Our Screen Door

Hi there!

Since we’re all settled and I think Jay and I are just about burnt out on working on the house, I figured I’d go ahead and post some photos before we move on with life again.

I’m posting a few before and after photos, although it’s hard to tell the difference between the before and after, since the changes are mostly carpet and paint. A lot of our work over the past few weeks has been cleaning and fixing minor items. I can assure you that it smells much fresher in here!

First, let’s back up a little…

We moved September 10th, it took all day to transfer everything in our old house to our new house.

It was a long day of moving, but we were so glad that we had movers since it took 5 men NINE hours to complete the job.

I never felt sadness as we were moving since we closed on our new house before we closed on our old house. Instead of letting go, I spent the time in between closings trying to stay positive that we would close. It took some risk to buy a house before we closed on our old one, and I’m a pretty risk adverse person. So, let’s just say I have had many sleepless nights over the past month.

We spent the past couple of weeks putting things away, washing loads and loads of laundry and dishes, and (again) cleaning. And we’re finally almost there…

We have plans to replace the family room furniture and kitchen furniture. And all of the bronze curly lights. That will come with time and I’ll post photos as we work on projects along the way. Actually, I’ve been secretly wishing that we could just win the Traditional Home contest with Erika Powell.

For now, here are some before and after photos:

Family Room

Kitchen

Jay’s parents were so sweet and treated us to a new fridge. When I originally saw the ads for our Samsung fridge, I thought “Who would want a fridge with the internet, that is so unnecessary!” Yet, we went out refrigerator shopping, I really liked it. I love that we can check the weather and have our Google calendar displayed all of the time, right on the door. It was such a splurge (well, it only cost a little more than the regular models because of Jay’s ridiculous negotiating skills).  Still, we use the internet functionality everyday, and I would definitely recommend it.

Dining Room

Guest Room

Little Girl’s Room, now Guest Room

Little Boy’s Room, now Guest Room

Hallway

Master Bedroom : We have added curtains to the empty rod and hung the other curtains correctly. I’ll edit and post better photos as soon as the sun is shining again here in GA.

The closing for our old house was pushed back four times. Honestly, I thought it would never close. Our buyers’ bank had some issues getting all of the documents in order and with every day that went by I had more plans in place in case the deal fell through.

Once we knew we were actually going to close, I stopped by the old house one more time. As I stood in each room and memories flashed by, it felt empty. I thought I would be sad and upset but I felt exactly the opposite.  As I looked around, it was clearly just a space with four walls.

It was at that moment that it hit me – my family was somewhere else. Jay, my dog babies, our memories (now packed up in boxes)…were all in our new home in another city. I drove up the road to our closing that night and have never looked back.

Meanwhile, we’re enjoying our everyday lives back at the new ranch.

Moving is rough! Again, I’m so far behind I’m not sure where to start.

We have spent the last 2 months preparing our house to sell, and then fixing up the house we purchased.

We closed on our new house Friday September 2nd. Jay took off the next week and had vendors lined up each day to work on the house. Our new house was a foreclosure and it was a mess. I can’t describe the amount of dirt in this house – they had a dog which apparently only went to the bathroom inside on the carpeting. It scratched the entire bottom half of the front door down to the wood. They had a metal trash can on the wood floors which wore the polyurethane  and stain off so the area was just a white wood spot. The cabinets were colored on with crayons (or marker) throughout the house. The walls in every room were covered with hand prints and grease stains. The trim was banged up and dirty.

It was GROSS.

A few of the things we had to do before moving in were:

• Fix the upstairs air conditioner. The previous owners ripped out the control panel and we weren’t sure if it even worked.
• Fix the fence. A tree fell through it (and into our backyard neighbor’s house) during a spring storm.
• Repaint the entire house (trim, doors & walls on the inside and trim and siding on the outside)
• Install new carpeting
• Hang kitchen lights
• Fix holes in the walls and doors
• Clean, clean, clean

When we put in an offer on the house, we went back and forth with the bank for two weeks. Fannie Mae sat on our initial offer, and then kicked it back saying that they didn’t think we would actually live in the house. That bought them some more time, which was enough time for another offer to be placed on the house. We went into a bidding war a week later and after waiting for a few more days, we found out we got the house. It was a grueling process. I don’t regret it, but I hope that we stay here a long time so we don’t have to experience the stress and worry anytime again soon.

As soon as our offer was accepted, we went into search mode looking for carpeting and paint.

We first said that we wanted to stay within a $5000 budget for carpeting. We found a brand in that range, but it had terrible reviews. So we ended up increasing the budget and deciding between the Martha Stewart Shaw product (carried at Home Depot) or the Mohawk Intelligent style.

We ended up buying our carpet through a friend who owns a local carpet store that could give us a great deal on Mohawk. We bought the Mohawk Intelligent style and we have been so happy with the decision. It is soft, thick and easy to clean.

After we closed on the new house and the work first started, I had a few moments that I thought, “What in the world did we do?” But after weeks of work, it’s finally starting to smell better, look better and feel like home…

I started putting paint samples on the wall as soon as we closed. I painstakingly picked out the perfect color, Edgecomb Gray from Benjamin Moore. I wanted the whole house except for a couple of bedrooms painted in a neutral, warm color. The painter, unbeknownst to us, decided it would be perfectly ok to color match the paint to Sherwin Williams. Well it’s not at all like the color I picked out – the color they painted was gray, not like the warm brown-ish color that picked out. We checked the contract that they sent LATE the night before and sure enough it said they would color match even though verbally they said all along that they would use Benjamin Moore. That has been my only sad point in moving into this house – the color isn’t exactly what I wanted. But after putting our furniture in and getting settled, I’m liking the color much more.

Here’s a picture of Edgecomb Gray against our color matched paint…close-ish, but definitely not the same. The contractor used told us that if we wanted to repaint, we’d  have to re-pay for the labor. That definitely didn’t work for us considering the amount we had already spent on this and the amount that we still need to put into the house. We’re living with it and growing into it…for now.

Back to the rest of the house project photos…

I’ll post some before and after photos next…I’m still trying to figure out the easiest way to pull that post together….