Colorado update!

I've been meaning to update for a while, basically since we moved, but, you know how it goes. Our first few days here Will's parents had our kids (back in Provo), so we could drive the moving truck out and get all moved in and set up. Then they drove the kids out.

I must say, it was extremely nice to be able to move without them there - it would have really complicated things. We had to go from apartment to storage unit a couple of times to unload the truck. We didn't have any help unloading except for the piano and fridge, thank goodness a couple of guys in the Elder's Quorum were able and willing to help us out with those with pretty short notice.

Will and I had a good time being a "single couple" and had some fun late-night dates. We saw "Oblivion" one night, and another night we drove up to Lookout Mountain road and had ice cream overlooking the city lights. It was really fun! I hope I can find a good babysitter soon so that dates like that can continue. :)

Anyway, we got our kids back, and Ben was sick. He couldn't hold much of anything down for FOUR days. He wasn't super dehydrated, so I just watched him close, but man. He was one sick little guy. Thank goodness today he's finally feeling way better. He's still really sleepy but at least he's eating, drinking and playing. *whew*

So for the first time today we got to go do something together, we went to a park and had a picnic lunch.

I was so happy to see a face from him that was not crying or whining! I'm glad to have my boy back.

Kaylee was having more fun on the rocking toy than it looks like. She sometimes goes a bit blank for the camera.

I want to add more pictures of the area here and our new place, but I've just been really busy (of course, caring for a sick toddler) so I haven't taken any other pictures. I do want to say though, that it is absolutely gorgeous here! Every street is lined with trees, it's clean and well-kept, and our "backyard" at the apartment here is the mountains. Okay, so compared to Utah it's really just big hills, but it's a beautiful view. The other side of the complex faces down, over the city. Overall, we love it here so far!

So...I lied.

We were not done yet.

After around 10 people or so came through our house, we knew what we needed to change still. Everyone seemed to like the house in general, they liked how bright and open it is, and they said it was staged well, looked great and was priced just right. Problem??

THE basement. I was afraid it would be a problem, but it was just soooo much better than before that I thought maybe it would be okay. Not that everyone said the basement was horrible, but basically the only negative feedback we got at all was the basement, mainly the ceiling tiles. So, we thought we might as well just fix it. Took us 3 days and $300 and it turned out great. I painted all the hanging track white, and we replaced all the ceiling tiles and put in new lighting. We absolutely hated the big old florescent lights down there, so we changed it to can lighting in the main room and regular fixtures in the bedrooms.

There ya go. We also staged it a bit more, as you can see, because it was...well, empty. Now I'm pretty sad, because we had tons of showings, and now the basement is nice, but we haven't had any showings since we fixed it. :( Crossing our fingers that we get some showings and an offer soon!

It is finished.

Well, the day finally came. After 1 1/2 years of remodeling things here and there, and then 5 straight weeks of hardcore remodeling, our house is done. Okay, mostly. There are still a few hinges I want to replace and little things like that, but that's no big deal. We are beyond exhausted and SO happy to be done!!

In the last 5 weeks, we took several hundred square feet of tile out and then replaced it with new tile, tiled two shower/bath surrounds, had 700+ square feet of carpet replaced, painted almost the entire house top to bottom, did two major bathroom remodels, replaced the front door, got the landscaping done, updated light fixtures, painted the kitchen cabinets, got a couple of window replacements...that barely covers it, but I'll stop now. You get the point.

I uploaded all the pictures to a before/after album for your enjoyment. There are FAR too many to upload into a blog post, so go ahead and check them out!!

Official Before/After Pictures

Mini-update

Sorry I've been MIA lately! We visited Will's sister Tiffany and her family over Easter, and Will had a job interview with an engineering company there in Littleton, CO. The first thing they said to Will when he applied was "Oh, thanks for your interest, we're not hiring right now though," and that was that. Until about two hours later when they said "Hey, we want a phone interview with you," so he had a phone interview. And then they said "We want to pay for you and your family to come over here and check out the area and company and get to know you a little bit." SO. We did that over Easter (nothing better than a paid vacation!) and had a wonderful time.

