Whirlwind Year

Holy smokes guys…this year has been nuts. As you know, we bought our house early spring 2016 and now here we are January 2017 making yet another move! We didn’t expect to be relocating again this soon but as life would have it, we are.

Tyler now has enough hours to start working for an airline and benefits for new pilots are fantastic right now so we couldn’t pass up the opportunity. Plus, the best part about it is that we are finally moving home! Good ole northern Indiana and all of its low key charm is where we will be calling home once again.

We are currently in an “in-between” state as we are working on getting our Michigan house and closing on our new home. We went house shopping and found the perfect little brick ranch located just 3.5 from his parents, only a few more miles farther from mine, and only a couple miles from town! I will be blogging my way through that house as well since it also has plenty of work to be done. It’s a sturdy home built in ’85 and not a single thing has been updated since. I’m talking fluffy brown carpet EVERYWHERE. Because this is the area we want to settle long term, we are very confident we won’t be moving again anytime in the near future so we will be taking our time finishing this house unlike the quick manor in which we did the Michigan house.

I want to apologize in advance for the crazy length of this post but you just really have to see it all to believe it. That being said, the house is done! I have to go finish packing and cleaning it up but the updates are complete and we are so so so happy with the outcome (and so is our realtor!). Here are some pictures of the finished areas as well as what’s been done!

Kitchen: BEFORE

kitchen

 

Kitchen: AFTER

Hallelujah flooring! You’ll notice throughout the entire house there is new beautiful laminate flooring as well as new outlets, switches and smoke alarms. We also added new hardware, and EVERYTHING has a new, fresh coat of paint. There are new appliances and Tyler added canned lights and under-cabinet lighting as well as changed the 2 existing fixtures to make this kitchen way more bright and functional. As we started getting tight on time we decided not to do a real tile backs plash and instead I stenciling the wall and honestly, the final look totally exceeded my expectations.  After adding an island, updating the counter top and dealing with finishing touches, this kitchen barely resembles the dark dingy room that it was before.

 

Dining area: BEFORE

kitchen/dining area

Dining area: AFTER

The two biggest changes are the opening to the living room which Tyler doubled in size and the brand new pantry! Other than that, he changed the light fixture (I copied this fixture design from one I saw on Fixer Upper and fell in love with. My wonderful Father in law built it for me), and obviously everything got a fresh coat of paint and I changed the door/window treatment.

 

Living room: BEFORE

living room

living room

 

Living room: AFTER

Again the biggest difference was the doorway doubling in size and other than that, lots and lots of paint! The wall air conditioning unit ended up staying 😦 because removing it would have meant alot of interior and exterior work that would have cost us more than it was worth to us. I made a little play corner for Evelyn and really just did some light decorating. We never ended up getting anything made in time to hang between the windows but that’s alright since it’s all coming down now anyway.

 

Laundry “room”/closet: BEFORE

Laundry closet

 

Laundry “room”/closet: AFTER

Tyler put up the missing drywall, hung a cabinet, the back wall accent and installed fresh plumbing and washer & dryer. Then, of course, I painted, decorated, and made a skirt for the sink to hide some cleaning buckets. We wanted to add a folding counter, but again, with the time crunch, decided it was not a necessity.

 

Hallways: BEFORE

main entrance

hall with all bedrooms and bathrooms

 

Hallways: AFTER

The hallway again has fresh paint, new light fixtures, new outlets, and I painted the doors and hardware and Tyler hung them.

 

Bedroom 1/ Office: BEFORE

bedroom 1 (office)

 

Bedroom 1/ office: AFTER

This room got new flooring, fresh paint, and a new light fixture. Tyler also built a sturdy gun cabinet and this large corner desk. These pictures were taken after I had the room mostly packed up but my sewing stuff was on one side and his gun reloading and computer stuff was on the other. The desk is technically a built in, but if the new owners need a 4th bedroom, it can easily be converted back into one.

 

Main bathroom: BEFORE

main bathroom

main bathroom

 

Main bathroom: AFTER

This is one of my favorite room remodels! The paint on the walls was very lumpy and we knew to get it to a paintable state would require a ton of sanding and prep work, plus we love fixer upper style so we decided doing a faux shiplap on the walls was the best choice. Tyler put up exposed beadboard on the ceiling and I painted the shiplap a soft white. Tyler built a new vanity to replace the old short one and painted it dark gray for a nice pop. We decided to reuse the counter and sinks since they were in good shape and the counter was about the color we were looking to put in there anyway, plus we saved a little money. 😉 But he changed the faucets, light fixtures, and replaced the ugly tub tile with a nice tub surround after I took out the old sliding shower door.

