Welcome Home.

We are finally home!
After a marathon moving weekend we are happily settled in our new home. Here is the first reveal of the front of the house. We haven't met any neighbors yet but i'm sure after the madness of the weekend they are wondering who the heck we are & why there is a sea of ford trucks in our driveway all the time. & we don't have blinds yet.. but that's a whole other story.

We unloaded two apartments and had everything in the house by 1 on Saturday.  I should also mention that it was raining almost the entire time.  My hair could have scared small children.  I did learn some pretty great lessons from this moving experience though! Here's a few of the highlights.

1. When you move SEK Style by pitching trash bags over your 2nd floor balcony. A nice old woman walking down the sidewalk will stop and stare at you for awhile then ask "is there a domestic dispute?"

2. The Ivan Jr. Style of moving involves throwing a bed sheet on the floor, walking (running for the average human) around the room and throwing any items within arms reach into the middle of the sheet.  Then sacking the whole thing up & heading out the door like Santa. This results in a lot of time spent untangling necklaces.

3. Facial signals are mandatory in order to avoid your mother filling your house with random crap she threw in the trailer.  We looked like we had a set of nervous twitches from winking & eye brow raising.

4. Move all breakables before Ivan Jr. arrives. All glasses & plates went into one TRASH BAG and by the grace of god nothing was broken.

5. Refrigerators do not go up stairs well when strapped to a dolly with a flat tire. For a bunch of contractors we didn't pre-plan that one very well and Derek almost ended up pancaked to our living room floor.


and the last one isn't really a lesson.. more history making.  Betty Lou wore REAL tennis shoes & a t-shirt to move.  It took 40 years but she actually owns a pair of Nike's now, did hell freeze over while i was moving?

(Our first picture before church on Sunday)

We really couldn't be more grateful for our parent's help though, even as much as i like to make fun of mine :). We are blessed with two of the best sets of parent's on earth. The house would still be a wreck if it wasn't for them.  I couldn't help but love how peaceful it felt to be in our own house enjoying a relaxing Sunday night.  Then Derek burst into a loud victory dance as Julio Jones caught a pass, earning Derek his 3rd win for his fantasy football league.... It's the little things that make life great!

The Race

We are in a race to get the house move in ready by our deadline.  Our first big milestone was today, we will have new carpet in place by tonight! We wanted every area that needed painting over the new carpet done before it was installed.

Since we completed the prep work on the walls Tuesday night we spent the majority of our time yesterday filling/sanding the trim wood and painting the living room. Everyone loves painting right.... not. I am clumsy. Very clumsy.  I couldn't go a day without spilling something on myself and definitely can't get through painting a room without making a mess (or two). Painting here was actually fun because for the most part i didn't need to worry paint ending up somewhere it shouldn't :).

With the old carpet out we decided it would be best to start with the trim paint.  Derek happily left this job up to me since my natural "skills" would not pose any problems.  It was awesome to paint the trim and not have to worry about the wall paint or flooring, awesome!  When i got done it looked like a kindergartner went crazy with bucket of paint.  Buttt the trim was perfect & that was all that mattered, the walls/floor would soon be covered.  Derek followed around the room cutting a 6" paint strip from the trim and other areas which would not be getting the wall paint. Then we went to town with the rollers and completed our goal by the end of the night.  Surprisingly with no major paint messes made by yours truly.

I have to give a special shout out to my friend Jenn! She came over after work to help & is a huge reason why we got everything done.  She faithfully painted by my side until we were almost done & one of the extension rollers broke. We chatted about life, work, Luke Bryan...-you name it. She & Derek got plenty of laughs as they watched me almost break a light fixture with my pole, and get paint on everything except the wall. I'm going to have fun going back to touch up the ceiling :)

Below are some progress pictures, and one before & after.  It's amazing what a little paint can do!

 ( The fire place after we painted the trim & walls)

What i once thought was the ugliest fireplace ever.. actually has some charm with the new paint colors.  Grey is quickly becoming my go to neutral, it makes every color look awesome. I'll still be doing something with the stone eventually, wait & see.

(The front window after we painted the trim & walls. The nasty window cover still needs to go)

It's Official.

We have officially closed on our first home!!

We closed Monday afternoon & have been very busy people since then.  Monday was Derek's birthday so we went out to dinner to celebrate & then returned to the house to strategize.

