Last Weekend at the Lake

Last weekend was our last weekend at the lake before the construction begins.  We arrived on Friday evening to a beautiful sunset on a cool evening and I spent a few minutes at the end of the dock to enjoy the calm water and the beautiful sky.

The property has been in our family for a long time.  It was originally owned by my dad's grandparents and somehow, it ended up being handed down to my dad and my Uncle.  In the early 1990s, there was a storm that blew a tree over, and right through the middle of the original cottage I remember.  We rebuilt the house, from a small fisherman's cottage to a 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom house.  

My grandmother spent a number of years living here before she passed away, and while she was there, central air was added and a garage was built that is large enough to hold a car and a boat, with storage underneath.

Next week, construction materials will be delivered.  The roof is being raised on the house, and it's turning from a story and a half, to a full two story house with a master suite on the front.  Once that's complete, my mom and dad are going to move there full time and they will sell their house in Fort Wayne.  It's going to become a 4 bed, 3 bath house that should have plenty of room for visitors in the summer, and I can't wait to see how it all turns out!

We'll be up to the lake one more time in October to take the dock out, but we won't be able to stay there, so this was my last weekend at the lake house where my cousins and I grew up - where we had people sleeping all over the floor in the summer, and where I got to spend time with just my Grandma when I was in grad school in Indiana while my parents were still in Texas.

I'm excited for the next chapter of this house - the chapter that will eventually include my kids and my commitment to always have a place where my cousins and I can continue to gather!

Back Yard

This is what our deck looked like before Jason took a weekend and redid it...

The wood was warped and had not been taken care of and it was dangerous because people would trip over the warped wood.  There was a weird trellis that had the vines from HELL growing on it and I hated both of them!  Jason and I love entertaining and we had a great outdoor space, so we knew we wanted to make it more entertaining friendly...

First step - a fire pit.  Jason took one afternoon to put this in and it got TONS of use!  We loved having people over to sit around a fire at night - BYOB and a snack to share and it was a party!

The other thing Jason put a lot of hard work in to was the deck.  We had some great friends who came over and helped and a majority of the deck was done in one day.  As you can tell, the footings of the deck were still usable, as was the underneath structure - so we really just needed to replace the boards on the top and the railing.  We had 2 sets of stairs and the second set was not really necessary, so we closed one off and created a great space for the grill.

Again, we didn't have time to really enjoy the deck and we didn't ever really get outdoor furniture, but it was so great to walk outside and see the work Jason did - he did a great job!

Kitchen

I talked previously about the plans for our kitchen renovation - well, we were able to do everything we wanted and we put a lot of time and money into the kitchen that we really didn't get to enjoy for long, unfortunately.  I am confident, though, that it really set our house apart once we put it on the market.

This is what the house looked like when we bought the house:

I didn't like the yellow, the peel and stick tiles were coming up because the didn't have any blinds on the back door, the appliances didn't match (and when I opened the dishwasher, the smell made me gag) and there was a big space at the end of the wall of cabinets that was not really functional for anything.

SO, as soon as we moved in, we painted the walls green and when we went to Best Buy to purchase a microwave and to just look at dishwashers, we ended up walking out with a whole kitchen of stainless steel appliances - by far my favorite home improvement that we did!!

After that, we started planning and trying to decide what else we wanted to do in the kitchen.  We knew the floor was a need.  We considered the counters and a solution for the open space at the end of the cabinets to be a want, and the cabinets to be a dream - a dream that we decided wasn't worth the work.

We did do a lot of work on the other aspects, though, and I think it turned out great!

New floor and counter top & stainless appliances

Solid surface counters with sink built in

Large pantry on left pushed down to fill gap at the end of
the cabinets.  Wine cabinet and recipe book cabinet added above;
double cabinet added below

Pull out trash added to bottom cabinet

Allen + Roth Antiquity Counter Tops from Lowe's

Tanned Brown Ceramic Floor Tiles

I would have loved to change the cabinet color - I love white/off white cabinets and being able to make that change would have made me REALLY love my kitchen - I guess it also would have made it much harder to leave it behind  :)

Master Bedroom & Bathroom

When we bought our house, we had our choices down to two great houses.  One of the things that really sold us on the one we chose was the master bedroom and closet.  It was a huge room that had great closet space and ended up being a great room with a little work...

