The work continues.

As summer began, we hit the ground running working on more projects. Though Charlotte has taken up a good amount of our time, we still have been able to complete some projects. I continue to hack away at the list that probably keeps growing.

Some things I can cross off the list...
- Replace the fence by finishing a wood fence around the yard.  - We finally did this and it looks amazing! We are still working on some gates and underneath the fence so Charlotte can't get under to see her friend Mac. She absolutely loves being able to run around the yard and we don't have to worry took much about her getting into the street.

(I know I posted before pictures earlier, but it is always nice to see the before and after together!)

 Before

 After

 

- Put the railings on the deck

- Paint the living room  - Over Father's Day weekend, Jeff went on a fishing trip with my dad, his dad, and Eric, my brother-in-law. While they were away, I tackled painting the living room. It took 2 days and I only did 1 coat, but we are happy with how it turned out. Finally we are taking away the boring cream color that has filled our house.

 Before 

 After

 After

- Finish wedding picture wall in the living room. - After painting the living room, we could finally rehang the picture wall. I still have to find the right picture for the middle, but I was hoping to do our wedding vows or lyrics to our wedding song. Every place I look on etsy is too expensive to have done. Any ideas?

 I wish I were able to cross of more on the list, but we are hoping to tackle more this weekend. It makes it hard when we have a puppy, Twins games, and other things that are taking up our time. 

It is hard to believe that it is already July 10th, that summer school starts on July 21st, and I go back to school August 18th. I thought I had SO much free time this summer, but I guess I really don't. 

My updated project list:

1. Sod the rest of the front yard
2. Sod the backyard
3. Rock around the backyard tree
4. Rock along the back fence
5. Stain the deck
6. Build a fire pit
7. Pump up the cement on the driveway or get a new driveway
8. Pump up the cement in the garage
9. Plant some bushes in the front
10. Plant flowers
11. Clean the outside windows
12. Lower the bar in the basement
13. Paint the bathroom and fix the toilet paper holder
14. Clean out the 2 junk rooms - one upstairs and one downstairs
15. Decorate the house

I promise that my next blog with not be about the house. It gets old reading it, I know. But I do appreciate everyone that does read my blog. Though I haven't blogged religiously, I feel as though I have done a good job of blogging occasionally. Keep on reading and enjoying summer!!

The Life and Times of Charlotte Pool!

What a cutie she is! I love how cute puppies are. The last couple of months, Jeff has been working hard on talking me into getting a dog. I grew up with black labs and was always ok with them, but I never thought I would have a dog. Jeff also grew up with dogs and had a yellow lab. Over the last few months, Jeff showed me pictures of dogs and told me how much he wanted one. We looked online, thought about whether we wanted a rescue dog or a puppy from a breeder. We even took a few trips to the Humae Society. There were a few cute dogs there but we weren't ready for those dogs - 1. Jeff was going on a fishing trip and I didn't want to take care of a dog by myself and 2. I didn't want to get an older dog who didn't know us and we wouldn't know how it would handle a baby in the future - and I mean way in the future. We love our neighbor's dog Morgan who is a bulldog/boxer mix and is the sweetest dog. I also have always loved the looks of bulldogs. After finding out that they are over $1000, we started to look at labs. Knowing that we both grew up with labs, they are loving dogs that are great with kids, we started to look even more. I still wasn't 100% sure I was ready for a dog (I still don't know if I am). But we found a breeder online within our price range that had a female left and I knew how much Jeff wanted a puppy. I told him my feelings about some things so he was aware and we decided that she would be coming home with us!

How can you not love that adorable face! When she sits like that and sleeps all day, I love her. Our first night last night.....yeah not so much. I don't know how I feel about the whole waking up every 1.5hours because she doesn't like her crate. It is going to be a learning experience for both her and us, but I keep trying to tell myself that it will get better. She will start to get the whole going outside to go to the bathroom thing and she will start to get that she needs to spend time in her crate. It will pay off in the long run, right? I guess it is getting us prepared for someday having a kid and having to stay up with a baby. But as I keep saying, that's different. You can take them places and they wear a diaper. Can I put a diaper on Charlotte? Probably not. So far today we have only had one accident in the house (knock on wood). I do love her and know that she will be a great addition to our lives. Here's hoping the next week goes quick and she picks it up! I will definitely have more updates on the life and times of Charlotte Pool!

Finally a finished finished basement!

When Jeff and I moved into our house last April, the basement was finished. We didn't need to do anything with it! We were so excited that we would have a finished basement and that we wouldn't have any work to do.

