Before And Afters

It’s official-we’ve met with our realtor and the house should be on the market by Monday! Finally! Actually, it sounds funny that I’m saying “finally!” when we purchased this place just last year. Good grief.

Anyway, I was browsing through some old photos last night and thought it would be fun to do a before and after post. Erick took some new pictures after work last week. My word, the memories! This might be a lengthy post, but it will mainly be pictures. So here ya go:

The Kitchen:

Before!

The eat-in area of the kitchen

We still have to add the kickboards under the cabinets. Our original plans were to subway tile the backsplash, put an open shelve under the cabinets, add crown molding...buy new barstools. But we are letting someone else take over from here!

We added a half wall between the eat-in area of the kitchen and living room. Further plans were to add built-in seating and a rectangular pedestal table.

The Living Room:

Before…

Check out this crew of scrapers! And all those layers…I still have dreams about scraping layer after layer…

After number one

After number 2 (taken from the kitchen)

The Bathroom. This one was pretty awful to begin with.

eek. We layed new tile, among about 15 other changes in this room.

The wall was half missing, and there was a *fantastic* drop ceiling. Which we scrapped. Immediately.

After

(funky shadow, I know)

Our bedroom:

yeah, even came with a dresser half way in the closet!

scraping cat pee filled carpet. awesome!

no more layers of wallpaper, no more cat pee carpet!

The Boy’s Room:

The very last layer of wallpaper in here was nursery-themed. For all of the work involved in starting from the beginning, it was actually fun to see the “history”, you know?

We actually started on this room after we moved out, so we gave it a good ol’ coat of white paint.

Downstairs Room Number One:

Filled with junk when we moved in…unfortunately unusable junk!

this was going to be my craft room...ahhh...a space of my own! We pulled up the carpet and put new flooring down in here, also.

There is also one other room across from this one, but Erick didn’t get any “afters” of it. It almost mirrors the room above, but the paint scheme is different.

Anyway, that gives you a glimpse of almost everything we overhauled.

And this will give you a glimpse of the market situation these day.

The owners before us purchased the house for $130,000.

We are listing it at $89,900

But God is Good. And Big. And will give us what we need, when we need it. Of that we are sure!

Anybody want to buy a house?

Ok, well, Erick let the cat out of the bag on facebook, so I figured I could let all of my bloggy friends in on the know; we are selling our house.  The one we have been in exactly one year this month.  It’s all rather overwhelming right now, especially because this housing market is simply laughable right now.  As in funny, haha, tears streaming down your face, are you kidding me?  laughable.

However!  The sell of this house could quite simply put us back in the town we truly love, and into a smaller mortgage.  Closer to church.  Right near my parents. Into a place that I have adored for a long, long time.  So it’s a GOOD thing.  Gone, however, is that summer of leisure I was imagining.  We still have quite a bit of work to do on the place;  in the meantime, for some insane reason, houses are popping up for sale all up and down our street.   All very valid reasons, but talk about timing!  And looking at selling prices, we are quite resigned to the fact that we will not be recovering all of the money we put into this place.  But that is ok; the last year we have learned such an incredible amount, in every area imaginable, that we are actually willing to “pay” for the experience.

Yesterday my mother in law took the boys, and Erick and I cleared out most of our belongings to store, enabling us to work with a “blank slate”.  It is SO much easier this way.  But WOW it zooms me right back to last year, running to the gas station for a slice of pizza so we can getbacktoworkalready.  It’s all rather surreal, actually.  The really, really neat thing?  I have to actually admit that we’ve done a pretty good job on this house.  Once the details are wrapped up, I can just picture someone peeking in the window and saying “Yes!  This is IT!”  I think we have really lightened and brightened the place up, and we are going to throw in a few extras, so I’m hoping we can be competitive enough to sell, and soon.   So I’ll be sharing pictures with you soon, albeit of empty rooms.  We aren’t even going to consider staging, not with what we have to work with.  And when every penny we are spending right now is pretty much guaranteed not to be recovered, we can’t afford to buy new, pretty things.  So we’ll just hope someone can look inside and see completely-ready-to-move-in-potential.

