Some "After" Shots

We are going to take more, but here are some we took real quick before the housewarming party...

Housewarming Party

The day finally came for our housewarming party! Actually, it was probably a little early since we aren't technically finished with the house - but it gave us a goal to reach and also our weekends are booked until December, ha. It was a great day (which lasted long into the night), lots of people came by and some even brought gifts which was unexpected! My parents gave us a fire pit, which actually came in handy since Houston seems to be having a chilly Autumn for once. I think we would have lit it no matter what, who can resist staring at fire all night? It was really good showing everyone all of the hard work we've done and discussing what we still plan on doing. Those bedrooms and bathrooms don't know what they have coming to them! ha. Stay tuned for some "after" photos. I don't have all of them but I'll post some. Also Sam is putting together a slide show of before/after shots I will try to post at some point. This weekend we head to Breckenridge to finally celebrate our 1-year anniversary that was postponed due to Hurricane Ike. It'll be nice to get away and be forced to relax! We may end up doing DIY to the place we stay at, we can't help ourselves, haha. xo, Tiff & Sam

All Moved In!!

This past Friday we officially MOVED IN! After so many long days of hard work, our moving day actually came pretty quick. It was a very busy day for our house, at the same time our movers were trying to bring in all of our crap the granite and hardwoods were also being installed! So basically the movers had to put everything into the guest rooms so we could sort through it later once the floors were done. By the end of the day Friday, Sam's bestfriend Chris had flown in town, our granite countertops, new kitchen sink, and hardwood floors had been installed. The place is really looking amazing.

We finally have some furniture to sit on and a tv to watch! This weekend we also removed the mirror in the master bath so we could put up a pretty framed mirror, and installed new lighting. I'm almost done with the cabinet doors for the kitchen, you'll see how exciting it is to spray paint the tops of screws in the picture above. Chris has been a huge help, him and Sam did the very exciting task of painting the trim of almost the entire house and also installing a new fan in the kitchen...as well as many many other mundane DIY chores that kept us all busy throughout the weekend. Our housewarming party is this Saturday, we can't wait & hope to see everyone there! I can't promise the house will be in tip top shape, but it should be decent enough for a guest or 20 ;)

First dinner made in the new house!

Our new gas stove/oven has been installed so we finally got to cook a meal in our house last night! We were there all night painting the kitchen and cabinets. Oh and we had cable wiring installed too, can you believe this house didn't have any cable tv wiring? It was nice to have the tv as background noise as we worked...even if it was "You've Got Mail" (seriously, are there people out there that have never seen that movie?).

Tonight is packing night, you never realize how much stuff you have until you go to shove it into a million boxes. Fun! :(

SOOO Close...

We are soooo close to being ready to move in! This past weekend our hardwood floors were suppose to be installed, unfortunately they weren't! We did however have the Brinks guy come and put in a good solid 8 hour work day installing our alarm! Meanwhile, Sam & I finally got our truck from U-Haul (u-haul sucks btw), so we got the guest room furniture from Natalie & Austin's place so they can make room for the baby...we took that to my parent's house, unloaded it and then loaded the truck up with furniture for our house they've been storing for us. So now we have a king size bed (no frame just yet, we couldn't get it apart so we still have to go back for it), dresser, armoire, nightstands, 2 chairs, & patio furniture. It was awesome to have Austin there to help move (see below) & it was really awesome to have a bed to sleep on Saturday night instead of our usual air mattress (see below). We decided the green we painted on the walls Friday night was WAY too minty, so we toned it down and it looks way cozier now. After Sam did some pretty professional dry-walling to our breakfast nook, I started to take on the task of refinishing our cabinets in the kitchen. They've all been primed and painted white, so now we have the scary task of doing a faux finish on them that I'm curious to try. Wish me luck! Hopefully by this Thursday/Friday we'll be moved in, the hardwoods should be going down today and tomorrow, granite this week as well. Stay tuned...

It's Gotta Get Worse Before It Gets Better!

Well, we're in the home stretch. Went to the house last night to check on progress, not to do any real work since Sam is out of town, ha. Our formica countertops & backsplash have been removed, along with the old sink, to prepare for our granite to be installed. The floors are bare in preparation for the hardwoods, which I found in several boxes in one of the guest rooms, they're very pretty!! Our pendant lights have been installed and are glowy and romantic and beautiful. The area for our new gas range/oven has been prepared for installation...so all in all...we're almost done! And by "we" I mainly mean our Contractor. He may have to work over the weekend some, but that's fine, doing all of this in just 2 weeks has been a miracle. Hopefully next week I'll be able to post some pictures of 5815 Hummingbird looking beautiful and finished and ready for us to move in!! Get ready for the housewarming party folks, it's gonna be a big one.

Slowly But Surely

(removing wallpaper in the master vanity, oven removed and waiting for new oven and gas range, wood paneling removed in guest room #2)

It was another week/weekend of wallpaper removal, priming, painting, and handy man work for your favorite couple. ;) The house is really coming along. We had sheetrock guys in most of the weekend to make up for some lost time last week. This week they'll be finishing off the drywall, putting in our hardwood floors, and hopefully our granite will go in this week too. Sam is in Vancouver now until Thursday, which leaves me to pack! This coming weekend will be our last chance at some painting and fixing before we move early next week! We're so ready to make this our home and stay there more than just on the weekends, and on a real bed instead of an air mattress. Though it is fun to act like we have a vacation home to run away to for the weekends. (Thank you to Emily, Eric, and Abby for all of your painting help this weekend!)

*note: 2 fans were installed this weekend...above you'll see Oli helping with the one for the den...I won't be rude and tell you which one didn't end up working ;)

Also a big "SUCK IT!!" to U-Haul who keeps on screwing us out of a truck to get some furniture from my parents, don't even use Hurricane Ike as an excuse, it's pathetic. Sorry - had to get that off my chest.

Breaking Down Walls

Major renovations have begun!

Henry Carter has started his major renovations on our house! The place is a mess but it's finally starting to become what Sam and I wanted! The carpet has been removed in the dining room, den, & living room - awaiting our new hardwood floors! Some walls have been removed to open the space up a bit, some pillars have been added (for architectural interest, ha)...and there is still more to come! I marked on the pics above so you can kind of see what has been done. We'll do more formal before/afters once work is done. Sam and I went back to the house last night to start round 2 on wallpaper removal in the bedroom. Took 4 hours and we're just barely half way there with that room and the master bathroom. It's a lot of work but it's so fun to see the place change and turn into OUR home!