Tyler had framed the two existing mirrors in a beautiful stained wood but they ended up being too tall so he was going to just hang one, sideways between the two, but I said “no way!” He told me if I found a solution for $50 or less then he wouldn’t do it (not thinking I could make it happen cause mirrors are expensive!) but IKEA came in for the save! I found this mirror for $49.99 and it was a perfect fit. Finally, my favorite feature in the bathroom is the floor! We knew we didn’t like the tile, but also knew removing it and replacing it was out of our budget and too much work, so of course, we decided paint would solve our problem! I used a good branded exterior paint and primer combo after roughing up the tile a little and laying down a layer of just a regular primer. I put down a layer of plain white first and then I used a stencil with a charcoal colored paint and after letting it dry for a couple of days, did a layer of polyurethane. I love the outcome and plan to do it again in the next house at least as a temporary fix. The bathroom used to feel cold, echoey, old and drab but now it’s so cozy, fresh, and definitely doesn’t have that obnoxious echo!

 

Evelyn’s bedroom: BEFORE

bedroom 2

 

Evelyn’s room: AFTER

I wrote a post all about her bedroom which you can scroll down and read about if you like but the updates that happened in here were paint, flooring, light fixture, outlets, and the switch!

 

Spare bedroom: BEFORE

bedroom 3

bedroom 3

 

Spare bedroom: AFTER

This room got paint, new outlets, new switch, and rather than doing the laminate flooring (we ran out), we did carpet. These are actually carpet tiles which typically have a bad rep, but oh my goodness, they were so quick and easy to Install! These ones have the carpet pad on them and were just a peel and stick, so it took Tyler all of 20 minutes to do the whole room. Plus because it a little longer pile, you can’t see the seems at all and it just looks like a professional installed normal carpet just at a fraction of the cost and a fraction of the work. He didn’t put the bed back together after laying the carpet, but when it’s all put together, the room feels large.

 

Master bedroom: BEFORE

master bedroom

master bedroom

 

Master  bedroom: AFTER

This is the only room we put a ceiling fan in. Rather than having to wire a second switch, we chose to get a remote controlled fan which was really great! We also painted, put in new flooring, changed outlets and switches, and updated the on suite bathroom. Tyler also built us this beautiful headboard when we finally decided we were ready to buy a queen size bed.

 

Master bathroom: BEFORE

master bath

 

Master bathroom: AFTER

This bathroom got a very similar makeover to the main bathroom since it was in similar shape. Faux shiplap, beadboard ceiling, new vanity, same counter (but I did refinish this one), same sink, the faucet was the one that had been in good shape in the main bathroom, he added a bathroom vent since there hadn’t been one, and I painted the tile. I had started trying to do the same stencil as the other bathroom, but these tiles are much more bubbled and it was looking terrible, but we knew the bathroom needed some deep color so instead I just painted it with the dark charcoal and a layer of poly. He was able to use one of the mirrors from the old bathroom that he had framed in here as well.

 

We didn’t do extensive work on the outside, aside from regular yard work, but we certainly are leaving in much better shape than we bought it in. Tyler poured a new front step since the old one had been leaking water under the house, and put a hose hook & post out front while I did a ton of weeding, planting, and mulching on the front flower bed. We also added a large garden in the back section of the yard and Tyler built a swing set for Evelyn’s airplane swing that her Uncle Delton built for her.

I don’t have any “before” pictures of the outside, but here are some pictures of the yard at it’s peak last summer.

Even though this wasn’t supposed to be a “flip home”, we are are really happy with how everything turned out and also really happy with the ways we were able to cut and save on costs!

And that’s it folks! We are somewhat sad that we won’t have the chance to enjoy the house in it’s completely finished state but we are also incredibly excited to be starting another chapter of our lives. As I mentioned earlier, the new house is in need of extensive updating as well, but it’s right near family, has good bones, and will be somewhere we call “home” for much longer! Once we have possession and life doesn’t feel quite so crazy, I’ll be giving you a tour there as well so keep checking in!

 

 

 

 

Evelyn’s Room

As you should know by now, I love a good deal. I will search Craigslist for hours over the course of several weeks until I find what I’m looking for. When I have a picture of how a space “should” be decorated, it’s hard not to see it happen exactly like that. For Evelyn’s room, though it’s not exactly as planned, I am overall very happy with the outcome. Especially when I consider how much it all cost. Less than $200!!

We had originally planned on having her in the big room at the end of the hall but that started seeming silly to me when imagining how to configure a guestroom in such a tiny room when all of Evelyn’s furniture was so much smaller. So, she ended up in the small room. I tried probably 5 different arrangements with her furniture until I found the best one. It’s still not exactly as I imagined, but it works.

The room is just too small for all the pieces to be in the open, so her dresser is tucked into the closet which works just fine because she is getting too big for the changing table anyway. We got the dresser from my sister…I believe for free. It was on tiny casters and had about 20 layers of paint, the last one being fire truck red. Tyler did some sanding, painted it, added legs, hardware, the changing section on top, and even dividers in one of the drawers. Over all, that probably cost $30.

