Yes, that is one of the first things that my father-in-law asked me--back when Jonathan and I weren't even dating. 

We had just arrived at Jonathan's parent's house, for his sister's high school graduation party. Having driven six hours, I was more than ready to get out of the car and stretch my legs.  I was really anxious to meet his family. We had come for a visit as friends. I made sure that Jonathan informed his entire family of this before we even showed up. We would be nothing more. 

So, when I sat down at the kitchen table with Jonathan's dad and this question slipped out, I just smiled.  

Was I intimidated? 

Nope. 

Did I squirm a bit? 

Nope.

How did I answer? 

By sweetly saying, "It is up to Jonathan." 

Bam! Conversation over! I had survived my first defining-of-the-relationship talk, with Jonathan's dad. No more pressure. 

Oh and you might be interested to know that we started dating the next day. Friends and nothing more? Ha! What a joke! :) 

That was almost 5 years ago. Man time just flies by. 

Well, all of that to say, I feel like it is time we (you and I) have a defining-of-the-relationship talk. A chat about the relationship Jonathan and I will have with our house. What are our plans? Where do we see ourselves in five years? in ten years? What are our remodeling plans and goals? 

Now, I did go over this a bit in this post, but it was very brief and a few things have changed since then. As we work on the house, we begin to think of different ways to do things. We chat about the future of this place and what we would like it to look like in the end. 

It is our first house and our dreams are huge.

The plan is to work on the house in stages. We are currently in the "beginning" stage or "stage 1" for short. This stage has consisted of everything that we needed to do before we moved into the house. For instance, we needed a bathroom and a place to sleep. We needed to upgrade the electric and do some basic things to the rest of the house (priming, painting, ripping up carpet, etc).

This stage also includes a bit of the small things that we still need to do. We still need to trim our master bedroom, finish some painting, and add some decorative elements to our home. Don't worry, I will be getting more in depth in the upcoming months. I will make sure to document the whole process as we finish Stage 1.

Stage 2 is characterized by the mediocre projects that we need to work on in the next 1-2 years. Things like replacing all of the windows throughout the house; gutting the guest bedroom, living room, and dining room; re-landscaping; and doing some work to our garage. There are a lot of things that need to be done that will fall under the relatively big projects category, but won't be something too mammoth to undertake.

And in the end, Stage 3 is going to rock our world. This stage is 100% characterized by major add-ons. First, we will be adding on to the back of the house and expanding our kitchen. Right now the kitchen is cute, but too small for us. We would love to have a bigger space and even add an eating area so that our dining room can be more of a formal space.

We would also like to add on the rest of the second story. Right now, our master bedroom is the only thing on the second floor. Our future plans include adding on a bathroom and two more bedrooms. Since we don't have any children right now, we easily get by with our bedroom and guest bedroom. Yet, we do plan on having/adopting children, so we would love to have some extra space for them. :) Plus, we are keeping in mind the whole resale factor, and a house with only two bedrooms (one that doesn't even count, because it doesn't have a closet) doesn't sell as easily. So, all that to say a second story addition is really needed.

Want the Reader's Digest version?

Stage 1: Let's do a bit of major work, but see if we can work with what we have. 
Stage 2: Air-brush the heck out-of-her!
Stage 3: Some much needed plastic surgery.


And that is what our intentions are. We mean business here people. And for all intensive purposes (or if you want the real phrase: for all intents and purposes) we are enamored with this house and plan on going all the way.

Of course, we have dedicated ourselves first. Duh! We are Christian's here and want to make an honest house of her.

Took it too far?

Ok.

The end. 

Clutter...lots of it.

Well, we officially moved into our house on Saturday!!!

It has been wonderful being in our own place. Living in this house has already proven very different then renting a space. But that is a post for another day.

First, I want to show you the mass chaos that is currently, our home. Get ready to freak out. I know I did after everyone finished moving us :) It is a bit overwhelming.