You can't really tell from this photo how large the room is - its dimensions are 16 x 13 so we had plenty of space for furniture without it feeling at all cramped.  They had two sets of blinds on the window because it was really wide - it made the window look like a mess.  They also had their TV in the corner by the closet so there were wires running over the closet door - I hate when you can see wires.

Since the master is upstairs, it got new carpet like all the other rooms.  It also got new paint... I loved the paint color in our room - it was relaxing and really pulled everything in the room together.  

Excuse the mess - we were on our way out of town, but wanted
to show J's family pictures of the new house  :)

One thing I didn't love about our house was the master bathroom.  It was nice to have the en suite, but it was a really small bathroom with only one sink.  It was adequate, though, and we never really had problems begin in each others way.  

• This room also got painted - the same color as the twin room.  
• Jason replaced the light fixture and framed the mirror - we actually tried to replace the mirror, but it was huge and couldn't find anything we liked that would fill the space properly.  
• It grossed me out to have a towel bar over the toilet (wet towel + toilet = GERMS) so we took that down and got over the door hooks instead.
• Right before we put the house on the market, we put the same vinyl tile in here that we put in the guest bath and it made a HUGE difference!  

This is actually a really good place to see what we did to the door knobs in the house, too - Jason spray painted all of them with oil rubbed bronze spray paint.  I just LOVE how it turned out and it held up really well - I found the idea on Pinterest  :)

Had we stayed longer, I probably would have made some additional changes to the bathroom, but overall, it was a great little space and it was a great "first master" for us!

Guest Rooms

We had a 4 bedroom house - not because we needed the space, but because we originally we thought it would be a great chance to grow in to the house.  One of the rooms was over the garage, and ultimately it was a bonus room - which ultimately left us with two guest rooms.

This is what those rooms looked like when we moved in... again - sorry for the poor quality.

The first two things we did when we got into the house is replace all the carpet upstairs and paint just about every wall in the house.  I use the term "we" loosely because it was really Jason who did 98% of the work.  We also painted all the trim in the house white to really make the colors pop.

In the room that was the office, we created what we thought would eventually be a nursery, so although it was slightly larger than the other guest room, we put a twin bed in there.  

We purchased blinds for all the windows and put up some white heat reducing curtains, because the window faced south and got afternoon sun.  There were some other things that I wanted to do with this room, but never got around to it.  

One of those things would have been to make a really awesome, long shelf like this one:

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The shelf would have gone on the long wall that's to the left of the dresser.  Overall, the room was cute and comfortable and it had a handful of visitors who stayed there!

Our other guest room ended up being much more finished - it was also the room that most of our guests stayed in.  For only being there for 2 years, I'd say we had a good number of guests come visit - mostly family, but we hosted some great holidays at this house!

The wall on the left in this picture is the same color as the twin room.  I wanted an accent wall in this room and I was not disappointed by how it turned out.  I loved the colors of this room and it felt warm and comfortable.  One thing you cannot see in this photo is the great armoire that we got from my aunt.  It is a beautiful dark wood piece that is about 4' tall and was originally a TV cabinet.  It was a great place to store all the bed linens!

I love creating spaces the guests walk in to and feel at home - I can't wait to have a place for visitors again!

