Best Buddies

You may remember in an earlier post I mentioned that Steven found a little black cat that we named Gizmo (after the friendly gremlin).

He's still around and he's as sweet as he can be. When we brought him home it took us a few days to get Shadow used to the idea of a new cat in the house, but now they are best friends. Gizmo follows Shadow almost everywhere; it's almost like he thinks he's a dog too.

Aren't they cute?! 

Happy Anniversary!!

This past Tuesday (11/10) Steven and I celebrated our second anniversary! It's hard to believe that it's been two years already! So much has happened this past year, from going through the four-month long process of buying our house, to actually buying the house and starting to work on the house. It's alot of work but we have so many great memories.

Last year we celebrated our first anniversary by going to Birmingham, and we enjoyed it so much we decided to do the same thing again this year. We went up Monday and checked into the hotel; we stayed at the Holiday Inn Express, courtesy of Jamie and JP (thanks so much you guys!!!!). Then we drove over to their new house and went out to dinner with them at Outback. Tuesday morning we watched the Rick and Bubba Show live from the Golden Ticket Seats, same as we did for our first anniversary (this was the most premeditated part of the trip since reservations for those seats go so fast...I got our seats reserved in the first few minutes they opened up booking for November...in August). The rest of our time was spent eating and resting and doing a little shopping; it doesn't sound like much, but we made sure to only eat at places not available in Greenville, and we really enjoyed being able to get away for a few days and spend time with each other and rest. Now we are celebrating going into our third year of marriage and looking forward to the memories that will come with this year!

We're Almost Finished!

About 2 weeks after my last post we finished the sheetrock and had it ready to be primed. (I know, I said I was going to do better at these posts, but I'm taking an accounting class on Tuesdays and Thursdays and it's hard to find the time...)

Below are a few pictures of what the room looked like before we applied the primer:







After two coats of primer:

And with ONE coat of paint!! (apparently I'm a little OCD when it comes to painting...the way Steven describes it I did three coats of paint at one time because I kept going back over what I painted to make sure I didn't miss anything).

The last picture is a look into the bathroom...we used Valspar's Desert Fortress in the bathroom and Lazy Sun in the laundry/mud room. We tried to get by without painting the ceiling with the ceiling paint we bought (just plain 'ole Valspar ceiling white paint), 'cause hey, the primer looked white enough to us. Little did we know that once we put up the two lights it would actually look different; it looked really dirty and washed out. Steven and his mom were able to paint the ceiling without taking the lights and fan down, but we definitely learned our lesson...no cutting corners with primer! Steven said that the primer was a gray tint next to the white paint.

Once we finished painting we were able to start laying the floor tiles. We decided to paint first so we wouldn't have to cover the floor, and let me tell you, it was wonderful not having to worry about spilling paint on the floor. The process took all day yesterday to complete. We started cleaning the plywood yesterday morning (we had to sweep a few times to get all the sheetrock dust, dirt, and puppy hair off the floor, then we took a wet towel and wiped the floor down to get any stubborn dust that was left). Then we put glue down on the floor and went to town for lunch to give the glue time to set; the glue goes down a yellow color and you can tell it's ready when it becomes clear. Steven did most of the work after we cleaned; I was there to move the glue bucket, hand him tiles, and offer moral support (I did fill in the triangle pieces along the wall). We probably would still be over there if I had been the one doing his job. Here's our first tile:

We used vinyl tile (the kind they use at Walmart), but we decided it would look better to put it down at a diagonal instead of in-line with the wall. It is much more difficult to lay tile this way because you have to cut tiles to fit in the corners and along the wall (this is also the most time-consuming part of the task), but the finished product is worth it. The result is a more seamless look, and we couldn't be happier with how it looks.

So that's where we are now...isn't it great?! We are definitely in the home stretch. I'm hoping that this time next week I will be posting pictures of a completed room!!

Still Working...

