House updates - Master bed/bath updates

Disclaimer - apparently, I need to go back and check the blog more often!  My last 2 posts were duplicates (I was actually posting about stuff on time back in October!)


Over the course of a few months, Matt and I (mostly Matt) painted our bathroom and bedroom.  When we bought this house, the bedroom was a horrible Carolina blue and we both said "this is going to be the 1st room we paint!"  The bathroom was a standard contractor beige/cream color with lots of nicks and marks which looked horrible!

More than 3 years later, we finally got the room painted!  Part of the problem was me figuring out what color(s) I wanted the room and part of it was finding time to actually doing the painting.  At one point, we have 3 different paint options on the wall, the original blue color, plus primer on several other sections.  It was just lovely!!

Anyway, I finally picked colors and we finally finished the project!!  Before we painted the bathroom, I also wanted to new light fixtures in the bathroom.  The contractor grade 6 light fixture was not cutting it anymore.  Thankfully, Uncle John came to the rescue and got the new fixtures installed in time for us to paint the weekend that Nana and BB had the kids.  One wall in the bedroom is the same color as the bathroom to tie the rooms together. 

I was so happy with the final results!!  Now to get the mirror framed and pictures up on the wall!

Summer storm

The day after the kids came home from my parents house we had a HUGE storm both in Raleigh and in Albemarle!  Brayden had a soccer game that evening so we were all at the soccer field and we knew that a storm was coming, but we didn't know it was going to come that FAST!  The sky went from partly cloudy with a light breeze and temps in the mid-90s to a black sky, serious wind, and temps in the 70s in a matter of about 5 minutes!  It was CRAZY!  Obviously, the kids didn't get to play soccer which was a bit disappointing but everyone stayed safe which was more important.

We arrived home to this....

Our one tree in the front yard was in 4 pieces!  We actually think it got stuck by lightening the way it split apart.  Matt, his dad, and my BIL all got it hauled away the next day.  We still need to get the stump ground down though...that is happening soon though!  There was a bit of other damage around Raleigh with occasional trees down, but nothing like what hit Albemarle.  This monster storm came though and destroyed the town!  I have never seen anything like it. Thankfully, no one was hurt or killed during or after the storm. 

My parents lost about 5 or 6 trees, thankfully none on the house, but their next door neighbors were not so lucky.  This all happened on a Thursday evening and we went to town a full week +1 day later and this is what we saw.

A tree was through the center of this house

There is a carport under that tree...

Another house that was crushed

My parents street as we arrived.  We had to turn on the bright lights (it was late at night) to be able to see down their normally quiet, peaceful street.  The piles are bigger now I am told because so much more has been cut up at this point. 

The pile in front of my parents house.  It is at least 8 feet tall!

See how tiny they look in front of the pile?

Unfortunately, they have had several more storms on top of LOTS of rain which has meant more trees/big limbs down all over town.   Debris pickup is supposed to start this week and is expected to take about 2 weeks (hard to believe considering that my parents street was not hit that hard in comparison to the rest of town)!

House updates

Last weekend we shipped the kids off to Nana & BB's house (Matt's parents) for a LONG weekend!  Nana came on Thursday night to get the kids and then brought them home on Monday about noon.  The plan was to for us to re-do the half bathroom downstairs.  When we bought this house, we said that was going to be the 1st thing that we did.  Well, almost 2.5 yrs later, we are finally updating the bathroom!  Better late than never I guess!  Really, other things just needed to be done sooner...windows, VERY leaky gutter needed to be repaired/replaced, new deck, add a baby to the family, and the list goes on.

Old bathroom with hideous wallpaper!

Bad wallpaper, light, and mirror (which was plastic!)

Matt took Friday off and started stripping the wallpaper off.  Thankfully, the wallpaper came off without too much of a fight.  The wallpaper had to know that it's time was almost up and not to fight the removal.  It was HIDEOUS!  I got home in time to help with the last of the wallpaper removal, mainly because Matt ran out of wallpaper adhesive removal spray and he couldn't get his dad's truck to crank so he had to wait on me to have a car.  It actually was sort of fun pulling the old stuff off.  Not that I would want to do a big room of it, but it wasn't that bad.  On Friday night, we patched all of the holes and smoothed out the drywall as best we could.

Wallpaper removal well underway

Saturday morning the plan was to sand the walls well, vacuum/clean up all of the wallpaper mess and dust, then start painting.  It was relatively warm on Saturday plus the heat in a small space helped the paint dry really quickly.  We got 2 coats of paint on the walls by noon!

