A Week's worth of work

David and I have spent most nights at the house doing something to it. I think we have taken a total of two days off since the last time I blogged and maybe since we bought the house.

So I am not very consistent at this whole blogging thing, but I did want to update the blog with our progress since that first weekend.

We have done lots of painting. And we have decided what we are not good painters. I want to reiterate this for you: YOU DO NOT WANT US TO HELP YOU PAINT.

We painted the entry way and hallway a light brown color, the same one in the front living area.


And David hung the blinds that my parents bought us for the front room. They look awesome. So excited about this.


Then we painted the kitchen a darker brown, that matches the brown in the living room with the fireplace.



These browns looked so very different on paper and even when we sampled them on the walls, but now that we painted most of our house with them, in just the right lighting they look like the same color. Oh well, what can you do?


My brother, Kyle, painted one of the walls in my office green! I absolutely LOVE the color, it turned out perfectly. Now I am trying to decide if I should paint the other three walls green? Any opinions out there?



And David added a shelf and rod to our closet. It is small, but with the extra rod, we should be able to fit most of our clothes in there.


We bought a 5 gallon bucket of primer, not sure if we are going to use it all, but we are trying. I had to stick my entire hand in it the other day to stir it, since the stir stick we had was not long enough. I am still working on getting this primer off my hand!



The past few days David has been hard at work priming and painting all of the doors in our house.


This weekend our friend Liz started priming the wainscoting and the bookshelves in our back living area.



And Jordan came over too, so we put him to work, he primed one of the bookshelves next to the fire place. We are going to put a picture of him on this bookshelf, in memory of all his hard work.

I didnt get very far, but I really wanted to see how the wainscoting would look with the brown walls, and I LOVE IT! This part still needs a second coat, but it looks pretty good I think.





A few nights ago, our friends, Aimee and Michael (soon to be The Harrisons) offered to come over and help. We put them to work and they were there so late, they were definitely troopers!


Michael helped David with the doors. Apparently Michael was the "muscle" of this assembly line, moving doors on and off the saw horses, David was the all-time painter.



Aimee and I primed and painted the trim in the master bedroom. It was after 11 o'clock and Aimee and I were still working on the trim, so Michael grabbed a brush and helped us finish. I think we left around 11:45- it was too late.


Yesterday I spent hours priming and painting the baseboards in my office and then later that night, David went back to the house and hung most of the doors.

Oh yeah, and the other night we bought some hinges, handles and knobs to replace theses:



But the hinges are different and they make the cabinet doors stick out a little too far, so I am not exactly sure what we are going to do about that.

We are definitely making progress, but somedays it gets very long and tedious. If I find one more piece of wood that I have to sand, I will throw a fit. (Yes, David, another fit.) My fingers are bleeding. I have primer on my legs that will not come off. And I am going to need a serious manicure when this whole project is over. But I am so excited to see the finished project.

Welp see ya later...

Let the progress begin

Both of our parents drove in from out of town to spend their New Years day and weekend doing LOADS of manual labor. They absolutely transformed our house. These are a few of the photos from the weekend.


My dad and I had to tape off all the rooms to keep the sand and dust from getting into the other rooms where painting was taking place. We're pretty professional I know. Kinda felt like we were working in a bubble for a while.


Here's my dad, he's pretty much the greatest. He pretends like he doesn't know what he is doing, but he does. He's a genius, just ask him!



Thanks to David's mom, Susan and my brother, Kyle, our front living room looks incredible. It was David's idea to do a red wall, he was very excited about it and we are so happy with the way it turned out!

They also painted the back room a darker brown. They are a good painting team: Susan likes to cut in and be perfect and Kyle likes do to the rolling. Works for me, just as long as I dont have to do either!


Both of our moms spent a good amount of time ripping down wall paper in the kitchen, laundry room and hallway. They were so good at it, if you need some help, you should hire these ladies. The absolutely LOVE it!


There was so much wallpaper, even David helped a little bit. He was a pansie though, he had to wear a face mask.




Please note how open and roomy the kitchen looks. It makes me so happy!



David and our friend Andy knocked down those overhead cabinets above the bar. It was quite a task and required lots of work getting it to look just right, but it looks AWESOME!

I think pretty much everyone helped in the kitchen at some point. Our friend Lisa helped rip off wall paper and even the formica backsplash area had nothing on her!