P.S. These pictures are after I did a bit of moving. I was was halfway into setting up our computer in our living room before I realized that I hadn't taken any pictures of our house, after the move! So sorry. But, hey, isn't something better then nothing?

living room

and again...

hmm a bit of cleaning was done

our dining room

again...

our kitchen was an utter disaster

can you find the counter? Because I can't. 

our guest room

eventually it will look nice

We are really enjoying this whole 'house' thing and I can't wait to catch y'all up on the happenings around here. Enjoy your Tuesday and I will be back tomorrow to pick-up where we left off last week! 

Keepin' it Real

I like to keep it real around these here parts. I don't want ya'll to think that everything is going along smoothly and we are accomplishing things at lightning speed. It seems, for everything that we have done, there are at least five things that we haven't done. Trust me when I say, there is SO much more we still need to do.

I have been steadily updating you on the bathroom and master bedroom as those are the exciting projects in our house. They are the places that have been totally gutted and built back up. But the rest of the rooms, i.e. the dining room, guest room, living room, and kitchen, will all be getting their own makeovers in due time. Right now, they are just the last ones on our 'to do' list.

So today's post is going to be about the progress (or lack there of) in those rooms. I just want to keep it realz- yo. Sorry, I seem to have an identity crisis going on--southern rapper anyone? :)

So, here is the progress in the living room. We started off with this:

and went to this: 

Yea, nothing really has happened--though we have ripped up the gross carpet that was in here. Right now it is acting as a storage/work area. It's where I have been sanding our clawfoot tub and sink, in preparation for the coat of paint I will be putting on them.  I will also be using this room as a place to sand and paint our cabinet doors for the kitchen and the molding for our bedroom--this way I can work rain or shine! We also have housed all the doors from upstairs in this room for the time being.

On to the dining room. It looks 100% the same. The before:

and how it looks now:

Now, it is just holding all of the things Jonathan needs for our bathroom project. The dining room has basically turned into our tool (and toilet ;) ) storage area. It is a convenient location for all of the tools to congregate because it is right off the bathroom and is the only room downstairs (besides the kitchen) that has an overhead light!

We haven't even taken up the carpet yet! We figured it would be good to leave it down in here--though I can't really remember why? Who knows! It probably made sense to us at that point and I know we were really tired of ripping up carpet by the time we got to the dining room. Oh! Plus it is the only carpet in the house that was professionally laid, meaning we couldn't just roll it up and carry it out. It actually covers the entire floor and wasn't just an area rug - like the rest of the house had.

Side note: this carpet used to be a mint green color. In person, you can see the original color around the edges. But over time it has faded so much and is so dirty that it looks like it was a light beige color--nope, think mint green!

Now let's talk about the guest bedroom. We still need to do a lot of work in that room. But right now it looks like this:

Yup, its housing all of the things that we don't want to get damaged and covered in dust. The stove, bed frame, and dresser are all under that tarp. After we went through all of the things that the previous owners left behind, we put all of the stuff we wanted to keep into this room and covered it all up. We are able to close the door and keep the dust from the house projects away from it all. Plus, this is the room with the most cigarette smoke damage (see those spots on the wall?), so it is nice to close the door and make the nastiness disappear.

We also have moved all of our purchased light fixtures and window blinds in here. Like I said, it basically holds all of the finishing materials that we don't want to be shrouded in glorious drywall dust--that stuff gets everywhere! So far, so good!

Finally!!! We reach the best part of the post. Thanks for sticking around through the boring-ness of the rest of it-ha! So, onto the kitchen-the room that has shown the most progress out of all of these, but still needs tons of work. Good news is, this past weekend I painted everything in a glorious coat of eco friendly, water based Aqua Lock. This is what our local hardware store recommended as an alternative to Kilz/Bin since I wasn't interested in inhaling all of those chemicals. Anyways, here is a look at the cabinets freshly sanded:

After I sanded everything so that it was smooth, I then filled all of the holes. There were SO many. I'm not talking about holes left from the hinges--those I left because we are going to put the doors back on--I'm talking about the ones left from push pins! They. were. everywhere. All over the window molding, the side of the cabinets, and on the back of the kitchen door. So many. The woodwork was starting to look like it was chewed to death. So, I filled all of those and then made sure to clean up all the dust, left from sanding the cabinets, before I started to paint.

