely exhausted every night.

But it's worth all the hassle. Soon, we'll be unpacked, organized, painted, etc. and life will be back to normal. We look forward to that.

Moving Day and Tomato Soup

Moving progress: My parents watched the kids for several hours on Saturday so that James and I could pack. Although, we spent most of the time hauling garbage to the trash. We had lots of leftover supplies from various home improvement projects that we needed to dispose of. Instead of taking it to the dump (which is way out there and costs money), we hauled it to a couple of apartment building dumpsters (much closer and free). I don't know if you're supposed to do that or not, but we did. Then we went home and packed up just about the entire kitchen and some miscellaneous stuff. Last night I did some more packing while James kept an eye on the kids. I packed up their clothes and our towels and some of my clothes. The kids only have enough outfits left unpacked to last until Friday, and we only have two sets of towels left to use until then. Also, we sold our kitchen table yesterday, so the kitchen looks very bare.

Today we get to start moving stuff into the garage at our new house. We can't move anything into the house yet for liability reasons, but at least we can get stuff moved out of our current house. We close on our current house at 9am on Friday and we close on our new house at 10am, so there is an hour where we will be homeless. Everything needs to be out of our house by 9am that day.

On Thursday morning, James' parents are coming to town to help us move. His dad has a truck and a trailer, so that will help a lot. That's probably when we will move most of the bigger stuff.

In other news (since all I've been talking about lately is moving), I'm going to try my hand at home-made tomato soup tonight! My friend, Erica, and I went to Boardwalk Bar and Grill one time earlier this year and had grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup. Ever since then, I've wanted to make my own. My dad had a bunch of tomatoes set aside for me to use last week, but when I brought all the ingredients over to my parents' house (I have to make it there because my whole kitchen is in boxes in the garage), we found that the tomatoes had gone bad. :( So then on Saturday, the teacher who I work with, Mrs. Z, called me and said she had just picked some tomatoes from her brother's garden, and had extra that she would bring to school on Monday. Yay! I got a second chance! That was so nice of her! She knew I was planning on making it last week, but the tomatoes were bad. So sweet! I'm so lucky to have had such great teachers to work with. :)

So anyway, it's moving week! This is the last Monday we will be spending in this house. Bittersweet.

P.S. Stay tuned, because I plan to blog about the tomato soup!

More Moving Talk

Well, moving day is fast approaching. 12 days, to be exact, but who's counting? ;)

On Friday, our realtor texted me to let me know that the sellers are okay with us moving stuff into the garage the week of closing. So that means, starting on Monday, October 17th, we'll be moving lots and lots of stuff into the garage, so that on moving day (which is the 21st) we won't have that much left to move, and can focus on getting it all in the house and unpacking. Yay!

I don't want to jinx myself, but this has gone SO smoothly. It's unbelievable. I truly feel that we were meant to have this house. All the stars aligned so perfectly for us.

Yet another reason why we are so very blessed!

And I'm planning a trip to the Cities to visit my good friend, Gina, in November! I'm super excited to (a) see Gina, and (b) go shopping! Ikea and Container Store, here I come! It's gonna be so fun! I am pumped!

This is Madness

WHAT were we thinking, trying to move with a little baby and a toddler?! I know it will be worth all of the work, but man is it difficult to get anything packed. First of all, when we actually have some spare time (ha!) to pack a few boxes, it's hard to figure out what to pack. We need most of the stuff in our house. I've been doing a lot of organizing/purging lately. It helps to know what I can pack, and what I can't. I've organized our kitchen, the boys' bedroom closet, and the upstairs. On my "to organize" list is our bedroom closet and the bookcase in the boys' room (which has become a bit of a catch-all). The week before our move is when we're really going to be hardcore packing and living bare bones from that time on. We're talking paper plates, plastic ware, only a few kids' toys, sleeping on the mattress on the floor type living. Should be a good time.

In other news, I went back to work today. I was slightly looking forward to it, but only slightly. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, except for one small thing. When I got to work this morning, the teacher (Mrs. Z) greeted me at the door and told me that she needed to go home because she had some sort of stomach bug. Grrreeeaaat. So it was me and a substitute teacher all day, and neither of us really had any idea what was going on. It was... interesting. Hopefully Mrs. Z is feeling better tomorrow.

It was hard for me to leave my sweet little Alex at daycare today. :( I don't remember it being this hard with Isaac, but that's probably because when Isaac went to daycare for the first time, I was in the hospital hoping that they didn't have to send me to Minneapolis for more procedures because of my gallblader surgery. I was a bit preoccupied. But Alex did fine, of course, and so did I.

