More Before & After's

Hey again,

Today I got around to photographing the front room. It's been done for a while, but it was full of stuff from the other parts of the house. So today, I got everything re-organized and took some after pictures. It's one of my favorite rooms since it always gets great natural light and has a nice cozy reading nook. Here's what we've done so far.

Before

This is the view into the kitchen.

This leads into the hallway and both bedrooms.

 We actually kept this chair, but I hope to (eventually) reupholster it.

 The door on the right leads to the living room.

After

 I love this little room. Looking at the picture, I don't know how I feel about the placement of our wedding tree on the wall...but for now it works.

I also want to move the pictures over the lamp down now that I look from this perspective. Good thing I took these pictures!

I've shown you this before. Since we couldn't fit my dresser in the bedroom, we're using it out here instead. 

We can't forget to showcase Francis the cat! Also, the end table by the couch is an antique handed down from my great great grandmother. The books on the table are some of the vintage ones we used at our wedding reception.

I promised that I'd take pictures of the back rooms, but for now we don't have that much to put in the or show (besides the bed, which you've already seen). We're working on getting things to hang on the walls...but right now we're kiiind of on a tight budget;] Here's a preview of the desk area Thomas is working on setting up, and the curtains in the guest room.

Yes, those are rocks weighing down his speaker stands. We think it adds a nice, rustic look (I'm lying. I hate it. But he says it's necessary, so whatever).

Cats are always on the hunt for new things to climb on. Charlotte found this amp pretty convenient.

Before the tree fell, my mom and I were hemming curtains for the back bedroom. We had one left to hem, so Jack and Charlotte helped me finish up this weekend.

 Since there's no door between the guest bedroom and the back room, we decided to hang a curtain for privacy since there are uncovered windows back there. There will also be one to cover the closet in the guest room, once we get a rod long enough.

Of course, to wrap it up, I have to show pictures of my babies.

 They love napping on the new guest bed. 

I found a dead bird outside today. I'm pretty sure Charlotte killed it through the window with this look.

-T, K, J, & C

It is finished.

Finally. I am so happy to announce that it is all finished. Ahhh. Major sigh of relief. Now, here's what happened today.

The carpet guys were supposed to get here at 10. So, of course, I waited around all morning and they got here at like 12:30. Not like I had anything else to do, right?! Ha. Anywho, they put in the carpet, and it was done within 3 hours. It looks really nice and feels great too! Check it out:

Ta-da! Also notice the new ceiling fan.

I had Charlotte in to inspect. She approves!

We've been waiting SO long to have everything finished, I couldn't hold on one more second to start setting things up. Since we bought the craigslist bed on Monday, the mattress has been lying in the front room on the floor, getting in the way of everything. 

 Exhibit A. Lazy.

Even though Thomas is still at work, I got industrious and decided to build the bed. All by myself (independence struck again). Thomas told me it was "more of a two person job" and I may have almost killed myself carrying the mattress(es) in and shoving them on, but I did it! I didn't take pictures of the whole process, but I did take some of just the frame.

Since it's from IKEA, the frame was relatively easy to put together. Hopefully it doesn't break.

There was a mattress that came with the bed, but since we truly care about our future guests' comfort, we decided to stack Thomas' old futon mattress on top of that for added cushion. I even used our actual pillows so you could get the complete picture.

Again, Inspector Charlotte couldn't wait to check things out. She loves the bed and is sitting there still.

 Fair warning: here's where things got a little out of hand and this basically became a pet photo shoot instead of a bed one.

The huntress.

So then of course Jack's like "hey what's this new bed about?" and joins the fun.

He instantly approves and decides to lie down.

I'm sorry, but this is just ridiculously cute. 

We needed to practice for the real photo shoot, which is happening on August 13th.

Awww. I hope our kids are this cute ;]

Being a cat and all, Charlotte remains disinterested (aka she's just pretending).

 "HI MOM!"

And the clicking of the shutter won her interest...

But she prioritized window guarding yet again.

While Jack continued to pose and look sultrily over his shoulder. 

And then yawn (the black spots on his tongue are normal, FYI. Thomas thinks it's because he's a mutt).

Like I said, that's a lot of pictures of my pets. But they are unbelievably cute, and since I'm their mom and this is my blog, I couldn't resist showing you. Needless to say, the bed has been ok-ed by the important ones.

