I need to apologize. I realized last night that my post yesterday, may have offended some people. In our culture it is very common to keep one's financial situation quiet. Not often do strangers or even friends share their hearts when it comes to finances. Money is also the leading cause of arguments in a marriage and is usually just considered a taboo topic. And I did the exact opposite.

I spoke my heart yesterday because I don't have a hard time sharing who we are. I want to be transparent. I want people to know me for me. And that means that on this blog you will get all of who I am. You will get my quirky-non-humor, my sarcasm, my horrible grammar, and everything in between. My goal is never to offend anyone, but is more to allow any person who reads this blog to see the real me.

This blog is also a journal of sorts. I want Jonathan and I to remember these days ten years from now. I want to look back at these posts and see where we have come from. Maybe my future self will shake my head at yesterday's post and brush it off as immature, but for now, this is me...and that is what you are going to get :)

So, I want to apologize if I have personally offended or hurt you. Please know that was never my intention. I wasn't trying to brag, get your pity, or show off. I was just informing you and my future self. These days of hard work are so precious to me and I am afraid that they will slip right by only to be completely forgotten. I want to remember the late nights we spend at the house, the days that it seems like Jonathan and I never see each other, and the exact place we started from. I don't want to forget. I want to enjoy and cherish.

So, please forgive me and my bluntness. It's just who I am. :)

Sincerely,
Liz

Doing the Moon Walk.

Today, we're doing a little back tracking. So...moon walk...going backward...get it? Good.

Let's talk about the whole how-we-actually-purchased-this-house thing and I'm also going to give you a bit of a run down on our financial situation. For us, it was a long process that involved a year of looking, changing of expectations, and finally figuring out exactly what we were interested in. Our hearts were broken many times along the way, but we finally were able to let a house back-in-our-heart (see what I did there? ha.)

{our very first picture together as a couple}

Actually, the whole thing started in the summer of 2008. Jonathan and I had been dating for a year and for some crazy reason, we thought it would be a good idea to buy a house. Our idea was that Jonathan would live in it and fix it up while I finished college six hours away. Well our vision was short lived--you saw that coming didn't you? Yeaaa.  They tried to tell us we're too young, too young to really be in love. 

{source}

We saw approximately ten houses by the time we realized, purchasing a house was very financially irresponsible. We also noticed that our idea of what we wanted in a house was way unrealistic. A fixer upper in our price range was very thriller-esc to say the least. So, I headed back to school in the fall with much lower expectations and a mind set that a house was not in the near future.

*  *  *  *

Fast forward to December 2010. We had been married for 5 months and were itching to purchase a house. Armed with our previous experience we were ready to brave the housing market again. We started by doing a lot of research. I spent many hours looking at houses online and researching the housing market where we live. I really wanted to make sure I understood what was a good value house-wise. We also tried to figure out what we could afford without becoming completely house poor. Enter pre-approval here.

From December until June of 2011 we did our own thing. We would look at a house online and then proceed to drive by it, to catch a glimpse in person.  If we were still interested, we would call up the listing realtor. We visited ten houses and looked at 30+ online before we decided that this approach wasn't working for us. So, we made the decision to ask a friend of ours to be our realtor. He stepped in and we looked at another ten houses or so.

At one point we found "the" house. It was in great condition and had a fantastic back yard. It needed minimal work before we moved in, but we knew we could work on it over time and it would be a fantastic investment. Problem was, they wanted $80,000 for it. So we outlined all the the work that needed to be done and decided to offer them $50,000. They came back with a counter offer at $70,000. So, it was a Billie Jean is not my lover moment on the houses part-- it just wasn't meant to be. We kept claiming he was the one, but he kept saying we were just a girl. So we did the Billie Jean Shuffle on outta there.

We kept looking and looking. Another ten houses visited, another ten disappointments. Finally, in December, around Christmas, a listing popped up that I had never seen before.

Apparently, our realtor was looking at the same listing around the same time too, because he contacted us right away about the house. We agreed to meet a couple days later to see the house. When we visited we instantly fell in love. This was it. It felt as though we had seen her face a thousand times. It was familiar. So, we put in an offer.

Mind you, we saw the house three days after it had been put on the market. Our offer of $49,000 went in two days later. They countered us at $51,600 and we yelled 'SOLD!' It was the best feeling ever. So, the house was on the market less then a week by the time she became ours. I have to say, I knew this was the one by the reaction Jonathan had. Sure I had been excited by houses before, but he had never shown this much excitement. Usually it took convincing on my part for him to even consider a place. We just knew.

So here is where we ended up. Thanks to my awesome father who has allowed us to live in one of his apartments, we were able to save up a down payment of $10,000. So we ended up taking out a mortgage for $41,600. At this point I have to say that this is another reason why we knew this house was 'the one' -- it wasn't going to make us house poor. We would have enough money to fix 'er up and to pay the mortgage. Plus there would be enough left over to comfortably live off of.

So, we mortgaged $41,600 at a 15-year-fixed rate of 4.125%. By doing a 15 year mortgage, as compared to a 30 year mortgage, we are saving approximately $15,000 on interest in the long run. We also opted to do bi-weekly payments as well. This has made our loan go down to a 13 year loan and also saved us another $2,000 + in interest.

Our bi-weekly payments add up to the same amount as doing monthly payments, the only difference is that two months out of the year, there is an extra payment we owe. In essence, we are paying 13 months of payments in 12 months. So, to the tune of about $550 extra a year, we are saving two years on our mortgage and thus a lot of money in interest payments. We think it works out pretty well.

So, in honor of this Michael Jackson inspired post I now present you with this wedding rendition of 'Thriller'

So please share! What are your money-saving tips for owning a house? We would love some more input!

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!

That Girl

I am one of those girls. Yes, I have officially given myself the title of "that girl." Feel free to secretively (or not so secretively) refer to me as "that girl." I am the girl that has a huge list of things that I want to do, but never gets them done. I am also the girl that has huge, ambitious hopes and dreams when it comes to my home, but rarely figure out how to make them a reality. Evidence: my pinterest boards. Oh and have I mentioned that I love to clean and organize? --yup totally "that girl."

Let's just say, something needed to change.

I was inspired by The Pinterest Challenge via the Bower Power blog and the "Dude, Get On That Already" challenge by Sherry over at Young House Love, and decided that it was my turn to kick my butt into gear. Plus, I thought you could all hold my butt  I mean me, accountable.

So, let me introduce you to my self imposed:

According to the Urban Dictionary (this is a very reliable, academic source we are talking about here *eye roll*), 'git r done' is an early 90's phrase that sums up the excitement involved in getting something important accomplished. So, I will "giiiiiitttttrrrrrrrrrddddooonnneee!!!!" Adding in a fist pump and a little manly butt slapping for an extra dose of encouragement.

Each week, over the next few months, I will pick a few projects to get done. These projects will all be  on my never ending list of stuff to do. Some will have to do with our apartment (things that I would like to do before we move), some will have to do with the house (things that need to get done that I have been putting off), and some will be projects that I have chosen off my Pinterest boards. All-in-all, I plan on posting a weekly Friday update about my progress.

Will you all hold me accountable in gitttingggrrrdone?! Y'all know I love me some people who know how to encourage!!! ARE YOU WITH ME?! :)

What have you been putting off for ages? Anything in particular that makes you cringe at the thought of doing said project?