Friday, February 28, 2014

Laundry Room Transformation

It's been a little over two months since we closed on our house, and we just completed the first room this week!  I still might hang a couple things around, but for now, the laundry room is done and ready to go.  For some reason I didn't get very good before pictures - like only one - so you'll just have to use your imagination.  This is the transformation of the room!
 
So this is my only "before" picture.  Whoops.  I promise I have lots more of the other rooms :)  You can see they had a beautiful laundry room themed border up, yellow on the walls, that beautiful light fixture, and white linoleum on the floors.  They took their washer and dryer so the space below the cabinets was empty (and nasty).
 
We took down the border immediately, cleaned everything...about 45 times, replaced the two light fixtures (there's another one you can't see), changed the knobs on the cabinets, changed the door knobs on all three doors (entry from kitchen, pantry, and hot water heater), painted all the wood works white, replaced and painted the moldings, painted the walls, painted the ceilings and painted the shelves in the pantry, and bought a new washer and dryer.  I know...this is only one room.  See why we're still working on it two months later!!
 
 Instead of paying the $20 for Home Depot to install the washer and dryer for us, Grant thought he could do it himself...that's him crammed in behind the dryer trying to figure it out.  A little over two hours and few trys later, it was hooked up and ready for use!
 
 LOVE our new washer and dryer!  We went with the LG top loader.  So far, so good!  The best part is it plays a song when it's done instead of one of those annoying beeps!
 
Ta-Da!  The finished laundry room!  This is as you walk in from the side entry door.
 
Same thing here - just ignore the box on the floor and the khakis on the dryer :)  Picture on the right was before I put the words around the bulletin board.  The door by the bulletin board is our pantry.
 
One of my favorite things we've done so far!  I love having pictures around and having places to display them.  We have been blessed with great friends and family!!
 
So, one room is completly done...check!  We just got word from the place we bought our hardwood from that it should be here next week.  Once the hardwood gets in, we'll be able to get more organized and hang things on the walls in the main living areas.  I can't wait to have a couch to sit on, a TV to watch, and MY bed to sleep on! 
 
 



Monday, February 24, 2014

Mathis Family vs Deer

Well, we had an eventful and interesting weekend! 
 
We started out by taking Kem and Ray and Kevin and Melisa Baker to Patti's for dinner on Friday night.  Kevin and Melisa have worked hours at our house these past couple of months.  They painted our bedroom and bath, the half bath, the upstairs bath, and one of the upstairs bedrooms.  They have been awesome!!  They are definitely two of the most selfless people I have met.  They wouldn't accept any money and then almost refused to go, but we finally convinced them that they had to come to dinner and let us pay for it!  Of course Ray has helped us with all of the floors and base, and Kem has been on the cleaning crew, so buying every one's dinner was the least that we could do!  We had a fun night out spending time with everyone away from the house!
 
 
Saturday the weather was beautiful!  We got out of the house and went to watch Grant's little cousin, Walker, play basketball, and then went to Gabbi's game to watch her.  Afterwards, we went back home, sat on the back patio, got some sun, and cleaned off some things that were in the garage and brought them into the spare bedroom.  After cutting all of the tile and the boards in the garage, where all of our furniture was, everything is covered in dust!!  It took three-four cleans before they were presentable enough to even make it into the house.  They will probably all need another clean before they get placed in their final spot!  We cleaned enough and organized the garage enough that I am now able to get my car in.  Yay!
 
Saturday night we went and hung out at the Parker's house for a while.  We ordered pizza and just sat around and talked for most of the night.  Fun times!  We left their house around 10:45 to head home.  We got off at our exit and we were about 5-6 miles from our house.  I was not paying attention and was playing on my phone when I heard this loud boom!  I panicked thanking that someone had come over the center lane and side swiped us, but it was a deer!  The thing came out of nowhere and literally tore our front up to pieces!  We pulled over to assess the damage and were able to make it back home and get it the driveway.  The next morning when we went out you could see deer hair stuck everywhere - yuck!  With Grant and I's luck we weren't really that shocked, just one more thing to add to the to-do list this week!
 

 
Grant was hoping it would total our car and we could get a new one!
 

We saw the deer laying in someones yard on the side of the road on the way to church the next morning.  Dumb Deer!!
 
Sunday night our church hosted a youth service for area youth groups.  It was an awesome night of praise and worship.
 
Jeff doing the beginning "ice-breaker."
 
Besides the car getting beamed by a wild animal, we had a great weekend!  Lots of time with friends and family, pretty weather, and getting some things done around the house makes for a pretty great couple of days!

 
 
 


Monday, February 17, 2014

Valentine's Day/Our Weekend

Happy Valentine's Day!
 