Today is our two month wedding anniversary! I'm embarrassed to say that my mom had to remind me, but now that I remembered, I think we might use it as a reason to go out for dinner! We haven't been out in over a week, and I think we might both explode if we have to cook tonight. Plus, we have a 50% off (thanks, Scoutbmob!) to this awesome sounding Italian place with a mozzarella bar. I can't even really imagine what that is, but it sounds legit. So I think we might go explore it!

Monday I will be posting the final layout of our house that I created using Floorplanner. I spent a ridiculous amount of time on it, but you've all been begging me to see the house layout (kidding. No one has even asked) and I just couldn't hold out on you anymore! It was one of those pointless yet fun projects that I look forward to showing you. 

Hope you all have a fun/relaxing weekend!

-T, K, J, & C

My parents are on the news as we speak...

Which is kind of cool. I'm actually streaming KLBK news in Lubbock in another window as I type. Thanks Internet! The pugs have even gotten some feature time (and of course, they look beautiful). If you'd like to watch, click here at 6:00 to live stream!

Today we went with our landlady Jeanie to choose flooring for the two back rooms, which is the final step in the process. There are actually guys here right now installing the ceiling fans and light fixture in the laundry room. We decided on basic carpet with grey-ish undertones for both rooms, and it's going to be put in at 10:00 a.m. tomorrow. We couldn't believe they had an opening so early, and they said it should only take 2 hours or so to finish. By this time tomorrow, we'll have the bed put up and no more stuff in the front room! We're so excited. It's been a long month, but it's almost over--and the house is way nicer now too!

Something else that we're super excited about is that we get to build a small fenced in yard for Jack, and we're getting a dog door that he can use part of the time while we're at work (which we BOTH eventually will be...ha). We've been measuring, calculating, and planning that project today, so there should be official word on that soon. This weekend, we Thomas may be building a fence:]

I'll also be photographing the newly/mostly finished rooms within the next week or so, and we're also planning to do some shopping (with giftcards of course) for a big mirror to cover the super cute (ugly) hole in our living room wall. There has been talk of using the left over Sage Bud paint from the back room to paint the dining room (the guys left an entire unopened can), so...perhaps. Finally, I'm considering re-upholstering a chair that was left here by the previous owners and using it in the guest room. I think I want it to be turquoise, but who knows. BIG PLANS people.

Here's a picture of the Lady Charlotte being sassy:

Good times, I tell you! 
-T, K, J, & C


p.s. We're totally breaking one of my personal rules and having breakfast for supper. I don't even know if I can handle the spontaneity of our lives.

Gimme Pizza Slow

Hello everybody!

Update for everyone not on Facebook, Jack got enough votes to make it into the top 26 of the Red Bandanna contest, which means he qualified for a mini-photoshoot! He's really excited, and we'll be going in for the session on August 13. After the photos are taken, people will vote again on who should be on the cover. Either way, it seems like he'll be in the calendar. I'll be posting a link when the time comes so everyone can buy one that's interested.

This afternoon we (I) decided that we couldn't stand looking at the dingy doors in the laundry room anymore, so I painted them! Now they're a crisp, clean white that matches the trim. There will be pictures tomorrow after I do final touch ups.

While I was painting the doors, Thomas got motivated and stained the bed frame. It looks awesome! Pictures tomorrow on that as well. He got stain all over his hands, and since it was the kind with polyurethane already mixed in, he can't get it off. Haha. 

Sorry I don't have any other exciting news today. Tomorrow we're going to look at flooring options with our landlady. She is SO awesome, she's letting us pick or at least have major input on literally everything. It's really great. So we'll let you know what goes on there. 

Here's a funny video because I have nothing else awesome to discuss. When Thomas and I first found it, we watched it every day. There are endless funny references in this one short clip. Thanks MaryKate and Ashley!

Also, Jack and Charlotte say hi!

I'm telling you, they do this on their own!

-T, K, J, & C

I-N-D-E-P-E-N-D-E-N-T do you know what that means?!

Today I became an independent woman. Basically, Thomas went to work. This is the longest we've been apart since we got married I think, which is kind of ridiculous but also kind of awesome. So, he left for work this morning at like 8:30. While I stayed asleep:] Except that at around 9:30, someone started profusely banging on the door. It was the paint guy! Who apparently didn't realize that for the last week, we've been leaving the back door open for them in the morning so they can get in without bothering us. But hey, I was awake.

So I began the day (aka sat down on the couch to surf the Interweb) and immediately noticed that the AC was again not working. Gah. I was fully prepared to sit there with two fans pointing at me allll day long, but Thomas decided he should call and explain to me how to fix it. Shocker: I actually fixed it by myself. It was pretty easy, and it was the classic "ants in the contactor" once again. Those crazy ants.

