Happy Anniversary!!

House anniversary, that is.  Today (December 28) is our one year anniversary of being in our new house.  A year ago today, Jill came to the house armed with Dr. Peppers and Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, ready to help the kids and I “get moving”. :)  And move we did.  By the afternoon, Halter Gas was here with the LP and hooked the water heater and furnace up.  Heat and hot water meant we could sleep here!  That was an unbelievably awesome feeling, and it is so nice to look back on that date today and think about how far we’ve come in a year.  We still have the landscaping and deck to do, as well as a small storage building, but those are already in the works for this spring and summer. 

So we’re pleased as punch to be celebrating our one year anniversary.  And having finally received our first time homebuyers tax credit (plus interest) in the mail yesterday from the IRS makes this anniversary even sweeter! :)  Yes, it finally came and we have big plans for it.  So look for plenty of landscaping and outdoor projects once warmer temps roll in a few months from now.  We can’t wait to get started!

An important anniversary

One year ago today, this was happening:

The House Arrives!

Click on the link and reminisce with us today.  As I’ve said many times before, I would not change a thing about this house.  I love it all.  And I can remember seeing the back half of the house coming down the road, and being so excited to see it for real.  Not just on a two-dimensional floor plan, but see it in real life.  Words cannot describe it.

So take a walk down memory lane with us today.  :)

A bed for Anna

We've had plans (practically since we moved into our new house) to build Anna a bed.  The daybed she had was just not working -- it was way too big for the space and there wasn't much room for anything else.  So we talked about possibilities.  Fortunately, I am married to a man who can design furniture and build it (without spending a fortune)!

Our first decision was what to put in the room.  We wanted something that could incorporate several pieces of furniture with a small footprint, since her room is not very big.  She wanted her giant dollhouse to stay, plus she had to have her dresser in there as well.  The last item on the list was a bookcase.  Anna loves to read, so she needed a place for her ever-growing collection of favorite books. 

Now that we knew what had to be in the room,  it was time to come up with a plan.  I suggested a daybed under the window, with bookcases built into either side.  Ultimately, we went with Jason's plan of a loft bed with the dresser and bookcase underneath, leaving space for a little reading nook/play area under there too.  It included everything we wanted, plus the space it would take up would be much less than all three pieces of furniture separately. 

We researched the beds online, and found them to be anywhere from $800-$1800.  But our DIY version?  About $25.  Yep, just $25.  All we really had to buy was the lumber.  We had the dresser and bookcase and the paint for the bed. 

So how did we (and by we I mean Jason) do it?

Step one was the design process.  After we decided on a plan we liked, we went to Lowe's and bought our lumber.  Next up was building the bed frame and support legs.  It was a basic layout of 2x4s with a plywood top.

 

After he built it in the basement, we brought it up to Anna's room for a test fit.

 

You can see her brother's dresser underneath (her white one and this brown one are the same size).  We wanted to make sure everything would fit where it was supposed to.

We brought it back downstairs after that and painted it.

The next step was the rails and ladder.  Both were constructed from 1x3 furring strips.  Everything was reinforced and braced, and is very, very sturdy.

 

After we painted the rails and ladder, we set it up in Anna's room.  The next step was to add the mattress and bedding, as well as the dresser and bookcase underneath.  Here's the finished product.  We're definitely proud of it!

 

I don't have an 18-55mm lens for my DSLR, so I had to stand outside the room to get the shot above. You can see the wall next to her closet blocking the view of the dresser.  Here's what the dresser looks like underneath the bed . . .

 

and here's a view of the bookcase (facing the other way) . . .

 

She's got about a 4x3 area underneath, where we hope to put a beanbag chair or big pillows for her to sit on.  All in all, this project turned out very well.  And for only about $25, you can't beat it! :)

House photos

Our plan, after we get our landscaping done, is to have our main entrance be the front door.  For now, though, everybody's using the side entrance.  The first thing you see when you come in that way is the laundry room.