The curtains were large scrap fabric pieces I found in the scrap bin at a discount fabric store and cost me about $5 total to make and the curtain rod is a cheap $7 rod from walmart.

The chair, my wonderful Mama found for me at a goodwill for $25 but she gave it to us for free cause she is the bomb diggity. 🙂 It needed a little bit of cleaning and could technically use a little more, but it’s a REALLY nice glider for the price. She also made that pillow from an old pillow that needed covered and scraps from goodwill.

The blanket basket was a baby shower gift from my wonderful sister. The tissue flowers were nearly free but did take me quite a while. I made them while we were living in Florida and I had to be creative and make nearly free decor since finances were so tight. I found the idea on pinterest and spent several evenings cutting, twisting, and gluing until I had enough to fill her wall. I packed them into their own separate box when we moved and they are still good enough for her wall now too!

The cubby shelf is one of the larger purchases we made for her room but it was used as an end table in the Florida apartment and as toy storage in the play area until her room was done in this house. That was about $35. It now holds clean sheets, tights and bloomers, stuffed animals, and books. The lamp was one of those things from my parents house that just so happened to come with me when I moved out. 😉 The yellow sign was a wedding shower gift from one of Tyler’s Aunts.

The crib was free through a wonderful woman from our old church. She runs a ministry for mothers where they are able to receive and use all kinds of children’s things. Clothes, toys, eating accessories, furniture. It has been such a huge blessing! This particular crib was being used by a family in our church whose daughter was ready to switch to a toddler bed. There was also a matching changing station that we didn’t need since Tyler added one to the dresser.

Oddly enough, the bumper pad in her crib was one of the most expensive things in the room. It was close to $40 on amazon but I wanted it to match cause I’m crazy….so I’d say that was a splurge. The painting above the bed was one I had made for the apartment living room and that was really just the cost of the canvas, which was maybe $15.

I wanted a light colored area rug that would be versatile enough to fit in with future decor, so I went with this cheap solid cream 5X7 from walmart. It was $38. It’s very thin and if we wanted a softer comfier feel, I could get a rug pad for underneath but it is just fine how it is.

Everything else in the room has either been hand-me-downs, gifts, or cheaply bought second hand. The total we have paid for her room has been maybe close to $180. Crazy right?! We are so incredibly blessed to be surrounded by caring and generous family and friends!

7 reasons I love spring

Spring is in full swing now here in South East Michigan and I couldn’t be happier! While we were living in Florida we weren’t able to feel much of the seasonal changes that you feel up North which was a huge bummer for us since both of our favorite seasons are the “in between” seasons (fall and spring). I like to think my absolute favorite season is fall, but honestly, in the midst of all these beautiful budding trees, new flowers, and fresh-cut grass, spring becomes my favorite.

I’ve compiled a small list of reasons why this season makes me feel so pleasant.

1. Flowers! Am I the only one that feels like a total domestic princess when I have fresh flowers on the table or even growing in a flower bed outside? My personal favorite are perennials because they are way harder to kill and I’m pretty much a flower serial killer. In a perfect world, I would have a master green thumb but this world is far from perfect and in this non-perfect world, I suck at transplanting and overall plant care. 🙂 However, I do still love trying which leads me to number two.
2.  Yard work! I know some of you are like “huh??” but I really enjoy yard work! The         first day we were able to spend outside on our yard this year, I almost picked up a crawdad thinking he was a stick and almost raked up a snake! Obviously that does nothing in proving my point, but despite all the creepy crawlies, I still love it. The transformation of disappearing weeds, leaves, and brush is so rewarding. Our house was vacant for several years before we bought it, so there is a TON to do, but little at a time, it is getting better. I just recently picked up a few plants and spray painted some old pots to dress up our front entrance and now it actually looks like someone lives here.
3. Grilling! This wouldn’t be a very convincing list without the mention of food right? Let’s face it, food is awesome, and grilled food is extra awesome. We actually haven’t gotten to do a whole lot of it yet since Tyler hasn’t had the time to build a fire pit, but believe me…there will be PLENTY of it once we have a good place to do it. The best part about it is that it leaves very little for me to do in the kitchen for dinner. 😉 I can handle throwing a salad together real quick.
4. Open windows! It’s no secret that heating your house in the winter dries out the air and leaves the house feeling somewhat stuffy. When spring rolls around, I am more than ready to open the windows and air the house out! No candle can beat the smell of a fresh outdoor breeze cleaning out the air in your home. Plus if it’s warm enough to open your windows, chances are you are able to turn your heat off which brings me to my next point.
5. Lower heating bill! If it’s warm enough to be opening the windows, that means it’s also warm enough to turn off or at least turn down the heat. Winter heating bills can be a real blow to the bank so, we, as many people do, jump at the chance to turn the heat off for a day or two.  
6. New Life! Our yard is full of trees which means our yard is also full of birds. Now that spring is here, these birds are filling their nests with cute bald little babies.
7. Spring Cleaning! I know many people would disagree with this one but I personally love any opportunity to purge! I have an irrational fear of becoming a hoarder so when I have a good reason to go through and get rid of unnecessary junk, I do it. I also love clear windows and knowing the deep dark corners of my home have been cleaned. Even if it’s only for a little while. 😉

 

This completes my short list of reasons I love spring. Of course, there are loads more reasons, these are just the first ones that come to mind. What are some things you love about spring?