After doing some little household chores, I decided to make a trip to the post office to pick up a registered letter from my parents that I missed the delivery on yesterday. We have a post office like a quarter mile from our house, so I was all "oh how convenient it's right on the way to Walmart!" Sike. I waited in line for 15 minutes only to discover that it was the wrong post office. My actual post office is of course about 5 miles away. How it makes sense that my post office isn't the one nearest me I still don't know, but alas. I headed towards the 'right' post office, and realized that Walmart was on the way to IT. So, I stopped in and did my shopping. 

Now, I know this might seem ridiculous, but I pretty much never ever shop alone. I've always either been with Thomas, my mom, or a friend. Today I stepped into the big girl world and did it all by myself! I made good time and then booked it over to the post office where I waited around 20 minutes for them to fetch my package. The climactic part is that my parents sent me tickets to see Death Cab for Cutie, one of my favorite bands since forever! I haven't seen any bands I know/liked live, so we're both SUPER excited to see them in August! Thanks mom and dad:]

And finally, today the back room got a lovely coat of Sage Bud. It looks so much better. It's pretty unbelievable. When I took these pictures, the paint was still wet, so you can see some of the long roller strokes. It already looks awesome though!

As a refresher, here's the color before.

And here's that same corner/window after.

 The light in this room is really bad, partially because of the time of day but mostly because it's at the back of the house. Tomorrow we're having a ceiling fan installed and we're going to add a lamp or two.

Here's the weird leaky ceiling before.

Rotten, nasty closet.

 Here's the nice new ceiling (leak free!)

 And now it's like a magical fairy land. The floor is still gross, but it'll be fixed soon!

Jack and Charlotte are the laziest. While I did all the work, they did this:

-T, K, J, & C

Craigslist hunting 24/7 pays off again!

Hey everybody!

Hopefully you all had a lovely weekend. We did lots of the usual hanging out at the house, but we also did a few productive/fun things! First of all, Friday and early Saturday, the construction crew worked on and finished the laundry room. We love the color and we think it looks SO much better to say the least. Here's the updating that went down:

This is what we were working with before. Granted, there's a huge hole in the ceiling and tree all over the floor, but you get it. 

 The paint color was sort of an almond originally. It was peeling really bad in lots of places, and generally looked dingy and old.

 Here it is now. We chose a pale blue to freshen the room. It's more soothing to do laundry now (relatively).

 Again, white trim really makes everything look so much prettier. We're also going to be repainting the ugly door soon. I guess that wasn't in their contract...

The dryer hose is still a little sketch, but it works. And the room looks way better now! 

 

Here's our cute entry mat. I know you were wondering about it! (NOT)

Tomorrow at 8:00 a.m. the crew will be returning to finish the back room. We're really excited to see everything done in there. It will definitely be the biggest transformation. After they finish, they'll be calling the flooring guys and hopefully they can come work on that soon.

On Saturday night, we went to Mari and Holly's to try out their new grill with some delicious steaks. We met more of their friends and had a great time. We took a key lime pie that I made for dessert, and it was pretty good, if I may say so. I forgot to take a picture though, so just trust me. I also made a big batch of Strawberry Jam while making the pie, because multi-tasking makes me happy. Now that Thomas knows jam is easy for me to home-make, I suspect we'll never buy it again.

Yesterday, we were discussing buying a bed from IKEA for the guest room (aka the Mother-in-Law room, according to my mom) and found one online for $50. We immediately drove to our IKEA, where we spent $50 on the bed + $30 on bed slats, and we felt good about our [Visa giftcard] purchase. There was some finagling to get the large-ish package in the car, but we handled it. We did however still need to get a mattress, which can be expensive.

After we got home, I happened to be perusing craigslist for a mattress when I came across the exact same bed we had just purchased, mattress and bed slats included, for a mere $100. Of course we decided to take back the one we had just bought, and today we made the trek over to Fulton (about 45 minutes away) where we had a quick and easy transaction and ended up coming home with this beauty:

It's really simple looking and we weren't super into the light color of the wood, so we bought a cheap stain and we'll be DIY-ing it to make it more 'us'. IKEA even left the wood unsealed for us to make it easy!

Tomorrow is Thomas' first day of interning at Eclipse, so I'll be home alone alll day. I'm sure I'll find things to do--some of which may include watching TV and napping:]

Now for the cuteness of the day: Jack wasn't feeling well, so he was napping on the couch. I happened to catch this awesome video of Charlotte jumping up to groom and comfort him.

 

-T, K, J, & C