I'm loving the laundry sink, the broom closet, and all the storage.  It's really a far cry from what we had before.

Anna's room and Connor's room are on the left as you come down the hall.  I didn't get a photo of those two, mainly because the kids were playing and had large messes of toys out in their rooms. :)

Their bathroom is on the right.  It's great having two bathrooms, and I'm so glad we finally have that.  Four people sharing one bathroom is just too much!

As you walk the rest of the way down the hall, you come to the open kitchen/dining/living area.  We love having it all open -- it works great for entertaining, and even every day.  It's the main hub of the house, and the place where we spend the most time.

The door you see in the corner of the above photo is to the basement.  The photo below shows the view back down the hall to the laundry room.

Our master bedroom is on the other side of the living area.  It has loads of natural light (just like the rest of the house) and has a large walk-in closet.

The master bath is attached to our room, and it's huge!! It ended up being much bigger than we realized, but well worth it. 

In this photo you can see my vanity area, which was an added perk I wasn't expecting!

Well that's it for the inside.  Basement photos have been hard to take because of the lighting, but I'll get some uploaded here as soon as I can.

We love the house, and as we approach our six-month anniversary there is nothing we would change about it.  Obviously, all our months of planning and decision-making paid off.  We ended up with a house we're totally crazy about! :)

What's This?? A House Tour?

You got it, folks!  I have 2 videos for you today.  The first is a virtual tour of the main level of our home.  The second is a tour of the basement.  (Keep in mind that the basement is still a work in progress!)

I shot these yesterday with our new HD pocket video camera.  I'm constantly moving the camera (obviously, since this is a walking tour!) so it's a little jumpy from time to time.  But if you haven't been able to see the house yet, now's your chance! :)

Hope you like it!

Mowing Already??

Yes, we are.  Well, technically Jason is.  He mowed for the first time a couple of weeks ago, and then again last Friday.  We had plenty of weeds growing up in the front yard, so Jas set the mower deck up as high as it would go and took care of the weeds.

Last Friday when he mowed, some of the grass we had planted had grown tall enough to be mowed.  Yay!  We still have a few small bare spots, but Jas plans to re-seed the whole yard this fall and take care of that. 

Now we're getting ready to start our patio and landscaping. :)  I can't wait!

So where have we been, you ask?

Well, I just posted today about our "lawn" adventures, but I realize I haven't added much to this blog in the last couple of months.  The house is mostly finished, but we've been working on little projects here and there.  Jas finished the downstairs, and now we have a large storage room with built-in shelves, a classroom for the kids and I to use for our homeschool, a room for Jas to have all his r/c stuff in, and the rest of the basement is a big open playroom.  It's divided up into an arts and crafts area (with easels, storage bins full of supplies, and a big craft table), a train area (with the kids' train table and massive Geotrax train set laid out), and plenty of room for all their other big toys.  As the saying goes, there's a place for everything, and everything in its place, and I am LOVING that! :)

Jas has also been busy caulking the crown moulding that he and Matt put up, so now there's no gaps and it looks finished and perfect.  What a difference crown moulding makes in a house.  About a month ago we added gutters to the house, and that was a nice day-long project.  Jas also installed storm doors on the front and back doors, which has definitely come in handy with all the storms and rain we've had lately. 

As soon as the grass comes in, we'll be installing a patio out back, redoing the stairs to the back door (the ones pictured above are temporary), and adding a landing and more permanent steps to the front door as well.  We also have to build a storage building for all the outdoor toys, bikes, and the lawnmower.  And we have plenty of landscaping to do:  adding flower beds, planting, mulching, you name it. :)

I apologize for the lack of step-by-step photos and descriptions, but since I've been the one helping Jason do the projects, I couldn't take pictures and help him at the same time.  And he really didn't want me just sitting there with the camera instead of helping out. :) 

However, as soon as the grass comes in enough so that we can start working outside, I promise to have more step-by-step photos.  Until then . . .