Wow, it's been two months since my last post! Time has really flown by. We are still hard at work on the laundry room/mudroom, and I'm happy to say we're almost finished! In the past two months we have run into so many things that need to be fixed; it has really turned into a much bigger task than we thought. Here's what we started with:

Our first step was to get everything out of the room and off the walls. It turns out the washer didn't work and the dryer was rusted and really old, so we decided to scrap both of them. His parents were great to take them to the scrap yard for us, and I think they got $5.00 for the washer.

Our next step was to take down the paneling. You can't really tell by the picture, but the paneling was "doing the wave" as I like to call it; I don't know if it was due to moisture or just cheap paneling, but it was not attached to the wall. We figured that the batting was put up to keep the paneling from falling. Demo was not difficult...Steven used a hammer and pry bar to take down the batting, and I simply pulled the paneling off the wall (we had some fun punching holes in the wall first though).

When we pulled up the carpet and vinyl flooring, we found our first big hurdle...the floors were way uneven. The floor was in need of some serious support, so we got to work (well, Steven got to work - I was the cheerleader/supervisor/go-fer). With some help from his dad, he put a beam under the floor; then we put down a layer of 4-ply plywood on top of the floor to add a little strength.

We also had to redo all of the wiring. The room had only one light (and there was not even a light fixture, it was just the light bulb); part of the room was very dark since the room is L-shaped. When we are finished, there will be two lights and a ceiling fan.

Since there were three windows in the room and not much wall space, we decided to take out the window next to the door to make room to hang coats and hats. And, thanks to some friends who are also remodeling, we got a new back door! Here's a view of the outside today (the bathroom is behind the wall to the left).

Right now we are working on hanging sheetrock; then we'll mud and paint before we put down the vinyl tile floor. Here's our first piece of sheetrock (we're farther along than that, but I was so excited to see that first piece on the wall)!!

Sometime towards the end of the first month, we decided we might as well redo the bathroom that is built into the laundry room/mudroom. Here's the before:

The bathroom had the same wavy paneling (if you look REALLY hard you can see what I'm talking about) and crazy wiring. The light switch for the bathroom is just to the left of the door, but the switch for the back porch light is hidden in the bathroom - any guesses where?? - in the medicine cabinet above the toilet!! Here's a look at the demo stage:

See the hidden light switch?! The vanity sink had some water damage (particle board + water = new sink), so we tossed the base but kept the sink to use somewhere else. The shower that was installed in this bathroom was a badly damaged camper/mobile home shower; there was no saving it, so we tore it out and bought a one-piece shower. We got rid of the paneling and the flooring and put sheetrock on the walls and another layer of plywood on the floor. We made the last-minute decision to take out the window so we could hang shelves, but hopefully the sheetrock will be finished tomorrow. Here's where we are now:

Whew, what a long post! I have really learned my lesson...no more waiting two months between updates!

Oh, before I sign off I have to add one more thing. Look what Steven found in a wood pile in the yard:

We named him Gizmo...

Farm Babies

Aren't they cute?! Latest count is 12 babies!! And still more to go!

And the Work Begins...

Uncle Peanut and Aunt Frances we finally able to get all of their stuff out of the house...let the DIY journey begin!! Here are a few pictures of what we've done in and around the house so far. First we got rid of all the bushes and trees up against the house and a few in the yard that we didn't want to mow around. Then we moved into the laundry/mud room (no house in the country should be without one). We moved the washer and dryer onto the back porch and pulled the paneling off the walls. Steven also installed some lights in the attic, and he did a great job. Our next step will be to get up under the house and make sure the floors are level and well-supported...I'm not really looking forward to that because I'm worried what I might run into down there. I guess we'll see...

Pictures!!

This is the baby donkey! She looks just like her momma. The first picture was taken a couple weeks ago, and the other picture was taken this weekend.

This is one of our newest babies...we have 10 now! Our latest addition was born just a couple hours ago.