Kitchen Reveal!

It is about time to start having some actual afters to show you guys seeing as how we moved in two months ago...in case you have forgotten, this is what we started with.

After painting the kitchen cabinets, we moved on to flooring and adding baseboards.  During that whole process, we added some beadboard to the flat sides of the cabinets.

After that, Paige came over one night and helped us eradicate the yellow in the kitchen...

We wanted to paint everything before the appliances got delivered.  Once they came, we had to install the overtherange microwave which ended up being a crazy process that involved alot of tools

and Todd installing an electrical outlet over the stove.

After all of that, we had something resembling a kitchen.  However, there was still nowhere for the food to go.  Thankfully, Todd's dad and Julie were able to ship us some things we needed from Woodbridge including this pantry from IKEA.  It was a pain to put together

but well worth it in the end because I finally had a place to put all of this stuff!

Also, somewhere along this process, Todd removed the awful fluorescent light from over the stove and installed some really beautiful recessed lighting.  In the end, after weeks and weeks of work, we went from this

to this

We are still not completely finished (of course).  I have to change out the shade over the window and add some accessories including hardware for the cabinets.  Also we need to finish the trim on the bottom of the pantry.  And of course we are eventually going to get rid of those beautiful yellow countertops.  But WHOA what a dramatic difference.  We absolutely love it and are really happy with how it turned out!  Here are a few more pics for your viewing pleasure..

We're getting there!

Shame On Me!

I have been a terrible blogger lately.  We have just been SO busy trying to get this place in order that I really haven't had time to sit down at the computer.  The amount of posts I need to do are piling up though, so I am just going to dive in.  Let's start with Todd's birthday!  Todd turned the big 2-8 on the 11th, and that Sunday night we went out with a group of friends to celebrate.

There were about 20 of us and we all went to Yamato which is a really good hibachi place over here in Mt. P.  After dinner Todd had to do the obligatory banging of the gong to the happy birthday song...

He also chose to add in some dance moves...it was pretty entertaining!  On Saturday, we had gone shopping at the outlets to get him some new clothes and shoes for work but I still wanted to do something else for his bday so on Sunday night I told him that I needed to borrow the Jeep Mon so I could go pick up a rug for the living room.  Instead, I went to Wal-Mart where we had seen this bike that he really liked.  The guy who put the bikes together at Wal-Mart was really nice, but their customer service overall was not so great.  I wish you could have seen me loading this thing into the back of the Jeep in my work clothes in 90 degree heat. When I got home I wheeled it into the backyard to set up the surprise.

Then I went into the house and let Charley out finally and this is what happened...

As you can see, I'm not sure if it was the bike or the balloons but he was not having it in his backyard!

When Todd got home he was really surprised and we rode our bikes to dinner at a pizza place down the street.  It was a fun bday!

Moving Day!

So, when we embarked on this little adventure, the original plan was to have an entire month to move in slowly which sounded great.  Unfortunately, with all the construction that was going on that wasn’t really an option so we had to revert to plan B, which was basically let’s wait and move at the absolute last possible second.  Moving day finally arrived last Saturday and it was a beautiful sunny day.  Todd and Matt loaded up the trailer for round 1 (planning on there being a round 2 at some point) while Don worked on baseboards and my mom and I painted the master bedroom.

They unloaded all of our furniture and stashed it in the back bedroom (which is the only room that had clean floors at this point) except for the table and chairs which we put in the living room so that we would finally have something to sit on.  It also gave us another flat surface to clutter up with construction stuff. 

Meanwhile, my mom and I painted the master bedroom.

Before

So after all this hard work, we took a lunch break.  Shortly thereafter it started raining and didn’t stop for 4 days.  That kind of put a damper on our second run with the trailer plan.  Which led to plan B—Todd and I cramming everything in our cars and making 3 trips back and forth on our last night at the old place.  Joey and Chanel were nice enough to come over with their truck and help us move the big things we still had left (in the rain) and eventually we got it all out.  

I took this pic because it really was raining but you can't really tell.  

Our place now looks like this…but we are working on the unpacking!

DIY Gone Wrong

In the midst of all this DIY craziness, our poor little pup was slightly neglected.  His hair was out of control long and he really needed his summer cut.  My plan was to make an appointment at the groomers, but the DIY spirit was so strong that we Todd decided to do it ourselves.  Thinking it would only take 15-20 mins, we went out on the front porch armed with scissors and a shaver.  An hour later, we came back with this.  I think we will be leaving this one up to the professionals from now on…what do you guys think?

He’s embarrassed to be seen like this…

Floors Floors Floors...

We were finally able to make some headway on the floors with Don’s help.  Here is a pic of Todd installing the final piece!

As you can see it was really exciting!  In other fantastic flooring news, it turns out lumber liquidators way oversold us on flooring and glue (we had a whole extra bucket).  They have a 20% “restocking” fee, so in order to maximize our refund we were able to get brand new 5 and ¼” baseboards without spending any extra money!!!!!!  It was great news because we were planning on reusing the old baseboards to be thrifty but they were in really bad shape.  Don installed baseboards and quarter round around the whole house and they look AMAZING!   

Time Out

Believe it or not, I was actually able to get a hall pass one Saturday.  While Todd, Don, and Nathan finished installing the floors in the last bedroom, I took my get out of jail free card and road tripped down to Myrtle Beach with Tiggz and Chanel to see Jamie and Molly.  We had a relaxing day sitting by the pool and outlet shopping.  We even got Miss Molly some Paris Hilton shades while we were out.  She was a great little shopper so the apple didn’t fall too far from the tree!  I was b-a-d at taking pics while I was there, but here are the few that I shot.

She’s not too sure how she feels about these…

Bath time with Mommy and Aunt Tiggz.

Just chillin with Aunt Chanel…

It was so fun and I can’t wait til they come back to Myrtle sometime in May so we can do it again!