Friday, Grant and I spent a pretty low key Valentine's Day at our new house!  We just started sleeping there this week, so we were still pretty excited to be staying there on Valentine's.  As soon as Grant got home from his rotation, he cooked us one of his specialties, Chicken Marsala.  Yummy!  I made a Oreo cheesecake dessert.  It wasn't my best dessert I've ever made, but it was my first attempt at cheesecake so I gave myself a pass! Bad blogger moment - I didn't take any pictures on Valentine's Day...whoops!  Anyways, Grant got me some socks I had been wanting, some chocolate, and the biggest Valentine's Day card you have ever seen.  It was hysterical!  I got him some filters for his K-Cup machine that let you use regular coffee (not just the kcups) and some candy.  After our dinner, we finished the night by sealing our tile for the second time!  Fun times :)
 
 
Saturday morning, we slept in for a little bit, and then got ready to go drop some big bucks!  Our two last big purchases for the house that we needed were the washer and dryer and a kitchen table.  My mom and grandparents volunteered to help us with the table, chairs, and buffet piece.  Thank you!! We have definitely been blessed with some great help during this process.  We headed to Faegan's Furniture to look through their books and get one ordered.  I finally decided on the one below.  LOVE it and can't wait for it to come in.  We got the table and six chairs (not the bench) and the matching hutch.  I think it's going to look just perfect in our dining/kitchen area!
 

After we finished furniture shopping, we headed to Paducah to look at washers and dryers.  Tucker went with us most of the day and got to see how much fun it is to own your own home...lol!  If you know anything about Grant, you know how cheap he is, so it was quite the experience to shop for major purchases with him.  Tucker and I were so embarrassed at one point, we had to just walk away!!  However, we did get a good deal on a great washer and dryer.  They are getting delivered in a week!  I've never been more excited to do laundry!
 
Tucker's modeling our new dryer for us :)
 
Saturday night, we went to Trent and Lisa's to eat pizza and watch the Cats lose to Florida...ugh!  Then Sunday, we got home from church and worked around the house before heading to Kip and Blair's to play with baby Lovett.  I was able to bring in a few things from the garage to put on our counter tops.  It's actually starting to feel and look like our house now.  Sneak peak into the decor are these very special framed recipe cards from my grandmother.  My grandmother has always been a great cook, so I thought it would be neat for her to write down a couple of her favorite recipes and frame them for our kitchen!  I think it turned out great!
 
 
It was so nice to actually have some time to enjoy this weekend!  It feels like we haven't been able to interact with normal people in forever! Ha!  We are hoping to finish up a couple more things this week while we are STILL waiting on the hardwood...



Monday, February 10, 2014

Catching Up!

We've been so busy with everything lately, it's been almost a month since my last post! Crazy!  Quite a bit has changed on the home front, we went to Maryland for Clay's birthday, I spent about four days in Nashville for work, and it's been a blizzard in Kentucky the past couple of weeks!  This is a random, quick update of what we have been up to!
 
Around the last weekend in January, we headed to Maryland for Clay's birthday.  It was nice to get away from the house for a couple of days and spend time with family.  Kem, Ray, Grant, and I flew out on Thursday night just in time for Clay's birthday on Friday!
 
This was the view from Courtney and George's back porch!  They had gotten about 8 inches of snow before we got there!
 
We played lots of football!
 
And got to be there for Clay's sports themed birthday party!
 
We had a fun weekend with Courtney, George, and Clay celebrating.  I can't believe he is 8 years old!
 
This is what Kentucky has looked like the past couple of weeks. Yuck!  I need some sun in my life!!  Lots of ice, a little snow, and the kids have been out of school all of this last week.  Grant and I managed to get our car stuck in a field at one point and had to be pushed out, so the we've just been enjoying this weather so much!
 
This past Friday night, we went and hung out with Megan and Tyler and baby Monroe!  He slept almost the entire time we were there, but he is precious!  We both got some good bonding time in with him!
 
Look at those cheeks!
 
I spent part of my Saturday at the oldest laundry mat I have ever been in!  We don't have our washer and dryer yet and Kem and Ray's is broken!  Fun times :)
 
STILL snowing here!  Yesterday at church the boys starting throwing snowballs at the building trying to knock the icicles down...boys!
 
We spent most of last night cleaning up around the house and then got to move some furniture into the guest bedroom.  That means we can start staying there! yay!  It is actually starting to feel like home :)  I'll save the most recent pics until a later blog post - that way I will be able to keep them all together.
 
Funniest picture from the past few weeks is this one Grant!  Sorry, he is in his boxers :)  This is reason #1651 why I don't want a dog anytime soon!  We were in charge of babysitting Kem and Ray's dog, Rimmy, last night.  She peed in the floor while we were getting ready for bed, so Grant had to take her outside in the snow with no clothes on. HA!
 
 
We've had an extremely busy, but productive, last few weeks.  Can't wait to blog about the house and compare the before and afters!  It's getting close!!