Moving In, a Month Later

Because goodness there is a lot to do when you are trying to go to school, and study, and furnish and decorate a whole house.  Because, to be honest, I never really decorated in the old house.  And because progress pictures are some of my favorites...  here are a few.

 In the formal living room, we put up these shelves from IKEA.  Originally the plan was to build our own custom fit to the space.  But gosh, picking up things that are already cut, sanded and painted can be hard to ignore. And who has that kind of time?!?!

 Because then we got to fill them with all our treasures from over the years, as well as put all our music stuff in there.  And the glass doors keep me from having to dust all the time!

 There wasn't always a ton of change over the month.  But Kelsey's name got put on the wall and her birth announcement cross stitch.  Still waiting to install the shelves sitting there on the floor....  8 months later ;)

 Kaitlyn got the green shelf painted pink to match the room, as well as a desk to work on.

 Dylan's room got a few up dates as well.  His current favorite color is red.  So we painted the old bookshelf red and got red sheets to match.  I played around with some curtains in his room, but haven't done more than play.  And he put up his TMNT stickers as well.

 Kari's room got the same treatment as it did in the old house.  Green stripes, curtains, and clock.  As well as a new desk in the corner to do homework as well.

Our room changed a tiny bit as well.  And it has changed again since then.  Our new mattress finally came: we ordered a Purple.  It feels great, no back pain anymore.  But it does sleep a bit warm.  And that dark brown cabinet on the right is a faux fireplace for all those "cold" nights in Alabama.

A little while later, we rearranged the bedroom again.  We got a base for the bed.  We plan on getting, or building, a headboard and base for the bed.  But for now, not sleeping on the floor is a plus.  We ordered an old lady rocking chair for me (it was my choice!) and you can see the "fire" in the fireplace.

 And here is a close up of all the important parts, without the mess in the background.

This was what the family room looked like at that point.  We had finally chosen the curtains we liked, added end tables, found a rug we liked, put up the TV over the fireplace, and added the puzzle table in the back corner as well as the decorative shelf.

  This is the picture collage that we put up on the wall behind the couch.  It was fun to go through pictures to choose which ones to print.

 This is the guest bathroom downstairs.  It is probably the most decorated room in the house, and is officially done!  I love the black and white motif.

 And here is a close up of the pictures in there: (clockwise from the top left) The Eiffel tower, The Coliseum, a deer house from Pa's house, and a scuppernong vine from Pa's house as well.  All places we've been and pictures we've taken ourselves.

I mean, who doesn't love to go furniture shopping?!?!

New House, the First Week

After Nana and Pop came and stayed and helped for the first week, we had a hurricane!  So, Grandma and Grandpa evacuated their home in central FL and came up to hang out at the new house.  They didn't stay very long (pretty much the weekend), as they waited until the last minute to evacuate, and as soon as the hurricane passed over, they went back to help with the clean up.  Thankfully, they had no damage to their property, and had only a little bit to do to help neighbors.

 At the end of the week, this is what the kids rooms looked like.  Undecorated, but unpacked.

Dylan's Room

 Kelsey's Room

We had put up her princess stickers at this point.

 Kaitlyn's Room

She also had her stickers up, but not completely finished in all other areas.

 Kari's room

We eventually did the same thing in her room that we had done in the old house with the green and stuff.

 One of the things hubby really wanted for the new house was this back stretcher thing.  He uses it almost every day.  And he says it helps his back feel much better!  Yay!

 Then came the decorating.  Y'all....  the decorating just about killed me.  There were so many decisions to make.  Rugs.  Curtains.  Accents.  Wall Decor.

 And every time I found something I liked, there was more to do, more to match....  

 And more to get used to...  like new ovens...  You have to figure out how those work and cook according to what you've done in the past.

And thankfully, it only took one batch of burned biscuits to figure it out. :p

Unpacking Continued

We made a ton of progress on the first day.  The kids were quite helpful in bringing things into their rooms..... (this is the beginning of Kaitlyn's rooms)

 ....And helping to put things together.  (This is the beginnings of Kari's room)

 They even appeared happy to do it sometimes!

 Kelsey wanted to pose for her room's pictures.

 And this is Dylan's room!  It was the first time he had a grown up bed in his life.  Up until this point, he'd been sleeping in a toddler bed, and he was this close to being too big for it.

