finished refinished floors! oh my!

the floors are finally done! i am so happy with the end result. like
gary said, a color change from classic oak to espresso on an old floor is like painting an old car black. everything shows. but we were lucky enough to have some dedicated contractors (when all is said and done) who spent an entire day on their hands and knees (when they thought they were already done) "finishing" the floors. treatment normally reserved for trimwork was used on the entire surface, not fun for them, but boy is it perty. we're still working on window treatments and wall decor and maybe a new entertainment center/tv and i don't want to show you the final rooms till they are perfected, so i'm just going to reveal the empty rooms for now:

post move-in. you can see that the finish is horrible, down to raw wood in the main traffic patterns. and it's an ugly honey color. okay, honey isn't really ugly, it's just not my favorite.

after day 1 of sanding. they filled in the worn down traffic areas with some wood filler and evened out some of the boards. they even replaced two whole sections where the former owners had "patched" the floors.

just another view of the living area post-sanding. and.....drum roll, please.........

and my fabulous new espresso floors. they look like new. and smell like it too! in fact, the former owner's doggy smell is now completely gone. thank goodness!

thai spring rolls & grand theft auto

stevie bevie's birthday will, i'm sure, not be one he remembers for the rest of his life; neither good nor bad. the whole family caught colds last week (on top of allergies) and none of us were feeling for playing. we went to lemongrass for thai food (thia ruby is still #1). nash would have nothing to do with the plain rice we gave him, but he thoroughly enjoyed his spring rolls. after dinner, we made a quick stop to pick up some nighttime cold meds-romantic, right? (i'm sure this exactly what you all were thinking when i asked for suggestions for the day's events.)

nash fell asleep in the car, so stevie ran into albertson's to grab the drugs. while i waited, i watched a little old lady pull up in a beat-up car. she parked a few spaces away from where we were parked. she got out of the car then proceeded to step out of her purse. don't ask why. she then locked it in the trunk and headed over to a nearby parked truck. she toggled the handle and after she was unable to gain access, mosied on over to another car and proceeded to do the same. she did an excellent job of playing the roll of the confused and elderly when the vehicles owners came out from the store. between each car she would take a few long strides, hands behind her back as if on a sunday walk in the park. i watched her approach, i kid you not, five cars before she saw me watching from the front seat of our car. glad she noticed me before she tried our handle-that would have been awkward! busted!she sat down on her front seat for a break, i guess. maybe she thought she would fool me too. i watched on and stevie returned from the store. the two of us watched as she again approached a few more cars before we finally decided to leave the parking lot. as we passed the other parking lot entrance, we saw her slowly leave in her beat up sedan. i'm quite sure she was on the hunt for an alternate venue.

that very same day, gary the floor-dude's truck was seen driving out of the lowe's parking lot just down the street. he was not in it and has not seen it since. ironic?

your input please

why are boys soooo difficult? stevie bevie's 26th birthday is tomorrow and i have yet to think of one special thing (except setting up the dish install) to do for him. i think i've brought home dew and pickle chips often enough that it won't seem special. i've already written a nice post about him, so that is old hat. plus who knows if he'll even see it when we have no internet at home. our house is in shambles so a party is out of the question, not to mention the fact that he'll probably have homework. luckily he took care of his presents on his own and helped himself to some new street shoes and knee/shin guards for mountain biking. if he were a girl, any girl, i would surely think up the most amazing party and treats, but since he's a boy (and i might add that he is a boy who doesn't care about anything even remotely close to what i care about) i am at a total loss...

things are looking up. just a tad. the floor dudes came early-although we are starting to think that it might not matter how early they came when they only put in three hours a day. yes, that's right. apparently i have to take on a new role as foreman and boss those guys around to get these floors in ship shape by the weekend. ahhhh.....contractors.
the dishwasher repairman, after a little pestering by muwah, finally brought the ordered part over and fixed the dishwasher. the mechanisms are now free of children's refrigerator magnets and has a functional soap dispenser. stevie bevie was especially thrilled about this.
we're getting dish installed tomorrow (we've been without tv and internet for a few days now on top of having our furniture play musical chairs). and i sold the lawnmower that the formers so kindly left us for $50 on craigslist.
have i mentioned how much i love craigslist? the former owners left so much crap it's unbelievable, but with a little effort on my part i just may be able to make enough off of all of it to pay for their friggin rotted out subfloor! if only i could hold onto the cash.....over the past week i have somehow managed to loose around $100 in cash. i have suspicions of a certain someone raiding my jeans pockets and fauxbo, but certain someone refuses the notion..
and best of all, nash woke up last thursday and had somehow mastered a cute new trick in his sleep:

the money pit

i'm not going to pretend we didn't know what we were getting ourselves into. we bought a house built in 1921, and let's be real, no one tells the truth on their "seller's disclosures", right? and inspectors don't really know anything, right? well, that's what i'm starting to think anyway. we knew we'd have to remodel the bathroom for aesthetic purposes (it's all pink-ALL pink). we knew we'd have to get new carpet upstairs. and we knew we'd have to do a little "touching up" of the trim. turns out, by the time we're through with this place, it's basically going to be a new house.

last sunday, stevie bevie took a poop and the toilet overflowed. (just so bevie is not embarrassed, it was a totally average poop, both in size and consistency.) it began to leak through the pipes at the bottom of the basement stairs, soaking the carpet. it took 4 friggin days (don't ask us how we managed this, the only bathroom in the house being out of commission) for the home warranty company's contracted plumbers to get their arses to our house, only to tell us that it wasn't the pipes that were leaking-it was the floor! go figure-the former owners (who we have since realized are unfit to care for ANYTHING) never caulked, recaulked, or even thought about caulking in their 5 years of occupancy. so....what happens when you combine a 50 year old pink toilet and plumbing with an uncaulked bathroom? a rotted out subfloor. sweet. we were planning to replace fixtures and tile in the bathroom, but now we have to completely gut it and lay a new subfloor. the good thing about this is that there is a small chance we can get financial assistance from either the home warranty or the previous owners (because there is no way in HELL they didn't know about this). we're just hoping we don't fall through the floor while showering before then!