(Derek with his birthday present from me & our families) 

(This little guy was also a surprise for him.  He won't admit it but he's a cat lover)

 By Tuesday we were both still busting with energy about starting the renovation. Even the first trip to Home Depot couldn't touch our excitement.. ok maybe a little.. checkout was rough. Thankfully Derek got off work early and was able to start in. By Tuesday night we had all the carpet ripped out of the house & had filled all the holes in the walls.  We also replaced several area's of drywall in the master bedroom where the previous owners had left really big holes in the wall. All in a nights work.  Below are some of the pictures of our progress so far.

 A few painting supplies

We sat for 20 minutes trying to decide on paint colors

Living room after the carpet tear out. 

Can't wait to show off the finished product! This house is going to look crazy different in a few days!! 

Winner Winner

So unfortunately.. closing did not happen as planned but we aren't getting discouraged yet. Although we haven't been able to work on the house as planned, we have still been very busy.  I spent my weekend packing up the apartment and prepping for the move.  Derek on the other hand spent his weekend golfing...i was green with envy. Actually it made me happy to know he got a much deserved break to spend with his family & friends after a long summer of extra hours at work. We've also been on the hunt for a few new appliances, and settling other things on the moving to do list.

We knew moving and buying a house in general was going to come with a few unexpected expenses and we have been seeing quite a few of those lately. But today we got a break. A lucky catch. A gift from god. Whatever you want to call it.... i am ecstatic!

Metro Appliance was hosting a washer & dryer giveaway, mom enters me for the drawing without my knowledge. Today i received a phone call informing me we had won the giveaway!!!! I about died.  The lady on the phone probably thought i was insane because i couldn't manage to put together a coherent sentence for about a minute (awkward silent breathing into the phone..cool).  I never win anything... ever... i loose money just by looking at the casino. I'm beyond excited. I can't wait to do laundry!! History making statement, i HATE laundry.

This company is located in Joplin, MO and are some of the best people you could possibly do business with. They have a helpful & knowledgeable staff that will go above and beyond to help you. My family (mom) has been a customer here for years.  These people rock! For your own chance to win a similar contest head on over to their facebook page and give them a "Like." I promise you won't be disappointed with anything you get from here. 

So happy hump-day friends. My day & our budget just got much happier. 

We bought a house... We think.

After hours of online search's, house visits, and a few disappointments we are finally closing on a house! Or at least we think...

With a little blue ink we officially signed the contracts Monday afternoon and are just waiting for the bank to finalize a closing date.  The date is temporarily set for this Friday, a full two weeks before our contracts mandatory closing date. Please, please... say a prayer for me that this actually happens.

All last week we were in a state of shock/excitement that we had completed negotiations (big kid life moment).  We were impatiently waiting for the inspections to be completed so we would know for sure that this would be our future house. Actually i was a nervous wreck, and i'm fairly certain if the inspection had gone badly i would have secretly locked myself in a room and cried like a baby. I have completely fallen in love with this house & the vision of what it could be.

Speaking of that vision, it also hit us last Thursday that we had a million and one decisions to make before we could move in...aka potentially 7 days later. I made a rather frantic call to my mother and blabbered at 100 mph that i didn't know how we were going to pick carpet, trim boards, paint, basically our whole game plan for the eventual remodel, before we have to be out of our apartments and have quite a bit of work done.  The living room carpet covered in... well i don't want to know must go!

Enter Betty Lou stage left... you should be picturing Cinderella's fairy godmother appearing in a cloud of sparkly magic... only this fairy god mother replaced ball gowns & glass slippers with paint decks & carpet samples. My dream come true. My mother besides being a super mom also own's her own interior design business.  The carpet samples actually where whipped out of the office files but it really looked like magical pixie dust to me. By the time Derek & I arrived at my parents for the weekend, the dining room was covered in paint, wood, tile, granite basically every sample you could image and 100 magazines with flagged pages of idea's for us to consider. (she gathered all of this in a few hours that afternoon.. superwoman- her address is in SEK and she is disguised as a country housewife).  Derek's jaw dropped at the site of everything my mom had ready for us.
The decision process involved my mom & i  dancing around the room holding samples together, Derek just nodded his head at the appropriate times when we went over it. His only real interjection being that he wanted his recliners in the living room and that he liked my ideas on the paint. By the time we left Sunday night we had a preliminary game plan we were both happy with & just need to close on the house.

We are so excited for everything we have to look forward to in the next couple months!! Time to get started, oh & remember to say that prayer for our closing date :)