Before and After: Upstairs Accent Wall

Today is already Thursday, and it is getting closer and closer to moving day on Sunday!  My apartment is full of boxes just waiting for the U-Haul.  I am definitely ready to move to our new house!

Jason and I finished painting on July 3rd, and I admit that I'm a little behind on updating the blog.  So today I've decided to take a break from packing (I'm almost finished anyway) and show you how our accent wall in the open Living Room and Kitchen turned out upstairs.

Before:  A very white wall... 

After:  That's much better...

 

 The color we used for our accent wall is Dutch Boy Dimensions' Shiitaki with a satin finish.  What a difference a bit of color makes!

Here's a picture of the other color we used in the open Living Room and Kitchen area upstairs in our house (Dutch Boy Dimensions Bamboo with satin finish).  We also used the Bamboo color downstairs in our family room, the extra bedroom downstairs, the foyer and the upstairs hallway.  That's a lot of Bamboo!  It's such a nice rich and creamy color that brightens the walls.

 Our project for last night was to put up some curtains over our patio door. 

The curtains we picked up at Bed, Bath, & Beyond were a steal on sale and the Khaki color compliments both the counter-top in our kitchen and the Bamboo color on the other surrounding walls.  

It's definitely time to move in now.  Everything is ready.  All we need are our belongings and ourselves!   

Before and After: Painting the Family Room

Here's a shot of our Family Room in the basement before we painted.  I don't know about you, but two words come to my mind when looking at this before shot:  Blindingly white.  A "wee" bit of color was definitely needed.

And now, the after shot...

Those of you who know me, know that green is my all-time favorite color.  So I thought why not bring  it downstairs to our Family Room?  Jason and I have a couple names for my very green accent wall.  These names are "The St. Patty's Day wall", "The Shrek wall," and the best name may be "The six ball wall" because it looks like the green on the #6 pool ball.  Overall, I'm in love with how it turned out after two coats on each color.  And believe me, one coat of the dark green was not pretty and had us thinking..."Oh no!  What did we do?" 

If you like the colors we used, find your local Home Improvement Retailer that sells Dutch Boy Dimensions Paint.  Dutch Boy is a family favorite because my Grandpa used to sell it in his paint and framing store many, many years ago.  Even after all these years, we remain firm believers that you can never go wrong with Dutch Boy paint!

The Palette Used in our Family Room:  

Large Accent Wall Color on left:  Repurposed (Satin)

Top Right Wall Color:  Bamboo (Satin)

Bottom Right Wall Color:  Cargo Pants (Satin)

Do you have a painting project that you are about to tackle?  Here are a couple very valuable tools that we found we cannot do without!          

 

This Handy Paint Pail is the neatest invention for painting.  This cup is amazing to use when working on trimming.  Compared to holding a coffee can or margarine container full of paint for trimming the Handy Paint Pail not only has an easy-to-grip handle, but it also has a magnet by on the inside of the pail that magnetizes to your brush and keeps it in place.  And of course, who doesn't like paint liners?  These paint liners fit perfectly in the Handy Paint Pail, and the liners are oh-so-easy to throw away after using!  No clean up required, besides washing your paint brush of course.  These are two must haves for any painting project!

Curious about how the painting in the other rooms of our house have turned out?  Well we are almost completely finished painting.  Stay tuned for more updates!

In the meantime...

Happy Painting!

Closing Day: June 10, 2010

Closing day for us came and went on June 10, 2010 and it was one of the longest and most exciting days for us both!  That Thursday was a rainy and overcast day that started with the walk-thru at 9am.  After signing all the papers at 10, we had our house by noon and were driving over to walk in for the first time!

I unlocked our front door...

And then we went in for the first time as new home-owners...

What was one of the first things Jason had to do?  Turn on the gas stove, of course! ;)  The "click, click, click" noise when it was turned on was like music to our ears.

We look forward to cooking in our new kitchen and getting back to his blog, Weekly Kitchen Travels. Life has just been too busy to do a lot of cooking between our three homes right now. 

The rest of the day was spent getting things we needed for the house, such as a very important Dehumidifier.  We also picked up a few items so that Jason could start a little garden.  We also started watering our newly hydroseeded yard.   

                                    

That night we also had many visitors.  Our lovely Mothers called each other and devised a plan to make sure we ate that night and brought us pizza and watched as we painted our first wall.  Jason's Dad also came over to check out our house for the first time, and our friends Chuck and Julie were the first ones to ring our doorbell when they stopped by for the first time to see our new house.  It was quite the day!

The plan is to move in the middle of July.  Right now we are working on painting!  There will be more to come on that!  Stay tuned!

