Butterfly Bingo

I've been a bit MIA lately with the whole moving thing to coordinate. So every couple of nights I've been letting G stay up late and we spend some one on one time together. Jack gets plenty of one on one in the early morning hours cause he's an early riser and Grace is not so much so. Tonight we read two books instead of one. And last night we played Butterfly Bingo and Operation. I must say that the Butterfly Bingo game is one of my favorites! Grace likes it too. And she ALWAYS happens to win.

A Garden Full of Ripe Tomatos

Means a dinner of shrimp creole and tomato and cucumber salad.

Deeeeeelish!

It sure is nice to have a paw paw who gardens and some grand kids who like to help!

Home Improvements Week 2: the Tree

We bought a house with a nice shady back yard and last week we got a surprise when swepco came out and CUT DOWN OUR ENTIRE TREE WITHOUT TELLING US!!! And then told us they were instructed to "CUT AND LEAVE"... Leave a cut down tree in our yard. A whole tree. In the yard. "for our use". A tree.

I'm not gonna lie. I cried some. Okay, I cried a lot. But I guess now we have a nice spot for a garden? It's one less tree we have to worry about vetting cut down. This is good since we also found out this week that we need to take down a tree.

And I'm happy to report that after some serious business conversations with some swepco guys the tree has been completely removed from our yard and I was left completely drained.

In the words of my sweet grace: "those guys really don't like trees. Do they?"

Home Improvements Week 2: The Kitchen

I think it's safe to say that the kitchen may be what brought our house into our price range. :) I am loving it though and slowly but surely I know we will be able to turn it into a beautiful work space! So here's the lay of the land in the before pictures:

Walking through the Dining room into the kitchen. The washer/dryer hook ups are to the right and the units stick out into the kitchen when installed. Then there is a broken refrigerator which doesn't really fit the spot. Next the pantry that only has one shelf. Followed by a gas stove (woo-hoo!) that has about 16 inches of counter space on either side finished in super blue Formica.

To the left when you walk into the kitchen from the dining room: a nice sized breakfast nook followed by not quite super top of the line (but solid real wood) replacement cabinets and a single bowl sink w/ a huge drain board and some very unfortunate finish choices on all the window trim.


View of the breakfast area:


Now the progress begins!

Washer/dryer hook ups before:



The closet lined hall behind the kitchen:



My new laundry room/ pantry! Yay! So many problems were solved by just taking down a non load baring wall between a closet and the old wash nook. We are now on our way to having plenty of space for a nice large stackable washer and dryer and plenty of storage for all of the things that I would rather have out of site in my kitchen. We even had extra circuits run to the pantry so we could plug in a microwave and coffee pot and toaster etc in there and have my counters clear for cooking.



You can see where the wall was by the different flooring.



And now we have new pluming lines and exhaust lines run too.


We even found this great wall paper behind the knotty pine paneling!


And can I just comment again on the craziness that is our wall construction. Thank you. I think I will.


And just so you have the big picture in your head here is the kitchen renovation that I hope will take place over the next 30 years or so:
1. Put in pantry/laundry room. (I can give this a half check now) stay tuned for more updates coming soon.
2. Build new shelves in old pantry. (I'm hoping to do this before we move in)
3. Paint all the cabinets white and all the Wallpaper/appliance sections of room (will do before we move if all goes according to plan)
4. Sew a lot of curtains (I've got the material!)
5. Lay black and white (or perhaps yellow and cream?) tile on a diagonal throughout the kitchen. I'm thinking VCT because it looks so much like the original asbestos tile that was probably here to begin with but is cheaper than the marmoleum.
6. Install beadboard on the ceiling and new moldings and light fixtures.
7. Replace the countertops (this should not be too expensive since we don't have much!) and sink with an undermount so I have at least one nice long area to work on.
8. Replace the cabinets with new more traditional ones that extend from floor to ceiling utilizing that 9+ feet of space we have! (this is a little dreamy, I know, but I'm just throwing it out there).

So we have started our transformation! Yay!

Home Improvements Week 2: Living Spaces

We have been so busy that I have done a bad job of documenting the progress over the past two weeks. In the second week of our home ownership endeavors we focused on the living areas. We took down all the dirty curtains and painted the sun room and living room and half of the trim in the den.

Front of sun room with the lime green curtains!

Lime green, y'all...


Now without. It's so much better. Now I just need ideas for really cheap and easy window coverings. Anybody have suggestions?


The other end of the sun room. Getting ready for my PIANO! YAY!


Living room with curtains:


Without:


Looking from sunroom through living room to dining room.


I don't have any after pictures, but we painted it all a much more warm neutral color than the cold beige that is there now.