Little Sprouts

**I posted this on the family blog as well, so if you've seen it there you can skip this post! :)

About three weeks ago, we planted grass.  Our yard was in desperate need, as you know, of a lawn.  And after deciding on a type of grass seed (good old Kentucky 31), and a place to purchase it (Buchheit's in Jackson had it at the best price), we devoted a weekend to gettin' it done.

First up was to make many thousands of trips through the yard with various tractors and implements.  Jason spent the better part of two weeks (in the evenings after supper) working the ground up.  There was dirt to push up around the house, and then blade the yard so that everything sloped nicely.  Then he "fluffed" the dirt, so that it had lots of air in it and wasn't compacted. 

On Friday (April 16, for those of you keeping score), we purchased 300 lbs. of grass seed from  Buchheit's.  Yes, that's a lot of seed, but we had almost an acre to plant.  All the info we were given said that was how much to purchase, so we loaded the Explorer down with 6 50lb. bags and headed home.

Saturday morning's first order of business was to go to Rental Land and pick up a straw blower.  We decided to rent it for "a day", instead of four hours, because we could keep it for the whole weekend (as long as Jas had it back by 8 a.m. Monday).  It was less than $100, and definitely worth the money, especially with a yard the size of ours.  We stopped by Doug Gosche's on the way home to get some straw bales (14 of them, to be exact). 

Jason's dad had a pull-behind fertilizer/grass seed spreader which we hooked up to the four wheeler.  Jas had me drive it across the yard, while he followed along beside, making sure we were getting proper coverage.  We weren't.  So he set the spreader to "wide open", and I made quite a few passes across the front, but it seemed like we were hardly dropping any seed.  Eventually Jason took over, and went back and forth across the yard for another hour, but we still hadn't used half a bag of seed!  I suggested getting the walk-behind spreader, and Jas agreed.  He tried it out, and ended up seeding the entire yard (front, back, and side) in under half an hour!  So much for the pull-behind spreader being faster. :)  After that, we had to cover everything with straw.  I drove the truck, Connor rode with me, and Jas operated the blower.  He broke the straw bales into chunks, and then fed those chunks into the blower, which shot them out at a high rate of speed.  It was an awesome sight!  I made one pass through the front yard, and then another through the back yard after supper. 

On Sunday, I snapped these shots of the newly-strawed yard. 

We started watering Sunday, and it took almost an entire day to get the yard watered once!  Fortunately, by the end of the week it was raining, so we were lucky.

And in less than a week, we had little sprouts popping up!  Every day, we had more and more.  And every day, our yard looks a little greener.

Pretty awesome, isn't it?  And that's only three weeks worth.  Just think what it will look like in another three weeks!

Weekend Update

But not the SNL version! :)  This weekend my nephew Matt came out to help Jas put the crown moulding up in the master bath.  The bathroom is huge (bigger than the kids' rooms -- a fact I try not to point out to them!) with a lot of corners, so we figured it would take most of the day.  Wrong!  By lunchtime they had most of it done, with only a few pieces to go after we ate.  Matt left around 1:30, and then Jas and I started on Anna's room.  By 3:30 we had both kids' rooms finished, and now all that's left is the laundry room.  But dear Matt plans to come back out next Saturday and help finish it out.

This week Jas plans to work on building the first of the rooms in the basement.  After much planning we have decided to tackle the storage room first, and get all our stuff stored away.  After that, we can tackle building the classroom for the kids and I, as well as Jason's hobby/RC room. 

I'll do my best to post step-by-step photos of the storage room construction this week.  So stay tuned! :)

House Update aka Why Has This Blog Been Neglected?

If you didn't know this already, we have been without internet at our new house up until this past weekend.  So the blog posts have been few and far between.  So I'm here to update everyone on what we've accomplished in the last couple of weeks. 

