Home Project #4

Turning our house into a HOME 
Project #4: The Kitchen!

Well lets just start with this picture. This is before.  

We use our side door for our main entrance and this is what you saw when you walked in. The placement of this kitchen is BAD. It is a small kitchen to begin with and with everything where it was it just made it smaller. We wanted more then just a face lift in here, we wanted to rip everything out and start fresh. We took it step by step, it took a few months of washing dishes in the bathtub eating off of paper plates with plastic silverware. We even had to buy a single burner to cook on. It was not fun. Let me repeat myself, IT WAS NOT FUN, but looking back on it we are so glad we did it. Not only for living in our house now, but for re-sell value.

This is what we wanted the finished look to look like: 

Step 1: Demo

J and Uncle Mike cut a nice hole in the kitchen/dinning room wall. 

It is amazing just how much it opened the whole area up! 

View from the dinning room

Step 2: floors

We had to get everything out of the kitchen to rip up the old nasty floor

proof that I helped! 

This floor was nasty and sucked getting up. It went something like this: 

laminate, glue, super old tile, glue, glue, tar, and then felt that was nailed down every square inch. 

some of the nasty "glue" that did not want to leave

 To our amazement there was amazing hardwood planks under all of that. This was such a wonderful find!!

After the sandless guys came back

To be Continued....

Home Project #3

Turning our house into a HOME 

Project #3: The Bathroom! 

Living in a home with one bathroom has its cons and only one pro that I can think of, only have to clean one bathroom! This bathroom was pretty much all original to the house. The sink had to go, the mirror had to be replaced, the light fixtures had to go, fresh paint...it really needed more then a face lift.

Our first task was the sink. It was too big for the room and it had separate cold/hot facets and well it was just nasty. 

Before              

Uncle Mike and J taking the stink down

Its gone!!! 

Thankfully Mike was there to help us with the pluming, 

two things you do not mess around with when remodeling, pluming and electricity. 

 new sink looks so much better

We went back and forth about the floor. I LOVED the floor, J on the other hand thought it did not go with the house feel. I am not sure how I won that argument but I did, and with winning I was the one to deep clean the tiles. After the deep clean it was so much better.  

We got a new shower curtain, replaced the light fixtures and will be replacing the blinds when we find the right ones. 

Final product!! 

Creative Memories

As most of you know I am a Creative Memories consultant. I signed in October 2010, and took a few months off over the Holiday's....Well IM BACK!!! 

I went to an all-day Crop/Corporate event on Saturday and it certainly renewed my spirit about Creative Memories and why I am a consultant. I was able to work on my wedding book and completed just over 20 pages, the end is in sight!! I am about half way though and will be done by next week. 

On Saturday I learned that Creative Memories will be donating portions of PSP’s  (Photo Solution Parties) to the Red Cross and the Japan relief efforts. I want to host 4 parties before March 31, if I get reach that goal, I will MATCH what corporate is donating to the Red Cross.  

So here is where you can come in. Can you host a party before March 31?? I KNOW you can! The best part about our newly updated PSP’s is that it is for everyone! Do you know people who take pictures? I am sure you do, invite them! I am trying to get in touch with as many people so I can help them share their stories, let’s get those pictures printed so they can tell the stories!!  

If you do not want to host at your house we can have it at a local coffee shop!   

So when should we book your party? Let’s get it on the books so we can donate money as well complete stories.

Here is a super cute Thank you card that we (Lily and myself) created with our software, Storybook Creator, for Lily's birthday party. She is a completely sweet little lady I babysit, and lucky enough to share birth-dates with! We cut a slit on the top and bottom of her hand and placed a flower there. To give the effect of her holding it, the party goers and Lily LOVED it!! 

Home Project #2

Turning our house into a HOME Project #2: the Living room/Dinning room!! When picking out wall/trim colors J was all over it. He has an eye for things that like that, I do not! My first apartment was painted the lovely shade of purple, why? because I liked the color, not because it went with the decor, the carpet or the mood I was trying to achieve. I firmly believe some colors should not be available in wall paint. So J is now our labor man and interior designer. I am one lucky gal!!