I couldn't wait to start painting! Here is the finished project after one coat of primer.

So, I know you are probably thinking, "Man they got a lot of work done this weekend!" Just kidding! I didn't really get the whole kitchen painted. This is just a test spot to see what it will look like:

Jonathan and I were using the primer upstairs in the MB and I was so anxious to start the kitchen cabinets that I decided to take some of it and start painting them to see what it would look like. I am getting really excited about painting the rest of the kitchen! It is going to look so different and fresh! Our plan is to paint all of the cabinetry white and then the walls will be getting a healthy dose of color. Not sure which color, but something bold!

I have been taking my time on this space because I know how much time I will be spending in the kitchen, in the future. One of my favorite spaces in a house is the kitchen. To me, it is the hub of the home. On Saturday, Jonathan asked why I was taking so much time to fill the holes and what not. My response was, if I had to live with these cabinets for at least two or three years, before we are able to afford the renovations we are planning, then I wanted to make sure that the kitchen looked as good as possible. I figure the more work I put in now, the longer the paint job will last.

So that is the progress on the rest of the house. Our plan is to coat and seal all of the walls, trim, and molding with primer to lock in the smoke stains. We plan on just painting right over the wallpaper to save time and money. Eventually, we will gut the rest of the rooms so we aren't going to waste our time trying to take off the wallpaper now. Our fear is that it will pull down the plaster with it and Jonathan will have to spend too much time skim coating the wall so that it will be nice enough to paint. Just not worth it in our opinion.

As far as the floors go, we are planning on leaving the wood as is and just putting down area rugs for the time being. The wood floors are all technically sub floors but, they seem in decent enough condition that we can get away with them for the time being. Eventually we will probably put down hardwood throughout the first floor and carpet the upstairs. For now, think area rugs!

So that is the progress in the rest of the house. Anyone have any questions? I'm dying to know what you guys are wondering about...please let me know!

Happy Monday!

A Fresh Perspective

As promised, I am back today with pictures of my painting job!

Yesterday, after posting about our new molding, I headed over to our house to put the first coat of primer on the entire upstairs and the lower half of the bathroom downstairs.

Now, let me tell you, I never anticipated how long it would take me to do this. I was planning on heading over and being there for a couple of hours and then coming home to finish the rest of my to-do list. Ohh--no. No, no, no, no, no! I was very wrong.

Let's just say that seven hours later I was walking out of our house aching like I had just completed a full body workout. I arrived at 10:30 am all chipper and ready to go and left at 5:30 pm a walking zombie. Jonathan came to check on me as I was leaving and kept asking me if I was ok--yea, it was that bad. Apparently, I looked exhausted. Not to mention, I was also covered in little splatters of paint from head to toe.

 {source}

Except, I was exceedingly less excited and colorful. :) But, without further ado, her is our bedroom all decked out in a coat of primer. She is looking exceptionally bright, wouldn't you say? 

You know how I mentioned that Jonathan was really excited, when I told him about the trim option for our master bedroom? Well he was excited, because it would save him a lot of time. Yea, all that time I saved him? Well, it was added to my painting time. The first step in painting a room is always to paint whatever trim work there is. You have to make sure to also paint the corners as well. Basically, you take a paint brush and cover whatever you won't be able to use a roller on. It took forever to do this first step. 

I have to say, it felt great to accomplish the upstairs though. Jonathan said that it was very important to get the primer on asap because it will help him notice any flaws in the drywall. Now, he can go back through and repair anything that may showed up, as a glaring mistake, before we paint the final color. 