Saturday, January 30 was spent on crown moulding.  Jas, with the wonderful help of my nephew Matt, got the crown up in the "main area" of the house.  (In other words, the living room/kitchen/dining room/hallway.)  They worked most of the day, and it was definitely slow going.  It's not that putting up crown is incredibly complicated, it's just very tedious and time-consuming.  Every piece ends up being measured and cut and trimmed several times, and so it takes awhile to get it done. 

While they worked on that, I began painting the master bathroom.  We chose Olympic Premium in Glazed Pears.  It's a very soft creamy color, and is much lighter than the other colors we've chosen.  But it looks very nice in the bathroom.

Jas helped me finish it up after he took Matt home, and we even did the ceiling since the color was so light.  We moved onto the kids' bathroom after that, and finished it up after supper.  A long day, but we definitely got a lot done!

Sunday we worked on our bedroom.  We used Valspar's Soft Camel (Susie had an extra gallon that she hadn't used.).  Amazingly, the color almost matched the Vanilla Brandy in the living room. 

Now all that was left was the laundry room, which we worked on Monday night.  I taped everything off and prepped the laundry room Monday afternoon, and then after supper we painted.  Now all the rooms are officially done. 

We still have crown to put up in all three bedrooms, plus the master bath and the laundry room.  Hopefully we can get those rooms knocked out in the next couple of weeks.  We've been working on plans for the rooms downstairs, and I want to get to those as soon as possible.  But the crown needs to come first. 

So that's what we've been up to.  Now that we have internet at home again, I'll definitely be able to post more updates.  And hopefully some photos! :) 

To paint or not to paint . . .

Saturday morning we began "Massive Painting Project #1", aka painting the living room/kitchen/dining room/hallway.  Because these rooms are essentially all the same room (open to one another), we decided to paint them the same color.  I chose Olympic's Premium Satin in Vanilla Brandy.  It turned out to be a very beautiful color.  A light tan that really pops with white trim.  Very very nice. 

It took us a good chunk of the day to paint all those rooms, and we finished a little before supper.  We hung the curtains back up, reinstalled the blinds over the patio doors, and moved all the furniture back. 

Sunday morning we kind of got a late start, because Jas wasn't feeling very well.  We were going to paint our bedroom and bathroom, but because he was a little "under the weather", we decided to work on mouldings instead.  Before lunch we had the door mouldings put on both Connor's and Anna's rooms, as well as our bathroom and closet.  After lunch we started on the baseboards.  We had all those installed before supper, and now all that's left is the crown.  That's going to take a long time to install, but at least we've gotten the rest of the mouldings up.  The house looks more "finished" now. 

Tomorrow evening after supper (and pretty much all week), we'll be working on measuring, cutting, and installing the crown moulding.  Wish us luck! :)

A Tale of Two Ladders

This has been an exhausting weekend.  We tackled the siding and soffets for the gable ends of the house, and man was it tiring!  We started right after breakfast Saturday morning on the north side of the house.  Because it was a little warmer outside, the previously frozen earth was now goopy, sloppy mud.  Disgusting.  We trudged through that all day, climbing ladders, measuring and cutting siding and soffet pieces, and then climbing back up the ladders to install them.  And then repeating.  Over and over and over again. Not fun at all.  We took one 20 minute break for lunch, but other than that we worked non-stop.   We kept all the siding in the back of Jas' truck, so it was easy to get to.

Jas built a table for cutting the siding and soffet material, which really came in handy both days. 

