Pictures!

Here are some pictures as promised:

The downstairs bathroom was this hideous dark brown and dark red color.  

The paint peeled off of the wall.

Here's the shower part.  It's not too bad.  We had to bend the shower door frame back into place so you could actually close the door.  We also sanded and repainted the cupboards.

It's amazing what a fresh coat of paint can do for a room.

I think our towels are a tad too long.  We have a towel rack, but it's not up yet.

This bathroom is almost done.  Eventually it will be redone.  I'd like to get rid of at least one of the three doors...so annoying, but for now it is very much livable. 

 Here's the master/Connor's bedroom.  We are amazed at how much stuff we got into this room.  There's a nightstand on both sides of the bed, then the crib, bookcase, and dresser.  There's even more room too.  Not everything is tight together.  Then there's the fireplace on the far wall, then the third wall has the sliding glass door, the changing table and then the two closets.  You come in from the double doors and you can go out the double doors to the bathroom or you can go out the third door to the shower.  I think they liked a lot of doors in this house.  The upstairs bathroom has two doors as well.

And now what you've all been waiting for.....The kitchen!  We have so much cupboard space I don't need to leave anything on the counter except the toaster and the knife block...it's so clean...and I haven't even used them all up yet either.  Oh and the granite people made us two big hot pad/cutting board type things from the pieces that they cut out to fit the sink in.  They also left us the large leftover pieces too.  None of them are big enough to use in a bathroom really, so we're not sure what we're going to do with them.

This area will at some point be the eat-in part of the kitchen.  Frank said he will build us a built in bench and we're toying around with the idea of an island too.  But both of those are not necessities right now, so they're placed on hold.

The back-splash was started today and will be mostly finished tomorrow.  We bought these really cool glass tiles to run as an accent stripe, but the amount of space under the windows prevented us from going with that idea.  Instead they are placed more like a 2x2 medallion every now and then.  I like it.  We are going to have a lot of glass tiles left over, so we're also toying with the idea of using them in the upstairs bathroom.  Though Peter wants to just return them and pay the 20% restocking fee.  I think there's plenty of color that we could have a lot of fun with that bathroom.

Well those are the pictures for now.  The house is coming along.

We Officially Moved In!

We are no longer homeless!

Yes we have finally moved into our house. Last Sunday night we moved our stuff from my parents' house over. The master bedroom is set up with our bed, Connor's crib, the changing table, a bookcase with toys and books and two night stands for now. At some point we'll take in our dresser, but we're not sure where it will go at the moment. It's a huge room, but really only has one useable wall. Peter installed closet organizers in our closet which we share with Connor and still have plenty of free space (though we haven't emptied all of our boxes yet). This room has been painted and carpeted with the most luxurious must run around barefoot kind of carpet-that we got for an awesome price. We had to buy a really big piece and have quite a bit left over. I hope it's enough to do one of the upstairs rooms too.

Our family room/kitchen is still under construction and will be for quite some time. The kitchen will be getting a back splash soon and then everything will be done except the floor, which is concrete at the moment. The family room has pergo flooring which will be removed when we replace the kitchen floor. The mantle over the fireplace was a hideous color, my mom painted it and the wall above it a nice terracotta color and then left a stripe of the previous color for giggles. The fireplace will be fixed up, but that is far down on our to do list. Other than that it's pretty much done.

The living room needs to be textured and painted, but right now that's where all the construction tools are.

The downstairs bathroom has been painted. It looks SO MUCH BETTER! It was originally an awful dark red and dark brown. It's now a much brighter blue color. The medicine cabinets are new and the vanities got a paint makeover. Eventually that bathroom will get a complete makeover, but for now it is quite usable. Just don't look at the tile flooring that is falling apart.

So downstairs is getting closer to being done. Then we'll tackle the upstairs bathroom which will be completely gutted. They had a major water leak at some point. There's clearly mold all around the baseboards, basically rotting them out. There's a funky smell in one of the rooms and water damage on the floorboards. There's also obvious damage in the ceiling of the garage. Yes we knew about this when we bought the house. We had no idea how bad the kitchen was, so no we weren't expecting to do a complete kitchen remodel and a bathroom remodel. For now there's a baby gate at the bottom of the stairs to keep Connor from going anywhere near that nasty bathroom and all that lurks upstairs.

The list of repairs is endless...as we said we bought a diamond in the rough.

