Paint!

Hello all! I'll keep this one relatively short and sweet for now with a nice smattering of photos! 

Here are all 6 of our final paint colors! From all the input we had we pretty much still did our own thing :) haha sorry everyone! Doesn't our stucco look fantastic though? When I started painting the first round of 3 I kept looking at them and thinking of the 3 Little Bears... only they were all wrong. The second set of 3 was more to my liking! The row on the right contains our paint color... can you guess which one?! 

Here is the house primed and ready for paint! I was able to take my top 2 back out and paint it on top of the primer, this gave me a better idea for the final result of the color since it wasn't absorbed as much as it was on just the fresh stucco. 

We visited one morning before work and we were able to thank one of the guys painting the house! The color that we ended up going with was from a new collection from Valspar! 

A Sherwin Williams rep even came out to the house to see the color! 

So here is the beautiful paint color! Yes, its still in the early stages since the windows have no trim... but its so beautiful! The Hubs was worrying so much about me not liking it since we decided to pull the trigger so to speak. I cant love it enough! It just has this glow to it... haha okay I'll stop... but you have to admit its really a nice color! 

Insert silly Hubs picture! Found this cutie while I was taking my normal photos! Love him!! (That's just primer on the walls by the way) 

I watched him from the porch just roaming around the yard looking up into the trees... 

Surprise! He was actually looking for these vines hanging down so he could pull them! (This man has thoughts of a tree house as well)

Once he pulled most of what he could down....

Jumping really high was clearly the next option to help rid us of these vines.

But sadly, that was not his last...

So up I went. We learned this skill of being able to reach anything via Circus act because we didn't own an actual ladder for the longest time! Do you know how hard it is to change the battery of a dying smoke detector with no ladder!?? That random beeping alone is enough to make you go crazy! 

BEEP.

Needless to say I now know where the hammock is going to go. 

This was just breathtaking to look up into! 

BEEP.

Yay!!! Our front wall is going in! I had no idea what kind of roots we had under there but wow that was some back breaking stuff there! 

Today when we came out to the house the first part of the cement was poured! Scary! :) 

Oh this is going on across the street.

Uh huh, our house was too tall so he decided to build his fence up... well guess what neighbor I'm going to buy a paint gun and paint it white. This annoys me. 

On a happy note... we brought all 3 dogs for the first time! We just couldn't wait! We ran around in the yard for a little bit and then took a walk into the neighborhood! It was so peaceful and quiet! 

Okay time for me to get some sleep! I am super overworked and in need of a trip to St. Thomas... ((cough love you babe cough)) 

Long summer nights...even longer blog posts.

I can only thank my lucky stars that we are only months away from being in the new house! Thankfully my neighbors quickly got rid of the extremely small cage of roosters and chickens they had stashed in their back yard... but this was only after a few 5:30 am roosterings to wake us up. I can now say I hate living downtown. It is just not for me.

I know I am complaining but with this heat and putting in some good hours at work I am officially exhausted. To my family and friends who are reading this: No, there is not a baby on the way. I am just tired... but I cant say that it hasn't crossed my mind that if I was preggers I would totally get out of moving haha :) Nope just a lack of baths and not being able to drop the A/C to just above freezing my sleep has been all out of whack!

Things are getting done on the homefront though! They finished our drywall! The house is so silent now! No outside noise, no road noise, nothing! Its wonderful. I think that I will start to bring a blow up mattress and just sleep in here.... sure there isn't any a/c but at least I wont have to worry about fire trucks and roosters :) 

Also helping to eliminate any noise would be our new fence! 

This is what our backyard used to look like.... (yes we took Remmington James out to the house, but I am hoping that he wont remember... but he did take his first poop there) 

This is as the back part was going up, at that point we were still missing the last section of the fence.

Just to give you an idea of big this fence really is I am 5'3 (awkward photo only because I felt like I was in a police line up when I looked up) This fence is huge! Its all being custom built since we wanted it to be 8 feet tall. Its a beautiful cyprus, board on board construction! OOOHHHHH!!!! Privacy! I cant wait!!!! We also cant see the houses or our own house from the post office anymore because of this glorious fence. I am so happy! Yes, making it taller cost us a few more pennies (ha) but its going to be worth it! 