Dining Room

We are only a few days away from officially closing on our house - it's been kind of a long road, but overall I'd say we have been pretty lucky with the quick process that we've been through.  Before I officially say goodbye to the house, I want to share some of the improvements/changes we made to the house during the two years that we owned it... starting with the dining room:

I'd say my decorating style lends to clean lines and timeless furniture and fixtures, but things that also make a space feel like home.  For some reason, I am not a fan of yellow - I don't mind gold accents, but it's always been my preference to avoid yellow as a main color in my apartments/houses.  This is what our dining room looked like originally (this is with the previous owners' furniture and sorry for the poor pictures... I didn't anticipate needing better ones):

The dining room was one of the first rooms completed - some minor updates made a huge difference:

• Remove the border and new paint (a light green with grey undertones)
• Remove the curtains and get 3" faux wood blinds
• Change the fixture - purchased from Lowe's

Issue: there was a large passthrough between the livingroom and the dining room, but the wind was not centered on that passthrough - this creates problems for me, who likes symetry, and makes the chandelier and the table look weird. 

Solution: NONE - gotta live with it  :)

My aunt gave us the dining room table and the hutch that you can barely see on the left side of the photo.  The chairs are from Steinmart and I am pretty sure we got them for around $60 a piece, which is way less than I found dining chairs for anywhere else!  The chairs are similar to this (with dark legs)...



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I love the light fixture and I considered taking it with us when we left, but it was not expensive enough for the worry of taking it down and having to put something else up.  Here's a better shot of the chandelier.



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The changes to this room were minor, but it felt like it made a large impact and we hosted Thanksgiving, 2 Easters and a bunch of other random get togethers that this room created a great setting for - fun, family and great conversations!!

A state of chaos

This is the current state of my living and dining room... yes, that's the refrigerator in the dining room.

Most people would be going crazy, living in this situation, BUT I'm keeping my cool and being very patient because all of this means that soon enough, our kitchen will be DONE!  J and I did a lot of work this weekend and it is going to be so worth it in a couple of days - I'M SURE OF IT!!!

Our counter tops are getting installed today - once that's done, our kitchen will be back to normal, minus some little things like baseboard on the walls.

IT'S ALMOST HERE!!!!!

DIY Home Improvements - The Kitchen

On Monday, I showed you our weekend project - the completion of our guest bath remodel.  WELL, I realized that J and I have been doing a lot of planning for more upcoming improvements in our kitchen that I haven't shared  yet.  These are things that are going to be coming up SOON and honestly, I'm really just excited to get them done so we can enjoy them!!!

We don't have many pictures of our kitchen from before we moved in, but you can see here what color the walls and the dishwasher were before when we bought it:

As soon as we moved in, we painted, and when we went to Best Buy to look for a microwave (the house didn't have one included) and a new dishwasher (I seriously gagged from the smell when I opened it), we ended up leaving with an entire kitchen's worth of appliances - stainless steal, so here's what our kitchen has looked like since a month after we moved in:

When we moved in to the house, we knew that we wanted to redo the floors (the peel and stick vinyl that's in the kitchen is pulling up because of direct sunlight) and counter tops, and we talked a lot about using the Rustoleum cabinet refinish system to paint the cabinets white.  WELLLL, we decided that we didn't want to put the time and effort into changing the cabinets and instead, move that large pantry down and add more cabinets, that would also add more counter space.

Since we made that decision, we have been MOVING on the kitchen makeover... 

Cabinets - pantry moved and new cabinets purchased, going up this week!!  A couple of cool things we included... a wine rack that's going in with the upper cabinets and a pull out trash going in the new bottom cabinet.  Still need to pick out drawer/door pulls

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Counter tops - picked and purchasing this week from Lowe's

Allen + Roth - Antiquity

Tile - picked and purchased from Lowe's... going in after the counter tops are done

Style Selections - Tanned Brown (16 x 16)

SO, I'm really hopeful that we are going to have all of this done in the next month.  We are putting that tile in the downstairs half bath and the hallway that connects the bathroom and kitchen, so I think that's going to be the most involved part - that and waiting on the counter tops to be ready and installed (which we are not doing ourselves).

After that, I may pick a backsplash tile, but I think I want to actually be in the kitchen for a while before I decide what I want to do with that.  What do you think???