____________________________

So it's been a week and we don't have internet due to the nasty mexican fan palm tree that Peter and his dad tried to remove.  Monday we're getting an estimate to remove the rest of the palm tree.  As soon as it is gone then Time Warner can come back and try to make sense of the mess that is left over.

We fixed the sprinklers near the house today.   I cleaned out the dead bushes in the planters and now they are ready for new plantings.  I can hardly wait!

Next post will be pictures I promise!  Lots of pictures!

Blog by Connor

 Going for a ride in grandpa's kayak-Don't you all wish your grandpa was as cool as mine?  

My daddy is jealous, he hasn't gotten to go for a ride in the kayak yet.

 Fruit snacks left in a hot car taste just as good as those not already melted, but mommy and daddy said I was a mess to clean up.

 Wanna come play in the water with me?

 My grandma O got me this shirt at the fair-P.I.M.P: Poopie In My Pants

Keeping Cool and Kitchen is almost done

Friday was the hottest day of the year.  Many places saw record high temperatures.  It was 106 degrees where we are...quite miserable.  The wind had wrecked havoc at my parents house as it totally tore up the shade structure and tumbled potted plants.  The wind was so hot is was just miserable.  We put Connor to bed with just a diaper on and the fan on.  When we went to bed I grabbed an extra fan as well.  The first picture is just a cute picture from the week...before the heat set in.

Keeping cool with a popsicle by the pool.

Having fun with water.

Then this morning the kitchen started to become a reality.  The cupboards arrived yesterday and today almost all of them were installed.  Today the appliances arrived.

Here's the kitchen as we left it at the end of the day's work.  Tomorrow the fronts and drawers will be installed as well as all of the appliances...Woohoo!

Then we can start filling them up...Well at least all of the top ones and the pantries.  The counter top is being delivered on Thursday and they might make a mess underneath so we'll wait until they're done before we put anything in the bottom cupboards.  Next weekend, if all goes according to plan and we're able to order and receive tile by then, Frank will install the back splash....then the kitchen will be done!

14 Times!

Yesterday started out relatively normal.  I went to work.  Peter took the day off to spend time with Connor as my dad was out of town.  As part of his time off they went to a park and then visited with Peter's parents.  While at their house Peter decided to make up a drink for Connor.  We all like using those Crystal Light to go drinks, just mix with water and voila yummy drink.  So Peter found a flavor and gave a packet to his mom and she mixed it up and gave it to Connor.  They then went to 99 Ranch Market and Connor enjoyed running up and down the aisles (not something I would allow, but well yeah I was at work).  Peter then brings Connor home and tries to put him down for a nap.  He would have nothing to do with a nap.  In fact Connor decided to climb out of the pack n play yesterday...I was hoping that wouldn't happen for awhile longer.  Okay fast forward to about 4:30pm and I got home from work.  Peter comes out of the bedroom exhausted as Connor has still refused to take a nap.  He is clearly tired, but won't hold still.  We let him run around a bit and he doesn't seem very tired to me.  At 5:30 he starts getting really crabby.  By 6:30 he has fallen over and tipped things on top of himself enough that I declare it is bedtime.  I get him ready for bed and put him to sleep.  Peter runs over to the house to paint while there is still daylight.  I then sit on the couch.  Connor cries a tad and then within minutes he has opened the door to the room and is out.  I take him back to the room, put him in bed and close the door.  1 minute later he's back.  My  mom says, "It takes 30 times for a child to realize you mean business."  The count is on...3x, 5x, 10x.  Each time it takes about 30 seconds for him to get out...at one point he got out and played with a bag on the floor and then came out to throw the bag away...12x, he's getting slower at responding this time, and doesn't try to make a run for it as he sees me coming to get him...14x I put him in bed, turn to leave and hear that he has stood up.  I turn around and say "lay down."  He quickly gets down and cries for about 5 minutes and then falls asleep.  So yes I put Connor to bed 14 times last night.

So that brings us to today.  Peter is still going on about this yummy strawberry drink that Connor had yesterday.  We should really go and get this flavor etc.  So Peter and I head out to go carpet shopping today, while in the car he has the little empty packet of strawberry crystal light.  He shows it to me...my response, "No wonder Connor wouldn't nap yesterday-You gave him caffeine."  The strawberry crystal light said "Energy" on it and the fourth ingredient was caffeine.  Peter's response, "Well that sure explains a lot."

