He's home!

Porter's finally home. We're all getting used to each other and used to our new schedule- the baby comes first schedule. So far, I think we're all adjusting very well. Porter seems to be happy with his parents.

He's not really much of a crier or a fusser, unless of course he's hungry. Then he's ravenous! But otherwise, he's a laid back kid.


And Andrew and I are so happy with Porter. He's a good baby. He even lets us sleep a little at night.

Now all we need is the Baby

The baby's room is officially done!!!

Getting Close on all fronts

The living room ceiling is mudded, taped, sanded, primed, and painted and the fan is up and running. All it needs now is a couple of new air vents and ceiling will be done. I just haven't made the run the Lowe's yet.



Andrew did a great job turning the double door to the dining room into an arch! Somehow I failed to take a picture of the doorway before we destroyed the living room, but I did find this picture that shows part of the doorway (on the left) back in November.


And here's the new doorway:

Also in the good news department. We had a doctor's appointment this morning and have been told that progress is so good that she expects to see us before next week's appointment!! Yahoo!!!

Photos Released!!!

After searching the entire house for hours for the cord to download pictures, I gave up and checked amazon.com. I found a used one for 2 bucks. It arrived this morning so the pictures from the memory card and the camera's internal memory have been freed!

So I'll start with pictures of the baby's room being redone.
First a few before pictures:

Before redoing the floors





Jeremy hanging out with Jack and Cooper while the room functioned as a living room.

New walls:



Mud , Tape, and Sand:






New Ceiling fan and light light fixture:







Andrew, Joey, Joe, and Aaron made the trim then began putting it up:





Andrew did such a great job putting the doors' trim in that all of them now close all the way!!!








The living room progress began with new insulation (thanks Andrew for spending your Saturday in a white jumpsuit!)



Then the drywall went up. It is important to note here that when I went to bed one night some weeks ago, the living room had no walls. When I woke the next morning it did!!! Thanks to Corey, Joe, and Joey for staying up until 3:00a.m. (and a big thanks to their ladies for allowing them to stay out so late on a weeknight!)


Currently, Andrew is in the living room. He has mudded and taped and is sanding right now. Tomorrow he's planning on priming and painting the ceiling so he can hang the new fan.

The baby's room has been painted. We're waiting for the arrival of his dresser and I'm working on wall hangings and organizing all of his things this week.

It's been a while...

a long while. Ok, so it's not that I've abandoned the blog, I swear. It's that my camera is refusing to upload all the great pictures of house progress! And I do mean refusing. So I've been holding out updating until the stupid thing responds to my pleas. I'm gonna keep trying cause the pictures really are good, but until then...

We painted the breakfast room. The livingroom has ceilings and walls. An arch has successfully been added between the livingroom and the dining room where long lost double doors used to reside. The baby's room has new walls and a ceiling. It also has been mudded, taped and sanded and has a new ceiling fan and light. The walls have one coat of primer. Oh and the house is on breakers instead of fuses. The living room and the baby's room are completely rewired!
Yay!

We'd like to thank Paul for his wonderful electrical skills!
And Joe, Andrew, Corey, and Joey for their dry-wall skills!
Thanks guys, we really couldn't have done it without you.

So next Andrew is going to put up the crown moulding, kick board, door trim, and window trim in the baby's room. Then were really to paint!

I'll post pictures as soon as the camera releases them.

Trying to do good...

As some may know, I bought a new vehicle. Yes a brand spaking new, never driven by anyone but me (and the guy who drove it to the Gossett dealership from a dealership in Little Rock) vehicle. This was very possibly a hormone induced impulse buy. But I NEEDED it. The good ole Saturn just wasn't making me happy anymore and after learning about it's lower than family friendly safety ratings, I was even more disappointed in it. Then one night out of no where, I actually paid attention to a cheesy commerical (the Jeep one where two campers steal a canoe and the female owner jumps in her car to catch them and then moves the wolf to the canoe so they jump out). You probably all know the one and yes it's pretty bad. But what caught me and my huband's attention was the low gas mileage and low price of the new Jeep Patriot. The new Jeep that also looks a lot like the Cherokee (my all time favorite car I've ever owned that was ruthlessly stolen from me and stripped of all its Jeepy goodness). So I began to investigate. The Patriot was indeed everything I wanted (high safety ratings/ low gas mileage) and needed (looks & drives similar to the Cherokee) out of a car. They even had it in a navy blue like my old Cherokee! One thing led to another and I got my new Jeep! So I've been driving my beloved new vehicle around now for a few months and although the gas mileage is not any worse than the Saturn's was, I realized I didn't purchase that hybrid I always said I would. After a little looking around I found the perfect way to ease my trying-to-be-earth-conscious-mind. TerraPass. Yup, I'm buying my way to a clean conscious. And I feel pretty good about it. Now I'm back to fully enjoying my new car!