We had to remove all of the cabinet doors and sand them, they are all waiting in the garage for the next step. This is only half of the cabinets, the others are on the other side of the garage. Don't be fooled, there are TONS.


Oh, and I used a power tool for the first time this weekend. I fell in love with the sander. Spent hours out there givin' them a taste of their own medicine. (I don't know what that means.)




My mom painted the insides of every cabinet in the kitchen, pantry, laundry room and living room, it was a HUGE task that took hours, almost an entire day. She liked it.




HolliB Photography donated a some her afternoon time to textured our kitchen walls. Yes, she is not just a photographer, but she is also a professional texturer! You should check out her work:
www.hollibphotography.com



My sister-in-law to-be helped me texture the front entry way and hallway. Ya, we did awesome. We're a pretty good texturing team - Watch out!


Oh yeah and I stepped in the bucket of texture. I mean, who moved the bucket?



And yes, I walked around for the rest of the evening with a plastic bag tied around my shoe.


David was pretty sure it was time to leave.



I have so many pictures from each day, to document the progress, but I didn't want to bore you to death. So I only posted a few. We still have plenty to do and it will take us a few more weeks, but we can definitely see progress and it is so encouraging. Can't wait to have everyone over to see the finished progress

On Sunday afternoon when everyone had left, this was how the house looked:

Kitchen

Front Living Room


Here's the Crew: (minus a few)


I know how good I look, you don't need to tell me. Susan didn't dirty at all, she is amazing.



We can not say thank you enough to our parents who drove down from Tulsa and up from Texas to help us do all these things. We love you guys so much! Can't wait to see it all done!

RENOVATIONS

Let me just say that we have owned this house for less than one week and it does not even look like the same house on the inside. The outside looks the same... isn't it pretty?



These next few pictures were taken last Tuesday, right after we left the title company. If you look you can see that we had already started to destroy the kitchen. I mean I did not even get photos before we took a board down, ripped off wallpaper and even some of the formica backsplash.









So the night we got the house we started ripping down wall paper in our kitchen. It was not long before we realized that there were two ugly layers of wallpaper on our kitchen walls. You will see in the pictures coming up, do not worry. We had our first guest that night, our friend Riley Cummins stopped by to chat it up and take a few pictures of us at work. It was a really fun night, excluding the wallpaper part.




This is the mess we made that evening in our kitchen!


But the real progress came when our parents came into town this weekend and really changed everything. I will include pictures of that in the next post!

Welp See ya later!

Our New Home

It has been quite awhile since we have last posted. It has been a great last 8 months since our last post. A few things have happened. Taylor created a blog for her business, Taylor Jill Designs, and you can check it out by clicking HERE.

We ran a half marathon right before Thanksgiving which was great. We finished in under a 10 minute pace so that made us happy.

The latest and greatest news is our new home. We closed on it Tuesday the 29th and will begin fixing things and painting. We are currently taking down wallpaper in the kitchen and then planning on removing some cabinets. I used my flip video to shoot a short walk through the house, for those how live out of town or halfway around the world. Taylor narrates and shows off everything. Hopefully everyone can come by and check it out soon! Here is the video HERE

Baseball and Hats

The baseball season started last week and we have been watching quite a lot. Well I have, not so much Taylor. Because we live in Norman we get all the Texas Rangers games. I do not have a team in baseball, like I do in football (the Dallas Cowboys). I like the NY Yankees, NY Mets, the Tampa Bay Rays and the Colorado Rockies. I like the Yankees for the tradition, Mets because I like David Wright and the Rays because they are a small market team, although they did add $21 million to their pay roll from last year. The Rockies because the were created right around the time I started following sports.

I have always given the Texas Rangers a hard time, mainly because they have always sucked since I have been watching them. But now that I have watched a lot of their games, more than anyone else's I might be coming around. It pains me to say it, especially since I get BS a ton of crap about. The Rangers are the only team i have seen live. The OKC Red Hawks are the AAA affiliate so I can watch the up and comers. The way things are going I may be a fan by the end of the season.

The Rangers changed from their old blue hats to this year's Red Hats. I love baseball caps here are a few that I have. I don't have a red hat and the Rangers cap may be the one I get. who knows.

Taylor's 24!

Taylor is 24 years old. Happy Birthday!! Give her a call today!