Kitchen Update

The drywall going up

The drywall in, the mud on and ready for texture

The new sliding glass door and a view of one of the windows.  All of the kitchen windows are now counter top height.  Not to mention they are all brand new so they won't leak.

The front walkway

Peter and David trying to take out a palm tree that has taken over the cable box and lifted a lot of the sidewalk.  Peter says-Don't ever buy a fan palm and if you have one, get rid of it immediately!

The downstairs bathroom

Peter and my mom scraped the paint off.  This bathroom will be textured today and ready for paint by Monday.  Normally you would just paint over the wall, however the paint used on this bathroom peeled.  We thought if we painted over it, it would basically fall off of the wall.  So we're doing it right.

More of same bathroom

The view of the living room from the top of the stairs

The kitchen cabinets were ordered a few weeks ago.  The appliances have been ordered.  We originally were going to go really cheap for the kitchen and then redo it nicer later when we could.  However, Frank convinced us as well as some others to just do it now.  So, today we picked out a granite counter top that we liked as well as a back splash.  But we're going to check out Home Depot and see if we can find the same things for a bit cheaper as well.

All pictures are from today except the very first one.

Under Construction

The First two pictures were taken about a week ago.

 Above: Old dining room-The windows were shortened as this is now part of the kitchen and there will be cupboards there.  The drywall was added to fill in the doorway.  There will be two tall pantries there.
Below: Isn't the kitchen beautiful?!  We made the ceiling 8ft to match the family room ceiling.  In doing so we blocked off the skylight-it was in a really strange spot to begin with.  Now the skylight will light up the attic space there.  From one of the upstairs rooms there's an attic entrance to the space above the kitchen.

Yesterday Connor helped grandma sand down the door so it could be painted.  

He's such a helpful little guy.

Our kitchen cabinets have been ordered...now we wait 4 weeks for them to arrive.

Poison Oak

Well I've had a wonderful day today!  About a week ago I noticed what looked like bug bites on my arms.  Yesterday those bug bites started to really itch.  Last night I woke up and couldn't stop itching.  Then today at work it looked more like a rash that was spreading.  So this evening Peter took me to urgent care.  I have poison oak...lucky me.  Apparently there's poison oak in the backyard of our new house.  Remember those 12 cans my aunt and uncle and I filled with greenery?  I was wearing short sleeves, they had long sleeves on.  Note to self-wear long sleeves when dealing with unfamiliar greenery.

Moving Day

Saturday morning bright and early we started to move our stuff out.  Peter picked up the rental truck at 7am.  By 8am they started filling it up.  At 8:30 people from the ward came to help.  It all disappeared so quickly.  I ran to the store and picked up doughnuts (apparently a must have for moving) and popsicles because it was just so darn hot!  The popsicles were a major hit!  Then just about everyone ventured over to the new house to help unload the truck.  From what I heard, they had a great assembly line leading from the truck to the garage and had the truck empty in very little time.  I stayed back and Rebecca and I loaded boxes with the odds and ends stuff that got left behind.  The condo is now 99% empty.  All that remains is some laundry soap, mops and a few pans that we forgot to pack up.

We'd like to send out a HUGE THANK YOU to all that helped us move.  We really appreciated it!

In the move we only broke one frame-a small casualty.  Though today Peter went to church with sneakers on as he forgot to pack dress shoes, and he borrowed a tie from my dad.  We also have no idea where our cell phone charger is.  But thankfully my brother had an old one that fit perfectly.

Pre-Moving Day

I'm exhausted!  Peter returned home from a trip to Home Depot and then to the new house to drop stuff off and finish scraping the old tile up at 11:30pm last night.  He then informed me that we needed to get out of the condo as soon as possible in order to have a chance at getting it rented before school starts.  Which meant that today we finished packing up our condo.  Peter and Chris made several trips over to the house with several van loads full of boxes.  Tomorrow morning we're getting the U-haul to take the big stuff and the boxes that got left behind after 4 trips to the house. 

Where is all our stuff going?  After all the kitchen is still a mess and the bedroom has no carpet or really anything.  Well, our stuff is going to the garage or the living room and we'll stay with my parents for a week until our bedroom gets finished and then we'll head over to the house.  While packing up stuff we found our emergency stove, so we could even make food :)  Too bad we don't have a fridge yet though. 

So I know this is all last second and all, but if anyone has spare time, or more importantly a spare hubby :) tomorrow morning we would love the help.