 And this was our room...  Huge and empty.

 In the beginning, there were many trips to home depot.

 And much bubble wrap!

 The kids really liked popping all the bubble wrap.  And in a mostly empty house, it echoed quite a bit.  So I sent them into the room that had a door to close to muffle the sound a little bit.  And they made a maze to make the popping more fun!

 Again, before we'd really moved in, we already had some projects planned out.  This would be the formal dining room that we turned into the pool table room.  And, if you have a room dedicated to the pool table....

 You should probably have a billiard light!

The kitchen still looks very similar to this.  Eventually, we would like to get a larger table to replace the one you see below.  But that is a project for down the road that we haven't tackled yet.

 And, get this!  I don't have enough crap to fill up all the cabinets.  I have several that are completely empty.  So the kids use them for other random, fun things...  like naps!

 Nana and Pop came down for about a week to help with whatever they could and to spend time with hubby since it was his birthday!

 And what better way to spend a birthday than moving into a new house, a fabulous hibachi dinner at Fuji...

 ... and a birthday cake!

Because life is about taking the lemons and making lemonade!

Aaaaaaand the Unpacking Begins!

The first night we slept in the house, it was sleeping bags and air mattresses all the way.  We moved in on Labor Day weekend, so we closed on the house, and then had to wait for the POD to be delivered with all our stuff.  While we waited, hubby got a jump start on the decorating, by putting up the sticker we ordered to put on Kaitlyn's wall.  

 The POD was delivered early that morning, and we had it completely unloaded in two days.  Box after box, stair after stair.  Thankfully, I had done a pretty good job of labeling boxes, and keeping boxes filled with only one room's worth of stuff.  So it wasn't too difficult to put the box in the correct room...  

 Now actually unpacking the boxes and putting everything away....  That is another matter.

We left the old couches to the dump when we left the old house.  Which means we had to replace them when we moved into the house.  Unfortunately, when we moved in, the furniture place delivered only half of the couches...  So we didn't have a ton of places to sit...

 But we did have a fabulous first dinner in the house!

 And what better way to break in the new house than toasting with fancy glasses and apple juice!!!

 Poor Mollie.  She followed us up and down the stairs all day long.  By the end of the day, she was exhausted!!!

 And thankfully, the new couch arrived the next day!  So we had room to sit :)

 Thankfully, the room looks much more welcoming now!!!

The Time Has Come!!!

I'm not gonna lie.  I know you really want to see the new house.  I mean, it is pretty fabulous.  Once they started installing stuff inside the house, they had to put locks on the doors, and the Sunday evening trips had to come to a close.  We brought the kids back for a final walk through...  I think they liked it :)

  We were happy with the house (with a few things on the punch list to still do).  But the backyard had been a problem for the last month of construction.  We picked the lot we did because it was the flattest (at the time).  When they started doing the finish grading for the landscaping, they dug a huge trench across the back yard.  I mean, like the last 20-30 feet were gone.  We were NOT happy.  And we were having a hard time coming to terms with the builder on how to fix it. In the end, we sorta kinda gave up.  We could choose not to close, but we would lose our deposit.  And fixing the problem ourselves would be cheaper than loosing our deposit.  So, once again drainage issues on our brand new house caused us some heartburn.  In the picture below, it is a bit difficult to tell where the property ends (I tried to highlight it with a red line), but I pointed out (with bright red arrows) where the new sod begins.  And everywhere there is new sod, is where we gained yard back by installing huge pipes covered with soil and sod.  Seriously, a huge amount of space, and a seriously huge pain in my tush.

Even though we weren't sure it was going to happen, the day to close finally arrived.

 And it was finally time to move in!!! While we were waiting for the house to get finished, the kids started school.  As did I.  Thankfully, we were able to move in on Labor Day weekend, which also happened to be hubby's birthday.  And I had Monday off of my first semester at college, so we had a teensy, tiny bit more time to move in, rather than trying to fit it in between classes.

Voila!!!  Not too shabby, eh?!?!

Hubby actually took the week off to be at home for when the internet guy came, and the water got turned on, and the fridge got delivered, and all of those things I had hoped to get done before I started school.  He can be a decent home husband :)