So that's what's been going on in our household lately. It's been a crazy ride, but we're so excited to get settled into our new house! Only 2.5 more weeks! Woohoo!

Somebody Stop Me!

I absolutely can NOT stop shopping for house stuff online. It is way too easy having every store imaginable at my fingertips. Thankfully, I have enough self-control not to buy anything. I might buy more after we actually move, but I don't want to have to move it from one house to the other.

Ok, so I've bought a few things. I bought four outdoor folding chairs from JCPenney.com because they were on clearance, and since we're going to have this totally awesome backyard, we're going to need some comfy chairs to sit in. They are really nice chairs and I got them for a steal.

Also, I bought some cute little French coffee cups from Pier 1 to hang on the hooks by the sink (the current owners have some there, but mine are way cuter). I had to buy them now because they were on clearance and might not be there later. Right? Right!? Aren't they adorable?

I am especially obsessed with organization. I am bound and determined to keep my new house organized and relatively clutter free (or as clutter free as it can be with two small boys). Oh how I wish we had a Container Store closer than The Cities!

I'm organizing all my new-found obsessions on Pinterest. You can check it out, if you'd like. Here's my Pinterest page. I've got paint colors, organizing ideas, decorating ideas, etc.

Now if only I had a few extra thousand dollars to blow on all this neat stuff...

SOLD!

Ok, so this post is a bit overdue, but we've been crazy busy lately.

We sold our house!!

It officially went on the market last Tuesday (we had to wait because of Labor Day). We had two showings that night, and one of them made an offer! It was a very reasonable offer - full asking price minus some closing costs. We listed the house at a price higher than we actually expected to get, and the net offer was higher than I had hoped to get for the house, so we accepted! And not a moment too soon, and I'll tell you why...

When a sale is contingent on the buyer selling their house, as it is with the house we're buying, the seller can still accept another offer if they want to if that offer doesn't have that contingency. If that were to happen, the sellers would have to give us 48 hours to remove the contingency, or our contract would be void and they could sell the house to someone else.

Well, when our realtor came over to present the offer on our house on Tuesday night, he told us that the house we're buying got two more offers that day. So it was very good that we sold our house so that we could remove the contingency if we had to. About 20 minutes after the realtor left, he called and told me that they did, in fact, ask us to remove the contingency. So, if we hadn't have gotten an offer that day or the next day, we would have lost the house. Yikes! That was close!!

So last Thursday, we had both the inspection for the house we're buying, and for the house we're selling. Both houses passed, so now we only have to worry about the appraisal. Our realtor used to be an appraiser for a bank and said he doesn't think either house will have any issues with appraising for the selling price. So it looks like this whole thing is really going to happen! It's so crazy to think that in 6 short weeks, we'll own a different home!

I think this whole process is a bit more exciting for me than it is for James. Last week, he said, "It was more exciting the first time around," to which I replied, "This IS my first time around!" James owned this house before we were married, so I didn't get to pick it out, or get all excited and think about where I was going to put what, and how I was going to decorate, etc... It's stressful to buy a house, but so exciting!

And I'll leave you with this picture that I look at when I need to be reminded that this is really happening...

We're Buying a House!

Yep, we're buying a house!

It just went on the market on Friday evening. I called our realtor that night and told him we'd like to see it. We went to see it at 1pm on Saturday, and we were already the fourth viewing that day. Yikes! That's a lot of interest in one day. Long story short, we loved it. So I called my parents and they came to see it while we were there. They loved it too. We decided to put in an offer. Later that evening, our realtor called and said they countered (they only wanted to pay half our closing costs instead of all of them). We accepted. Woohoo!

Here's a picture:

Four bedrooms (three upstairs, one downstairs), two bathrooms (one upstairs, one downstairs), 2208 square feet, decent kitchen, huge dining area, lots of closet space, nice finished basement, double attached garage, and a decent back yard. We totally love it! There is nothing that we have to fix in this house. There are some things we'd like to do eventually, but nothing pressing. For example, some of the carpet/linoleum is not my style, so we'll replace that someday, but it is in good condition, so I can live with it. The kitchen will probably need updating in 5-10 years. The downstairs bedroom has paneling, and I'd like to tear that down and put up sheet rock. The family room in the basement has wallpaper, so we'll get rid of that. James would be able to do that and he could do it at his own pace because we don't have to live in the basement. The siding is in good shape and freshly painted, so we won't need to mess with that for a while, although eventually we will probably get steel or vinyl siding. And it will probably need new windows in about 5 years. The only thing we'll have to do sooner rather than later is put in a fence. No big deal, James could easily do that. Now that I think of it, we do have to repaint the master bedroom. It's bright pink right now. Yeah, no.