Thanks Gabriel! 

They also sprayed all the texture on the walls! The whole house was blue inside from the protective plastic over the windows and doors... yes, I know the quality of my photo is bad but its on average 96 degrees at 6:00pm here in Florida and this house was SWELTERING! 

We started on round 2 of paint samples, sadly we will not be going with a blue color or any color that might resemble blue. Our neighbor who lives in a little shack house has blue paint, I will not match my neighbors. We also eliminated the top color since that is too close to one of our other neighbors. Grey is going to be our jam! I know, I love that color but you can offset grey with almost any color! Green plants will look nice with it and maybe some blue for the water feature near the front door! See! Its not going to be totally monotoned! 

We also received our first and second orders from Overstock.com! I am usually not a fan of buying things online when I havent been able to even see them.... but they have a great return policy! 

My first order was a couple of these guys! They are for the master bathroom! They are so sparkly and so... me! Ha on a serious note I did read the reviews before hand and knew I needed to put each and every strand of crystals on this fixture but I guess I just wasn't prepared for how long it would really take. For now I just did one. Only 7 more to go! woohoo! :/ I know I will probably regret buying these the day I finally have to clean them but for now I am in love! 

Our second purchase was this light! I was going to go with something with a little more funk to it for the foyer area but The Hubs really loved how this went along nicely with the front door! The assembly on this was a cake walk compared to the last set of lights! The coloring is beautiful and we are both really happy with the way this came! 

While we are on the subject of spending money... We bought our couches! Yay! We headed up to Ashley furniture and Ikea (about an hour away, get with the times furniture stores its just too far to drive!) 

We walked in and headed straight to our couch we showed everyone previously sat down and relaxed.... then we decided to just take another look around. Confession: I secretly hate furniture sales people! If they would just say hello and then back off it wouldn't be such a big deal! This woman that we worked with this time walked up behind us as we were walking somewhere else and said "Uh I'm trying to greet you!" Never in all my years of customer service have I ever given or gotten a greeting like that. At that point I decided to let The Hubs handle the talking. ((shaking my head)) after we got her out of our hair (if you walk really fast they will think you aren't there to spend money and will leave you alone) we found another set of couches we really liked! 

Yay! look at the nail head accents! Thankfully it passed all tests including the Tony test! (The Tony test is when my Brother-in-law comes over to the house can he lay down comfortably? Yes, my 6'11 brother can lay down in comfort! side note I'm not sure hes that tall but hes pretty damn tall) So The Hubs found the angry sales lady and told her we wanted the couches. She started the paperwork for us and then ran back over to show us the "features" by this time we had spent a good 20 min looking over everything on the couch, frame, cushions, zippers, you name it we looked it over so we knew the "features" maybe she did this because she was feeling bad that she had written us off so soon, who knows but we all just nodded while I tuned her out and looked on at other displays. We payed, took our paperwork, and left. We may or may not have picked up the pace of our walking on the way out haha just incase she wanted to show us more "features"! 

We then headed to Ikea, where we picked up our sink and base for one of the guest bathrooms. The clean lines and big drawers were a huge plus for this set since we dont have a linen closet in that bathroom. 

Here are the boys going into man mode to haul our stash to the register! The box that my husband is carrying is about 5 feet long we originally had this laying sideways on the cart but we started to get some funny looks from other customers who were about to have their ankles pulled out from under them as we passed. haha! They look silly only because 1. We didn't spend hours in Ikea and 2. We chugged Red Bulls before we even went inside! All in all it was a great day of shopping! I always have a blast with these two though and I am lucky enough to get to work with both of them everyday! 

Okay I'm sure I have made your eyes hurt by now from all the reading you have done so I will leave today posting :) More pictures to come later! 

One day to another

Hello! Welcome back! My what a week it has been and its only Tuesday! 

While everyone was sleeping a few mornings ago they used a crane to bring in all of our drywall! 