Before and After: Our Front Door

Last time you saw a picture of our front door area, it looked like this...

Here's what it looks like today...

And here's us standing at our front door. 

The doors are locked now and everything is finished.  All that's left is to wait 6 days, eleven hours, and some odd minutes until we close on our house!  We're both extremely excited.  I've picked out paint colors.  Bamboo Shoot, Cargo Pants, Shitaki, and Brick Trick are some of the names.  And Jason is eagerly waiting to turn on the gas stove for the first time.  We're almost there!

Appliances, Carpet, and Real Stairs

Two weeks until we close and the house is almost finished!  The appliances have been delivered and just need to be installed.  Jason couldn't resist touching the gas stove... 

The carpet has been installed and the colors are so rich.  Here's where the living room meets the dining room.

And one of the best parts is that we have real stairs now!  It took me a long time to get used to walking up and down stairs that you could see through.  No more vertigo now!  I cannot peek down and see the ground and behind the stairs.

What really has me nervous?  Painting those vaulted ceilings in the living room area!  They are pretty high, but I know we can do it!   

I've collected paint samples nearly everytime Jason and I have gone to a home improvement store.  And I'd pick a few, take them to my apartment and/or over to Jason's place, and I'd ask him..."Do you like this color combination?"  His response is always, "I trust you to pick the colors."  Picking paint colors just isn't his bag.  

Well, tonight was the night to gather my massive pile of paint samples and sit down and decide the colors for the rooms.   I'm almost there!  I'm crossing my fingers that my mom and I can get into the house tomorrow so we can look at the layout and debate what to paint.  She's very good at those kind of things!  Hopefully I'll have final decisions by the end of the weekend. 

Only 13 days until we close!

Our House is Coming Together...

Last weekend we found one of our doors unlocked and ventured inside to check on the progress of our house.  So we visited on Friday after work and took my parents to see it on Sunday and then went back a second time to show my brother.  Haha!  Our neighbor across the street was outside watering his newly hydro-sprayed yard and saw us pull up both times with different people.  He just smiled.  I think he understood.   

At this time, there was still no carpet and no real stairs but the kitchen flooring and bathroom floorings had been installed.  And the best part?

They've installed our cabinets!  This is our open kitchen with the high ceilings. 

Here's a  picture of the kitchen sink area.  Initially they weren't going to put a cabinet above the sink.  With the one row of cupboards after the sink area, we thought this looked silly.  So we had the contractors add one.  The extra storage will be nice and we'll have a light underneath. 

It's great to see the kitchen come together, but the appliances are still invisible for now.  Here's me showing where the gas stove will go.  We're excited about that part for cooking our meals. 

By the fridge we'll have even more storage space.  This will be a nice pantry area for canned goods and etc.  Jason plans on installing pull-out shelves here.   

Little by little our house is coming together!  Jason was able to go inside tonight after work and found that we now have carpet, real stairs, doors, closet hardware, and toilets & lights in the bathrooms.  All that seems to be left is for them to install our appliances and put the vent covers on around the house.  It won't be long now!  I better get busy picking out paint colors!  Oh, and also better get busy packing! 

Lights and Very White Walls!

Last Sunday the contractors left one of our doors unlocked.  Did we go in?  Is that even a question?  We sure did!  What did we find?

Most of the lights were up and the walls looked very white.  No wood accents, no cabinents, no laminate, and no carpeting installed yet but soon to come!

These are the lights in our dining room and kitchen...

Upstairs - This is our walk-in closet in the master bedroom.  It still needs shelving yet, but the light is there!

The Family Room in the basement...

The lights in the Foyer...

Only 19 days until we close on our house!

Concrete Coming Soon!

Jason and I found out some great news today!  Our house is expected to close on June 10th!  Of course, we are thrilled!  There's evidence of dry-wall going up, and soon to come will be the concrete in the driveway and near our front door.  However, for the last couple of days it has been very rainy and wet.  Mixed with dirt = mud.  Probably not the perfect weather for laying concrete.  In fact I heard a nasty rumor that there may be some snow or flurries headed our way by the end of this week!  Snow in May?  Really?  We'll see!

Soon we'll have a real driveway!  On a side note...I love the brown shutters!  :)

The column will be surrounded by brick and concrete to the door to come soon!

My picture looks a bit crooked here but it was very windy and cold today.  (I was trying to hurry.)  It may take a bit longer for us to have a backyard...especially a backyard with grass.  Maybe this will happen by the end of the summer? 

Jason and I are wondering if our neighbor will have the contractor build their deck?  Looks like they had them put the brace on, so that could be a start for them.  We've decided to save a bit of money and do this ourselves at some point in the near future.  So, let us know if you have any experience building decks!  Food and cold beer will be provided for any helpers!

