Weekend updates and a few little tweaks

Happy Monday! This weekend was another rainy weekend here in Texas with some pretty impressive thunderstorms. Friday night we actually lost our electricity for a little bit late in the evening and I was sorry the kids were already in bed because they would have loved all the lights being out. Nate and I were in the middle of our Bloodline marathon so we were happy when the power came back on.

We are finally done scraping the ceilings! We finished up Saturday afternoon and I was so tired after this project that I convinced Nate to have a couple contractors come and give us quotes to have the ceilings finished up by a pro. After scraping all these ceilings, the thought of patching, texturing and painting the ceilings sounded very daunting. But, after the quotes came in much higher than I thought, we will be finishing this job on our own. Nate tried to warn me but I kept thinking about the long hours we spent scraping the ceilings and how the hard part of this job is already done. Wrong! These contractors were quick to remind us that there is quite a lot of hard work still to go. We can do this! Or at least, that’s what I keep telling myself…

The sun came out for a while yesterday afternoon and I was able to snap some photos of the backyard and the screened porch. The weather here has been so bad since we moved in that we haven’t been able to spend much time outside or on the porch. I think it has rained almost every single day in May. And…with all this rain the mosquitoes have been really bad so I have been hiding out and covering the whole fam in bug spray. Hello Zika!

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My plants are all loving the screened porch and I added a lemon tree to the mix so I’m hoping to have some lemons by Thanksgiving. Cross your fingers for me.

We also headed to IKEA this weekend because I had a dresser picked out for the kids room but sadly, it was out of stock. So, I’m either going to wait for it to come back in or I’ll find something else. Haven’t decided yet but I was so disappointed that my dresser wasn’t there. In an effort to cheer myself up, I did find some other goodies for the kids room. I also have a rug and a night stand coming this week. I still need some serious toy storage solutions and a dresser though.

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Nolan and Grey love their new little reading corners. They each went and picked out some of their favorite books to load up their new shelves. Grey refers to his bed as his cave. It does feel pretty cozy under there. Nolan has even been caught reading in Grey’s bed a few times.

So those are our weekend tweaks. This week marks our first full week of summer and we have lots on agenda with orthodontist and dentist appointments, swimming lessons, play dates, and football camp. And those ceilings are still taunting me…

Once you pop, we can’t stop…..scraping

Once upon a time there was a girl who bought a 1648 sq. foot house. Every ceiling in this house had that famous popcorn texture that we all know and love. Every. Single. Inch. It’s even on the ceilings of the closets! This same girl thought she would be able to scrape this popcorn texture from these ceilings and it was no big deal. Boy, was she wrong.

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Here’s how all the ceilings looked before we started scraping. We have told several of our new neighbors about our project and how we are going to start scraping and their reactions have been pretty funny. We have heard things like, “yuck,” and “what a mess.” We soon found out that those are just a few of the ways you could describe this job…among other, less blog-appropriate words.

The process itself is simple. First, spray the area you plan on scraping with water and let it soak so it saturates the surface. We found that magic number was around 15 minutes but it definitely didn’t hurt anything to let it soak for longer stretches of time. While it soaked, we used this time to prep for the mess. Although, I’m not sure there is any amount of prepping that a human being can do to prepare for the mess that is about to ensue. Then, the scraping begins…and never ends. Okay, it does end at some point. We just haven’t found that point yet.

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Lovely, isn’t it? It was a little shocking to see the drywall for the first time all dark and soaking wet. But, it quickly dries and looks lighter and more like drywall is supposed to look.

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The plastic tarp was a life saver for us as the dust that comes with this job is very fine and goes just about everywhere. Your hair, your ears, and even manages to make its way through your clothes. In the kitchen, I was able to tuck the plastic right under the doors of the cabinets. Originally, I was going to use painters tape to secure it to the top of the cabinets but when I went in the the garage to find the tape, I was greeted by a very large wasp. Nate wasn’t due home from work for another 45 minutes so I decided I would work with what I had and tuck that plastic right under the doors. It worked like a charm.

Preparation is really the key to this job. We quickly learned that the more you prep – the less time you spend cleaning up. A shop vac would have been very helpful. We don’t have one but would definitely buy one if we were doing it over because our regular vacuum for the house isn’t speaking to us anymore after all this extra work we have put it through.

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That fluorescent light used to live in the kitchen but we took it down so we could scrape under it. It definitely won’t be returning. I am going to start hunting for a flush mount fixture for the kitchen. This was sort of a theme as we finished each room. I had Nate take down the light fixtures for scraping ease but am thinking that none of them should go back up so we can take this opportunity to replace them with something more our style. Either that, or we will be living in the dark.

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Nate was a good sport and climbed all the way to the top of the vaulted ceilings for me because I was too scared to get up there.

