Home Improvements

Scott has been very busy with projects that we have planned out for the house.  The big ones include painting, removing cabinetry and installing shelving.  Scott painted the family room and kitchen in one Saturday while I kept the boys entertained.  I still love how it turned out.

Then while I was in Texas he painted the toy room.  The hideous peach walls really bothered me once the brown was out of the family room.  Also, while I was in Texas he removed kitchen cabinet and installed floating shelves.  Just the painting made the house brighter, but with a dark cabinet removed the kitchen just feel more open.

Next on the big to do list was hang pictures on the walls.  I hadn't hung anything because I wanted to wait till we painted. With that done we were able to move forward with all of our pictures.  Since we had pictures to hang I needed some frames.  It's a good thing I had an IKEA gift card, from last Christmas, to use.  Thomas and I made a few trips to IKEA while the big boys were in school.  That kid is a rock star for being dragged everywhere.

We spent a Saturday hanging pictures in the toy room and then later the hallway.

Scott spent last Sunday quickly making me picture ledges to add more pictures to the wall in the TV room.  Those are in the process of being painted before we hang them.  It's amazing how much more this house feel like our home.  We can't wait to see what the Christmas decorations look like.

Making the new house ours

Step 1 in doing so, paint!  We have been talking about painting our family room and kitchen since we moved it.  We have chocolate brown couch, with brown rug and brown chair.  And the room was painted chcoclate brown.  It needed to be lightened up, big time.  We narrowed down our paint choices to 3, Mega Greige, Anew Gray and Agreeable Gray, all Sherwin Williams.  The middle of the road Anew Gray won!

We spent the week before paint day tapping and getting supplies.  I found a little handy square brush that took the stress out of the cutting.  Scott was able to paint all trim areas super fast and not get it on the ceiling or door frames.  

One long 12 hours on a Saturday and we have a brand new kitchen and family room.  Of course now, the playroom, painted an amazing peach color, is driving me crazy...it's moved up the honey do list rather fast.

New to us table

We have had a table that was once Scott's parents and used as a kitchen table at our old house.  We even put it in the kitchen of our new house.  We decided that it was time for a face lift.  It was a color that didn't go with the rest of our house.  It needed a little TLC to get some scratches out and an updated color.  Scott was able to sand it down, paint and stain it all in one weekend.

I think the table turned out pretty awesome!  I love how the colors stand out in our kitchen.

Another project checked off on Scott's Honey Do List.

Honey Do

Since we moved into our new house we've come up with a decent list of things we'd like to change.  Some are easy fixes, painting, others are more intense, building built-ins.  We figured a perfect time for us to get some things finished would be while I was in Texas with the boys.

We came up with a Honey Do list for Scott to work out that wouldn't be difficult for one person.  On the list was:

- Build headboard
- white wash fireplace
- move refrigerator from garage to basement
- clean carpets
- organize garage

Scott rocked this headboard was completed before we left, in one afternoon, with a strained back.  It looks awesome and I love it!  Once we left, he was able to rent a carpet cleaner, move all furniture out of 4 rooms and clean the carpet in a day.  That was one of those things that really needed to be done.  They look so much better since

Thankfully, Scott hired movers to help move the refrigerator from the garage to the basement.  And when we returned from Texas we finished organizing the garage. Our goal was to have 2 cars fit in our 2 car garage.  Misson Accomplished.

We bought a house

We have been needing a larger house for some time.  We even attempted to sell our house a couple years ago with no success.  In April 2 houses on our street sold incredibly fast.  We started to interview agents.  We found a fixer upper near Gabriel's school and inquired about it.  It was under contract already, but that helped us find our awesome agent, Sarah.

She helped us get our house ready and marketed correctly.  Needless to say, it was under contract in a day.  Now we needed to find our new house in a week!  At this time houses are selling for above list price, before going "live" and very little inventory in St. Louis County.  After looking at a couple, we realized we needed do commit to crossing the dreaded bridge to find what we want in our range that is move in ready.

Crossing the bridge opened up a whole new world to us.  Houses were bigger, there were more to look at and most importantly, move in ready.  We spent a Wednesday looking with Sarah and found "the one."  We put an offer in after viewing and waited on pins and needles till 9pm to find out if they accepted our offer.

So, as much as we really didn't want to come over here, we did.  We got a deal on our house.  The inspections showed no real issues.  All boys will have their own rooms!  We still have a lot of painting to do, but there is space, and even more space when we finish the basement.

Overall, we could not be happier with our choice and even the boys love their new house.

Under Contract

We have had a week of "coming soon" to get projects completed around the house and we even bumped up our live date due to houses selling like hot cakes in our neighborhood.  The housing market in stl is a sellers market since inventory is so low.

And now we are officially under contract on our house.  It took 1 day of showings, 18 showings and 3 offers on our house.   We were completely shocked when we received all 3 offers of asking price or above.  Our agent, Sarah, has been amazing and motivating for us throughout the process.  She had the right process set in place for us from the minute we signed with her.

Now we have to get through the inspections and closing.

Home improvements

There are a few things that Scott and I have talked about doing to our house for years.  For example, changing flooring, lightning, painting.  We finally did almost all 3 in one weekend.  We had our electrician install 6 can lights in the living room and hallway.  Then we removed the faux mantel - something that I've never been a fan of and repainted the wall.

The biggest change was the lights.  We can now see clearly into both hall closets. Plus, the lighting really helps make painting much faster.  We replaced the mantel with a shelf to hold the tv stuff.  The wall has a much cleaner look to it now.  

Scott ripped up the carpet in the master bedroom and laid the same flooring that is in the hallway and bathroom. I kinda miss the warmth of the carpet, but the flooring looks nice.  We have a little more work before that is complete.

Icy weekend

The weatherman said the ice is coming, school was cancelled and Scott worked from home.  Before the storm started I managed to get to the gym and then the grocery store.  This was the first time I had  gone grocery shopping before a storm, there was a decent amount of bread and eggs, but slim pickings in the cinnamon roll department.  I think I took the last one.

The ice arrived sooner than expected, around 10am.

They expected it to be an epic storm, it wasn't horrible.  We didn't leave the house on Friday and swim lessons were cancelled on Saturday.  By Sunday we were ready to get out.

To kill time at home we watched movies and Scott did yoga and some cross fit with the boys.  That actually helped burn needed energy.  We've been lucky to escape anything major, although the boys really want some snow.  Maybe boys, maybe.

Bunked Boys

The boys are officially in the same room.  We made the decision to get bunk beds before the baby arrives and every night I'm a little nervous to put them to bed.  We had a good bedtime routine, but it's time to move Bennett out of the crib, he was bouncing out of it.  Of course he is now bouncing on the top bunk with Gabriel.

On Saturday morning Scott took the time to build the bunk beds.  The first half a building was done with "helpers" and then I took the "helpers" to swim lessons so real work could be completed. 

When we returned the beds were pretty much put together.  All that was needed was a trip to get mattresses.   

Another quick trip and Scott was home with mattresses and the bed were put together just in time for nap time. 

 

If you look closely, you can see both boys on the top bunk asleep.  B is at the bottom and G is up top

  We have found the boys a couple times sharing the top bunk.  We think Bennett is a little scared on the bottom and likes to curl up by Gabe.  So far they aren't long enough for that to matter and seem to get along.  We will see how this turns out as they get used to the beds.