Different strokes.

I finished project number one (that wasn't just demolishing something)! :) Since I finished this one, the shower has also come together too, so I'll have another update there when we have a shower curtain and it's in functioning order (this weekend hopefully)! 

This 1950's house came complete with a red fireplace (which was previously gray, I believe) and I knew something had to be done about it, but I didn't wanna venture too far into the unknown, so paint is where it starts!

When we looked at the house, the fireplace looked like this. There was no shutoff valve for the gas line, no liner, just lots and lots of red. Since I've had pinterest for quite a while, I knew that painting a fireplace wasn't a big deal. One thing that pinterest doesn't really show is painting a stone fireplace (there are lots of brick ones, but not many stone ones). 

We opted for white since it's versatile and clean (but that didn't really need an explanation...). I'm excited to paint the walls even more now that I saw that they weren't really white anyway. The color we chose Lilac Muse, by Valspar. Isaiah has some painting experience, and he prefers either Valspar or Behr Premium. So we just picked one. :) Choosing a white might be even tougher than choosing a color (like, how in the world to you know that you picked the right one???). We picked one that had more gray/beige than blue or pink in it. It should go well with the wall color we've chosen (which should be up after April 12)! 

Since the red of the fireplace was pretty hefty, we got some paint+primer together. The project wasn't very big, so we got a quart of Lilac Muse at our local Lowes. The cost was $15.28 for a quart, which I'm pretty sure isn't cheap (at least in the paint world), but that is the price we were willing to pay to not look at that red fireplace anymore! The paint+primer was a great choice for this project, because, honestly, it took one complete coat. The only places that required more were the deep cracks and crevices in the stone and around the mortar. Since I was so excited to tackle this project, I just used a brush, but I think a roller might've been easier. :/ Oh well!

 

I started with the mantle just to see what the white would look like, then I painted in the cracks. But to be honest, every time I realized that there was a stone that needed paint, I got distracted from the cracks. So the entire thing was covered by the time I finished my "first step." ;)

This is the only "final" picture I have for now, even though I have finished the bottom right next to the tile. It's definitely an improvement! Right now, we have several paint samples on the wall just above the fireplace, so it wasn't accompanied by yellow walls for long!!!

Until next time...

 

All about how eighty degrees is not alright, and neither is pink paint.

I promise some more exciting posts are coming soon! I have to be moved out of my apartment this coming weekend (which is a time-sensitive issue) so the house renovations have been the less glamorous stuff, but I'll give you a weekly recap anyway!

My parents were in town for the past couple days, and other than helping me organize/downsize my apartment into boxes and lugging it across town, they helped with a few things on the house. :) 

This week...

1. We installed a new thermostat that is easy to use!!! (The last one seemed great, but we couldn't get it to work consistently, so we opted for the programable thermostat that my dad bought for my apartment a couple years ago. Long gone are the days where we walk into a house that is 80 degrees simply because the thermostat is stupid! (or we are...)

2. My dad took down the crown molding (that wasn't even close to the ceilings! That alone makes it feel like we're headed down the right path in a lane faster than the slow lane!

3. Isaiah has nearly finished tiling the crazy (not level or even) shower. :) 

4. We got our washer, dryer, and refrigerator installed! And they sing to me whenever I'm around... literally...

5. We picked out a paint color for the master bedroom and purchased a few things that will get us closer to the painting process (like drywall compound to fill in holes and some caulk to fill in some gaps here and there). More on this soon!

6. My mom ever so lovingly scrubbed several of our kitchen cabinets and got them so much closer to clean-enough-for-dishes! :) I am super thankful for the time she spent on those greasy, grungy cabinets! 

7. We picked out cabinet hardware for the kitchen. :) More on that later too!

8. We made some necessary purchases (like more garbage bags, and a mop bucket, and a garbage can, and a step ladder). These are things that are necessary, and basically necessary all at once! Adulthood/homeownership is tough sometimes!