Only 35 days until we close on our house!  :)

Our First Pizza Delivery - Sunday, April 25, 2010

Now that the builders put their white doors with the ugly red stamps on our house, they lock them so no one can get in after they are done working for the day.  Last Sunday, they unlocked the doors around noon so we could get in to do a little special wiring throughout our house.  We wanted to run speaker cables in the living room and family room for our TV speakers and to also run blue internet cables (sorry if this is not the correct technical name for the type of cable) throughout the rooms where we may want to have computers.

With Jason's drill, a hammer, 500 feet of blue cable for the internet, 50 feet of speaker cable, and a few other do-dads, he got to work drilling through the wall boards so he could run the cables to the basement.

The plan was to have all the blue cables meet together in the laundry room.  This is where we will keep our internet router.  My job was to help string the cables through the walls and rafters of our house and to also color code the cables with red, white, blue, and green tape.  Ta-da!  Mission accomplished!

My mom came over  to see the inside of the house for the first time, and she arrived when we were almost done stringing the blue cables.  She also brought her handy plastic step stool for us to use.  We are both pretty tall but not tall enough sometimes.

After we finished withe the blue cables, Jason went on to string the speaker cables only to find out that 50 feet was just shy of what he needed to finish the job.  So the three of us piled into his truck and made a run to Fleet Farm, where we picked up some more speaker cable and a ladder, and then we went back to work.

At this point we hadn't eaten anything at all, and it was well after 3pm.  We were starving!  Earlier when we drove up to the house Jason laughed and said, "Wouldn't it be funny if we ordered  our first pizza at our house today?"  I laughed and sort of thought he was joking at the time.  After all not only is our house not quite a house yet, we don't even have our house number up on the outside.  Even hours later when he mentioned the pizza idea again, I was still a bit skeptical about the idea.  But when he assured me they could find our house without a problem, he also said, "Come on!  It would be a lot of fun, and it would also make a great blog post.  And I did agree...Yes, it really would be quite a funny to tell the story later. 

So, we ordered Domino's.  They said the pizza would be done in 30 minutes at the end of my order and I told the guy on the phone, "You might want to make a note that our house is under construction right now too." 

It wasn't but 10 minutes later and the pizza was already there!  When I went out to get the pizza, the delivery driver laughed and said that this was the first delivery he had where the house wasn't exactly built yet, and I laughed and thanked him for finding our house. 

Jason flattened an empty box that he found in the garage, and I pulled up piece of dry wall for a seat on the floor.

And my mom laughed and said, "Little did I know that I brought my own chair today." (She was reffuring to her little plastic step stool.)

  And then we all enjoyed a pizza picnic in our dining area after a hard afternoon at work!

Windows, Siding, & Lights

Remember that garage full of windows?  Well, when we visited the house on April 23rd, they were out of the garage and had all been installed.   

Here's a shot of the back of the house, complete with siding.  This shade of green is called Cypress.  (Our side of the twin home is on the right in this picture.)

That night, Jason and I took a trip that store with the catchy/annoying song that drives you crazy when it gets stuck in your head.  Our mission was to purchase our lights for the house.  We learned an important lesson that night.  In order to "save big money" you should avoid this store all together.  All jokes aside, we did some great shopping and remained under our budget for light fixtures.  So maybe that catchy ditty is true? 

With windows installed, the siding started, and the lights that have now been delievered to the builders, the house is quickly coming together, and we couldn't be more excited for the day we close on our house!

Back From Vegas - April 21, 2010

We had a wonderful time in Las Vegas!  And the highlight of the trip was that Jason proposed to me on our one year anniversary of dating!  It was a very special night that I know I will never forget.

Jason's mom, Sandy, picked us up from the airport on Tuesday the 21st, and she surprised me with a beautiful bunch of flowers!  After she picked us up, she took us to go check out the house.  Thank you, Sandy!

 
We were only gone for the previous Friday and Monday of the next week and were amazed at the work they'd accomplished in just two days!  In fact, we had a call that they were ready to do the electrical walk-thru with us the next day.  Here's a picture from the front.  We have a full house now.  Our twin home is on the left side.

And here's a picture of the back.

In the garage we found all of our windows and the patio door.

That will be a lot of window treatments.  Ugh!  Jason decided to measure the windows.

One will eventually go here....

I had to snap a picture of Sandy and Jason in the foyer.

This is where that big patio door will go.  Jason is standing in the dinning room area.

And here's a couple pictures of the kitchen area.  Jason (and I) cannot wait for the gas stove.

Here's a picture of me in the basement.

Things really came together in two short days while we were in Las Vegas!