we found mouse traps in the basement, but the sellers, when asked in the seller disclosure if they were aware of any past or present problems with rodents, insects, or other pests checked the "no" box. really? are you serious? i mean, i'm not saying this house shouldn't have mice and roaches and whatever else, but the fact that these people blatantly lied about it?!?!?! what the crap? at least clean up your mouse traps so you can pretend you didn't know.

when we moved in the house was in...well, it wasn't clean. at all. after days of cleaning (and i'm still not done), i have come to realize that this is also a task that never crossed the minds of our beloved former owners. why clean windows when you can cover them with crappy curtains? having to clean every square inch of a home leads you to become quite familiar with every detail. and in this case, every decrepid detail. all the windows-painted shut. all the door hinges-painted over, doorknobs too. the hardwood? oh my hell....got down on my hands and knees with a bucket of murphy's oil soap and scrubbed the crap out of it only to discover that the floor probably isn't in shape to make it through the winter. so we're refinishing the hardwood this week (hopefully the contractor shows up).

i'm pretty sure my prior infections of home-improvement-disorder were preparing me for what i am now up to my eyeballs in. anxiety, sleepless nights trying to prioritize projects, and a recent development of allergies triggered by new carpet are all teaching me one thing: humility. seriously, nothing is more humbling than an old house with a pink bathroom and a crooked floor. but the up-side to this is that this time i actually get to follow through on the projects (because they are so neccessary that even stevie bevie agrees!) and by the time they're all completed there won't be a trace of the former owners. which is a good thing.

and to think, all we wanted was a place that we wouldn't have to work on while bevie went through the already stressful law program. this better pay off!

ali's baby shower

ali's baby shower was a total success. just call me martha! i've been waiting on all the pics from her camera, but i can't wait any longer. i'll just have to post a sequel once they are uploaded! i started out by creating, what else?, a blog to host all the details for the shower. then i sent out e-vites to all the attendees linking them to the blog (the above image was the message content). guests were able to rsvp there and subscribe to the blog so that updates were sent straight to their inboxes. post-shower, i have posted the recipes for the yummy spread and we'll get those pictures of ali & all the guests up too. i wasn't sure how i felt about the e-vites, but in the end i have decided that (provided they don't end up in spam boxes) they are fun, easy & free!

the theme was "baby bird" and the colors were blue and green. everything turned out perfectly. everything that i actually had time to execute, that is. i had some grand plans for the favors and decor, but moving in only five days prior to the event left me with little time, energy, or spending cash.



you can see all the details on the blog (if you care), but i have to mention one thing in particular here. the cake. i am so dang proud of myself for this-not only did it turn out deliciously perfect, but i'm pretty sure no cursing was involved! (holwonder-i'll be modifying this for your birthday cake, so hope you can hold out till october to eat the best cake you've ever tasted!) sorry to ali for not considering the fact that you don't really like chocolate. i just can't ever remember that because it's LUDICROUS!

cup-a-cake

cup-a-cake.

neato. a little case for sending cupcakes to school (that's a few years off in my world). little protrusions hold the cake in place within the container keeping it from moving when the contrainer is closed. and only $2.99 each.

ikea hackery

i think i'm like most people who have known about ikea's existence for more than a decade. i have a love/hate thing going on: i love it cause i can actually afford it and it's more stylish than most other cheap, assembly-required items out there. problem is, now that we have a local ikea, everyone knows what's from ikea and what isn't. all of the sudden my kramfors sofa is a dime-a-dozen (that's where the hate part comes in). so, you can imagine my excitement when i discovered the ikea hacker blog! that's right. it's a blog where ikea fanatics post their ikea modified creations, like the above entertainment unit. perfect for our new plasma!?!

moved

finally, i think i've got a minute (and an internet connection) with which to blog. then i realized we have to head back down to provo for the night. we've been moving since wednesday night and i feel like i have been cut off from the world! the new house is coming along and despite a minor freak-out (when we opened the door for the first time and found the place completely dirty and smelling of dog urine), i am beginning to really love the place. i (and by "i" i mean "we", thanks to the help of the in-laws) dove right in and painted nash's room, the living room, the front door (finished up with a new knocker and kick plate), and ordered the carpet (to be installed monday!). i love having a home where i can do whatever i want (like paint the front door bright teal) without being fined by an HOA. i love having a yard and i LOVE my front room (to be "the library"-tons of windows). steve and i both agree that working on this place is actually sort of fun-it's a pretty good canvas and feels like a legit home compared to our old townhome. it was sad to say goodbye, but i have a feeling it will be even more so when we leave this place in three to five years. {pictures to come!}

p.s. shouts out to everyone who helped us with the big move (brad, josh, casey, jp, emilie, stevie t, mitch & andy), but a HUGE SHOUTOUT to deb deb. what a trooper. despite our telling her we'd be able to do it on our own, she showed up bright and early thursday morning and helped us move, watch nash, clean, and paint. seriously, i don't know what we would have done without her!

german's pics

we went to see german silva (our wedding photographer) for family pics last week and this is a sampling of what he captured. now i'm in a predicament: there are about twenty of 50 pictures that i really like. of course, i can't afford to purchase that many of them, so i need you to help me pick the top five. click here and tell me which are you favorites (please)!