Upgrading Builder Grade Items

When Avery came home, my stepdad flew with her. That brave soul. Thank goodness for direct flights, eh?

We were giving him a tour of the house when he got here and I started mentioning things that I wanted to do/change/upgrade and he pretty much decided to take lead on that while he was here visiting for a week.

First, we got some hardware for the kitchen cabinets. I cannot say how much I have been bugging Troy to do this. I probably said something about it once a week for 6 months. I think that could fall in the nagging category...

Here is what they looked like before:

They're pretty and all, but just looked super unfinished. And my baking cabinet always had flour/oil/greasiness on the door from grabbing the edge of door rather some hardware.

Troy and I headed to Lowe's to pick some out and settled on some brushed silver handles. We picked out another set initially, but when they told us they'd have to special order them because we needed 45 of them, we were like "um, well what do you have in stock?" The special order would take 9-10 days and my stepdad was not going to stay that long to give us a good kick in the rear and get it done. So we picked something that we could take home that day.

SO MUCH BETTER! The kitchen feels SO much more finished and after having them in for 2 weeks, I don't know how we lived without them for almost a year. Seriously, it changed my life. So much less cleaning and wiping down of cabinets. Those dark cabinets would leave wicked handprints on them. With the brushed metal, you don't see any fingerprints. YES.

They made an easy, breezy template for installation and to do all 45 handles, and it only took about an hour.

The other big upgrade made was the light fixture in our downstairs full bathroom. It was seriously gross because I always wanted to dust the bulbs. You could see every speck of dust on them. I have hated it since we moved in. I don't like the exposed lightbulbs and hope to upgrade the other 2 bathrooms very soon. It makes the room feel so much more homey and nice.

I didn't take a picture of the actual fixture, but here's the picture of the twin in Avery's bathroom upstairs. It makes me cringe. Seriously.

I LOVE the new one. It was designed where you pick out the globes that you want for the fixture. We already had extra globes in our garage from another project (the chandelier in the dining room) so we saved money there :)

Adding a Bedroom (and Property Value) to Our House!

If you remember back about a year, I shared this post about buying our house. We bought a new house and are the first home owners/occupants. However, we bought standing stock because we weren't willing to wait 3-4 months for the house to be built. The downside to that choice was we didn't really get to pick any of the fixtures/options/paint etc.

The people who "built" our house backed out of the house at closing and that's how we came to see the house. That couple had picked all of the options for the home. One of the upgrade options on the blueprints (you can see below) was turning "bedroom 2" right off the Master's suite into a "Master retreat." They chose to do that. Troy and I knew buying the house that that was wasted square footage for us. We are not people who hang out in our room. Ever. We don't have a TV in there. We don't want a home gym (gross) and neither of us work out from home. We have a loft upstairs for another hang out area/TV area, so this master suite was literally a room that we never went in. Optimus used it the most because he slept in a chair we had in the corner.



We began talking soon after moving in about what situation our family would be in to wall that room in again. Having more kids was one of those options. Our guest room is downstairs and living in Vegas, we knew we would have lots of visitors (and we have). It was important to us to keep our kids/noise away from guests and we didn't want them to share a bathroom with kids toys, diapers, and toddler pottys in them. So we knew that if we were going to have 3+ kids, we definitely wanted to wall in the room.

Some people would LOVE this space as a master retreat. We just don't need it. We are definitely living room couch loungers. As far as resale/rental potential down the road, most people that we know have 2+ kids and we know a few families (HI BRIE) who might be moving here and want to rent a house with lots of bedrooms. So we're hoping that having 5 bedrooms makes that a selling point for the house as a resale or rental.

Which brings me to the next point. We are having twin girls. Yes, they are sharing a room. At least for a while. The other bedroom in the blueprint (bedroom 3 in the corner) we are reserving for a future Aupair/guest room. We have a credit at a furniture store and in the next few weeks, we are going and getting unstackable bunk beds for the twins in the future, but for now, those can be used for a nanny or as a guest room. Aunt Kathy...we are doing this while you are here. YAY furniture shopping!

We wanted the twins near us and far from Avery (she has the room over the garage) for noise purposes. So the girls are getting the new room right next to us.