So the bottom line is, if you too need to drive that larger vehicle for personal reasons, but would like to make it up to the environment, you can go to TerraPass and purchase CO2 offsets for your car, air flights, and your home, you can even purchase CO2 offsets to balance you wedding guests' travels to your ceremony!!

Must See!

Everyone must take a break from life and go see Michael Moore's "Sicko." Whether you loved or hated his previous movies or him, go see this one. It is shocking!!!

http://www.michaelmoore.com/

I Can't Stop

Since the kitchen face-lift, I feel the need to continue on to another room. I 've got some ideas for the breakfast room and the bathroom. I just can't decide which one to start first...
But I am starting this weekend.

The kitchen: before & after

The day we bought our house (November 17, 2006) the kitchen looked like this:






















Now, although we loved that linoleum, we ripped in up in an attempt to liberate the hardwood underneath. We soon found out that the project was going to have to wait (house goals change when you find out a baby's coming) so we tiled the mess of hardwood and tar.

















This touch helped. For a while. Lately, I've been a little restless and somewhat concerned about the fate of our fine house. I decided I needed to do something to get things rolling and since I can't hang dry wall. I decided I would begin my very own project: the kitchen. We'd already spent about $50 on the tiles. I didn't want to spend too much money on anything for the kitchen because we're hoping to get it totally renovated in two or three years, so why pay big bucks for something we may get rid of in a couple of years. So I started with paint and let the ideas follow. Oh, it's important point out here that I did not share any of my plans with Andrew. I just started. He's a very trusting husband! He asked no questions, just watched the daily changes. We're both very happy with the results!





























And I was able to keep the costs low:
1 bucket of white paint: $12.97
1 bucket of turquoise paint (the actual name isn't so simple so I can't remember it!): $15.00 [but free for us thanks to my super sweet co-worker Betty!!]
1 can of silver spray paint: $3.97
1 roll of contact paper: $5.99
3 lights for under the cabinets: $15.00

So including the previously spent money on the floor, Out new kitchen only cost $87.93!



The before and after:

Our Boy

Our oldest pup, Jack, visited the vet yesterday for a yearly check-up and shots. Sadly, the check-up revealed that Jack has heartworms. He is nine years old, but he is a healthy boy, so he is scheduled for the first treatment Tuesday. First they will run a series of tests to make sure all his organs can handle the treatment. Then he will be sedated and treated two nights in a row. Then he will be returned home for 4-5 weeks of absolute rest and relaxation. So he'll get to do his favorite activity for a little over a month:

We suspect Cooper (our 1 year old lab) will not be as excited about this as Jack will be, so it may be a long month for Coop.

While we fell like awful pup parents for having not done what we could have done to prevent this, we are glad it was caught early and Dr.Buckler is confident that Jack will do fine with the treatment because he is strong and healthy. He will, however, have to change is diet. After Tuesday he will no longer be allowed to eat his 4 or so cups of Purina Dog Chow. He will have to begin eating a diet dog food so that he doesn't gain any weight while not exercising. Right now he weights 80 pounds. Dr. Buckler suggested that we try to get him down to around 70. Because he doesn't really eat that full four cups everyday as it is and because he will soon be doing no physical activities, diet food will be the best way to not only prevent weight gain, but maybe even help him lose a little.

Updates, lots of Updates

We have a plan. The baby is due September 21. That gives us just less than 16 weeks to complete a long list of projects (some necessary and some really wanted). So before the projects start getting wrapped up at super quick rates (we're trying to stay very positive), I should make sure everyone is up to date on the little that has been done in the last few months and what all is in the project list.