DIY Bathroom Improvement

It was a BIG weekend for us!!!  We did a lot of running around on Saturday - getting some stuff ready for Easter next week, and then on Sunday, we finally tackled one of our home improvement projects... the guest bathroom floor.

This is the before picture of the guest bathroom...

Before we moved in

Hard to see, I know... it's a small bathroom so it's not easy to take pictures of it.  It was a basic, builder grade bathroom with those ugly vanity light bulbs and a terrible wood medicine cabinet.  WELL, here are some things that we've done to the bathroom since we moved in:

- New light

- New mirror

- Paint

- New Hardware

- New Floor

AND, here are pictures of the finished product:

After Phase 1 - before the floor

New light (Lowe's) and mirror (Home Goods)

Above the toilet (from Home Goods)

New Hardware

NEW FLOOR!!!

And it's complete!!!

Overall, I'd say we were pretty productive this week - it took about 3.5 hours, start to finish, including removing the toilet, cleaning the floor, cutting the tiles and everything!!  We used a peel and stick vinyl tile from Lowes:

Style Selections - Sable Stone (we used 12 x 12)

I'd definitely recommend the product, especially for a small bathroom where you won't get direct sun (we have vinyl tiles in our kitchen that are pulling up because they had direct sun on them for a long time).  The feel of them is great, they won't discolor like linoleum (ours was yellowing) and I think we spent about $40 on the whole room!!!  What a great weekend!!!

What do you think???

Searching for Energy

I don't know where this week has gone, but I've been EXHAUSTED and wishing that I'd just have some energy appear... it hasn't.

We had a great weekend LAST weekend, full of wedding fun, and now we are about to start ANOTHER full weekend of stuff.  I know what you're all thinking... what kind of person complains about the week flying by and the weekend being here?  Believe me... that's not what I'm saying... I just look ahead and see no "free" weekends in my future and all of a sudden, I'm exhausted.

This weekend, J is going to work on our deck, which badly needs a make over, and I'm going with a friend and my cousin to the happiest place on earth... no, not Disney World...

(cue the sounds of angels singing)

Yep, we are packing up and heading for Ohio for a day of shopping!!!!  This means that tonight, I will be cleaning up the room where all of this furniture will end up... the room over the garage.

I'm committing my Sunday to building whatever I buy (putting furniture together is one of my most favorite things in the world to do) and getting the room in order so that it goes from wedding/junk room to family/sewing room and office.  Before and after pictures coming soon.

Wish us luck on our excursion... I'm hoping to be back on track next week  :)

Thanksgiving Recap

Our first Thanksgiving was a success!!!  We had time with family and we are completely exhausted, which means it must have gone well, right  :)

Everyone arrived on Wednesday... J's mom and step-dad from Minnesota and my mom in the afternoon, and my dad late a night after he got done refereeing his basketball game.

We went to a local burger joint for dinner on Wednesday so we didn't have to be in the kitchen and then we went home and relaxed since everyone was tired from traveling.

We got up Thursday morning and got in the kitchen!  My mom brought cinnamon rolls (grandma's recipe) for breakfast and then we cooked all day until dinner at 3:30.  We had turkey, ham, a bunch of casseroles (corn, pineapple, sweet potato), green beans, mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing, and a pumpkin and squash soup that was my experiment that luckily turned out really well!  J also made 2 apple pies and 2 pumpkin pies and my mom brought a cherry pie for dessert.  Everything was delicious and we even used the china that I got from my grandmother to make dinner EXTRA fancy.  Here is a look at our table...

Our Thanksgiving Table

My DIY Centerpiece

Clean-up was quick because everyone was so helpful and then we relaxed and watched football.  The final Texas v Texas A&M game before the Aggies leave for the SEC, started at 8:00 pm (Horns win!!!) and it ended at about 5 minutes until midnight, when it was time for shopping!

