New Project!

We've started renovating the second bathroom upstairs. It's been gutted for a few months and has been our storage closet for tools and other materials since then. Last week, Nate laid a new subfloor and cement board in there. Yesterday, we went to Home Depot and ordered tile and bought a toilet, two vanities and sinks, plumbing materials, and faucets. We hope to have it finished in about a month. This bathroom will be a bit more involved as there was only one sink in it before. We'd like to make it a Jack and Jill bathroom as there are three bedrooms up here. Nate is going to have to add the plumbing for another sink. We're excited to show you the finished product!

Catch up

I'm back at it! We finally got the internet so I'm able to blog again. Numerous people have been asking for an update, so I'm happy to oblige.

I can't believe we've been living in the house for three months already! Time has really flown by and we've gotten a lot accomplished. I'll give you a quick list and a bunch of pictures (because I know that's what you are really after) to catch everyone up.

1. We put all of our stuff away! I love having the crawl space. We have so much shoved down there. This is going to sound ridiculous, but I am so happy to finally see where the wall meets the floor in all of my rooms. When we lived in our previous two apartments, it seems like we had stuff piled everywhere and I could never see where the floor met the wall. Simple pleasures.

2. Nate waged war on the dandelions and the creeping charlies and was victorious! In April, we had the worst lawn on the block, but Nate was diligent with weed killer and planted new grass and our yard looks respectable now. Can you believe this picture! There are about 10 heads to this stem!

3. Nate did a ton of work on the master bathroom. He replaced some of the subfloor, layed cement board down, layed slate tile, installed a new toilet and sink, resurfaced the tile in the shower to freshen it up, painted the walls, and installed new light fixtures and a fan. We thought about ripping the shower out and starting over, but that was going to be more expense and unnecessary work than what we were interested in. The resurfacing was an inexpensive option, and a very effective way to go. The tile is now a brilliant white instead of a dingy gray. Caveat Emptor! You need a gas mask to work with this stuff. We couldn't sleep in our bedroom for a week because the smell was so strong and nauseating!

4. We replaced some of the windows in our house and can't believe our energy bill. What a difference!! I'm so happy with the white vinyl casing.

5. Nate so lovingly painted the fireplace door a beautiful black. It looks so nice with our speakers, TV, and automans which are also black.

6. My dad made shadow boxes to fill in the holes in the wall where there used to be speakers. I painted all six and nate installed them. The two in the upstairs living room house beautiful vases I found while on vacation in Sedona, AZ. The other four in the basement house Nate's surround sound speakers.

7. We've started to put pictures on the wall which really makes me feel at home. We have our diplomas on the wall in the office and some other art on the walls. I created this bead art for our bedroom to be placed above my dresser. Michaels had a sale on beads so I painted the background of the board and strung a bunch of cute beads together. I love finally having time to be creative and decorate!

Come visit! Drop ins welcome!

Update

Nate and I got all of our stuff over to the house on March 30 and handed in our keys! It's so nice to just live at the house and not be driving back and forth! We're still in the process of moving in and putting all of our stuff away. Last week the weather was warm and beautiful so we spent a lot of time walking around our neighborhood and the walking paths in our area. We love our location! Nate also did a lot of work outside in terms of cleaning out the garage (we rented a dumpster), raking the lawn, and scattering grass seed.

I would love to share more pictures with all of you, but we don't have the internet at home yet. Check back in a couple weeks for pictures! My family is coming up in a week to celebrate my brother Adam's birthday so our goal is to have a lot accomplished by that point. What a long process.

March 24-25: Moving still continued

We have so much stuff! Nate was working nights so he slept during the day and then brought a load of stuff to the house. Then we'd meet at the apartment again and pack more and bring another load over. It's pretty much just piled up in our crawl space, kitchen, and entry way. Minimal organizing and putting away has occurred. That's for next week. We just need to focus on getting everything out of the apartment. This is very stressful for me. When I was a little kid, I had a reoccurring nightmare that my play room was completely full of boxes up to the ceiling. Before I could go to sleep, I had to unpack and put away every box. Every time I move, I think of this nightmare and I feel close to a panic attack. You'd think that after moving twice a year for the last 7 years that I'd start to get over this. At least I can take comfort in the fact that I am done moving for a good long while.

March 23: The move...continued

We still have more work to do on the house, but for now, we have to put all of that aside and focus on moving out of the apartment. We still have a lot of stuff left there. At this point, my shins and knees are black and blue from carrying large, awkward items. All I can say is that I'm so happy our house is only 15 minutes away from our apartment. I'm also very thankful that Nate's dad left his truck for us to use this week. That is a huge help.

Today we moved over a bunch of shelving units and our dressers. Tons of miscellaneous boxes were moved over as well. Thank God for the crawl space. Only thing is, at some point, we'll have to pull it all out again and sort through it to decide what to keep and what to get rid of. I know that we have about 3 blenders, 2 irons, and 3 hand mixers. This is so not necessary.

March 22: Scramble!

Mom and Dad were awesome and stayed an extra day. They got so much done. Dad put up the trim in the basement living room and overcame a few obstacles with that. Mom finished painting the laundry room and finished the touch-ups.

Nate had worked the night shift the night before so he slept and then brought over a truck-load, including the TV. He also organized the basement living room for us. Complete with lawn chairs as furniture. I'm really excited to buy furniture for that room.

Nate grilled brats and then we all talked and relaxed for a while. Mom and Dad packed up and eventually took off.

Nate and I decided finally that the upstairs living room would be the sitting/game room and the downstairs living room with the fireplace would be the TV room because it is best set up for surround sound. We have been pondering this ever since we bought the house because both rooms have are kind of odd and we weren't sure how to arrange furniture in either one. I think we finally figured it out and I'm really happy with the result.

We accomplished so much this weekend. It feels like it was the most productive because we finished so many projects. I'm really happy with the house as a whole now. It's starting to feel like home.

March 21: A day of rest

On Sunday, we took it easy. Mom and I put the first coat of paint on the laundry room in the morning while Dad added extra screws to our railing to reinforce it. Unfortunately, Nate wasn't feeling well so he slept in. We had actually all been intermittently sick during the weekend. On Friday night, Dad woke us up to let us know that the furnace had back fired twice. We kept it off all weekend and just used the fireplace for heat incase the furnace was making us sick. We've actually kept it off since. We're happy that the weather has been nice so we don't actually need the furnace.

In the afternoon, we traveled to Chaska to celebrate my second cousin Eli's 1st birthday. We spent a wonderful afternoon there and then came back to the house for pizza. We relaxed and talked the rest of the night and ended up getting Dairy Queen blizzards before bed.