So there!  I actually would covet your prayers.  We have a long road ahead of us.  And if you know if anyone looking to move to fabulous Maine, send them my way. 

Outside

Well…this was last week, in our front yard.  Just a matter of getting my druthers together to post it…after the color is just about all gone!  But it was beautiful while it lasted!

Trees (apple is white…not quite sure what the pink is.  Anyone know?)

Lilacs (not fully in bloom then, but they are now!  And the smell!  Wowza! Remember me mentioning I have a ton of these?)

Violets and Dandelions.  Good excuse not to mow the grass…

My tulips were gone by the time I had my camera whipped out, but we do have Iris now.  Thank you, former occupants, for your love of perennials!  Saves me quite a bit o’ cash!

Off The Shoulders

Ahhh, sweet release.  The burden is gone.  Done.  Kaput.

I love how God teaches us things.  Sometimes quietly, with a whisper.  Sometimes not so subtly.  Lately He has been teaching me new truths by practically whammin’ me upside the head from multiple directions.  Sound painful?  It’s not.  It’s fantastic, because you know without a doubt that what you are learning is spot-on!

For, oh, about 10 years (as long as I’ve been engaged-almost as long as I’ve been married) I’ve had that “nesting” instinct.  I’ve wanted to decorate-to have that cushy, lovely place to come home to.  Hard to do that in an apartment that you know will be temporary…so my “goal” has been homeownership (who am I kidding…homeloanership is more like it  for quite a few years!)  You can make it your own, do what you want to do-you know the drill.  When Erick and I signed the papers on our nest last year, I couldn’t wait to get a jump on it. We even carted home bathroom tile and a sink right after we gave the bank our John Hancock.

If you have followed me long enough-you’ve read my distress.  I’ve gone through a love-hate relationship with this house.  In a week or two we will have owned the place for a year, and not one detail is complete.  Not one room is “picture-worthy”.   It bothered me to no end, but I slowly became used to it.  One thing I did NOT want, though, was to start having company over (minus VERY close friends who we hoped would care less what state our abode was in).  One of my dreams for this house was to open it up to company and have it be a place where people could gather, but I was too embarrassed!  After putting off a friend for a few months, I finally agreed to host a Pampered Chef show (coming up shortly) and I figured that would give us the oomph we needed to wrap up a few things.  So we worked like mad during Erick’s vacation, getting quite a bit done, but shaking our heads when there was still no visible, apparent progress besides a few uprooted bushes and now a completely shabby facade because I scraped our shingles like the dickens in preparation for exterior paint (thus making it a terrific eyesore).

Then, last weekend came, and I don’t know how it happened, but I truly realized that if I desperately wanted our house finished, it would have been.  I would of stayed up late nights, I would have missed sleep, I would have driven myself in circles wrapping up the details.  Therefore, it obviously wasn’t that important to me.  It was a big, fat thing called Pride that was diggin’ in to my ego.  I wanted OTHER people to be impressed. And you know what?  I don’t care anymore!  We have fantastic friends who would have come over for dinner and not care that our ceiling isn’t painted and we only have folding chairs to sit in.  We’ve missed out on a year of developing relationships because of “image”.  Ugh.  Yucko!

I am done stressing.  We’ll have a houseful next week that might look at our house and think “they’ve truly done work to this place?”  Actually, scratch that.  I know our friends.  They won’t think that at all.

I came to this conclusion, and felt so good about it…then the next day I read this blog post.  Complete confirmation.  I have no problem with making houses beautiful, but ya’ll, we gotta be grateful for what we have.  What if I never completed my home transformation?  Would it truly matter?  I’m thinking not…

I’ll keep chippin’ away at the place.  But priorities…wow.  Priorities.

(The above link to that post is great…and read more on the trip if you can.)

Oh Sunny Day!