Paint is going up

Matt pretty quickly & easily switched out the light fixture, mirror, replaced the toilet paper holder, towel rack, and started in on the vanity.  That was where things got ugly.  After some discussion, internet searches, a wasted trip to Lowes, more looking/thinking, some molding cutting, a nice dinner out (along with a glass of wine and 2 beers) and another trip to Lowes, Matt figured out what the problem was with the vanity and was able to pretty quickly get the vanity installed. 

We got the sink faucet from my dad on Sunday and Matt installed that on Monday afternoon. Long story on the faucet...we have this same faucet in our master bath which we bought at Lowes about 1 year ago.  The weekend before our bathroom project, we went to Lowes to purchase everything.  They didn't have the faucet in stock so we drove to another Lowes.  Same thing.  So we asked if any Lowes in the Raleigh area had this faucet...only 1 did and it was on the other side of town.  I looked online to see if I could just order the thing and not waste time & gas driving across town to get it.  Of course, it was available on line.  I placed the order...except that I had a $10 off coupon that I wanted to use.  The online website wouldn't take my coupon.  I called customer service & was told that they couldn't take my coupon either (it was a Lowes coupon sent in the mail) but that they could offer me 10% off (not the same thing but whatever...I needed my faucet!).  The order was placed with a guaranteed 1-3 day delivery (it was shipping from a store about 2.5hrs away).  This was all on Sunday evening, so I figured that I would have at least heard something by Wednesday.  When I didn't hear anything, I called to check on the status of our order.  Customer service called the store who wasn't even sure if they had received the order, even though they certainly had already charged my credit card!  I was promised a call within 24hrs by the store manager.  I never received that call so I called back on Thursday.  Again, the store wasn't sure about the order.  At this point, I decided to try a different route.  I asked my dad to check out the Lowes in Albemarle and sure enough, they had the faucet.  My dad got the faucet for us, I called and canceled the online order and we were back in business.  Of course, by the time I called back to cancel the order (no more than 2hrs after being told that the store wasn't sure about my order), the faucet had already shipped (and it was delivered to our house on the following Tuesday!).  Now, I have an extra faucet that I need to take back to a Lowes Store :)

Finished product :)

The final two things to be done are touch up trim painting & to get some art work above the toilet.  I have plans for the art work and just need to get a few more items to be done with this. 

The half-bathroom looks SO MUCH better now!  I am glad that we took the time to make these updates to our house.  We have a few more things planned for down the road...master bath, master bedroom needs paint, and the kids/guest bathroom needs new paint.  But those can wait a little while!

New Deck!!

When we bought this house almost 2 years ago, we knew that we wanted to replace the existing deck one day. Well, we decided that now was the time and they just finished the project earlier this week!  The company that did the work was great to work with, did a great job, and did what they said for the price they said.  We are VERY happy with the results and can't wait to spend time out on the deck this summer grilling out, playing and eating!  Enjoy the before and after photos :)

Old deck wood rot

Old deck from below

Old deck and where the new section of deck is going to go

Old deck GONE!

Framing for the new deck

Completed new deck!!

New deck!!  It is HUGE!

Long overdue update

Sorry that I have vanished for the past few months.

Being pregnant, working 40+ hours a week, having a very active 2 year old, and trying to keep a house semi-clean apparently is harder work than I thought! Luckily, I seem to be over the cruddy feeling stage and the extreme fatigue has eased off. Now, I am still upright on Friday afternoon instead of passed out on the couch the minute I get home from work. Things are starting to look up!

What all has been going on around here?

Well, Brayden's vocabulary has exploded over the past few months! It has been amazing to watch him learn & take in new things! We are getting full sentences and thoughts now instead of pharses and single words. I can actually have a real conversation about school, our friends, etc!

He has discovered a love for his Uncle John's music (the band Silver) and is constantly asking to hear "John's music"! Brayden also enjoys playing his guitar along with Uncle John's music! I have a video of this uploading, but it is taking way to long tonight. I will post it later this weekend!

Brayden also loves to play with his trains and cars and can spend a good deal of time moving them throughout the downstairs. One of his favorite "games" is to hide as many of his trains, matchbox cars, and whatever else will fit in the cracks between the couch cushions. You never know what you might find in there these days! Brayden ALWAYS know exactly where each car, train, etc is at though...it is amazing at his memory!

Brayden also loves to ride his tricycle around the house. He hasn't quite figured out the pedals yet, but can get around very well pushing with his feet. As he is riding around, he likes to pretend that he is going to see his two best buddies from church, Brian and John. He will say "bye bye...see you later...going to see Brian and John". Then when he comes back in the room, he will say "I'm back from Brian and John's"!