9. We finished up ALMOST all of the tackstrips and staples from the carpet. The only ones left are the ones in the living room coat closet. Almost done! :) 

10. I moved a decent amount of my stuff to the house also! Isaiah gets to learn VERY soon the joys of living with all my stuff without my lovely presence. He's in for a real treat! ;)

11. AND... we were given some furniture, including but not limited to a clean queen size mattress and box spring, a clean twin size mattress, box spring, and frame, a kitchen-size table and four stools, and a living room chair and ottoman. So basically, we'll have enough beds to accomodate an army (or three extra people, whichever needs some space). And that's not including the furniture we both already have. :) God has been good to us and shown us His goodness in SO many ways! People really have been taking care of us. :)

{Seriously, starting next week, the projects should be more exciting, like what paint colors we picked and how nightmarish the tiling in the bathroom really was...}

Refrigerators, washers, and dryers, oh my!

We knew that we couldn't live in a house very long without having appliances, so we dedicated part of a Friday afternoon to picking out appliances. We also knew that we didn't have a fortune to spend, but quality and warranties were both important to us. Those things led us to the Sears Outlet store in Kansas City (aka the scratch and dent store). Isaiah has been saving up overtime money for these purchases and we had our budget in mind.

Our first stop was the refrigerator section (after we walked past the stoves and saw how pricey they were and decided we could do better somewhere else). I love French Door refrigerators (the ones with two fridge doors at the top and a drawer freezer at the bottom) and Isaiah likes food and things that look nice, so we compromised and looked at French Door Refrigerators. ;) We did some research before we went, but we looked up reviews for the specific models we liked while we looked around. We found one with a fairly agreeable price tag and great reviews, and it had "cosmetic defects" but we couldn't see any, so we're not sure what that was about. {Our pick for the refrigerator was the Samsung RF261BEAESR}

We love the look of the stainless steel (and I've done my pinterest research for ways to keep it clean), we love all the fun features it has, we love the internal water on the fridge wall, the ice maker, AND the fact that it was 50% off the list price!

Our picks for washer and dryer took a little longer (mainly because they weren't paired into matching sets in the store, and that bothered me). I would find one I liked, stand by it so no one else could call dibs, and send Isaiah off to find the match. Because that's what marriage is, right!? Calling dibs on the fun stuff and using your spouse to help you get ahead? Right? Wait, no? Rats... Where was I? Oh, preparing for years of endless laundry... We found some fun washers and dryers at Sears, and the ones we ended up getting were HE (High Effieciency, which is only the washer, because dryers aren't labeled high efficiency because they are only as efficient as the washer being used! The more you know...) and they looked something like this. :)

We wanted a top load washer so we don't have to constantly clean out the door seal (that can smell like mildew really easily in front-loaders) and so we can soak extra dirty clothes (between sports and work will probably be in abundance). {Our pick for the washer was the Samsung WA422PRHDWR}

The dryer was "dented" or something, so it was about $260 cheaper than the washer, since we bought the washer new. {Our pick for the dryer was the Samsung DV422EWHDWR}

Refrigerator new: $2,199.00

Refrigerator "scratch and dent":$1,099.00

Washer new: $899.00

Washer at Sears Outlet: $659.00

Dryer new: $799.00

Dryer "scratch and dent": $399.00

Total cost new: $3,897.00

Total cost at Sears Outlet (without warranties, hookup hoses, tax, and delivery) :$2,157.00 

Total saved: $1,740.00 (45% off retail)

As we were leaving (after having purchased three major appliances), I let out a gasp as we walked past this super fun washer/dryer pair. Isaiah asked if I liked those, and I sheepishly said, "yes" because we had already purchased ones I loved. He laughed and said "those are the ones you just picked out." So apparently I have memory issues!? 

I'll let you know how I love these things after grocery shopping for my husband and washing his dirty work clothes on a regular basis. ;)

{The stove and microwave will be included in a different post because we haven't bought those yet...}

Just because I like lists... and refrigerators...