As far as the bathroom goes, Jonathan asked me to also throw a quick coat of primer on the lower half of the wall. The paneling that we ordered will be adhered to the wall using some kind of glue. Apparently, the glue attaches better to paint than it does to drywall. So that was on my priming list as well. Thankfully, all I had to do was spend five minutes throwing a quick, imperfect coat of primer up. No trimming involved here!

That felt like two seconds compared to all the work I had to do upstairs. 

Overall, I felt very accomplished yesterday. I also feel like everything is finally starting to come together! I am starting to really envision what the bathroom and master bedroom are going to look like when they are done. I can't wait. I also have decided that I am enjoying all of this work. Where some people may get overwhelmed by the sheer amount of work that needs to be done, I truly enjoy putting so much time into our future house.

As I was painting yesterday, this song by Miranda Lambert,  just kept playing over and over in my head. 

I kept thinking,  "Our children will probably grow up in this house. There will be so many memories and firsts for us in this place." So, as I worked, I focused on that thought. I want to put all of my love into our house because of what it means to us now and what it will mean in the future.

God has blessed us with so much and I am so thankful that I have this opportunity. Jonathan and I are in a very special place in our lives and I don't want to miss a day of it. So, instead of being overwhelmed and stressed, I am soaking it in. I wouldn't trade these days for anything. 

Another Option

Man do I have some progress pictures to show you! Let's just say that our master bedroom is coming along prehhhtttty smoothly. It is slowly becoming that rustic-shabby chic retreat that I have been looking forward to. Our plan is to make our bedroom our sanctuary. Yes, most people view their bedroom as this, but ours will be a little more special, as it will also be our place away from all the other work that is going on in our house. It will be the only room (other than the bathroom--but who just chills in their bathroom?) that is 100% done. So while the rest of the house is in varying states of chaos, our bedroom will offer a nice retreat. That's the plan anyway.

So, like I said, I am going for a rustic-shabby chic look. To me, that means a lot of wood - painted wood. The room should also look like it took years to put together-as if one collected all the perfect pieces and seamlessly combined them to form the perfect room. So, while I am spending 'years' figuring out the perfect room combinations, Jonathan was working on defining the space in another way.

In this post I mentioned that I was trying to convince Jonathan to leave the ceiling open and let the beams be exposed. I love me some rustic wood beams. Well that was a 'no' because of the impracticality of it all. But I was determined to get my "wood beams." So I casually mentioned this other option to Jonathan:

{source}

I had fallen in love with the wood accents on the ceiling. It was a simple touch that I have seen done before and it just adds a little something without being too intrusive to the eye-this was important to me since our ceiling is relatively low.

Anyway, I mentioned it to him and he became all excited about it. Apparently, this idea was going to save him a lot of time! Instead of finishing the corners of the ceiling, after he drywalled, he would be able to cover them with the wood. Apparently, it is a lot more work to finish a forty-five degree angle (where our ceiling meets the wall) then a ninety degree angle (where two walls meet). The margin of error for getting a straight line is significantly higher in that situation.

So after the drywall went up:

Up went the wood:

Thankfully, Jonathan was able to purchase some pre-used wood from a local store. This cut the bill for the job in half. Plus, with a coat of white paint, you won't even be able to tell the color differences in the wood.

We decided to outline the entire ceiling in the 2 1/4" wood and then decided to add some strips down the walls as well. When planning our layout, we opted to follow the piece of wood that was at the end of the closet, all the way over to the other side of the room.  This just seemed like a natural place to do it.

Then Jonathan measured the distance between that piece of wood and the outside wall, to the right of it, and installed a piece of wood the same distance on the left (the side closest to the windows in the above picture). So basically there are three "panels" that are being formed by the wood trim. Plus, its also very symmetrical and I like symmetry :)

Our plan is to position our bed below the middle panel in the room. Something like this (sans the people coming out of the bed...really clipart??):

I think the trim will add a little visual interest and something special to the room. Today I am headed over to the house to put the first coat of primer on the upstairs! I cannot wait to see what it looks like!!! I promise pictures very soon.