See the clothes basket in the background?  That had all Jas' tools in it.  :)  All professional siding installers use clothes baskets these days. :) 

You know what we realized?  Putting up siding is not complicated.  This was our first experience with it, and we both thought it was easy to cut and install.  But it's so stinkin' time-consuming.  It took all day to do one side of the house!  The hardest part was putting in the drip edge under the roof line, because the shingles were nailed down all the way to the edge.  So Jas had to pull those up before he could put the drip edge in underneath.  And that took quite a bit of time.  We had two ladders, Yeller (the yellow one -- my ladder) and Old Shaky (the rickety one Jas climbed most of the time).  I had to climb Old Shaky a few times, but I tried not to -- it rocks back and forth as you climb which makes you feel like you're going to fall off any second. :)  Yeller "bounces" front to back, but that's not nearly as shaky feeling.  So I claimed Yeller for myself and Jas had to use Old Shaky. We were so glad both of them made it through the weekend! :)

Sunday morning we started the south side.  It had rained during the night, and so we were glad to be working on the side with the driveway. :)  It was also incredibly blustery, so Jas' work on the roof was a lot more difficult than the day before.  But we finally finished about 5 p.m.

All in all, we are very proud of the work we've done.  This would have cost us quite a bit if we'd had professionals come and do it, and even though it made for an exhausting weekend, we're glad to have saved the money by doing it ourselves.  That's a very satisfying feeling.

Here's Jas finishing the last piece on Sunday. 

Jas has to finish the last three interior doors, which he plans to complete this week.  Then all that's left is the painting and putting up the crown moulding.  Our goal is to paint the living room/dining room/kitchen/hallway this weekend, and then finish with our master suite next weekend.  Maybe we'll be done by the end of January.  That would be AWESOME!!

** I apologize for not having more photos for this post, but I spent most of my time up on Old Yeller so I couldn't take very many pictures. :)  These were taken with my phone.

Long time no blog! :)

I apologize for the delay in posting anything, but we have been EXTREMELY busy!  Jill and I started moving furniture Monday Dec. 28, after we cleaned out a space in the basement for all our stuff.  Before 8, Halter Gas had delivered our temporary LP tank, and during the afternoon they showed up to hook everything together.  By 3:00 we had heat!!!  And hot water!!  And you couldn't see your breath when you walked around inside anymore! :) 

So after that, Jill and I double-timed it to get the kids' beds and the rest of their bedrooms done.  Then after supper Jas and the guys started moving our bed, the stove, the refrigerator, and the couch and loveseat.  That was kind of a blur.  The next morning, Jill and I started in bright and early, moving most of the main floor of the house and some of the attic.  Then that evening after supper, the guys got the tv and entertainment center, washer and dryer, and the dressers.  Man, was that an exhausting two days.

Wednesday was kind of rainy and snowy, so the kids and I headed to Cape to pick up stuff we needed for the new house, like curtains, towels, rugs, etc.  It was kind of nice to take a little break from all the moving! :)

Thursday I worked on getting the kids' rooms all set up, as well as both bathrooms and the kitchen.  Friday was New Year's Day, and Jason's good friend from high school came and finished out our drywall.  Thank goodness for old friends who are willing to help you out with your home improvement projects!

Saturday was spent moving everything out of the old house.  We still had TONS to move out of the attic and basement, and we were exhausted by the time we finished Saturday night late.  Sunday was "clean out everything from outside/get rid of all the trash" day.  I would have been much happier had it not been so stinkin' cold that day!  But by Sunday evening around 7:30 we were completely finished, and even though we were so tired we could barely move, we were incredibly happy to be finished moving.

This past week, we've been working on little projects every day.  Today (Saturday), we finished sanding the last of the drywall.  Jas built himself a work table in the basement and put in a florescent work light and outlet with it.  I cleaned and vacuumed up all the drywall dust from the kitchen and dining room and living room, and then we headed to Lowe's this afternoon to buy paint and supplies for the whole house.  Hopefully we can start the painting tomorrow. 

I promise to post photos as soon as we get some painting and mouldings finished.  Without internet access at our new house, I haven't been so regular about posting.  But I promise to add photos of the completed rooms as we get them finished.  This has definitely been an exhausting process, as anyone who's built a house knows all too well.  But it was well worth it, because our house is so beautiful and shiny and new!