 

 

Baby Steps

So here we are! Settling in slowly but surely. I have briefly started on some of the basic decorating such as hanging curtains and replacing an old area rug for a more size appropriate one but we don’t have a whole lot hanging on the walls yet (not even the TV). Tyler has been busy building! He has built an industrial TV table, gun cabinet, and a beautiful island! We had originally planned on doing a larger more built in looking island but as he got closer to building it, we decided we really liked the look and feel of a smaller, more airy one. I was set on getting a butcher block top for convenience of food prep and we found the best price for a pre-made one from IKEA. We got this one for $100. Its not solid wood but the solid wood ones were actually not as thick and I didn’t like how that looked. Plus they were more expensive. They also had an “island” top that was almost double the width of this one but that would have been too wide for our kitchen. I admit, I was worried this one would be too small for the space but once he had it done and we put it in the kitchen, I fell in love! It keeps the kitchen from feeling cramped and the simplicity of it helps keep the kitchen casual which is definitely what we are going for.

Tyler also hung this amazing light that his Dad built! I had seen something almost identical to this on a “Fixer Upper” episode and I LOVED it. Plus it looked like something easy enough to replicate! I had planned on building it on my own…buuuut…Tyler didn’t like how long it was taking me so he asked his Dad if he could help and he ended up just building it for me while I supervised and made sure it was as it should be. 😉

Now obviously the kitchen is still a long way from done but it’s livable and no longer feels dark and dingy. I still need to refinish the upper cabinet doors which I am finding to be very difficult with a baby. We also need to get a kick board under the cabinets, put in canned lights, move and change the light over the island (it’t way off center), remove the blinds and get something different up there, build the pantry, and then of course the back splash and counter tops need done too. We also noticed the floor is very bouncy by the end of the island closest to the stove so Tyler has to go under the house and re-support that area. This poor man just can’t catch a break. So like I said, it’s a long long way from done..but it’s getting there! Let’s just review how far it’s come along already.

kitchen

ehh?? Looks a little bit different than when we bought it.

 

Tyler also built this sweet TV table which again follows the “simple” casual pattern we are creating. We love it…however, it is proving to be a very difficult piece of furniture to have around a curious mobile baby. Evelyn loves standing up to it and slapping the electronics, trying to reach for chords, and pulling everything off that she can reach.  I believe the plan is to build something else down the road with doors. For now, I am going to find some large baskets that will fit snug and keep safety hazards out of our little one’s reach. I can’t wait to really start decorating this room but I feel like all the decorating and everything I need to do is dependent on something else we need to do, getting done first. Eventually I want to do something bold and quirky on the main living room wall which completely blank right now (other than a hideous air conditioner). It’s the first thing you really see when you walk into the main living area so I want it to be a statement. Tyler found some big, old, awesome windows in his parents’ barn and they agreed to let us have them! So I believe I’ll be featuring those bad boys in that spot.

 

For the laundry room/area, I really wanted some cabinets so I didn’t have to come up with a cute way to display cleaning rags and bug spray so we took a little trip to the nearest restore and picked up this pair for $40. They are really good quality but were an outdated honey oak color. We will be putting old galvanized barn roofing on the back wall so we decided to go with a bold dark color that will accent well with it. We will also be adding a couple of open shelves and a folding counter down the road. 

 

Evelyn is currently staying in the office until we get her bedroom finished (which is probably going to be quite a ways away still). But we are making it work! 

It’s nothing fancy, but it serves it’s purpose.

 

The only other room we’ve really done anything with is our bedroom. But the only thing that has changed in there is I hung curtains today. 

The plan is to have the living room, Evelyn’s play corner, and the laundry area done by Evelyn’s birthday (July 10). Gotta have goals right?? Between, normal life stuff, yard work, a baby, and all of the tasks on the house, our ‘to do’ lists are pretty much endless! So that pretty much sums it up for now. I have some fun projects planned for the near future so don’t forget to check in for those!

Our Home Sweet Home

We made it! It’s now almost been a week after moving into the house. It definitely still doesn’t feel like home and the unfinished rooms and bathrooms creep me out a little bit if I’m being honest but, at least we are on the next step.

We couldn’t have managed the move without all of the amazing help we received from family. My parents used their truck and big trailer to bring all of our stuff up and 3 of my 5 siblings came (the oldest even brought 3 of her 5 kiddos). My Grandma also came along and helped cook us lunch/dinner and cleaned the floors and such while we unloaded. I am overwhelmed with gratitude for the incredible people God has put in my life. We are so blessed!