After about a week of looking at every.single.paint swatch out there we picked our colors!First, we have to take all of the base boards off. Scrap all off 20+ years of paint, cat/dog urine and Lord knows what else off of the base boards and then varnish them the beautiful wood color we picked out. Then we painted, and by we I mean J did the majority of the work. I tried to help him out, but I just wasn't doing it right... something about brush strokes and going with the grain blah blah.

This was a process!

We got SO excited about painting the very next thing we did was put a call into the sandless-hardwood floor guys to come and give our floors a much needed DEEP clean. 

Before: 

After: 

Dinning room

well worth all of the work we put in!! 

(do you like J's sweet CD rack he made? I do too but thankfully its in his office now) 

We also put in the light fixture over the dinning room table, we wanted the "old world feel"

Living room

turning a house into a HOME (Project #1)

J has lived in his house for just over 5 years now. It took me moving in about 3 years ago for him to turn his Bachelor pad into a home. He had visions of what his house could be someday but never really wanted to start remodeling. Always hoping the market would turn and he could sell as is. One day he came to the realization that we wouldn't be moving for quite sometime and we better get making this house a home.

Now J works 4- 10 hours shifts 2:00 pm until 1:00 am Monday-Thursday. He wanted to try and do as much of the remodel as he could, I would help from time to time but I'm not the handiest lady out there. I was there for moral support and supervision really.

We live in a 1 1/2 story house that was build in 1933. So when we talk about remodeling it is not fun. This do not go right or on the time frame we think it will go.


Project #1:We started with the upstairs/loft area.
This was what it looked like after our renters moved out. (J moved into my apartment with me and he rented his house out. When my lease was up we moved into his house) They did a great job painting, just not the colors we would have picked out. We did leave it like that until a few months ago. We started with painting the trim/window frames and carpet!!! We pretty much finished there with the upstairs. Knowing that one day we would move downstairs into one of the bedrooms we wanted to focus our attention downstairs.

whats on my mind?

I haven't been the best blogger as of late. I guess I haven't had a whole bunch to write about. I certainly have had a lot on my plate. I am a CO-coordinator as a wedding planner, a Consultant for Creative Memories, a District Consultant for Plum District. I have a full time job as a recruiter, multiple babysitting jobs. I am also trying my best to be a friend, sister, cousin and wife.

So where do I begin with this post? where would I end? I am sitting at caribou listening to the world go around wondering if things in my life are about to change, hoping and dreaming that everyone in my life will be happy when they wake up tomorrow and still in the back of my head I cant get the images of Japan out of my head. It is mind altering. Like I am watching a movie about the end of the world, but this is real life. not some movie I paid $20 to see. SEE I am all over the place aren't I.

Why did I start this blog? to be able to vent, flame free, to be able to write and get things out of my mind. Yet people read this, okay maybe 4 people, but still people read this so I am holding back on what I am really feeling. Why? this is my blog this is my outlet.  I think I am reading into this whole blog thing. My goal for this blog is to document my struggles, joys and nothingnesses of being a wife and some day a mom.

If you have stuck with me so far you should know that this is what I live for. I have known since day one that I was put on this earth to be a mom. To care for, love and watch my children grow. That dream became this much closer when I met J, then even closer when we got married over a year ago now. Since then we have been trying to have a little one of our very own. Well not that long, 6 months really. Some months we really, really tried others not so much but for the main part of those 6 months I have always had it in the back of my mind. This could be the month, this could be MY time to announce that we are finally pregnant. I have had a number of close friends get the great news since we have been trying, all the while hoping we would be close behind. I have had one very low month of "why not us, why not now" I had to take a step back and realize why we are doing this. What the end result will be.

A baby love. That is what it is all about. Having the honor of making J a Father. Watching him read a book to our baby love in my belly, the long nights and early mornings talks. The birth and watching him hold our baby love and then him looking up at me with tears in his eyes and that moment of "we did it, we really did it."  Well to get to that moment I/we have to be in a great place with in out hearts. I have heard the "it will happen when it happens" yes I get that is true, just to let you know it gets old hearing that. But I have to remember where that statement comes from. To me a baby is the love between two people. I had to come back to US and the love that we have and how it somehow just keeps growing and getting deeper.