We did a little yard work.
Andrew and Paul worked on re-wiring the house (starting with the living room). They also installed the new future electrical box so that as they rewire a room, they can hook the wires right into the box. The hope is that when the switch happens most of the hard work will be done, so Andrew and I will only be without power for a day. I should make it clear here that this is how I understand this work to be going. I could have easily misunderstood something as my jobs in the remodeling of the house do not include electrical things at all. I'm more like the designer. I come up with an idea and my sweet husband either explains why it won't work (this usually takes a while, but is very entertaining) or makes it happen (see fridge).

I came home from work one day to this:YAY!! A living room ceiling!! And work on the box for the recessed lighting over the fireplace has begun!


Yesterday I went to Fantastic Fans to check out their going out of business sale (10%-50% off) and found a great deal on the perfect ceiling fan and light for the living room. I can't wait to see it up, but we've decided to wait until all the drywall is up and the mudding and sanding is done.

After the living room is done we'll move all the living room furniture out of the baby's room and begin work there. We're also hoping to get some much needed lawn work done and maybe even straighten out the garage.



And these pictures are especially for Stacey:

Cute and Dr. Seuss-like.



A little gross with prosciutto wrapped melons!

Not just about a house anymore!

Today we found out that we're having a little boy!
So, until the late fall this blog will probably continue to be about our house (what with all the work we have to do!) but come September I'm guessing that a little boy might start making regular appearances here.

It was too beautiful outside not too!

We couldn't stand it a few weekends ago. Yes, there are plenty of things to do inside, but the weather was finally so nice and not cold! So we spent that warm sunny Sunday in the yard.
First Andrew tilled the area in front of the house so we'd have a nice flower bed to work with.


Then we began planting our recently purchased azalea bushes. Five white and five pink.



We also moved the crape myrtle that was oddly placed in the backyard.
Let me explain. Our backyard is great. It is a nice size and has a little bricked-in patio and a garage for all the gardening stuff and Andrew's fun tools. The odd thing is all the little trees and their placement. This picture is from the fall.

There is a fig tree towards the back left corner. Besides being a rather large fig tree, it's fine where it is. Then there's the still unidentified tree directly across from the fig on the right side of the yard. I like this tree, but Andrew thinks it is in the way of where a swing set should be. So the fate of this tree is an ongoing discussion. Closer to the house, actually very close to the house is a row of three trees. Starting on the left side, an apple tree, a crape myrtle, and another apple tree. The poor crape myrtle was kinda squished between the two apples and Andrew and I couldn't really figure out how it was going to grow anymore because it had run out of room. Its limbs were all tangled up in the surround apple trees' limbs. Oh, and then there's the 2nd unidentified tree between the fig and the apple on the left. This tree has very low limbs and is wide so Andrew's not looking forward to cutting the grass around it this summer! We've decided that even though we hate to get rid of trees, this one will have to go and since we don't have any room anywhere else, it'll just have to go. Unless, of course, someone would like to try to transplant it into there own yard!
So here is the crape myrtle in it's new home, thanks to Joe and Corey. It's doing great so far so we're hopeful that it's taken root and will survive. The rain we've had over the last few weeks has certainly helped. And the little azaleas already have flowers. All the white ones have flowers and a couple of the pink ones have buds. We were pretty excited because we weren't even sure if that's bloom at all this year! They're little right now, but healthy!


So, with operation "Curb Appeal" underway, I think we have to move back inside and finish the living room.

Tryin' Real Hard

We're trying to jump back into working on the house. It helps that I've since woken up from my first trimester sleepiness, but hurts that it's the end of Andrew's semester and he has lots of grading and studying to do.
The living room is almost ready to get its new walls! Just a few "minor" wiring things to do and some plaster clean-up, then we'll be ready for insulation and drywall!!! So we're making plans to order the drywall because we hope all these "little" things will all go quickly. We're both getting a little nervous and ready to be done with the living room because we've got to get to work on the room that will become the baby's room.

So the bottom line here is that hopefully in the next few months there will lots of progress and thus a more regular amount of posting.


Oh, as requested, here are those way overdue pictures of the kitchen floor (and Cooper trying to be helpful)!