Okay so I was possibly the only one sleeping but The Hubs had to head over to the house to meet with someone or another (I'm sorry if I dont remember I have been stretched thin lately and my mind is going) Thankfully he snapped these pics for me to share! 

By the time he got to the house they were already halfway done with unloading! I didnt know it would take that amount of effort to bring in all of the sheets! 

This may look like a photo from my last posting but I'm sure you didnt notice that The Hubs was leaning on the one of the many giant piles of drywall (maybe its sheet rock). There was some in the office, master bedroom, and here in the living room. Seriously a massive amount of this stuff! 

So today was the day to begin hanging the drywall (gypsum board) we pulled up to the house and there was still a large crew of guys working... oh did I forget to mention that today was also the day for the Stucco?! Yea, so... we had to walk in the back of the house...

I cant even begin to tell you how long I held my breath walking up to our back door... 

I cried. 

Yep. 

Literally cried. I have never felt such a strong emotion completely wash over me like this! Sure its not complet but it has come so far from the days it looked like this...

I cant, I cant even start to explain how happy I am. This beautiful field of dirt has transformed to my home. MY home! Todd pulled up before we walked in so it was nice to have that moment there with the main man! Just wow. 

I am standing where the fridge is going to go.

This lovely view is from the hallway walking into the master bedroom. How amazing are these archways?! Look at how the trees are split in the windows! The light in this room is just stunning as well! EEEPPP

Here is a view standing from the sliding glass door in the master. 

Look closely there is a bathtub in this photo! Well the tub part isnt here yet but you get it :) 

Master shower... now the next question... do we run the glass all the way to the ceiling or do we keep it   just going half way up? Steamy or not to be steamy? 

Hey black hole... cant wait to fill you up with my clothes! :) 

Look! We have a ceiling outside! Yay! I missed this when I first walked up to it (maybe because I was holding my breath before we walked in the house) Oh my we have some big plans for the patio area! 

Since you can see a little bit of the stucco here from that photo let me give you another! 

Ha I know! It doesnt look like much of a change from the very back yard but I'll give you something else to see! Lets just take a moment to get excited about everything being dead back there!!! Yay! I cant wait for a riding lawn mower! 

Here ya go! Ha I know looks just like the block... only less... prison-esk. :)

Now we do have some decisions to make here... First: color... but we are working on that one. Second: Do we even need to do stone on the front of the house?! Here is where we will be able to save a nice little chunk to go into something else in the house. Eesh. I'm over decisions. 

That is what it looked like when we pulled up today! We got there a little after 6 so they are puttin' in the OT! Woop Woop! 

Fun fact! I cut out what the door looks like in the very first photo of the inside! Haha Sorry I cant just show you what it looks like when it has a plastic sheet over it! Gross :) Guess you'll have to keep waiting! We did get a chance to open it and close it for the first time the other day (the day we found a tree had fallen onto our property)! 

This is a few days after "Bamboo-Gate" guess the high winds got to this tree or maybe some of the crazy lightning we have been having was to blame for this poor feller's fall. I'll quickly touch on "Bamboo-Gate" well we were walking past this pile of block when we saw 3 or 4 super long, super big poles of bamboo laying right next to it... now this grass had just been chopped so maybe it had been sitting there for a few days to a week.... but no way had they been there for more than two months... our neighbor (who is the proud owner of a large patch of very tall, very big bamboo) claims they had nothing to do with this because they just moved in 2 months ago. This is the same crazy raccoon lady from the early days, she must not remember ever talking to us... unless her equally as crazy twin moved in... which could totally happen. :) 

Shiny things

In all the excitement with the front door I completely forgot to mention we purchased our new appliances! At this point I feel like we are spending so much money its seriously not fun to spend anymore! haha :) I kid I'm ready to keep shopping hah!

So this is a thing right now with Home Depot. 

Seriously we were going to be about 3K over budget on the styles of appliances we wanted... but thankfully Tis' the Season to buy appliances! No seriously, we have been told for months by a ton of people at Best Buy, H H Greg, Lowes, and Home Depot to just wait... The July sales are the best all year. They were not kidding! 

