It's Moving Day!!!

I feel like we've accomplished so much and yet we still have so much to do. I made a pretty big goal to be unpacked by Sunday since we are having everyone over for Father's Day dinner. I'm okay with things like pictures not being hung, stuff in the garage and other little things still being out, but I really think we could be done by Sunday and I can't wait to show everyone! 

I'm not going to take after pictures until the place is done (picture up, chair railing up, everything put away), so I wanted to show the progress we have made up to this morning. 

Like I said, there's still A LOT to do. It's a waiting game now until the furniture arrives. I'm impressed with the progress, but I see a late night and early morning in my future. So worth it though! 

Marley is a little confused and scared, which is to be expected in a new house. She's a shelter cat, so we've moved her into three new places now. Hopefully she adjusts quickly.. I feel so bad to turn her world upside down, but plan to let her explore in her own time.  

I'm sure the house talk has been over the top, but I am just so happy with everything right now. But, I'll leave it with this until it's in the after. 

Blackberries from my garden.

Roses from my garden.

Weigh In- Week 3

Normally I'm not happy to see a gain when I weigh in. Like any person who is attempting to lose weight, a gain on the scale (no matter how large or small) is associated with failure. That's what I told myself constantly and I believed it too.

But, it's happened this time on my third week of Weight Watcher's and when I stepped on the scale and saw a gain of 0.4 I celebrated.

 

Okay, so obviously I'm not excited about gaining, but after throwing caution to the wind and allowing the stress of moving to take over, a 0.4 pound gain is an absolute success. We were at the house all weekend until it was too dark to paint anymore and the choices were simple... Fast food or fast food. Of course I could have made better choices and I could have chosen my weight loss over the stress, but I didn't and there's that. Maybe I'll have learned something from this..

 

In all honesty, it pushed me to get back to tracking and to making better choices. I can't say how the rest of the week will go. I know that I'm already stressing, but it's going to get worse as the week progresses. I took Friday off of work and although I have a doctors appointment for my hip (more on this later) I plan on spending the rest of the day finishing up the packing at the apartment and continuing to work on unpacking the house.

 

Speaking of the house... More progress!

Imagine this without the paint cans..

 

 I am getting so excited for Saturday when the furniture comes! Until then I'm going to continue to unpack. My goal for tomorrow is to get the patio and porch set up as best as possible since we are hosting Father's Day at our house on Sunday. I also want to start the kids rooms so that I can finish those up on Friday.

There's still a lot to do, but it will get done in time. My family is already aware that the house will not be unpacked and are not expecting anything other same food, family and a good time together. Patrick and I have always been the kind to be 100% unpacked fast, so I don't see this being any different.

I will tell you that the more we get done the more it feels like our home. Staying there 24/7 will be strange at first, but in no time at all we will get used to it all and it will really feel like our home and our personalities will shine through.

I wouldn't have been able to get through this move without my husband though. He has been my rock and is always there when I start stressing about how much we have left to do. We are both getting pretty burnt out with everything we've been doing (as I'm sure our families are too since they've been helping so much), but he has been amazing and so helpful getting stuff over and unpacked from the truck into the house. He's also allowing me to decorate the house the way I want. I am still passing ideas by him, but he has been awesome and I am so grateful for him.

I'm sure there will be many more pictures to post after this weekend!

Progress!

Well, it took four days and many MANY helping hands, but the painting is about 95% completed. I believe the only things we have left to do are the bathroom ceiling, a few touch ups and the laundry room. The laundry room is just a few spots that need to be covered after the nails were removed and then the holes were spackled. We plan on taking a sample to Home Depot to have them paint match and then just paint over those spots so that we don't have to do the entire room.

The kids bathroom is also being completely remodeled so that a shower can be put in with the bathtub. It was not on the original plan, however it is needed and it's been kind of fun thinking about the tile and other items for that room as well. I'm sure it will look fantastic once it's done, but the idea of remodeling a room is a cause of stress.

We have a long way to go before we are ready to present the house as complete, but the progress we made this weekend is HUGE and I am so proud of ourselves and impressed with how much we were able to accomplish. We have 6 days until the movers come and we are falling behind with our packing. The current plan is to pack at night and then take the boxes over right after work. Lather, rinse, repeat..

It's about time to start packing the clothing and other essential items that we don't "need" in the next week. Winter clothing, extra towels, etc. It's been quite a process and I'm at the point where I just want to throw everything in a box and get it done. I know we can't really do that yet, but I can dream, and we may just end up getting to that point Friday night since we both have to work all week.