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After the long weekend of scraping, we finished up the kitchen, dining and living rooms, entryway, hallways and one bedroom. We have three bedrooms with their closets and the bathrooms to go…and we will finish it! Next up, figure out how we are going to get these naked ceilings textured and painted.

Week 1 Progress Report

Wow. I can’t believe we have already been in the house for a whole week. And what a week this has been!

Not only have we been moving and unpacking, the kids are finishing up their last weeks of school. Grey had his preschool graduation and it was off the charts cute. His teacher took the time to give character awards and she picked out what she thought was the best characteristic of each student. Grey was given the, “gives the best hugs” award and we couldn’t be more proud of him. This fits him perfectly.

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Nolan had Field Day at her school this week and came home soaking wet with a smile on her face. They had a water slide and snow cones. I think it’s safe to say that fun was had by all.

Back at home, organizing and unloading boxes was the name of the game. This house is more square footage than we have ever lived in before and our furniture/stuff is looking a bit sparse as we spread it out throughout the house. I guess this means that I will need to start filling this place up. Challenge accepted.

Here are some pics of the house after our first week. Lots to do but I’m excited about all the possibilities and am swimming in ideas to turn this place into something special.

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Some of my pictures are a bit dark. I have a new camera and am still learning how to use it. The screened porch extends across the back portion of the house and it blocks some light from the living and dining rooms also.

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Our new neighbor, Laura, brought us over some pretty blooms. Just what our table needed!

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I’m loving all this natural light in the master bedroom. Artie is a big fan.

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I’m also happy to report that week one with the kids sharing a bedroom went smoothly. They are loving the bunk beds and have been spending a lot of time playing, reading, and using their tablets on them. One issue that I didn’t think about when we decided they would be sharing a room was the combining of the clothes and toys. We are overflowing in both departments. I am brainstorming ideas for some toy/book storage and am thinking about a new long dresser that could be divided between the two of them. Each kiddo has their own dresser from their old rooms at our rental house but two different dressers would be weird for this small space so I am thinking that I will use Grey’s old dresser and move it into the nursery and Nolan’s dresser will be posted on Craigslist.

So that’s week one. I left out pics of some spaces only because they have been relatively untouched and there is nothing interesting to report. But the house is starting to feel very homey. Now, I think I need a nap.

Nolan and Grey’s Shared Room

So I have been going back and forth on this topic for weeks and finally just decided we are going to pull the trigger. Yep, you heard right, my kiddos, Nolan (who is a 7 year old girl) and Grey (our 5 year old son) are going to share a bedroom. But, why? How could I do this to them, you ask? I have a few reasons.

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First, when we found out we got this house we were in real estate heaven realizing that we were going to have four bedrooms. This was the ONLY house we looked at that had four bedrooms. We weren’t actually looking for a four bedroom house because we thought it would be out of reach for us. We were more concerned about the neighborhood and schools for the kiddos. My head started spinning with all the possibilities for all these bedrooms…guest rooms, kid rooms, nurseries for babes to come. Anyways, when we told the kids we got the house, the first thing they asked was if we could get bunk beds and they could share a bedroom. Hmmm…could they? Is this even allowed?

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I grew up in a family with five kids and everyone always shared a room. I shared with my sister, Collin, and our three older brothers also bunked together. Collin and I never had any serious issues sharing a space (besides the normal sibling fighting from time to time) and as for the brothers, I never hear any stories about how terrible it was for them to share a room. So my point is, sharing a bedroom isn’t an unfamiliar concept to me. But when I brought this up to friends over the last few weeks, I got some sideways glances and comments like, “good luck with that”.

Secondly, Nate and I just found out we are having another baby! Baby Boy will be joining us in November, just before Thanksgiving. Exciting, yes! But again, this news also made my head spin thinking about the bedroom situation at this new house of ours.

Lastly, I wanted to have a guest room. All of our family lives in Oregon so when we have visitors from the Northwest, it’s much nicer for them to be comfortable in their own space and not on an air mattress in the middle of the living room. Having a designated space for guests feels so grown up.

So after mulling this over for weeks, I have made a firm decision. Firm = I reserve the right to change the plan at any time if the current set-up isn’t working for everyone. For now, Nolan and Grey got their bunk beds and are going to share a room. Baby Boy will have the smallest bedroom (next to the master) as his nursery. Finally, the guest room will be at the end of the hall. Feels good to make a decision! Lets just see if this works…

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Officially official

We were supposed to sign for the house on Friday and then Friday turned into Monday, which turned into Wednesday. There were quite a few hiccups at the end of the process shuffling paperwork and making sure our lender stayed on top of deadlines. They didn’t. We (and when I say we, I mean mostly me) were upset at the time but now, a few days later, it’s a done deal and all is forgotten…almost.

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