We left at around 10, the plan was to leave by 9 but we were running on ‘Snavely Time’ which is usually at least an hour late. 🙂 Us girls all got there a little before my parents and the trailer arrived, so we had time to wipe up the floors a bit and get ready to unload. Tyler was on a trip with work and couldn’t be there to help out but that’s alright because my hulk of a little sister took his place and got the heavy items with my Dad. My poor family had to ask me where most boxes went because I got super lazy while packing and towards the end just started throwing random stuff into boxes together. A little note for the future: DON’T DO THAT. It makes unloading and unpacking so much harder than it needs to be.  Once we had everything unloaded, they kept asking where they could help and what I wanted unpacked and I was so clueless and indecisive. Sorry guys! It’s so strange to finally see the house filled with our things.

 

My Grandma and Dad started unpacking the kitchen for me. I had them leave the base cabinets mostly empty so I could start painting them and my younger sister took off all the doors off. 

 

 

 

We spent our entire Thursday shopping around for a washer and dryer. We knew we wanted front loaders since we plan to have a countertop for folding but we also didn’t want to spend thousands of dollars. We tried some used appliance stores in the area only to discover they were all shady, smelly, and not worth the discount. We went with ABC warehouse once again and were able to have them delivered the next day.

 

I did get a chance to start painting cabinets that Friday. I got the majority of the priming done while Evelyn played in the living room but didn’t get the actual painting done until she went down for bed that night. It’s so exciting getting a glimpse of how the finished kitchen will feel!

 

This is Evelyn’s corner in the living area. For now we are using cube shelf we had in Florida there but eventually we’ll be doing more of a built in tub shelf. It’s right between the kitchen and living room which is great because I can keep an eye on her from either area.

 

One of the first things we always try to get done when we move is get our bed set up and made. My sisters set it all up for us this time so we had a place to relax right away at the end of the day. We plan to move this bed into the guestroom and upgrade to a queen down the road but that probably won’t be happening anytime soon.

Evelyn’s stuff is all in the office where she’ll be staying until we get her room finished. Unfortunately that isn’t at the top of the priority list but I’m sure it will be done before the end of the year. The adjustment is a strange but exciting one. My OCD is not mixing well with all of the chaos but I know there is a light at the end of the tunnel so I’m working with it. My mom is planning to spend a few days up here with me next week to help get some painting and settling done. Tyler’s schedule is still in a bit of a limbo with the guard so we aren’t able to spend as much time together as we’d like but soon it should be settling down and normal life can finally commence. We are looking forward to all the happy memories we will get to make in this house and can’t wait to finish up each project on our list! By next week, you should be able to see the base of the kitchen cabinets all painted! I can’t promise anything on the doors yet because there’s a little more work involved in getting those done.

Movin’ in!

We are to that point folks! No, the house is not completely done. In fact, it is still a long long way from being totally done but it is done enough to move in! Last week we went up on Monday, I stayed until Wednesday and Tyler came home Friday. During the time I was there, I didn’t get a whole lot done because I really only a day and a half to spend working on it and half of Tuesday was spent getting our sectional! Before we left I had to run to the store for some diapers and new angled brushes (ours weren’t looking and working too well anymore) and while I  was in the paint department I saw an incredible little tool that my newbie self didn’t know existed. It’s a small hand held plastic tool will rollers on it and its meant to paint up to trim or the edges of ceilings. Yeah…that would have saved me HOURS of tedious work taping things off. It was all of three and a half dollars. Ugh. Whatever. At least now you know and don’t have to make the same mistake I made.

Anyway, since I had that handy dandy tool, I was able to cut in the upper edge in the kitchen, hall, and all the other unfinished areas pretty quick. I also had time to fill in the holes on more trim pieces, sand, and paint them so they are ready to be put back on the walls. I also spent several hours scrubbing the kitchen cabinets. I wanted them to be clean for when we move in, plus they will be getting painted soon so it had to be done in preparation of that anyway. Those things were nasty! The rest of my time was spent doing dumb tedious painting that you wouldn’t notice unless it didn’t get done. You know, all the touch up detailed stuff that everyone hates.

Tyler got the flooring in the office finished! 

Obviously the trim needs to be put back on but you get the idea. This will be Evelyn’s room until we get around to finishing the other two bedrooms.

He also changed out the dated hallway light fixtures. We wanted something simple and bright so we settled for these clam shell wall fixtures from Menards. The hall is pretty tight so we also needed something that wouldn’t seem intrusive and these fit the ticket. Here’s a before and after of the hall. 

