Shoe monster...

We recently completed some renovations at the house and while our favorite carpenter was building cabinets, we had him build an awesome shoe organizer for my closet. I'm not sure who loves it more.... me or the shoe princess. She now insists on selecting my shoes for me each morning, then modeling a few pairs before school. Daddy better start taking on some extra jobs to supplement the shoe fund!

(Not so) new digs: Backyard edition

We've been in our "new" house for slightly more than two years, but somehow the work still isn't quite done. With the completion of the patio, though, we are one step closer! 

There are lots of things that we love about our backyard... It's fairly large, there's a greenbelt behind us, and there is ALWAYS a breeze.

The only drawback was the measly 10' x 10' patio square that barely held the four of us. Thankfully we have turned our frowns upside down with the substantially larger replacement!

So, come on over! 

(For the record, the grass is green again - we had to shut off the sprinklers for the project and with 100+ degree temps in Houston, it doesn't take long to get brown grass!)

what were we thinking? kitchen renovation project

we survived. barely. while we are quite pleased with the final outcome, we seriously underestimated the inconvenience of renovating the kitchen with a baby, a toddler, a husband working nights and contractors that work weekends too. the 3 week project ended up taking 6 weeks. the kids and i had to escape the house for 5 straight weekends (thanks grammy & pappy). enough said.

here's what we started with when we bought the house:

breakfast nook

kitchen

lovely, eh? we thought so too. 

that's why we gutted it. 

to be fair, before we moved in we neutralized the paint and replaced the floor. so it wasn't nearly as bad as it started. still not great, though.

... and here's the final product. i'm still looking for a new light fixture over the kitchen table, but the rest is DONE!

and now that the project is done, i think we'll sit on the couch for a while! :)

sorry, grandparents

between the three straight weeks of brad on night shift and the house-is-in-shambles kitchen renovation project, the blog has taken a severe hit on the priority list. here's a quick photo of madison snoozing through dinner tonight to tide you over. i have never been so ready to cook in my life! :)

new digs: dining room edition

it's been a while since we posted house photos. the dining room has actually been "done" for ages, but i only recently took photos of it. we're filming a new safety video at work and one of the scenes we needed was a family dinner. i supplied the dining room and mauren from my team provided the family (hers is quite large!)

the after photos are courtesy of the pre-planning for the video shoot. whatever it takes, right?!

before:

after:

this room was a less dramatic make-over than some of the other rooms. just new floors, paint, drapes, and our existing dining room furniture. the rug was in the living room at our old house, but it fit better in the dining room. one day we might actually finish this house! :)

sidetracked

we were making such great progress completing rooms around here until we were sidetracked by a surprise project. you see, we discovered that our dishwasher only pretended to work, but didn't really clean dishes. that's a definite problem when you have sippee cups of milk around the house that need sanitizing.

so, progress stopped for an emergency purchase.

we had planned to replace the kitchen appliances eventually, but we really didn't expect to start this week. hopefully we can resume our regular programming very soon! on the bright side, the new dishwasher is remarkably quiet (and produces clean dishes)!

new digs: gameroom

the motivation worked! after relishing in our "finished" living room, brad and i were inspired to complete the gameroom tonight! just don't go expecting to see a new room every day...

on to the pictures...

before

why yes, that is a burgundy color on the walls with the
putrid orangy-brown on the stairwell

what, you don't like that?

yeah, we didn't either.

this is probably my favorite part of the room - too bad we almost had to kill brad to get those paintings hung in the stairwell like that... ;)

this room was fairly low key compared to the living room. we neutralized the paint, replaced the carpet, hung drapes and stuffed our furniture and most of mason's toys into the room. we still need to replace the fan (we miscounted when we purchased the others), so we're waiting for it to go on sale again!

new digs: living room edition

it seems to be taking us forever to "finish" rooms around the new house, so as a motivation for me and a preview for you, i'll be sharing before and after pictures as we complete things around here. first up: the living room.

we didn't take many "before" shots, and you'll see why. the house wasn't exactly in tip-top shape, but that's to be expected when you buy a foreclosure. we felt it had potential, though, and little-by-little, we're seeing glimpses of it come through...

enough talk.

before.

(please ignore the pile of junk in the dining room)

so, we still need a rug for the living room, but other than that we're pretty much calling it done. we neutralized the paint color, replaced the fan, ripped out the nasty carpet and replaced it with hardwoods, and tore out the fireplace surround and replaced it with mosaic tile. it's not nearly as impressive typed out as it is in my head! :)

one room done, 7 more to go (not including bathrooms).