The Outside Face Lift

So when we bought our house, it was basically a large beige colored box. There wasn't a lot of color on the outside (despite the awful colors on the inside...) Remember this?

Well after some hard work from my husband, my dad, and my father-in-law, it now looks like this!

Doesn't it look fantastic?? I absolutely love it!! (p.s. That garage door closes I promise, I'm just too impatient to wait to take the pictures) There's only a couple of little last minute things to do outside then it's onto the inside work. I can't wait!

More to come soon! XO

Let the Painting Begin...

After we finished priming and painting the trim in the living room, we moved onto the office and the master bedroom. The office is completely primed with the trim painted, but the ceiling needs to be painted. 

That's my parents so graciously helping paint. (I was helping prior to taking this picture, I promise!) But seriously, that blue does not want to be covered as you can see as it is still trying to show through the primer. Luckily, the paint for the office is darker so it should cover it up nicely!

The master bedroom is still in progress, but it's looking good. It needs more primer on the two remaining walls, ceiling paint, and trim paint. It seems like a lot, but for only being in the house for 12 days we've gotten a lot accomplished. 

Even though it's only primer, it is all starting to look so much better!

We're Making Progress

Well, it's been a few days since the last update, but it's also been absolutely crazy at work this past week so I haven't gotten to do much work on the house. However, the rest of our loving family has. We've made quite a bit of progress on the outside of the house (and by "we" I mean my husband, my dad, and my father-in-law) They were able to get some of the wood trim fixed and painted. We also found a nice chocolate brown paint for the shutters and the ones that have been painted look great! 

Right now, they are focusing on the outside of the house before the weather turns cold, so then we can work on the interior painting (lots of interior painting...) While they were working on the outside of the house, my mom worked at getting the closets painted. (I know, you probably think we're crazy for wanting to paint the closets, but it makes a huge difference and makes everything look so clean!) Other than the closets and the living room, there hasn't been a lot of painting inside, but we'll get there. 

Pictures of the progress will be coming soon so stay tuned!! 

Doin' Work!

Well after some investigating, we found out that the leak is coming from a pipe in the bathroom and not the toilet seal. (Bummer because I was kind of hoping for the toilet to be the culprit) Hopefully, it won't be too big of a repair and we'll get it fixed before we move onto the other renovations in the master bathroom.

Despite the unexpected leak and the water being turned off, we were still able to get some work done on Wednesday and Thursday. On Wednesday, the focus was more cleaning.

But on Thursday we got to dive into more than just cleaning. Josh and I started to scrap off the paint on the outside wooden trim so that we can paint those. We  also tackled some of the unruly landscaping because it was still light outside. After some pulling and trimming, it started to look a little better. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get any pictures before Josh took out the ridiculously overgrown and smelly lavender bush and mint plant, but I can guarantee you it looks much better even with only the little work that we did. If it's nice this weekend, we might be able to continue pulling weeds.

We also got to start painting tonight! This is what I'm super excited about because I think a fresh coat of paint can do wonders for a house.

Here are the pictures of stage one of the living room transformation:

Here I am hard at work....

And here is the first coat of primer done! It does however need a second coat because the wall color is going to be yellow, which continues to prove to be hard to cover completely...We will see!

Our First "Joy" of Owning a Home

Just a quick update...unfortunately, we've discovered a slow leak from the master bathroom. (Sad Day!) Hopefully, we'll be able to find the direct source quickly and fix it. On the bright side, we hadn't started any work yet and there wasn't any furniture there either. More updates on this little snag later...

Let the Cleaning Begin!

As I mentioned before, we bought a HUD house, which means it has been empty for a while (not too long though). And of course, this sparks my OCD cleaning nerve because there's dust, cobwebs, dead bugs (some still kind of alive), etc. in nooks and crannies. This meant that our first evening was spent cleaning, as will the following days. 

For tonight, we were able to tackle getting the whole house vacuumed and most areas dusted. We still have to wipe down the walls and wash the doors, but it's definitely getting better. Josh also replaced the toilet seats, with a screwdriver, some gloves, some cleaner, and quite a bit of complaining. However, he definitely survived. (I love you sweetheart!) 

Tomorrow's plan consists of more cleaning and steam cleaning the carpets. But before we do that, we'll spot treat some of the worst areas. Now the spot cleaner we used wasn't some off the shelf bottle of chemicals. We actually made a concoction of 2 parts hydrogen peroxide and 1 part Dawn dishsoap, as I originally found it here at Modern Day Moms (not that I am one, but seriously Moms know how to clean just about ANYTHING, and this woman definitely knew what she was talking about). I have to say, it worked and it was amazing!!

Here is the before picture of one of the stains on the carpet in the bonus room: 

And here is the after:

So I know it's not perfect, but it's definitely a MAJOR improvement! I'm going to treat it one more time before we steam clean it so hopefully it will look even better. 

There are still a few areas to treat, but I'm excited to see how it all looks after. More to come later!

XO

It's Official...We're homeowners!

Well it's finally official. After signing and initialing more documents than I even care to count, we own our own home! Closing on a house was definitely a new experience, but I can say we made it through it without too many bumps in the road, despite the fact that we purchased a HUD home.

Yes, I'm sure you're thinking, "WHAT?! You bought a HUD home?? I've heard awful stories about those..." And yes, some HUD homes are not in the best shape or they can be an extremely long and grueling process. However, with a great realtor and bank to work with, it can actually go pretty well. The only major snag we had was that the appraisal got lost in the shuffle. In a changing of the "guards," the paperwork was misplaced. Luckily, it was finally found and we only had to delay the closing a week.

But now it's signed, sealed, delivered, and IT'S OURS!

Well our journey to redo our new house will begin tomorrow as we cross the last t's and dot the last i's. Hopefully, it all goes smoothly as we move all of our remodel materials to the house and begin our list of projects. More to come soon!