So much better. We removed that old smoke alarm also and I patched up the paint there but this picture was from before I touched it up. We have smoke alarms in all the bedrooms and at the other end of the hall so no need to fear for our safety. 😉

Now like I said, a good majority of Tuesday was spent picking up the couch which was an awesome deal I found on Craigslist. It was about 25 minutes away from our house and we had to make it in two separate trips because it’s huge and we only have a small 4X8 trailer. It came in three pieces so in the first trip we got the large sofa part (left) and shoved all the cushions for that section in the back of our car. The second trip, we were able to get the other two pieces and managed to squeeze the remaining cushions in the back. Now, you may be thinking, “that’s not that huge” but you are wrong. The couch piece on the left is 9 ft long, the back (from corner to corner) is 12 ft. and the chaise is 6 ft. Anyway it’s awesomely huge and we are excited to be able to use it soon.

Tuesday evening, we got the refrigerator into the kitchen. When we bought the appliances, Tyler hadn’t finished the flooring in the kitchen so we had them dropped off in the garage. Getting the stove in wasn’t too bad and Tyler actually got the dishwasher inside on his own but the fridge was another story. We didn’t have a hand cart to use at first so we had to wait until we could bring one up to borrow. The door leading inside from the garage is just a bit smaller than average which is very convenient, *that was sarcasm* so we had to take it all the way around the garage and through the front door. Tyler still had to take the door off to get it in but, it’s staying where it is for quite a while now. 

He got the dishwasher and fridge hooked up after I left on Wednesday so I don’t have pictures of that. He also built himself a workbench in the garage and hauled a bunch of trash out.

Like I said, the house is nowhere near done, but it’s enough that we can live there and work on it. My first project once moved in will be getting the kitchen cabinets painted. They are a real eye sore still and I believe Tyler will be building the pantry as soon as he has time.

The trailer is loaded and I am impatiently waiting for Wednesday to roll around! Check in next week to see how the move went and what we got done!

 

Super Frugal Laundry Soap

Today my Mother and I made some laundry soap! We got the amazing recipe from a friend we went to church with. She gave us two recipes for laundry soap. One for a dry soap and one for a liquid soap, along with a recipe for dishwasher soap! As I’ve ventured into the world of essential oils, I’ve become more and more aware of the chemicals and harmful ingredients in just about everything we use in our daily lives. I am trying to slowly make the switch to natural or homemade products in our cleaning, cooking, and personal care. I’m not saying I’m turning into a crazy all organic, all natural junkie but I definitely believe in being more aware of what we are putting into our bodies. Since we are in the middle of moving, starting our laundry out with a homemade detergent seemed like a great place to start. The best part about it is the cost! The liquid recipe makes 10 gallons and when you buy the ingredients, you’ll have enough to make it again several times. AMAZING. So here is what you’ll need for the liquid laundry detergent.

• Hot water
• 1 bar of Fels or Zote laundry soap
• 1 Cup arm&hammer super washing soda
• 1/2 C. Borax
• optional: 1 scoop oxyclean
• optional: 5-15 drops of your favorite Young Living Essential oil per gallon
• cheese grater
• 5 gallon bucket
• Glass jugs or jars to store finished soap

STEP ONE: grate the bar of Fels or Zote soap 

 

STEP TWO: Melt grated soap in 4 Cups of hot water 

 

STEP THREE: Add melted bar soap to a 5 gallon bucket that has been pre-filled halfway full of hot water

STEP FOUR: Add dry ingredients (washing soda, Borax, oxyclean) and stir until dissolved.

STEP FIVE: cover bucket and let it sit over night. It will thicken!

STEP SIX: Don’t be alarmed when you open your bucket the next morning! It literally turns into a jello consistency! It’s pretty cool. You will be adding hot water to this jello and mixing until its smooth again. I found it was easier to shove my hands into the jello before adding water and break it up by grabbing fistfuls and squeezing it through my fingers. Although, I mostly did that cause it was super fun, but it did make mixing it with water a little easier.

STEP SEVEN: At this point you can do this a number of ways. You can separate the concentrate in to 10, single gallon jugs, filling each with half concentrate and half water. Or you can leave it in the bucket and fill your designated laundry soap container when needed with half concentrate and half water. It does solidify some again if you leave it in the bucket so beware of that.  Now is when you can add your essential oils!

PLEASE NOTE: If you are planning to add essential oils, it is important you wait until you are placing your mixture in a glass container. Essential oils have toxin pulling properties and will pull toxins from your jugs and buckets if they are made of plastic. 

I plan to keep mine in the bucket until I am ready to fill my glass dispenser which will be stored on my folding counter. You’ll want to consider the size of your container and how strong you would like your scent to be when adding your essential oils. I’ll be adding about 12 drops per gallon. 8 drops of purification due to its odor killing power and 4 drops of lemon because I love its’ fresh, sweet scent. I may also make a small batch in a separate jar with Lavender and Cedarwood and use that to wash my sheets for a calming, sleep inducing scent.

Let me know your favorite combinations and enjoy saving money and living clean!

 

Getting Closer

This last week, Tyler and I spent Monday-Thursday working on the house. My mom was sweet enough to watch our little peanut and my goodness, we missed her!  But, we were able to get a lot done!

