Just A Quick Update

How is it seriously October already? I feel like summer just began and now it's fall?!? Goes to show how busy we've been. We hardly took advantage of this summer..... 

Here's a little bit of what we've been up to:

 

 

 

1) I've painted the downstairs bathroom. The blue tape will be replaced with a chair rail. We bought and painted the wood for the chair rail, but haven't put it up yet. That'll be the next project. 

2) We planted some grass! This was our first patch that sprouted. This pic was taken a few months ago, and our yard is now almost fully grown in.

3) How adorable is this babe? We celebrated the birth of baby Oakden from across the country. So sad we're so far apart and I can't kiss those little cheekies. Can't wait to actually meet him at Christmas time! Those Oakdens make some cute babies.

4) We celebrated the 27th birthday of my very handsome husband. So grateful to have such a loving, funny, handsome man by my side.  He makes me smile :) Happy 27th, babe.

5) We started our final "big" project in the house. We're putting up wainscoting in our front living and dining room. I've been looking forward to doing this since before we moved in. I've had a vision for these rooms, and it's slowly starting to come together. First we got the furniture, now we're starting wainscoting, next I can paint it white, and then I can begin decorating the rooms :) Thanks to the Stephensons for their enormous amount of help!

Oh it's going to look so good. I can't wait. 

6) Lastly, so excited for Moe to come home this Friday! Can't wait to meet him at the airport in just 2 days! Well done on a faithful mission, brother.

A Side Yard and a Make Out Spot

So we have this mini side yard on one side of our house. There are no windows or doors on that side, so you can't see or access it from the house; you have to go out the garage and around the house to get to it. It's tiny and unaccessible, so basically it will never get used. 

Ever since we moved in, I have been nervous about having that side yard. Because our house sat empty on the market for so long, I've worried that people have found out about its vacancy and hang out over there. I work up these thoughts of bad guys camping out in our side yard watching my every move, knowing when I leave the house and robbing everything while I'm gone... or kidnapping me when Luke's out of town (I'm kind of a paranoid freak).

Well a few weeks ago Luke and I were in the garage cutting tile when we heard noise coming from that side of the house. I went out the garage and peaked around the corner through the slats in the fence and totally saw 2 bodies! Freaking out, I ran back into the garage to tell Luke that there were people in our yard! My worst fears were happening--- People clearly knew about our side yard, that it had been vacant, and they've been hanging out there for who knows how long, and what kinds of trouble they've been up to! 

Luke headed out and around the house tip-toeing up to the fence, with me trailing along behind him. He tapped the fence open and I was seriously panicking, waiting to find someone pull a gun on my husband! We opened the fence to find two teenagers HARD CORE making out. Very inappropriately. The stunned expression on all four of our faces was probably really funny, now that I think back at it. But at the time, I was just angry that people were using our space as their secret hideout. 

We told them that this was our yard and to please get out. "Oh, this is your house?" they responded, as if they didn't know the fenced area they had entered was someone else's property. They exited our yard with a walk of shame. It was really awkward, but Luke and I were trying to keep from busting up. 

No less than 3 days later, we were yet again in our garage when we heard more rustling coming from that side again! Seriously!?! This time we just banged on the garage wall until we heard them leave. We have no idea if it was the same people, or if perhaps many people have been using our side yard as their secret getaway and take turns using it. Heck, they probably have a sign up sheet that gets passed around and all the teenagers pick what time they'd like to use our make-out spot. We'd never know. 

So we got a lock and locked the fence shut. Now it's official--what was before a space that would most likely never get used is now a space that will almost definitely never get used. Unless we suddenly feel the urge to grab the key, unlock the fence, and hang out in our 3ft wide muddy side yard. 

Sorry, teenagers!

The next project was tiling the kitchen, bathroom, pantry, front entry, and coat closet. It started with us taking a step backwards.  When we laid the hardwood floor, we hadn't reached a decision as to what we were going to do with the landing from our stairs. We couldn't decide if we should lay wood or tile there. So we figured we'd just lay the wood and then come back and cut it if we decided to tile there instead. Mistake. It was impossible to get off. We spent a whole Saturday (literally. From 8am to 9pm. No breaks) trying to remove the wood that we placed in a 3ft area. Frustrating! And talk about wasting a whole valuable Saturday on something we could have avoided. Oh well! We live and learn, I guess.

 

At least now we have tons of confidence in the glue that's keeping the rest of our floor down. This floor is here to stay!

 These babies saved my life. The sawing, hammering, chiseling got really loud!

So obviously we decided to place tile below our stairs, and we placed them on an angle. 

The hardest part of this project was getting the cuts exact. I was not the one doing the cutting, thank goodness. It looked really tricky, especially on all the rounded edges like around the stairs. My uncle let us borrow his tile saw, which was extremely helpful. We also had to pull out the fridge, oven, and bathroom sink to tile underneath them. 

I haven't taken any After photos, but since this picture, we have set the rest of the tile (except we have a few more to lay in the bathroom), and grouted the whole floor. Next we'll need to seal the grout, and then we'll be done with the floor! I'll post some After- pics when I can.

Next up: I've painted the front living and dining rooms, and got some beautiful furniture :)

Countertop and Backsplash

Next we got our countertops. It was just our luck that the manufacturers had cut out the wrong sink, so we had to send one of the pieces back to be remade with the correct cutout for our sink.  This took an extra week, but we were so used to being counter-less that it really didn't matter. The harder part was being without a sink for a week. Ever since we had moved the half wall in our kitchen (which was like the week after we moved in) we had been counter-less because the men had to demo the counters in order to move the wall. Luke and I had basically gotten used to getting all of our dishes, silverware, etc. out of the living room where we were storing all of our kitchenware until we were able to bring them back into the kitchen.  Needless to say, we are SO grateful to have counters now!

Finally, we got the correct sink cutout and they delivered the last piece of the counter, and we were able to hook up our sink. It was actually really difficult living without a sink for a week. I had to wash dishes in our bathroom sink, which seemed gross to me somehow. And just cleaning and wiping things up I would instinctively want to throw things in the sink, but couldn't.  

After that we put up our backsplash. I think it turned out great! It was a compromise between me and Luke's preferences. I like the glass tiles and he wanted all stone, so we met in the middle and I'm so glad we did!

 

 

We haven't caulked between the counter and backsplash yet, so the gap won't be there much longer. 

Now the kitchen's ALMOST done! We're almost finished with the tile floor, and then it'll be finished! Yay!!