"Riding" the 4-wheeler with Paw.

At school, Brayden is thriving and apparently he has finally started talking at school as well as at home! Just the other day, his Spanish teacher sent home a Spanish report card. The report card listed several words that the kids had recently been taught. I "quizzed" Brayden in the car on the way home and he knew several of the Spanish words. I was so impressed! When we got home, I asked Brayden to tell Daddy how to say "fruit" in Spanish. Brayden looked at Daddy and said "fruit in Spanish"!! He is SUCH an Enzor!

Brayden's daycare also did some really cute photos a few weeks ago with bunny rabbits. The photos turned out so good, that we had to get some! He looks like a little boy now! I just can't believe how quickly he has grown up and changed!

Last week, Brayden had strep throat and a really bad ear infection. Luckily, Matt nor I got the strep throat! While we were at home, I thought he might enjoy a Popsicle to ease his throat. This was the 1st time Brayden had had a Popsicle that I knew of. He seemed to enjoy it, although it got very messy!

We also had ice cream cupcakes for my birthday on Wednesday night. Brayden seemed to enjoy his...don't you think?

Last weekend Brayden stayed with Nana & BB so that Mommy and Daddy could paint his big boy room (and get a much needed sleep in weekend)! We almost have his new room ready to go and once we put all of the finishing touches on the room, I will post some photos (I promise)! Nana & BB even took Brayden to the aquarium for the day!

On the new baby front, I am 14 weeks. The Drs confirmed a c-section date of Sept 1, 2011. We will hopefully (pending on the baby's cooperation) find out the sex on April 6!! Just today, I started feeling the first tiny little butterfly like flutters in my belly! I am so excited to be feeling a little bit of movement! My belly has definitely popped out this 3rd pregnancy a little earlier than it did with either Taylor or Brayden, but that is OK with me! Everything is looking/sounding good on the 2 ultrasounds we have had so far. So far, one of the hardest things for me has been not being able to drink water. Every time I drink plain water, I end up feeling REALLY sick to my stomach. I lived on ginger ale (yuck!!!) for a few weeks. Now I can drink the aquafina flavored water, but I CRAVE a big, tall glass of ice cold water!

Here is baby #3 at 6 weeks 5 days.

and again at 9 weeks 1 day.

That is all that has been going on in around here! I promise to do better in the coming months!

New House - We are finally moved in!!

The past 3 weeks have been just a little crazy around here! We moved into our new house on Saturday August 28, with the help of our wonderful friends and family! They had moved everything from the old house & into the new house by 12:30pm! Crazy!!

Matt & I spent the next few days arranging furniture, making updates, unpacking, and just generally settling in. We have a few boxes left, but pretty much everything is in its place. We also still have some updates to do, but nothing super urgent. I have been spending a good bit of my time painting all of the trim...I don't think this is a very good thing though because it is not looking very good :( I am calling a truce with the paint for today & doing some other things (blogging) instead!

So far, we are very happy to be in the new house. There is an awesome neighborhood park about 2 blocks away that we have been to a few times. Brayden loves that he can run between the living room, kitchen, and dining room making a big circle. He also loves going to the park and playing.

Brayden seems to have settled in rather well and enjoys being at the new house. He will start a new daycare that is MUCH closer just after his birthday. That should make our commutes a bit better :)

Here are some photos of the house mostly unpacked! Please excuse the rest of the boxes, etc that are still sitting around waiting to find a home.

View from front door

Playroom/living roomView from family room looking towards front door

Family RoomDining RoomKitchenNew breakfast room tableLaundry Room
Hall off kitchen looking towards laundry roomUpstairs hallGuest Room/OfficeExtra guest room right now (will eventually become Brayden's room)
Currently Brayden's roomBrayden's/Guest bathroom

Master BedroomMaster Bathroom/Closet

New house!!!

After about 4 months on the market, we finally got an offer last Friday. We countered and they accepted our counter.
On Saturday, we turned around and made an offer on a new house! Again, they countered and we accepted. Today was our home inspection for both houses. Hopefully, not much was found on our current home.

The new house is empty and so the current owners are allowing us to rent from them for a few days so that we can move in over a weekend instead of during the week when we close.

During the 2 hour inspection today, I walked around & took a lot of photos of the new house. It is ~2200 square feet with a 2 car garage, 4 bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms, family room, 4 pantry off the kitchen, living room, and dining room! The house is on 0.25 acre lot, which we are super excited about and is in a GREAT neighborhood! We are ready to get moved & start getting settled into our new house!

Untitled from Jennifer Enzor on Vimeo.