Here are some pictures of the progress we were able to make over the weekend:

Living Room: Before/During/After (with extra lighting to help with painting)

Living Room Wall: Before/After

Kids Room: Before/After 

 

 Isabel's Room: Before/After

Kitchen & Dining Room: Before/After

 

Bathroom: Before/After

Bedroom: Before/After

Kitchen Lamp: Before/Soon to be After

 

This coming week will be filled with moving boxes and starting to put things where they belong (my favorite part). I told Patrick that I would take care of decorating the entire house if he wanted to work on the kitchen. I figured since he spends more time in there than I do that it would be a better idea for him to set it up the way he wants. I'm sure it will make it easier for him.

 

I still have so many ideas of what I want to do and where I want to put things and I am so unbelievably excited to put those thoughts into this house. It really is starting to feel more and more like ours and I cannot wait to stay there for the first time next weekend. 

 

And with that, I am off to do some laundry and packing.

Painting- Day One

Yesterday marked day 2 of owning a home and day 1 of starting the painting we have planned for the house. I got there shortly after work and Patrick got there about an hour and a half later. Thankfully my parents were there to help during that time.

We got the walls washed and ready to be painted and another load of boxes was brought in. Patrick and I decided to stay a little after our parents left and painted the first item: a window frame. We got in one coat and decided to continue today.

Before:

During:

Another coat should do the trick and we will be doing that this morning before we tackle more of the house. 

So much to do! 

But it's already starting to feel like home.

 

This weekend we have planned for friends and family to come and help. We are hoping to be 100% done painting by the end of the day on Sunday. If we go over into next week, that's fine because we have until the 14th before the movers come, but we still have a lot of boxes to move ourselves.

 

We have planned on painting the following rooms:

living room

kids room

Isabel's room

kitchen

our bathroom

our bedroom

 

At some point we will also need to paint the garage, Patrick's man cave and the garage bathroom, but that will come in time.

We Are Homeowners!!!

Day one: June 4, 2014

The day finally arrived for us to use our key for the first time and step into our home as the new owners. The plan was to drop off a load of boxes yesterday sometime after work. Patrick had gone down to see the kids graduations from 6th and 8th grade and was expecting to be home sometime before 6. We were going to meet, unload some boxes and take some pictures of the house so we could have our official "before" photos.

Well, you know what they say about plans...

Patrick didn't get home until after 8, but we had discussed it earlier and decided that I could still head over there to drop off boxes, help my parents unload their cars and take the before pictures.

The plans keep changing and I am doing my absolute best to be easy going and just go with the flow, but that's not really the personality that I have and I'm finding it difficult. For example, we're supposed to start painting tonight after work. Now Patrick might have to both open and close, so he might not be there and I'm so not ready to paint alone. But I did my best, put a smile on my face and looked at the bright side.. Overtime!!! and much needed extra money.

Plus now it gives my mom and me an opportunity to go over there and clean the floors and the walls before we begin the massive paint project that will last through the weekend.

We've picked our colors, purchased the paint and bribed our families with free food to work this weekend. Thankfully, Patrick and I agreed on all of the colors, so that was a quick process. Now if only the painting can go as quickly.

T-minus 10 days until the movers bring all of our furniture over. The goal is to be 99% moved by that day so that all they have to bring over are the big items (refrigerator, couches, beds, washer/dryer, etc). We want to do as much of this ourselves as possible, meaning we'll be making trips daily with cars filled with stuff (how did we accumulate so much stuff??).

I really cannot believe that it is ours. It feels so strange still, and I'm sure it will for some time until we can start putting our stuff in places and not just in boxes in the middle of the rooms. I have so many ideas for our home and I can't wait to actual make those ideas become reality. Hopefully it all works out the way I imagine it...

Well, here they are... The official before pictures. I took many more, however I decided to just do the overviews of each of the rooms so that I can do side by sides as soon as we are unpacked.

The front

Part of our porch

The living room

Kaleb & Leah's room

Isabel's room

Kids bathroom

Dining area of the kitchen

Kitchen

Laundry room

Tiki in our bathroom

Bathroom

Our room

Backyard garden

Man cave

Tool shed

Part of the garage

Garage bathroom

Garage area (my gym area)

 

It's going to be quite the adventure, but I think it's going to be a great one..