Our flooring order came in right before we left so we had to haul that up there. The original plan was to hook up our trailer and pull it with the Vue but we hit a deer on our last trip up to Michigan so the car was stuck in the repair shop. Plan B was to pull the trailer up with his parent’s taurus but that wasn’t looking like a very good idea since the roads were  fairly snowy and the weight of the trailer with the load was at it’t maximum/ a little over for the car and for the trailer. So instead, his Dad ended up coming up with us with the pallet of flooring in the back of his work truck, and ended up staying up there and helping out for the day. He was such a help! He helped Tyler fix up his new drywall, leveled some floor and Tyler picked his brain on some other random issues.

Alright so now for the house update. If you recall, Tyler had opened up the doorway to the living room and got some wall patching done. I started painting the office right away on Monday and that took me until mid Tuesday to finish completely. Unfortunately even with primer in my paint, it takes more than one coat on the ceilings and trim 😦

Here’s what that looked like after some fresh beautiful paint. We went with the color “riverdale” hand picked by my hubs. 

Pretty right? It’s a very soft blue green.

Anyway, while I was doing that, Tyler started on the flooring! We were planning on carpeting all the bedrooms and doing the laminate in the rest of the house but I calculated off the real estate paper of the house rather than physically measuring and we ended up with quite a bit extra so we decided to put the hard flooring in the master bedroom and office too. He started in the master bedroom and got it done in a day, it looks INCREDIBLE!!

Seriously it’s perfect. He is waiting to do the office now until he has all of the main part done just to make sure he has enough. He started making his way out the hallway and I moved out to the living room to start painting the ceiling. Holy cow guys…if you’ve ever painted ceilings then maybe you can sympathize, but that SUCKED! My back and neck felt and still feel way out of wack, but it was worth it. The entire house was painted in a dingy yellowish cream color so I gave all the ceilings a fresh coat of pure flat white. You can really see the difference side by side.

This picture was also taken at night with only a warm colored light bulb for light so its hard to see the freshness but you can still see the contrast. This is it finished. 

This was after 3 coats and by that point I was pretty much just saying good enough. But it really does look good. By Wednesday night I had all the ceilings painted (minus the 2 rooms we won’t be using right away).

By the time I had both the kitchen and living room ceilings painted Tyler had finished up the majority of the hallway flooring.

It is finally starting to look like a home and less like a project. Next we made a trip to home depot to pick up our wall paint and I got started on that while Tyler finished the hallway and closet flooring. We chose a soft warm gray and decided to continue it all throughout the main part of the house. May seem rather boring to some, but I LOVE neutrals and love a calm monotone look and Tyler doesn’t seem to mind. 😉

Before Tyler could lay flooring in the kitchen we had to smooth out the subfloor which was covered in nail, staples, and glued down pieces of flooring from the previous owner. It was rough! We literally had to take a hammer and chisel to get that crap up. We hammered most of the nails down and tried to pull out most of the staples but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t just smash down a bunch of staples because pulling them out was no easy task. You can kind of see just how bad it was in this picture. All those little spots are nails or staples. 

It was tedious and I had a bunch of wood splinters stuck in my pants when we were done but we did get it mostly leveled out. Not perfect by any means but it’ll do.

By the end of Thursday I was able to get all the of the main living walls (kitchen, living room, and hallway) painted. Minus the ceiling edge in the kitchen and hallway, but the main part of the walls are all coated and I love the color.

Meanwhile, Tyler spent his time finishing the flooring from the hallway and into the kitchen! The only areas he has left to do laminate in is the living room and office! We will wait to carpet the other two until we are living there and can snag a really good deal on some remnants. For now, the office will just be Evelyn’s room until we can finish her’s.  We also purchased our kitchen appliances this week which took up a good half day since we had to do some driving around to compare prices and deals. They aren’t anything fancy but they’re pretty decent still and will look fantastic in the kitchen once its all fixed up and awesome looking. 🙂 

So there you have it. Those are the main things we got done this week. It may not sound like a lot but all of those projects were time consuming and they make the biggest impact on the house so it feels like a huge deal.I am planning to try and spend a day over there sometime this week and finish up the painting, but we’ll just have to wait and see if that ends up working out. It’s already looking so much more fresh and up to date. It will be a truly beautiful home and I can’t wait to get in there and start making happy memories!

 

UPDATE: Tyler had a good amount of time Today (Monday) and was able to finish the flooring in the living room!! It looks incredible and I absolutely cannot wait to see it in person. He needs to get the flooring in the office done and I need to finish up some painting and then I think we’ll be about ready to move in! Not done fixing it up by any means but the rest will be done while we live there. 🙂 

That’s tape above the trim btw.

