We've been busy!

So, first of all.

WE GOT A PUPPY!!!!!

This is Charlie, and he is a Mini Aussie and is AWESOME

He arrived one week before all hell broke loose in our house.

You remember our heinous pink floor ?

Yeah. That one. Gross.

Well, we got some new ones. But we couldn't JUST have new floors. Someone had the brilliant idea to expand our master bedroom and make a HUGE walk in closet/dressing room. (It was me, I'm the one with brilliant ideas!)

Instead of just installing new floors, now we had to move some walls around.... and if we were gunna move some walls around, we might as well build a built in bookshelf, a linen closet and kitty litter drawer and install a dishwasher, and put some tile in the entries, and redo the front closet.

The list just kinda kept getting longer and longer.

Here it goes!

Lino starting to go from the kitchen and dining room!

 The men-folk get to work. Reid and our dads did all the real work. I helped by staying out of the way and playing with a puppy

Closet and old bedroom door removed, Bob is cleaning up

You're supposed to be working dad, not flipping us off. New bedroom wall going up

This used to be Reid's closet, now it will be a built in bookshelf/linen closet/kitty litter drawer. The bedroom feels so HUGE already!

Drywall patching beginning, only 98347598475 more coats of mud to go

First coats of grey paint done

The "feature" wall is left to paint yet.

 LOOOOOOOOKKKKKK FLOOOOOOOOOORS!!!!! We got this kick ass strand woven bamboo floor from Lowes during a save the tax event and basically got the underlay for free. Not a bad deal. We have stupidly sized registers and cannot find replacements so have to clean and paint them, eventually

Bamboo extends all the way into the dining room and kitchen and looks wonderful with the white cabinets!

Beginnings of the HUGE linen closet and kitty litter drawer

More stuff happened

Our SUPER pretty "lace" hex tiles, also from Lowes. These look so good. We still have to grout and finish the edges

And in the back entry too!

Closet is painted. Dresser assembled, and shelves starting to go up!

ADORABLE PUPPY INTERLUDE!

AHHHH It's coming together! I've put some stuff away and can now find most of my clothes!

Vanity area set up. Needs some finishing touches and whatnot, but we've made some serious progress!


That's it for now. We will update once we've finished installing and painting the rest of the baseboards and the 9873948573 other things we have left to finish....

I'm Cured, Let's Party!

I'm done. There is almost nothing left that could possibly be cleaned (Ok, so I never got around to the broom closet...another day) My floors are gleaming. Counter tops sparkle. Everything is organized to within an inch of its life. I am terrified to cook anything because I am such a sloppy cook and I want it to remain this pristine for ever and ever. Except that it will be mostly destroyed by tomorrow morning. But for a good cause. 

My surprise guest is due to arrive this afternoon, when she does I will promptly GTFO of work! (Shes not here to surprise me btw)

I am SO ready for this party. I think. I feel like I am. Though I am sure I will have forgotten something important. I feel like I forgot to invite someone too... though I can't figure out who. 


Anyway, here's some stuff I did
 Tidy, but with a table top in the way

Table top gone and finished cleaning, even found a place for a few extra flowers. Landing strip in order with some mail sorted out.

Everything dusted and straightened up.

More flowers in the bedroom. New sheets on the bed.

Carafes came!
Also found a new basket from Superstore 

Carafes via special delivery from Rayna, thanks again btw ;) (From CB2, not from her store, but check out her jewelry and accessories shop nolxbelslifestyle.com!) R thinks it's a little ridiculous but I think it looks so much nicer than the big plastic bottle. 

She snuck in a little birthday gift for me too! She knows me so well. Skull lip stuff. So awesome

And this sweet card! Love it

I made a banner for the photobooth. I still have to put up the backdrop, but figured I would wait until last minute so I could still have access to the pantry in the mean time. I think it turned out pretty well. I bought the glitter paper from DollarTree

The Table just waiting to be filled with all sorts of cheese and bacon!  
If I am not too busy, I will try and remember to take some shots of all the food, because it's usually a pretty good spread. I even made a batch of spankopita last night!

 Redbull fridge is stuffed to the max with beers and Rebulls!

Drink station set up! Some more pretty flowers!

 Cheers everyone!!!

The Cure.... Continued

I'm sort of ahead of the game on a few things and behind in others :)

According to the cure, I should be spending my weekend deep cleaning the bathroom. But thankfully I already did this in stages near the end of December. All I have left is to wash the shower curtain and "display" towels. They are never used, but are a bit dusty. I had washed all the walls and baseboards, and even the ceiling got wiped down. I cleaned and purged the bathroom cabinet and drawers. It was very satisfying!

I have a dentist appointment today, and I MUST remember to refuse anymore freaking toothbrushes, toothpaste or dental floss. Can you see how many we have? 12 things of floss. TWELVE! There are at LEAST 9 mini tubes of toothpaste in there. And a half a dozen toothbrushes. I like to have a FEW of these things on hand in case of guests or travel and such. But I think I have too many. I am going to try and pawn some off on company next weekend :) 

Before - Not bad!

And after, a few things gone and a bit better organized.

Over the last week I haven't done as much as I had hoped to but am still making very decent progress.

I did a small portion of the Living room task, because currently there is a huge table top in the way of the shelves and it is supposed to be moved this evening. So I hope to be able to finish that part up tonight. I did manage to declutter a little bit. I moved a few knickknacks to other locations or to a box in the basement.

Before

And After!

The plan for the table top is to eventually cut it down and turn it into shelves for the kitchen. They will be awesome, just you wait!

Dust Bunnies Banished from the Bedroom!!

Weekend two of Apartment Therapy's January Cure and I didn't get nearly as far as I had hoped.

A few weeks ago I spent the day cleaning the mattress (peroxide and baking soda and a toothbrush and most of the grody stains were gone!!) And I also washed all the pillows (more peroxide!) So I had a tiny head start on the bedroom situation. Friday I managed to clean everything else but the sheets. I didn't go crazy under the bed. There isn't a whole lot of room to move it aside but I did get under with the vacuum a bit. I dusted everything from top to bottom. Turned all R's hangers around backwards and organized the bed linen on the top shelf of his closet.

Saturday I had to work job number two and ended up catching a cold and woke up pretty miserable Sunday almost afternoon. Zero energy but I still manged to tidy my room and tackle a pile of towels that needed be folded weeks ago.

Today I left work at noon, because I couldn't breathe and didn't have any drugs. I advise against shopping while sick AND hungry because I ended up with some bad bad things. Ooops.

Anyway, I took some pictures of the bedroom before and after :)

 A bit disheveled, but not terrible

R's dresser. 

 My end table. I swear it didn't look that dusty until I turned the lights up!

View of R's closet - We didn't bother putting any closet doors back up either. Eventually we're going to combine some hall and closet space into our bedroom to enlarge it and then "my" room will be turned into a kick ass walk in closet. 

 Freshly washed comforter, vacuumed curtains, dusted alllll the things

 

 My end table. Much better. Found a box that fits on the shelf to hold my extra blanket. It's a bit too big, but it was something I had handy.

 

 Much better!

Hangers turned around, laundry put away, extra junk from the closet gone (ahem... to the table in the kitchen :( ... working on it) 

Skylines by local JPH photography