home for the holidays :)

Well, we're officially in (have been for a couple of weeks), and though there are still A LOT of details to finish, we can call this house our home!! We got our Christmas tree today & I decorated the rest of the house. I love how the house just feels so much cozier with all the stuff up!! I may not take it down for a couple of months - ha! So, enjoy some pics of a few improvements and some Christmas fun!

Living Room with touched up paint, lamps and piano!
Family Room with some furniture!
Family Room (waiting for the TV)
Upstairs Bedroom with Futon!
Same bedroom (windows are done!)
Other upstairs bedroom (our "lived in" office/music room)!

Bedroom with light fixtures, curtains, etc.

Who needs closet doors, anyways?

Painted (mustardish yellow) & finished window in laundry/bathroom.

Once again, who needs doors?? Dining Room with light fixtures, table, etc
I am really proud of how pretty this looks!!
Christmas Tree!

So pretty!

One of my favorite ornaments! Baby's First Christmas 1981!! That's an OLD ornament!
Aw, I was kinda cute there!
Not so much here!
Ornament from Bryan before I left for Ecuador in 2001!

This one made it all the way from Costa Rica!

Hope all is well & that you are able to take some time to enjoy the beauty of Christmas!!

comin' along!!

It's been a while since I've posted . . . I know!! We're still incredibly busy, but all is well! We've been working hard at work and at the house, among other things. Football season ended a couple of weeks ago . . . they had a great year - winning their league and making it to the playoffs. It was a huge deal for the community and quite exciting!! We also ended up buying a new car (a black 97 Ranger) for Bryan. He thinks it's too nice for us, but it was pretty much a necessity since we had been stealing Brad & Krystal's vehicles. We also spent last weekend at Atwood Lake with our youth group. It was a beautiful weekend & we all had a nice relaxing time. Other than that, not much new . . . I just wanted to post a few pictures of our progress. We had our inspection on Monday and passed that, so they're gonna release our $$ back to us, which is a much needed thing!! I think we are going to move in this weekend since the floors and most of the painting is done. Exciting stuff :) We still have lots of things that need done, but it's starting to feel less like a construction zone and more like a home. Here you go . . .

The master bedroom (red/tan):
Family Room with blinds and windows put back together:
View of the awesome floors!! Disregard the cove base stretched across the floor & the strange blue streak on the side (??):

Fireplace lookin good with new paint and floors surrounding it!

A view of the living room from the steps:

Living room with a few things moved in (our free piano from Krystal . . . or . . . her sister?)
Bigger upstairs bedroom with tan walls, white windows/trim, and green carpet tiles (windows still need scraped, cleaned, etc:

Smaller upstairs bedroom with dark tan carpet tiles (ditto):

I think once we get "finished," I'm gonna do some before/after comparisons so we can all see how much it's really changed!! Have a great week!

oh so sleepy . . .

but I just had to share a quick update.

I did finally finish sanding, and the guys finished drywalling. Our newest, and MUCH more exciting, projects are painting (EVERYTHING) and installing flooring. Here are a few pictures!

Tan walls for the kitchen & dining room, and white for alllll the trim & cabinets!
We cut the piece above the sink so that it didn't look so 70's . . also, this window has been giving me fits because the varnish keeps busting through the primer (making the white look yellowy). . . I think I may have it defeated though . . . I hope?
view into dining room
newly drywalled & painted (green) family room. . . ooooh!

I hope you can see how awesome it looks! It's a bit difficult, because the floors are really dusty, and it was really dark out, but you still get the picture. It has been so exciting to watch it all come together just as I imagined!! Hope everyone is having a great week :)

busy-ness & a little progress!

yep, we have been super busy lately! between starting my new job, football stuff, and working at the house, we have not stopped to take a breath!! it's all good stuff, but we can't wait for life to slow down a little :) here are a few new pictures i wanted to share:


front with roof done:
back with roof done:
our cute little shed (smells like a sauna bc of the cedar!):
bryan ended up completely tearing out the dining room ceiling to prep for drywall:
wasn't it nice of him to clear a path??

former weird toilet room becomes a private laundry/half bath:

BEFORE #1:
AFTER #1!!
BEFORE #2:
AFTER #2!!
remnants of my job for the last couple weeks (sanding - blah!)
i'm in love with fall (a pretty tree in our backyard):
also in love with this guy (us at a wedding last weekend!):

hope you are all well! goodnight!

if only we were ready for them . . .

Last Thursday . . . the results of our carpet tile shopping adventure!! We got carpet tiles for the 3 bedrooms (tan, dark tan, and sagey green). They are really nice & cheap in comparison to all of our other carpet options! Krystal and I felt kind of funny flying down Rt30 in a Dodge full of carpet tiles, especially when one of the box lids flew off and hit a van!!! haha . . . but we were glad we didn't take the van like we thought we could . . . I guess we needed a whole lot more than we thought!

Thursday (carpet tiles) + Friday . . . Carl (my father-in-law) & I went to pick up the laminate floors I had ordered online. I saved like $125 by doing this instead of having them delivered directly to the house! It was a lot of hauling, but they are safely sitting in the living room (which if you didn't notice, has the lime green carpet removed & rolled up! We will be leaving it on the stairs and using it in the upstairs hallway until we can afford new!)

Lots of prep work still to do before we can install these floors (cleaning, sanding, painting, etc), but things are getting exciting around here :)

Saturday my dad and Ann came down to see the house & help out. It was really nice to see them! Together, we were able to clean up the rest of the old shingles and mess that came down. I even mowed the front yard for the first time - it looks awesome!! That will probably be the one and only time I am excited about mowing! Carl, Brad, and Krystal also finished the roof!! Anyways, I have to get a picture of all that, but I'll post it when I do!!

changing daily!!

Here are a few new pictures!

The front that they finished Saturday (note the slight difference in the columns as well!):

The back is still under construction, but getting close!!

The mess that was left behind!!:

Getting ready to be drywalled:

Cabinets, doors removed and cleaned, ready for a little sanding and paint :)

I also did a ton of work today cleaning windows and trim and whatnot. . . my fingers hurt!

I also went to a place called Building9 in Massillon. We're gonna get carpet tiles there for our bedrooms. While I was there a freight company called to tell me that our laminate floors are probably coming tomorrow! That was amazingly quick!! We have lots of work til we're ready for floors, but it's still really exciting!!

Goodnight!!