Like I touched on earlier in my posting the smaller the fridge is the more expensive it is, we thankfully got a lot off of that higher price tag from this sale. Washer & Dryer have about $300 off for each unit. Dishwasher a good $300 cheaper. We did take a chance with the double ovens. I loved what I had read about the GE Profile series but they are coming out with an upgrade, so with no reviews but the ones from the older model we took a chance and ordered it. By the time we get it delivered there should be plenty of reviews out there on it and I have the option to exchange it for something else. 

The jury is still out on the wine fridge we are putting in. 

Ooo! Almost forgot to mention that since we were getting 6 appliances we got an additional $400 off! Plus our 5 year warranty on each one we got 10% off! 

SCORE!!!! 

While finishing our purchase at the HD we had a few gift cards from the wedding we wanted to apply to this so we had to be taken up front... apparently there was a man that had been waiting the whole hour we were working on this order (just getting the order processed, we had priced it out the week before) as Bob (our salesman) told the man he would be right back the man decided it would be a great time to FLIP OUT! Long story short... we were over it and snapped right back at him. Come on! Seriously! We just picked out SIX Large appliances and you need a mini fridge! MINI FRIDGE!? 

RELAX. 

Today was FOAM SEAL DAY! 

What once looked like this... 

Now looks like this!!! 

It was seriously cool! Its not your old school pink panther insulation! They come in and spray it on and it expands to all the nooks and crannies of the roof and it changes how EVERYTHING sounds now! 

Its sooo much more peaceful in the house. Its also going to help with our heating and cooling costs on just the pre-limb Energy Efficiency ratings we are at an 83% This Foam sealant actually as of recently has a fire retardant in it as well! By the time the house is finished the crawl space should be about the same temp as the rest of the house (maybe a little bit more because our roof is black). 

We headed out today while at work to pick out our paver driveway! We went with a dark color on this as well to tie in the roof to the ground. Yep, thats the door... Nope, you cant see anymore. 

Okay! SURPRISE! Door handle! Boom. Tell me these dont look like a real castle door handle!? Goodness gracious I love this door. I'm still kinda mad at it but it being so pretty is helping its case. The lines alone on this handle are so sexy. 

We have been picking up paint chips for weeks now. I have seen every single color known to man at this point. I dont have anymore room in my brain for another color! Ha who am I kidding, sure I do. I'll one day make something out of all these paint chips... just you wait and see! 

We tried our first 3 actual paint samples on the block today. 

This is going to be a tough one. As we were painting these on the wall the crazy raccoon lady came out of her house to stand and watch, we then knew she was headed over to talk to us when her boyfriend called out to the kids to go over there with her. Well we had ruled out the blue color, she walked up to us and said that we should pick the blue color. Right. Got it. No. On the plus side she did tell us how beautiful our door is! Yay! We are leaning more with the middle color possibly a little less olive and maybe a little more tan but thats something we will just have to try out more samples with! 

I call these my little hieroglyphs. Its fun to find these little gems here and there... its like finding out what was said while we were at work :) 

We originally got two of these mirrors for the master bathroom, but with the change in the lights we are actually moving one into another bathroom and taking the second one back. I love the lines of this mirror. Just something so interesting about it. 

Also Gabe (our go to guy for anything outside) stopped by the house to spray our grass and weed problem afterwards he headed by our workplace to talk about some other things he is going to be doing for us very soon... He couldnt believe how tall everything was and he said it was quite a lot of work! Yea! I know this first hand. It was completely out of control... then he decided he wanted to buy our car. Yep my sweet little (not so little) Pathfinder is going off to a new home this weekend. I told him he had to take it with all the dog hair in it! Sad face, back to my Highlander that was named after a pair of tighty whities. :( Yea its white and ugly. One of those things that everyone loves to have but doesnt want anyone else to know they have it. Ha! 

Gabe also pulled up a bunch of these... if anyone has any idea what they are please let me know! Apparently they are taking over! Weird!