7 months

Our beautiful little girl is 7 months old today! How in the world has it already been that long?? It is so crazy to think that 8 months ago, I was pregnant, dreaming about the day our baby girl would be in my arms, wearing all those adorable teeny little clothes, curled up in a little ball sleeping on my chest, rooting the second any skin touches her face. Ugh there is nothing like a newborn baby! I’m gonna give myself baby fever just writing about it. 😀

You know how everyone always says’ “Oh savor those precious moments! It goes by so fast!” Yeah..they aren’t kidding! One minute Evelyn was sleeping 18 hours a day, content being swaddled like a little burrito in our arms, and now she’s squealing, giggling and showing every ounce of personality she’s got while rolling around, getting stuck under couches and what not. Oh I just love it though. I think the stage she’s in might be my favorite..of course, I think I’ve said that at every stage so far. Newborn stage is my favorite because she was just so tiny, precious, sweet and NEW. 2-4 month stage is my favorite because she started smiling, cooing, and interacting more. 5-7 month stage is my favorite because she’s learning all these new fun things like sitting, standing, she’s started eating big girl food, plus she is way more giggly which melts my heart into a freaking puddle every time I hear it. It’s just all been my favorite and I’m sure I’ll keep saying that at every stage she’s in. I try my best to cherish each stage, but I do find myself forever longing for the next one. I can’t wait for her to start really crawling but I know as soon as she does, I’m going to miss the days I could lay her down, run to the kitchen, and come back fully knowing she’d be in the exact same spot and likely in the exact same position I left her in. Of course those days are already long gone, but you get what I’m saying.

It seems like with every stage she’s in, she picks a new crazy noise to make. And then makes that noise ALL THE TIME! As a newborn she made this crazy goat like noise. Honestly that’t the best way I can describe it. It was almost like she was trying to push all the air out of her lungs but then it would kind of catch, sort of like a constipated goat…..yeah that pretty much sums it up. Her newborn noises were nuts, and she would make them while sleeping at night too. She did it so often and made so much noise at night that we actually had to move her to her own room at just 5 weeks! Her next crazy noise was growling. She went from constipated goat to full out angry bear. It is such a low, mean growl set deep in her throat. It very well could be the cause of this random dry cough she started up. It’s almost scary sometimes cause she likes to chew on my fingers, just like any teething baby, but she will occasionally grab my hand, viciously shove it in her mouth, bite hard and GRRRROWL. She’s kind of growing out of that one now but will still do it here and there. She just recently started a new noise that sounds somewhat similar to her goat noise but also very different. It’s similar in that it sounds like she’s pushing all the air out of her lungs, but different because it’s not so constipated sounding. It’s more of a fast wavering. Kind of like Elmer Fudd! So our child went from; constipated goat, to angry bear, to Elmer Fudd. I can’t wait to see what the next stage brings.

This little girl has so much character and bring us so much joy! I don’t think anyone can be fully prepared for parenthood, I think it’s something you just have to dive into head first but I do think God has a perfect timing for everything and I don’t know why Evelyn was supposed to come when she did, but I am SO SO glad it wasn’t even a day later. He knew just what we needed and when. I can’t wait to see what the next 7 months bring!

 

Bye-bye wall!

You can’t really call a fixer upper a “fixer upper” without removing a wall right? Well that has been done! Sort of. Ok not completely removed, but the doorway is at least doubled in size. If you recall, there was just a tiny doorway on the wall between the kitchen and living room which made the living room feel somewhat cave-like and I just wasn’t digging it.

living room

This is the same wall from both sides. Top is looking at it from the living room perspective and bottom is looking at it from standing by the kitchen cabinets.

 

Tyler has class this week but only has half days so he had several hours to work on the house today and he got the wall just about done!

He started by removing the drywall to see what exactly was going on inside and unfortunately, this is a load bearing wall so completely removing it is technically possible but outside of our DIY range so we settled for a bigger opening. I kind of wanted to leave a few feet on the outside wall anyway because I plan to do a play corner for Evelyn there and it defines that space a little better if we leave a little bit so this is what it looked like as he started taking off drywall.

He removed drywall one stud further than the actual wall could go so that he was able to rerun some of the electric. After he had all the drywall removed, this is what it looked like 

So much better already! You can see how much light that sliding door lets into the living room now.  It took him several trips to home depot to get all the wiring done and get it to where he was ready to remove the studs but he did make it that far today. Here is the condition of the wall now.

TA DA!!! It is 10000X’s better! Ideally I would have loved to remove that whole header too but this will certainly do. He will be putting drywall back up to that post you see hanging out there, so really he basically just doubled the doorway. I am so glad I married such a hardworking stud muffin. 🙂 He will continue to finish up some of the bigger projects this weeks so that next week (which he has off again) we can hopefully get some of the finishing things done like paint and flooring and get our little family moved in!! I am so excited and didn’t think things would be moving this quickly but I am NOT complaining. Organizing and having a fresh start in a home has to be one of the best feelings ever. Now off to appliance and furniture shopping! WEE!