My first Before and After!

My washer and dryer are home again and no longer in the middle of my kitchen! The laundry area floors are finished!

I first want to show you the amazing color we covered up with the new paint. There was actually an off white that covered the entire house but upon further investigation, this is the color that was underneath the next layer of paint.

I personally like the yellow undertones. Because it is an open floor plan, we painted the hall, the living room, kitchen and laundry area the same color; "Withered" by Making America Beautiful (MAB), a close match is "Clay Pebble" by Behr at Home Depot. It's a nice, soothing, neutral, sagey green.

This is the vinyl flooring we are pulling up. This picture is looking into the kitchen and laundry area from the living room. The checkered pattern is a forest green, so I'm sure it went nicely with the lemon/lime sherbert walls.

After painting, we had to get rid of this...So that Mike could build this...When all is said and done, this is what it looks like where I do laundry.

You can see the wall color better in those last two pictures. We still have to paint the door (we are using Creamy White from Lowe's on all the doors and trim), put the last baseboard back on and put in a new floor vent. We don't have a lot of cabinet space in the kitchen so I am using these baskets for some storage area.

Mike will start on the kitchen floors within the next week hopefully! We are only doing the kitchen, entry way, living room and hallway. The bathrooms will be tiled and the bedrooms will have carpet.

Stay tuned for more pictures!

Happy 12th Birthday Sam! (my nephew)

Dear Sam,

We wish we could be there in Ohio celebrating your birthday with you! I know you will have tons of fun with your friends at the pool and then back at your house for some chocolate pecan pie! I want you to know how special you are to me and Uncle Mike. We love you very much and are so proud of the young man you are becoming. 12 years old!!!

I remember the day you were born. I got to hold you and snuggle with you. I'll save you the embarrassment of posting a picture of when you were born! You were a beautiful baby and now you are a handsome "almost teenager."

We send our love to you today, on your birthday. May this next year be one of many new experiences and memories made!

We love you,

Say Say and Uncle Mike

Donuts, Creme Brulee and Artichoke Chicken

We hit a little snafu last night. We decided to start the hardwood adventure in the laundry area. As Mike was nailing the baseboards back on we hit a copper pipe in the wall. I guess that is why they call them "hidden pipes." As water was leaking onto our new floors, Mike ran out and turned the water off. It stayed off. Until this morning. I'll save you the details of us washing our hands and faces and brushing our teeth with leftover water from a thermos Mike had taken to work. So, with the water being off, I couldn't have my coffee this morning, all ready to go for me by the time I got up. I love coffee machines with automatic timers! So, with no coffee, a decision had to be made.
After retrieving a new copper pipe from Lowe's, Mike mentioned that he could "sweat the pipes" if he had a blowtorch. I'm no plumber, and neither is Mike, but in his handiness, he soldered the pipes together and fixed it (I know that word doesn't look right, but I looked it up and that's the right spelling. I wanted to spell it "sauder"). Anyway, who knew that my Creme Brulee Torch Set from Williams Sonoma would come in handy on a day like today!

The pipe has been fixed and the floors are in! I'll have pictures tomorrow.

While he was finishing up, I fixed us some dinner--Artichoke Chicken.

I almost wanted to spread a blanket out on my new floor and have a picnic.

The sound of progress

Mike is working away. As we speak he is hammering nails into hardwood floors. His comment to me was, "wouldn't it be cool to say that I hand nailed the entire floor?" I just looked at him, knowing that there is a tool called THE NAIL GUN! He believes in true sweat equity. Either way, we are making this house our home. A place we will hopefully live in for the rest of our lives. When we were looking for a house we knew we could do one of two things. 1) buy a house, do some work on it and then flip it, or 2) buy a house we both loved with the intention of putting some hard work into it and hopefully living in it long enough to see our grandchildren come and visit. We chose the latter.

I was a little nervous moving out to the country (when I think country I think farmland. Technically we don't live on a farm, but we do live in a small neighborhood with huge lots and our house backs up to a farm, so in my mind, we are smack dab in the middle of the country). It's great to walk out into your backyard and see this....

Blackberries...I've already made 2 cobblers with my sister's recipe. YUMMO!

Apples...I haven't had the courage to bite into one yet

Pears...Mike bit into one and he looked like he bit into a lemon. I'm guessing they aren't ready yet.

Grapes...coming soon...Pleasant View Vineyards!

And oh...what is this???

Baby mockingbirds nestled in the grapevine!!!!

Over the course of the past couple of years I have become a nature lover so having this all around me has been so great. I am thankful today for the birds singing, the sun shining and life growing and blossoming right in my backyard. What are you thankful for?

Beginnings

I would like to introduce you to someone...The Handyman (aka Mike). You usually save the best for last but I couldn't help myself. Here he is showing off a recent gift....(the grill, not the charcoal and lighter fluid)

He's also a high school math teacher. I hate math. Really. It makes my stomach hurt. I had to tell him on our first date that I didn't like it. I can't do fractions (seriously), and I sometimes still use my fingers to count (seriously). Thankfully my cell phone has a calculator on it for emergencies. He's the handyman in every sense of the word--he can hang stuff, fix stuff, saw stuff, dig stuff up, and cut stuff. Could I ask for anything more?

We just bought a house in the country outside the suburbs of Nashville. It is new to us, but definitely a fixer-upper. We are so excited about the process of change we will see over the coming months of settling in. All we have now are the before pictures seeing that we haven't made a dent big enough to take the after pictures.

Because I'm an early riser, I'm also an early to bedder. I think I just made that up. So, as the sun sets over the horizon in my backyard, I'll say goodnight.

Sarah