As the snow began to melt, we quickly learned that our finished basement was soon going to be unfinished. Water was leaking in through the wall and pooling in the middle of the room. We ripped back the carpet and tore down the wall. To fix the water problem, my dad moved dirt in the backyard and we got new gutters, hoping this would fix the problem. Jeff and I could not wait to find out this spring if the gutters fixed the problem so we decided to finish the basement.

Again, with LOTS of help from friends and our awesome neighbor, Ryan, we have finished the basement. We put up more drywall, painted it a new color (one that would look good with the bar Jeff put in the basement), put the carpet back, and cleaned up the dust.

We still have some work to do with decorating and finishing the bar, but at least all of the dust is cleaned and we can at least be in the basement. Yes, Michael Jordan will be living in our basement bar, much to my chagrin. Thanks to a rainy Sunday, we are able to check more items off our list! Maybe by the time we are ready to sell the house in a few years, we will be finished with all of our projects!

We get by with a little help from our friends

Over the last month, we have made some progress on our project list. We still have quite a list but we are making progress. Thank goodness we have my dad to help us out as well as Jeff's friends who are willing to get their hands dirty!

May was filled with lots of projects.
- Take out the wire fence
Jeff and I took out the back fence, it took us a few hours and even longer when he had to pull the poles out. This past weekend, he had a friend and coworker come over and it took them all of 15 minutes. We are so thankful for friends who can do things quickly!

- Remove the lilac bushes
We put the bushes on Craigslist hoping someone would come and do the work. We had someone scheduled but then it was cold and then it rained, and then we said just forget it! My dad came over and pulled out the bushes with the help of Jeff.

- Finish putting rock around the deck
Our rock was delivered Friday afternoon and we finished putting it all around the house. It looks SO much better!! We had 8 tons (I think!) of rock delivered. We were told it would come in the morning so we had one of Jeff's coworkers come over. We waited and waited and waited. Finally about 4, the rock came. With the help of John, a friend in town, and Jared, we were able to move a good part of the rock. Jeff and I then spent our beautiful Saturday afternoon moving rock. If I never have to move rock again in my life, I will be extremely happy!

- Finish painting the basement
Since we had friends coming into town from SD, we had to get this completed. We didn't finish cleaning the basement but at least we are done painting it!

We still have quite a bit of work to do, but it is such a relief to be able to check things off the list.

 

In May 2013 when we found out what was underneath the snow. 

 

May 2014 after we tore down the fence and before the rock came!

May 2014 with the new rock!

 Before (May 2013) and after (May 2014)

We are working hard to create an awesome yard so maybe by year 3 or 4 we can actually have a housewarming party! I love seeing how much the yard has changed. 

I never thought we would buy a house that needed so much outside work. When we were looking for a house last year, we had thought about one that needed inside work (thank goodness we didn't buy one that we had thought about).

It's time to head outside and continue working on that yard in a 70 degree day!

Yellow Tree Theater - trying something new!

On Friday, Jeff and I went to a play with my parents at the Yellow Tree Theater. It is a small theater that he had taken me to on Valentine's Day. We enjoyed the theater and the play so much that we decided to invite my parents to the play that is currently on stage.

The theater is this cute little place, but you wouldn't know that by driving up to it. It is in a strip mall in Osseo, sandwiched between a furniture store and some antique type store. When we went in February, we showed up a little early and there were NO cars in the parking lot. We were a little nervous that we were in the wrong place, but then other cars started showing up. The first time we went, we weren't sure what we were getting ourselves into. As we waited in the car, we continued to see other people over the age of 60 show up as well as a man in Adidas track pants. What were we thinking?! But as we entered into the theater and enjoyed the play, we quickly fell in love with this unique venue. In February, we saw a play about two people at their high school reunion who had been high school sweethearts.

Jeff had remembered that there was a new play going on during this time about the State Fair (which I absolutely LOVE!). We roped in my parents to join us for dinner and a show. Again, I was thoroughly impressed with the theater and the show! It was about a radio contest of 5 people living in an ice shack during the MN state fair for 12 days to win $50,000. There were lots of laughs and we all really enjoyed it. It was a stretch for my dad since he doesn't usually go to things like this. Though he may have fallen asleep for a bit, he claims that he caught all of the good parts of the play.

I would definitely recommend checking out the Yellow Tree Theater if you enjoy plays and are looking for something new. I would like to try new things that I usually wouldn't do. Jeff is really good about coming up with new things to do and places to go. It's funny because when we first started dating, I told him that I would be his tour guide of the Twin Cities since he wasn't from here. It turned out that in the last 3 years, he has been a better tour guide for me, though I have lived here my whole life.

Any ideas of new things to try in the Twin Cities? We are always open to ideas!
 