We did it!  We got out of dodge, made our way to the water, enjoying the warmth of the…car.    It really wasn’t too bad outside-50’s in Maine this time of year is flat-out wonderful.  But it did eventually get a bit chilly on the beach, so I had to usher a couple of very reluctant boys back into the car.  Here is how our day panned out…

Completely by chance, we drove near Bucksport just in time to  see what all the fuss was about (there were so many people out and about!)  Any little boy would be delighted to see this:

Excuse my technical terms, but Cianbro built about 50 of these massive thingamajigs that, I believe, have something to do with oil pumping or something, and I think they are going by sea to Texas.  Heh.  I saw the news report a few weeks ago and my memory is incredibly fuzzy.  All I know is that it was a mighty big contraption and they’ll be taking quite a few of these trips to get them all to their final destination!  It was a big hit today; there were crowds of people all up and down the coast watching it go by.  Pretty interesting.

After that stop, we made our way to Searsport, and the kiddos played on the playground (first time this year!) and threw the obligatory rocks in the water.  Then momma’s ears started to freeze, so it was time to pack up and go.  But what fun it was!

We made it back home around 1:30; it was a full morning but absolutely wonderful.

A few minutes ago I finally put pictures in my frames, and I changed up my kitchen walls a bit.  This is what it was before, but it bugged me; our kitchen has no symmetry at all, which makes decorating difficult, but I hope this looks a wee bit better.

(Sorry so dim! Flash or no, I couldn’t get it lighter. Just to give you an idea…)

The daisies are from my mom, and they have absolutely convinced me to keep fresh flowers in our house non-stop this year!

Off to pick up Erick, and then to go to my painting class; hopefully I’ll have a masterpiece to share with you soon!

Lemonade

For about 3 days I was a woman with a focus…a drive…to transform the boys room from minty-green paint (over layers of wallpaper)

to this, well, peachy paint color with some kind of splotchy-plaster-something or another look.

(Amazing what you find underneath, isn’t it?)  Now we have to patch and sand and prime, but I figured I’d give it a break and actually give my children some attention.  Because who can resist these cuties?

We spent a day in a messy house, making lemon bars together:

(so summery!) and dancing in the kitchen to Chris Rice’s song Lemonade…

over and over and over again.  And playing hide n seek, and racing cars, and wrestling on the bed…and I decided that I need to hire someone else to fix my house!  And clean it, for that matter, because I would love to just play full time!

Picture Hangin’

Ok, getting to that productive snow day I had earlier in the week.  I’m slowly but surely making our house a home; it’s so nice to walk in and see things on the walls.  Why has it taken me since May to get to all of this?

I started off in our hall, and found a great tip that mentioned tracing your frames on newspaper and taping those to the walls before officially putting a hole in the drywall.  It was a lightbulb moment; I’m so glad I came across it because, quite honestly, the thought off all the math and measuring involved made me not want to get around to it.  But this little trick worked wonders!

Check out the pricetag; I was giddy to find these 20 dollar Bed, Bath and Beyond frames for 4 bucks at The Christmas Tree Shop.

The result:

(Now I actually have to buy some 5×7’s to insert…but we are halfway there, right?)

Also, dad finished the frame for my Alan Claude print.  He used poplar, and painted, sanded, painted, sanded, painted, sanded to get this incredibly smooth finish.  The picture is a bit blurry because I didn’t have my flash on, but you get the idea:

I decided to pop this on the wall too; I have a fascination for old windows and a few years ago I glued some starfish on.

Wide angle:

Honestly it looks a little out of proportion now that I’m viewing it like this, but I have a plan for the wall on the left side of my lighthouse print that will even everything out.  And I need a window treatment.  And we need to paint the ceiling, and paint the wainscotting, and, and, and.  There is always another and.  But one step at a time, right?

When I Get Things Done

Well, the boys and I braved the -25 temps this morning and took Daddy to work…because momma was stir crazy!  We are at Papa and Nonnies right now, where we are able to snuggle up to the woodstove.  Delightful.

