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!

This Old House

Talk about an exhausting weekend!! Thursday we signed our life away to own 5815 Hummingbird in Houston and Friday we got our keys! We were like giddy schoolchildren that day, running around the house and backyard (champagne in hand) and thinking about all the fun things we'll do to the house. Saturday - we got to work. We decided the wallpaper in the breakfast area had to go, Eric & Emily came over to help and we discovered more wallpaper under wallpaper! It has been ther since the house was built in 1960! That bottom layer was not as easy to pull off and took us nearly 24 hours to get it done! I gave up on Saturday night and began caulking the living room wood paneling and doing yard work. You'll see above Sam being way more patient than me to get the job done! It's now all down to the drywall and our contractor is at the house starting this morning to start some other demolition jobs. Marley loved the house and the yard, he's exhausted and wouldn't even get up when I left for work this morning! We're sore from head to toe but it's such an amazing feeling knowing that this is our house, we're making this our home and it's all ours!!!

Becoming Homeowners

(pictures above are from our 1 year anniversary dinner, cutting of our anniversary wedding cake, celebrating the last night of being non-homeowners, and our beloved Marley!)

Well, we've been married 1 year and 9 days!! Our anniversary trip to Breckenridge was canceled due to Hurricane Ike but that doesn't mean we didn't make the most of our big day. We had plenty of fun with friends and family during the storm and had an amazing dinner at Mark's that evening. We're also excited about becoming Aunt & Uncle of Natalie & Austin's first baby arriving sometime around Christmas! Now we sit here, trying to ignore our stress, knowing that by this time tomorrow we will have become homeowners!

Starting around February, Sam & I decided we were done with apartment living and wanted to find a house for us and a yard for Marley. We knew almost immediately what part of town we wanted to move to, so we started attending as many open houses as we could. Through the next several months we found a realtor we loved, knew exactly the area we wanted within Houston and started discovering each other's taste in houses and design.

After many ups and downs, tomorrow we will finally be the proud owners of 5815 Hummingbird. A cute ranch style home built in 1960 will soon be ours and many renovations are soon to come! So stay tuned for before and after photos and we hope you can come visit us soon.