As it turns out, he got a job! I guess even though they weren't hiring, they liked him a lot and thought he would be a great addition to the company. They were, however, worried about ME. Apparently they've had a few problems with wives of engineers moving from Utah and changing their mind at the last minute. Like, two days before their husbands were supposed to start, that sort of thing. I wished I could tell them myself that I am not the least bit attached to Utah, and in fact promised myself I would stay there for a year and then leave.

Anyway, what I'm trying to say is, we're SUPER EXCITED!! Both of us want out of Utah. It's fine, but not forever. When we were first married and talking about areas we would want to end up, we said "Anywhere in the West, except for California and Salt Lake City." We really have nothing against Salt Lake, we just...didn't want to live there! And California is a little too expensive. Or maybe a lot too expensive.

We've been ridiculously busy getting the house ready for sale. Of course we could just put it up as is and someone would no doubt buy it (there are always investors around here looking for houses) for a decent amount of money. However, we figure we'll try to get as much done as we can and make the money for ourselves. :) We had a realtor over a couple of weeks ago and that was very encouraging for us because he gave us a number we were not expecting. It was quite a bit higher than we were even hoping for. We already have a lot of projects done, but still so much to go. We've been working on it non-stop for 2 1/2 weeks and have about 3 weeks go to till the day we want it up on the market. I think we're doing alright. So far we have:

Torn out all the marble flooring (YAY!!!)
Replaced the kitchen, entryway and basement bathroom floors with new tile
Put drywall in the basement bathroom
Tiled the shower in the basement
Replaced the front door
Painted all the cabinets, we just need to put them back up (that's probably going to be the hard part)
Painted the entire basement except for the laundry room. We still need to do some touching up and fixing up ceilings, but it's not too bad.

We've got a concrete company coming to fix our broken out driveway approach (right this minute, actually), carpet is scheduled to be installed in the basement and bedrooms next week, I've got a couple of appointments for quotes for removing the old nasty dead bush out front, and two new windows are being installed in the basement on Tuesday.

That's why I haven't blogged. And I'm so sorry there are no pictures yet. Be patient and you will be blown away!

I love cooking...

It's one of my favorite things to do. I can make amazing Asian food, I can whip up Italian bread in less than two hours, I make the BEST dinner rolls. I've had several people tell me I make the best cookies they've ever had. I recently made up a recipe for a peanut butter chocolate pie that is really easy, really quick, and basically tastes like...heaven...in my mouth. I can take almost any recipe that I want to and make it delicious the very first time, even if I make some changes to it according to our tastes (or if I'm missing an ingredient).

But...I can't make pancakes. Seriously, I stink at it. I make them every week or so to try to get the trick, but it's not working very well so far. They taste fine, but man are they UGLY.

I think I need to fix the butter problem (the recipe I use melts the butter, and when I mix it in, it always hardens so there are chunks of butter all over my batter), and use lower heat. But in using lower heat, I need to be patient. I'm not very good at being patient.

Maybe I'm just too impatient for pancakes.

Our Bedrom: Before and After

We always have several projects going on here, and this is one I've been working on for a while. We got a couple of Lowes giftcards and quite a bit of cash for Christmas, so this is what we decided to do.

My bedroom is very important to me. It's my escape, my "safe" place, my quiet place, and most of all, my place that is only for me and my husband, no kids allowed. I mean, sure, they go in there sometimes, but generally, it's off-limits. Why? Well, because I guess even though I THOUGHT I was going to be a super-attached parent, and breastfeed for two years, and cosleep forever, and all that jazz...I'm not. I'm just not. There's really no other way around it, I suppose. I'm an attached parent in that I listen to my kids, I rock them to sleep, I cuddle them, I give them attention and hugs and kisses...but at bedtime I get selfish, and I want time without children. So naturally I wanted my room to be a sort of "haven" that I can really relax in. Our whole married life we've never had a nice bedroom. I've just never decorated it the way I wanted and made it look really good. I knew I wanted something that was romantic, clean, bright, and simple.