Yesterday, however, did turn out to be a wee bit productive! Grammie had the boys, so  I spent the majority of the day like this:

downing mugfuls of coffee and painting inbetween sips.  I’ve always adored Big Letters, and finally decided to construct my own; I drew it and dad cut it out with his handy dandy jigsaw.  So I painted ‘er up yesterday, along with a couple of oars that mom and dad gave me for Christmas.

To the left of the “m” is the area of the house wherein, if you walk in the front door, you go either upstairs or downstairs, so we have 3 pretty signifcant walls that need “done up”.  The “m” will hang over the door, and the oars opposite; I have a significant project planned for the wall that faces the living room, but I haven’t begun it yet.

I also managed to sneak in Music for Millions, a super 1944 movie that was on TCM.  I’m crazy about the old black n’ whites.

While I had planned on finishing a bit more, it was nice to get a few things accomplished and loaf around some too.  Don’t get to do that everyday with a coupla boys running around.

Happy Friday out there!

Up and Running!

We’ll see how long it lasts.   I’m using Erick’s Mac; don’t get to grab ahold of this baby too often, so while he, wonderful man that he is, whips up some supper, I’m taking advantage!  I have a few posts up my sleeve; we’ll start with last week’s “baking” session this time around.

Mom and I wanted to bake something wonderfully Christmassy and delectable.  Seeing as though we had the boys with us, we decided to tone it down and bit and ended up with Pillsbury sugar cookies and chocolate covered pretzels.    Oh, and a few roasted almonds for the more sophisticated palate…

Here is my little artist at work again; he decided to make a special “Jack” edition by piling uncovered pretzels on top of the covered.

And Ryan, my little author-to-be, declared that he could “eat millions and hundreds of these!”  While I’m on the Ryan note, here are a few other cute things he’s come up with lately:

“These tortilla chips are delicious! So salty and crunchy…”

While holding an unopened box of Christmas lights… “These lights are marvelous!”

After Jack took a tumble…”Don’t cry, Jack.  You are my bestest friend!”

“I forgot to tell you, mom, that I have a house in Massachusetts.  It was built way before I was 4 years old.  After I play I’ll show you pictures!”

He also said something else last week that I’m going to save for a later post.   I think I’ll include it in a post on Thursday. He’s can be a pretty profound 3 year old.

Well, going off topic, but we really made some progress with the house this weekend.  It wasn’t anything other than cleaning; you know how you end up in a mess all in the name of renovation?  Time has been so short that renovation has been very little the last month or two, but we’ve still had that mess to deal with.  We cleaned out our bedroom and rearranged the boys room; it made a world of difference. Oh!  And mom and dad have come by to help; we now have  boards to top a couple of half walls.  (LOVE having a dad that is part-carpenter.)  Amazing the difference small details can make when you are in a house that has to be fully overhauled.

Ah ha!  Grilled cheese is up.  Better get to munchin’.  And I promise more of a regular posting schedule this week.

Good Buy…and Happy Thanksgiving!

Ok, friends.  Here is what you get from buying local!  I’m so excited about this purchase.  We’ve needed a pot rack for a good long while, but couldn’t really afford  a seemingly decent one.  THEN we discovered Kennedy’s Wrought Iron, based in Troy, Maine.  They are a small family business, and the nicest family in the world at that.  We asked for a custom piece…something simple that went along the wall, 48 inches long. 10 hooks to go with it.  And here we are:

We put in the order on a Saturday, and it was ready to go on Monday!  And bet ya can’t guess how much it cost…drumroll please…

A whopping $25.20!  Our jaws about hit the floor!  Quality, handmade, local.  I think I shall be revisiting in the future…

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone out there in case I can’t find the time to post tomorrow.  And pray for my parents if you wouldn’t mind, who will be flying back on Thursday.  Nothing like spending Thanksgiving in Lubbock, and Houston, and Orlando, and New York…