Dshwashers and Dogs

Everything is going well so far. We installed the countertop and dishwasher, then had a little dinner party!

Here is what is looked like before...what you can't see is the nasty cracked tiles on the counter:


Here it is now, with the dishwasher in place of that big hole (we have patched up some of the drywall in the kitchen but we need to paint it:




Andrew had to cut out some of the cabinet to push the sink forward...it will be covered up at some point...or so he says.

He has also been busy inserting a dog door into our back room door:







Unfortunately, the door door isn't completely finished.

And here is the user of the dog door:

Pooped after a long walk


With her new friend


That's all for now!

Cleaning Up

We are starting to get things put away...sort of. We are slowly trying to pick up the stuff that was sitting around in the living room and putting pictures on the wall. Here are some pictures of the living room:

A little bit of a snapshot of the place:


We finally found a place to put our wedding centerpieces:


The very functional table that doesn't match the rest of the living room:


The too big wall with one picture on it...we plan on just putting all of our pictures there in black frames:


The tight dining room...large table + wine buffet = not much space:


We had some issues with our dishwasher. It didn't fit well underneath the existing cracked tile counter, so we bought an inexpensive laminate one to tide us over for the time being. It is a few inches deeper, so we can place our new dishwasher underneath. Andrew has been hard at work demolishing the tile and cutting out a space for the sink in the new countertop.

What was under the tile was DISGUSTING!


Close-up of the nastiness:


The new countertop (upside down) on the sawhorses:


The new countertop:


While Andrew was working on that, I was busy with something else...our bed! It arrived yesterday and I picked up the India Ink Duvet Set from Anthropologie. It is a great quality duvet and feels so nice! I should also mention that to match, we picked up a Thomasville Renovation chest from Target. It is the Terrace style:



Our bed in our room (if you notice, our curtain rod has balls on it too, to match the bed and chest!) :


And, of course, the newest (and oldest) addition to our family:

HARLEY!


I will post the finished kitchen later.

Our First Week

We are in! Sorry it has been so long without an update, but moving weekend was hectic, and then we were without internet connection (which surprisingly, was not that bad!)

So this is what we have been up to. First off, curtain purchases. We have so many windows in the house that it felt like we were goldfish living in a glass bowl. We immediately purchased some curtain rods from Bed Bath and Beyond and curtains from Burlington Coat Factory (Andrew was astonished to find out that they were "More than great coats!"

We also had to work out a creative way to survive in the kitchen. As you may remember, we had the fridge that came with the house. It is small, but it is the only one that fits in that fridge cubby. Then we put the OTHER refrigerator (from the rental house) into what was the old laundry area off the kitchen. Now we have two refrigerators within 3 feet of each other! One is the beer fridge, and the other is the produce fridge. What more do you need?!
Our two refrigerators!



We also received some big ticket items: Our washer and dryer, and our dishwasher and range! WHOOHOO! WHOOHOO! We are so excited, except the dishwasher isn't hooked up yet.

My first load!

Our lovely GE Cafe range

and dshwasher

Hopefully our bed will get here today from Ethan Allen. Our guest bedset from Overstock.com should be on it's way within a week or so.

Whitaker Bed and Nightstand

Whitaker 5 drawer chest

It has been a mess in the house because we aren't sure where things are and how to put them away!



That's it for now! Hopefully we can update soon when the house looks better.

And There Was Light!

Today Creico came back and put in all the lights and outlets. It looks great! Almost like a really NICE house. Well, all except for the kitchen of course. Nothing is going to fix that.

Living room with recessed lighting:


Lights in the shower:


The new lights in the front of the house (notice how all the bushes are gone?)



I moved in some of our clothing, like our 20 heavy coats we will probably never wear again. I was also able to put my shoes up on our built in shoe rack! I love all the shelves that are already there!






And last but not least, our newly painted ceiling! Of course, our walls aren't finished.


Tonight we have to finish bringing over the rest of the clothes and things we don't need and packing up the kitchen. It's getting so much closer!

GE Cafe

I should also mention that we purchased a new range and dishwasher from Lowes. We wanted to buy a dishwasher even before we fixed up the kitchen because, well, I don't like to wash dishes. We added the range because the range in the current house is a little sketchy. The inspection declared it to work fine, but to be safe, we decided to just bite the bullet and get the range. If you buy 2 or more GE products, GE is offering a rebate. 2 = $100 back, 3 = $300 back, 4 = $400 back, and 5 products is $500 back. We will eventually need 5 products, but not all at once. We also got 10% off the Labor Day sale.

We chose the GE Cafe line because we were familiar with the GE Profile line in the condo and loved it. The GE Cafe works like the Profile but has a sleeker, more professional style.

Here is a sample kitchen from the GE Cafe page:


GE Cafe gas range:



Dishwasher:


They should be here in about 2 weeks! Yay!

Labor Day. Literally.

Today we labored. We did a whole lot of work and got almost nothing accomplished!

We finished painting the front bedroom and the ceiling of the master.

The front bedroom:


I don't have a picture of the ceiling in the master. It is basically the color above (Lotus Flower) above the color First Sun by Valspar.

We also got to work on the outside of the house, ripping down the awnings. FINALLY!

Gone is the back awning! (before and after)



The front (before and after):



The aftermath:


We also broke out Erin and Mark's chainsaw and decided to massacre the huge hedges and bushes in front of the house:

The hedges (we caled them soldiers):


Chopping away!




We cut back the hydrangea too:



Our newest pile of trash:

We were unable to dig out the stumps and we did not even want to tackle the multiple birds of paradise plants. Yuck! Our neighbor gave us the recommendation of a tree trimmer and I believe we will be calling them ASAP.

We also met with a painter and discussed some options with him. We are probably going to sand down and paint the windows as opposed to replacing them completely. This is our exterior paint inspiration house (a neighbor's the next street over):

The house is grayish green with white trim, navy shutters, and a red door. Exactly what we want!


Oh, and here is a picture of the finished tile in the laundry room area.


I also moved in some coats and linens into the linen closet. I can't believe we are actually starting to move some things in!