The best part it that both of my kids will have their own bedrooms!! I am so incredibly thrilled by this! And we'll have almost 1,000 more square feet than we have now. The neighborhood is really nice, I can totally see my kids growing up there. Although neither a double garage, nor an attached garage were requirements for us, we're so lucky that we're going to have both! And I can NOT wait to have an actual dining area rather than a tiny table crammed into the kitchen! I am so happy to say that this could very well be our forever house! We may never have to move again.

And oh, the move. I am not looking forward to packing up our entire lives and moving.

I should say that the sale is contingent on us selling our house. We have until October 7th to get an offer, or there will be no new house. Please cross your fingers for us!

Life Update

Sorry it's been so long since my last post. As you can imagine, we've had our hands full with a newborn and a two year old. Well, Alex isn't so much of a newborn anymore. He's already close to outgrowing his 3 month clothes and he's only 6 weeks old (almost 7)! He's eating 5 oz of formula at a sitting, and only recently stopped eating every three hours. Now he eats more like every 4 hours, give or take a half hour. Last night, he went 6 hours between feedings, which was nice for me. I actually got to sleep a little. And he's getting baptized on Sunday! He's getting so big so fast!

Actually, a lot has been going on in our household since Alex was born. A week after he was born, my blood pressure skyrocketed and I had to, once again, be admitted to labor and delivery. It takes some serious talent to get admitted to labor and delivery when you aren't even pregnant, but I did it. Lucky me. Anyway, I got to go home that same night, they just increased my dose of Labetalol. A few weeks after that, my blood pressure started to stabilize and my dose was cut a lot. Today, I was taken off of it completely. So far so good. That was a scary ride.

The last weekend in July, James' family rented a lodge at Mina Lake in Aberdeen, SD. We hadn't planned on going since we didn't think camping with a newborn would be particularly fun. But we ended up going, against our better judgement, and I'm glad we did. It was the first time a lot of his siblings had met Alex, and he was really good while we were there. Also, Isaac had a blast playing, fishing, and swimming with all his cousins! We spend one day at Storybook Land in Aberdeen. We had a blast, even though it was hot as begeezuz that day. It was a very fun trip.

Isaac fishing with Daddy at Mina Lake

Family picture at the Oz exhibit at Storybook Land in Aberdeen

James went back to work on August 8th. He works at 4am, so I'm on my own with Alex at night. It's been tough, but thankfully it's starting to get easier. I like having James home earlier in the day, and he lets me take a nap if I need it. Isaac will be starting daycare again tomorrow, so I'll have about 5 weeks to get used to getting two kids ready in the morning all by myself before I go back to work. I think it will be good for Isaac to go back. He misses his friends. And it will be easier on me just having Alex at home during the day. Maybe I'll actually be able to shower before James gets home! :)

I'll be going back to work on October 3rd. I'm not particularly looking forward to it, but it will be nice to be getting a paycheck again, albeit a pretty small one after you subtract out daycare expenses. Sigh.

Oh, and I almost forgot to mention that we almost bought a house! Four bedrooms, two bathrooms, finished basement, awesome deck and  fenced backyard, two-car detached garage. We put in a lowball offer (the house wasn't worth what they were asking) and after counter offers on both sides, didn't get it. You didn't know we were looking for a new house, you say? We weren't. I always like to keep an eye on houses in our price range, and I just happened to see one that looked perfect for us, so we decided to go look at it. We liked it. It needed a little work, like new shingles, lots of interior paint, and eventually new carpet, but that doesn't scare us. Before putting in an offer, we decided to look at other houses in our price range, just because I would feel weird if the house we bought was the only one we even looked at. I wanted to make sure there was nothing better out there. Nothing else really struck our fancy, so we went for it with the original house we viewed.

We're disappointed that we didn't get it, but we're not too upset about it. We don't need to move. We'd like to have a separate bedroom for Alex, and another one for a guest bedroom, and just some more room in general, but it's not necessary. So we'll keep an eye on the market, but we'll probably do some more serious house hunting starting this spring. There will be more on the market then, and the longer we wait, the better our financial position will be for house buying, so we're okay with waiting. Plus, we like our house. It's cute and cozy and I'll actually be a little sad to sell it.

So there is an update about what has been going on in our lives for the past six weeks. Hopefully I'll have a little more time to blog in the next six weeks.