Okay, enough chatting. Here are my pictures.

The first thing I did was paint the walls. I painted them when we first moved in, twice. And I still didn't like the color. It was okay, but it was far too blue (I wanted gray). It actually looks more gray in the "before" pictures than the "after" pictures here, but gray is a very, very deceiving color, as I've found. It never looks the same in pictures, and it also never goes on the wall the way you expect. But I'm really happy with how it is now.

After the walls, I painted the floor a dark, glossy brown. It looks awesome compared to the old, worn floor. I moved the dresser inside the closet and painted the pictures. We made the molding ourselves for $15. YES. I can't believe how expensive molding is, even for really plain, boring stuff. So I much prefer ours. The curtains are made from $5 Walmart sheets and $5 Ikea sheer curtains. In total I think it cost me around $25 for the curtains, plus lots of work. I had to do a lot of sewing and trimming to get them just right. I was worried about doing floor-length curtains in my room, but I actually love how it looks!

 The closet was kind of a big deal - even though it just looks like I put a curtain up. I painted everything (I had never painted the trim there, how sad!) including the inside of the closet and the door. I also removed all the old paint from the clothes rod and the door knob, and put new hinges on. It's amazing what little things like that can do. The people that worked on this house before us didn't do a great job. All the hinges and doorknobs were painted over and everything was just a mess. I'm slowly getting it all cleaned up and looking nice.

I love this room so much!! I'm so glad I was able to do it.

Bathroom Project: 1.2

My last post about this project said I was sad we had no before pictures. But my mom pretty much saved my life, because she had one she took a long time ago. Thank goodness!! It pretty much covers everything! I'll post it again when we're done for comparison, but for now...feast your eyes on this baby:

 Some of the problems:
-Weird ceiling shapes due to vents and pipes, you can see a bit in the top middle.
-Although a medicine cabinet, the mirror is just on the wall, not IN the wall, so it sticks out a good 3 inches. And way too low - I almost couldn't see the top of my head.
-Will would literally hit his head on the ceiling trying to wash his hands.
-TINY vanity. And water damaged.
-The spot between the tub and the wall to get to the toilet is about 18 inches wide. Awkward.
-The shower surround is all rotting away.
-I probably don't need to mention the teal.

This week we:

-Tore out our concrete we first put in (a little tapping did the job) and redid it. We didn't mix it right the first time (apparently you are not supposed to follow the instructions on the bag?? the concrete guy we talked to was just cracking up when he said we needed to add a LOT more water and ignore the instructions) so we did it over to make sure it was good and strong. It was so much easier the second time, and I'm really glad we redid it.

-Built a small wall to cover a duct and fill the gap between the tub and the wall. My husband is amazing, have I ever said that? He just whipped up this plan in his head and we went for it. The tub fit in like a GLOVE, you guys. A flipping glove.

-Attached the tub to the studs with screws. (Oh, and yes, we are leaving the wall behind the tub bright green. In case you were wondering. And yes, it was there when we moved in.)

-Hooked up the whole tub drain. It's not perfect yet, there's a little leak, but it shouldn't be a big deal to fix that. I hope.

 -We tried to get the little plunger thingy to work in the bathtub, you know, where you pull the tab and the tub plugs up for you? Yeah that was a nightmare. We spent FOREVER working on it. Like an hour or something. And we FINALLY got it in. Annnnnd it doesn't work. >:[ Not so fun. We didn't even buy the cheapest kit! Gee!! I don't know if we'll try a different setup or just make it a plain one without a stopper...

It doesn't really sound like a whole lot this week, but...it was. It just was. We are making progress. Next is hooking up the water source and doing some rewiring.


Oh, and we still love each other, a lot. That's big, because this remodeling stuff is not for the faint of heart. ;)