Well, this week brought lots of adventures with the house, but a summary is all I can give for right now! Hopefully I'll have more to share when I'm not focused on packing up my apartment and trying to help at the house in small ways.

The rundown of the week at the house is...

1. We pulled up the carpet! Most of the hardwood floor looks GREAT, but the hallways between the front door and the bedrooms is coated with sticky black bumps from the original capret padding having melted to the floor over time. More on that project soon!

2. I've been pulling (hammering) up carpet tack strips and carpet staples from all over the house. Those things are a beast!

3. Isaiah's dad fixed our garage door spring and we got garage door openers! :) This one excites me most. ;)

4. Isaiah screwed our gutters on the rest of the way. There was no guarantee that they would stay on the house when the winds blew, but now they won't go anywhere!

5. We bought some APPLIANCES!!! More on how we picked them and what we chose later!

6. We called a plumber to fix a clog in our kitchen drain.

7. I met the mailman! He's a darling little old man. :)

8. We discovered that the neighbors on three sides of us have children in elementary school or younger, and the neighbors on the other side just listed their house for sale.

9. I started painting our (no longer) red fireplace and it already brightens up the house! (And I discovered that all of our walls are yellow... I cannot wait to freshen things up with paint!)

10. We added onto our downspouts so that future precipitation doesn't cause any structural damage to our house. :)

I have a few more fun things to post soon! Thanks for following along with our first-time-home-owner adventures!

A picture is worth a thousand... dollars...

Several of you have told me you couldn't wait to see pictures of the new house, so I snapped a few yesterday after school. :) Some of the pictures I'll save for before and after pictures just for comparison after we've done more work on the house. 

This is the view from the front yard. :) We have a semi-circular driveway that I LOVE and an attached two car garage. I love the fact the the house is brick (and not even ugly brick!) and that it will be virtually no maintenance! 

This is the view from the front door, looking through the living room and into the formal dining room (aka the piano room). The floor in the living room is a pale green carpet (that I TOTALLY thought was khaki until a couple days ago! There is hardwood laminate in the dining room. 

Here is our adorable living room complete with blindingly red gas fireplace, responsible and strikingly handsome fiancé, and lots of construction-related garbage from the bathroom renovation! 

These windows (and the sunshine they let in) make my heart want to sing!!! I didn't realize that natural light was something I wanted in a house, but now that we have it, I LOVE it!!! The house just GLOWS!

This is the front bedroom and its lovely not-so pale green carpet (I could tell that this carpet was green!)

Here is our master bedroom (that has lots of space for my clothes...

and gives us LOTS of hope for the rest of the hardwood floors!)

And what house tour would be complete without a bathroom selfie?? I'm just so excited for the border to be off the walls and for the new tile and paint to go up! Isaiah was so determined to get things done that I didn't even get a chance to get a real before picture! This is the "middle" picture instead!

This is the view of our eat-in kitchen, complete with ancient wall ovens, and an amazing view of our backyard. :)

This is our sunroom (at the other end of our kitchen). Don't mind the flashing on the floor, we had to tear it down during some strong winds so we didn't lose it! Oh the joys of buying a fixer upper! This little room has the potential to become one of my favorite rooms in the house with all the windows and the access to the backyard. :)

This is the long view of our main basement room! The basement stairs are in our garage off of our sunroom. The door to the left is a 3/4 bathroom. The hall to the right leads to the storm shelter/storage room, the heating/cooling/water heater/has-a-surprise-knife-from-the-previous-owners room, and then my craft room (that Isaiah calls the crap room...)

My craFT room...

This is the room at the other end of the basement. "Hopefully" the man cave (aka the OTHER crap room!)

Our walkout basement door! 

And the back of the house!

Thanks for joining us! We're excited to show off more of the house and the work/lessons that go into fixing up this old house! :)