I have also researched a ton already. I have picked the place where we will be birthing, picked out a pretty neat birth plan and have even found my Doula. (all we need now is to get pregnant! :) ) I have come across a book: "Spirit Babies" it is such a great read and has an open mind approach about your baby and how it's soul/spirit can pick you, either the mother, the father or both, sometimes 100's of years before this very moment.

I am taking the holistic approach to TTC (trying to conceive) as well as the pregnancy.  Yes I want to go natural.....While some might look at me like I am crazy, I look at them like they dont have a open mind. So if this comes up in a conversation ask me about it. I'd love to see your view points as well.

Yes so my mind is pretty much all over the place lately. I am pretty excited to have something to post about one day soon until that happens you'll be getting blogs like this. This proves that I have to blog more, or does it?

My Psychic Reading.

Why not right? If you know me you know I am a open book and cant really hide things. You also know while I was planning our wedding I was on theknot.com, moved over to thenest.com and now I am on thebump.com...I tend to get pretty attached to the ladies who post stories about their life and what they are going though. They are someone to vent to, someone to relate to and someone to be excited for. 

A few weeks ago while on The Bump everyone was talking about Cheri22.com, and that she is a baby predictor! While I had some reservations of paying $10 to someone on the internet I was also tempted. I went to her website, read up on her and what she had to offer, filled out a few things, went to my paypal account and clicked send. About a week later I got an email telling me when we will get pregnant/conceive/or find out and who our daughter will be. Below is the email. I also commented after a few of the readings thoughts. Enjoy what you read... and remember, just like I am, take it with a grain of salt! 

Here is the reading:  

I am seeing you guys with a little girl and they relate her to DECEMBER so this is either birth month, conceive month or the month you find out in. {so it could be this month, or next... or March of this year... or next year, really it could be whenever}

I am seeing her as someone who is always going to be so full of joy and fun. I think that you will find her to always have high hopes for those around her and just really cares. Shes always hands on, giving you a hug to show her appreciation. {kind of sounds like a amazing blend of J and me!}

She LOVES dolls and is usually the one thing that you can count on her to play with. I am seeing her having darker colored hair and LOVES to wear it up in pig tails. {okay so I can picture her now.} Right around shoulder length and very straight. She loves wearing dress up clothes and wearing costume jewelery. {again, if you really know me, this WAS me when I was growing up!! I would change clothes multiple times a day.}  I think that you will find her to pretty much entertain herself most times. Shes someone who finds the dolls she wants to play with and will often come into the room that your in, and just start to play. You will see how adorable she is, always taking clothes that you no longer want but are dressy and having you tie a rope around the waist so she can have a dress. I think that you will find her to really enjoy this type of dress up clothes rather than the store bought dress up clothes. I think that its because its from you and your husband (she plays with some of his shirts) and relates to something you would actually wear to dress up. She loves wearing long sleeved gloves, wearing hats with feathers, and inviting you over to her "house" for a tea party. {adorable right!?}

There is a little doll that appears to be a collectors type piece that really reminds me of alice in wonderland. Its face appears to be porcelain and does have a bit of wear on it. This is her most favorite doll and the one that she will often drag around with her everywhere. I believe that someone got this for her second hand which is why its not something that you make her put away:) {This reminds me of Sue, my amazing Mother-in-Love, she always scores great deals at second hand stores. So this kind of hits home}

When it comes to your daughter, shes someone who is always going to be respectful. When she has something on her mind that she wants to say that might be unpleasant to hear, will often warn that person that she has something to say and that they might not enjoy hearing it. {hehe, TOTALLY ME.} 

When it comes to career paths, they show her working as an insurance agent. {What? this is quite random!}

When it comes to marriage I am seeing her closer to 22. They will have one girl and one boy of their own. {A little young to be getting married, but if she is in love, then great} 

End of reading......

So that was a fun maybe, look into what lies ahead of us. Lets hope some of it comes true. We are always thankful for Thoughts and Prayers sent our way for a little bundle of joy to grace us with his/her presence....and hopefully next year!!