What are you up to on this beautiful Wednesday? I hope the weather man upstairs has been as nice to you as he has been to us! :)

A 'Dirty' Project

Let's talk about the dapper crapper. Well, minus the dapper-'cause it SO isn't dapper right now. I want to give you the low down on our loo. The water closet. The lavatory. The place where we worship the porcelain god. Here's the skinny:

We started at the beginning of this whole process with this echm-beautiful-echm bathroom. Please excuse the absolutely horrible pictures. I hadn't figured out how to use our camera yet--but I'm getting better. I promise :)

The bathroom layout was nice enough, so we plan on keeping that, but the finishes left much to be desired. Everything was an awful shade of dirty tan that made the whole room just look well, dirty!! Remember back to this post where we found out that we would have to gut the whole room, just because of the silly sink? Well that's what we did. Our plan of attack was to gut everything down to the studs, keep the same layout, and update everything to have a fresh, new bathroom!

After much deliberation, we decided that the current layout was probably the best. It was a very efficient use of the space and we didn't want to spend too much money moving around plumbing. The only change we will be making is to move the tub plumbing to the other end. Buh-bye ugly pipes!

We also decided to remove the radiator and the cabinet. In such a small space, we thought that the radiator was being a pig and hogging-it-up over in the corner.

Instead, we felt that installing radiant heat in the floors would be a good space saving option. And as for that corner? Well she will be decked out with our new linen cabinet. Instead of the visual weight of a cabinet on the wall, like the original owners decided, we opted to move the cabinet to the floor and dress her up a bit. We will also be adding some open shelving above for more storage. You can read about our design plans here.

So after we gutted, insulated, and wired the bathroom, she looked like this.

Empty and a complete blank slate! It was such a great feeling to see how the space was transformed just by gutting it! The next steps were to drywall and then begin installing the flooring. So, over the weekend Jonathan and I slapped up some drywall. 

This was the fun part! Jonathan taught me how to use his automatic screw gun. I have to say I'm not that great at it but learning how to use another tool was really cool. Plus, it added some fun to the night as we made inappropriate jokes about, well, screwing. (You should have known that was coming. Darn you for thinking that I am above that! :) )

So, you may be asking yourself why there are two different colors of drywall. Well the green stuff on the upper half of the wall is moisture resistant drywall (a.k.a green board--realll original) and the white stuff is just regular ol' drywall. The lower half of our bathroom will be covered in a PVC paneling that will protect the walls, so there was no point in spending the extra money for the special stuff we put on the upper half.

Finally, after much screwing...of the drywall (man get your head out of the gutter!) Jonathan put on the first coat of mud

and then moved on to the floor. Installing a radiant heat floor is a relatively easy and fun process, if you know what you are doing. First we had to decide where we wanted the heat to be.

It is basically a red mesh mat that is about 2 ft wide and 30 ft long that carries the blue heat coil through it. You can cut the mat (not the heating element) which allows for you to cover an entire floor by customizing the layout as you see fit. So Jonathan and I decided to run the heat through the middle and right side of the bathroom. We didn't put it under the left side because that is where the tub and toilet will be. No need to heat the floor under those things!

After we figured out the layout and made sure that the thermostat and temperature gauge were all set, Jonathan mixed up a bunch of concrete and began to set the floor.

Once that was done, the floor just looked like a solid concrete pad--the perfect surface for tile!

So, now all we have left is to finish up the drywall, tile the floors, install the beadboard, and start painting. After that we can begin putting in the fixtures (i.e. tub, sink, toilet) and start decorating! I can't wait to get my hands on this place!

What projects did you work on over the weekend? Come on, spill the beans!