Spring Projects

The snow has FINALLY melted in our yard. What does this mean? It means our list of spring projects has started. Looking at where the new grass and old grass is growing in has shown just how much we need to do. Who knew a year ago when we bought the house that we would have SO many projects to do in the 2nd year? There are so many that we have a list already for year 3 projects... We keep telling ourselves that the more work we put in, the more money we will get out of the house when we eventually do sell. We love our house but it isn't our forever house.

Here is the list of the projects that will just NEVER end:

1. Sod the rest of the front yard
2. Sod the backyard
3. Take out the wire fence
4. Replace the fence by finishing a wood fence around the yard. (Last summer I helped our neighbors build one side of the yard, but we want to finish it around our whole yard.)
5. Finish putting rock around the deck
6. Rock around the backyard tree
7, Remove the lilac bushes in the back (we are hoping someone from Craigslist is coming today or tomorrow to remove them since they want them)
8. Put the railings on the deck
9. Stain the deck
10. Build a fire pit (this one will be fun!)
11. Pump up the cement on the driveway or get a new driveway
12. Pump up the cement in the garage
13. Plant some bushes in the front (this might be a year 3 project)
14. Plant flowers (I would like my yard to have some color and beauty to it!)
15. Clean the outside windows


That is just outside the house!! There are more projects INSIDE!

1. Finish painting the basement
2. Re-carpet the basement
3. Clean up all of the dust in the basement
4. Lower the bar in the basement
5. Paint the living room
6. Paint the bathroom and fix the toilet paper holder (We quickly learned when my niece Ava came over that we would need to fix this. It wasn't secure in the wall and as I watched her put her hand on the holder to keep her balance, I learned future holdings by our future kids would tear it out of the wall more and eventually we will have a big hole. Needless to say, it needs to be fixed.)
7. Finish wedding picture wall in the living room (We currently have crooked, empty frames hanging on the wall.)
8. Clean out the junk room - everyone has one of these, right??

I am not sharing this with you so you think I'm complaining or want sympathy for the amount of work there is. This is part of being a homeowner and most homeowners know just how much work there is when you buy an old home or a home that hasn't been taken care of. While it is a lot of work, I have tried to take pictures along the way so we can see where we started and where we will eventually finish. The list is more for me to sit down and think about all of the things we need to do. I am excited at the prospect of it all being complete. Though it is going to take some blood, sweat, tears, and maybe some disagreements when my dad comes over and thinks he knows just what we need to do when we don't agree with him, we will get it all done. Maybe not by the next winter, but in time. If you have an desire to donate some time, let me know. I am sure Jeff and I could use some free laborers and we would probably pay you with beer and pizza! :)

I'm off to go start one of the first projects - remove the wire fence and the lilac bushes!

Molly

Fell off the bandwagon...

So it's obvious that I haven't lived up to one of my New Years goals. I fell into the trap that so many people do! I set big goals, get them going for about a month, then life catches up and I just didn't stick with it. So it's time for me to get back on the bandwagon. Here is where I am at with the goals I set for myself:

1. Blog - I haven't blogged in awhile, but that's why I am writing this, right?

2. Be healthy - Still a work in progress. It's hard to make the right choices when your coworkers keep a container of peanut butter m&ms in the room to eat during lunch (which I encourage since they are one of my fav. candies)

 3. Put in more effort at work - I definitely feel as though I have stuck with this goal. It might not be a huge project, but I am putting in more effort.

4. Find a hobby - Also still a work in progress. Suggestions??

I don't feel as though I set my sights too high in sticking with these goals but I am back to try. I can blog once a week, right? Right?

On another note, Jeff and I are coming up to one year in our house. There is still a lot of work to do but it is crazy to think last year at this time we were keeping our fingers crossed to get the house and everything to be fine. As the snow is melting, we are creating our list of spring/summer projects that just won't end.

Last summer, our deck started to rot and I actually fell through one of the boards. We have this huge deck which was one of the reasons we bought the house so when we realized that we needed to rip it up, we were so bummed.

 

 Jeff's family came to town one weekend to help us rip it up.

While I was at my bachelorette party, Jeff called on some coworkers and our awesome neighbor Ryan to come over and help rebuild the deck. They put so much work into the deck that now we have a new, beautiful deck that we can actually enjoy this spring and summer. I was lucky and didn't have to help build it, not that I would have been much help. I can't wait for the first nice day that we can pull out our patio furniture, turn the grill on, and have a relaxing beer. We are almost to that time.... just keep thinking happy thoughts until we get to warmer weather!

Until next time (which will be sooner, rather than in 2 months),
Molly