J, my mom and I were the only ones who ventured out for midnight shopping, and it was a bust.  Kohls was so full that we didn't even make it to the parking lot... we just U-Turned and left.  We went to Target, where we did find a parking spot, but where there wasn't anything that was worth waiting in line to pay for, so that was kind of a waste, too.  We were home by 1:00 am and in bed by 1:30 am... much different than normal.

On Friday we got up and had breakfast and then went to Brown County... to Nashville, Indiana, which is a super cute little town for of craft shops and tourists.  It was crowded, but not unbearable and we did get a little bit of Christmas shopping done.  We got home and ate (again) and then J, his mom and step-dad and I went to the mall and to Lowe's.  His mom was taking our Christmas presents back to Minnesota for J's side of the family, so we had to get as much of their shopping as possible done.

We got home and I realized that I did not have any gift boxes, so I ran to CVS and got some stuff that I needed and wrapped a bunch of presents (I love wrapping presents) that are on their way back to Minnesota to go under J's mom's tree!  It's actually kind of nice to be done with a few people on our Christmas list.

Saturday, we got up and had another great breakfast and then J took his mom and step-dad on a quick driving tour around campus while my mom and dad and I relaxed around the house and got the Christmas tree put up... HOORAY!!!  When J got home he was so surprised to see the tree up... it was great!

J's mom and step-dad got packed up when they got home and headed out on their log trip north.  J and I went for our run (5 miles... I made it!!) and when we got back, my dad had already left to go ref his basketball game.  I ate a little bit of lunch, despite my upset stomach from my run, and then my mom and I headed out to do some shopping.

She was looking for Christmas gifts, which she found a few of, and I was looking for things to decorate the tree and the new fireplace.  I think I got some really great deals and the inside of the house is fully decorated (minus the tree topper that I wanted J to help me pick out) and the outside just needs some lights!

Our house just works with Christmas.  We have a warm living room with a really deep red accent wall and our dining room and kitchen are a light green.  Those are the colors I went with for my tree and my decorations and I just LOVE how they look.  PICTURES TO COME SOON!!!

Sunday, we got up and made breakfast and my mom got packed up and on the road.  I got the ornaments that I bought, up on the tree and there are even presents under there already (from J's mom and one from me)!!!

The rest of Sunday was spent on the couch for some much needed relaxation and quiet time.  A little bit on online shopping, some time on Blogger and some TV... perfect way to spend a Sunday!

The next couple of weeks are going to be SUPER crazy at work, so I'm hoping to have some really relaxing weekends, with some Christmas shopping and some quality time on the couch, enjoying the Christmas tree!

Progress Report...

Last weekend I told you about all of the things that we had to do before our parents came for Thanksgiving... I would say that overall, we did a pretty good job!

We did not get the doors painted, but that was last on our priority list, so we'll get to that eventually.

We hung all of the blinds and all of the curtains (we need more panels on some of the windows, eventually) and we even got some stuff up on the walls in the living and dining room.

We got the garage organized, which was quickly reversed when J's mom brought a whole bunch of stuff with her from Minnesota.  We also got the bathrooms organized, but the big room over the garage is now a storage room that will be sorted through gradually.  We want it to eventually be a second family room/craft room.  Right now, we don't have a TV to put up there and we also don't have furniture up there yet (the couch is coming from my mom and dad soon) so that room can be a work in progress!

I got all of the rooms and bathrooms cleaned and I am officially in love with our Shark.  We have the steamer, that cleans your floors, and I was amazed at the stuff that it took off the floor!  We got it at Big Lots (refurbished) for about half price because I wasn't sure if I'd like it or not, but I think that it was a good investment  :)

Overall, I was pretty happy with the way the house looked and everyone loved it!  My parents were down a few weeks ago (the weekend before Halloween), but at that point, there was a lot that still had to be done, so my mom was really impressed when she got here.  It is finally starting to feel like home and I think that we are at a point now that we can take some time to live in the house before we do more stuff to it!

Thanksgiving recap coming some time this week!!