Here is the before view of the room, from our bedroom into the "retreat":

Here is after the wall went up:

And this is as the room is now:

If you stand on the other side of the wall, in the new space, this is what you see. You are looking at the new closet:

Standing where the closet is and looking back towards our room, here is the before:

And this is with the wall up. We are starting to get stuff moved in there and out of Avery's closet. It's a bit of a mess. But you get the general idea. We are sticking with the Eric Carle theme of "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" like Avery's nursery. We really loved it and it's gender neutral. The wall stickers have made it through 3 different rooms now and are still plenty sticky. Definitely worth the money :)

Here is the before angle looking from the window to where the new doorway went in:

And after with the new door:

And here is the before picture from out in the hallway where the door went in:

And here is the after:

We are really happy that we decided to put the wall up and the doorway in. If we had the option to build our house instead of buying standing stock, this is what we would have picked anyway, so I'm glad we went ahead and changed it. And it's nice to start nest a little bit for the girls :)

We still have a little furniture rearranging to do. We ended up getting rid of Avery's crib because it was a drop arm (and she's a climber) and it didn't convert to a toddler bed either. We wanted something for the 2 girls that was would be 1) safer and 2) have a longer lifespan of use for them. When we get the cribs we will be doing a little furniture jenga in there to figure out the best arrangement for a dresser, 2 cribs, a glider, and a bookshelf. When everything lands in it's final spot, I'll get you guys an update.

Question, Answer

Q: So how are you liking Vegas? How is your house?

A: So far so good. We are struggling a little bit to find family friend activities at the moment. Since starting work last week, I have been asking around for different things to do around town that DON'T include one of the following: a bar, a show, a casino, or shopping. The other problem is that there definitely are family activities, but a lot of them are for kids that are a little more independent and abstract thinking than Avery is at the moment. So far I've gotten a recommendations for an outdoor theater, an aquarium (Avery is obsessed with fish right now), a children's museum, and hiking. We have definitely been hiking. We've up to Mt. Charleston to hike almost every weekend since we've been here. Mostly because it's still too hot to do anything outside in town. It's 20 degrees cooler up there. SO nice. And Avery loves being outside. And I'm enjoying it MUCH more than our first time up there.

The house is great. We are still struggling with some of the "last minute" things. We still have stacks of pictures leaned up against the wall. Troy is struggling to go through some of his stuff from high school and college, so there are a few boxes sitting around. We haven't unpacked and organized the office, which is located in the room on our master bedroom. So I have to look at that mess every morning when I open my eyes. The upstairs guest room is pretty much a hot mess. The curtain isn't hung, or the curtain rod. No pictures are hung. There are power tools on the beds. We know we are going to use them soon. Well soon-ish. Whenever we get around to it. So we just haven't put them away yet.

But we are loving it. It is so much better than TLF. We have a TON of space. The backyard should be done in the next week, so we will be able to hang out in the yard. Which will be great because (from what people tell us) it should start to cool down soon and feel like fall. We are looking forward to it. APPARENTLY October and November are absolutely gorgeous. We will see and I'll let you know. I'm skeptical.

Q: How is Troy liking his job?

A: WELL he just got assigned to a team, which designates what team he is on. Troy is currently on day shift for the next 6 weeks. He is going to be working from 8-4 which about a 40 minute commute on each end. Swing shift is from 4-12 midnight and mids is from 12 midnight to 8 in the morning. Troy will go to swing shift right before Thanksgiving. I think swing shift is going to suck the most. The days that I work, I won't see Troy AT ALL. Because he will be at work when I am getting home from work. Mids won't be too bad because on days that I work, he will be sleeping while I am at work OR he'll be awake for a bit and then asleep from like 10 to 6 so that he can have dinner with us and hang out with me before I go to bed and he goes to work.

So far, he is really liking it. While we were in Alamogordo, we were having SERIOUS doubts about Troy's decision to cross-train from Logistics. We were just not sure if it was a good idea. Troy can't really tell me the details, but some of the people he's met since we have been here have really helped to validate his decision and make him feel better about it. So really, if he's happy, I'm happy.

Q: How are you liking your job?

A: So far, so good. When we moved here, I was pretty set on not working until January. YEAH RIGHT! Troy called it 6 months ago. Our house got mostly set up and then I was like, "ugh, I am not stay at home mom material." Troy and I are both happier when I am working. I think of all these fake problems and obsess about things to fight with Troy about so that I can get some adult interaction. It's really not good. I feel like Troy gets to "escape" when he goes to work and I'm "stuck" at home with Avery. Which is terrible. I know.

But I know that while I am working, when I am home, I am engaged with her and happy to read the same book 10 times because I haven't seen her all day rather than feel like I've been stuck at home with her. But anyway...the JOB is great. From the time I decided I needed to work until the day I started, it was a little more than 3 weeks. I am working on a rehab unit (and am going to start floating to acute inpatient) right now. It's a 42 bed unit (which is huge) and it's awesome. I am working 3 full 8 hour days a week, and sometimes 10 hour days depending on Troy's schedule and nanny availability. They hired me knowing that I wanted to do my own schedule so that I could be off on days that Troy was off. They were agreeable. YAY!

I had 3 interviews and 3 offers. 2 of the jobs were close. 1 was far. Like down on the strip. The one on the strip got GOOD cases. Like the shootings, like the people who played slots for 48 hours straight and stroked out or fell on their way out of a casino. Or people who were visiting from Japan. Or New York. So far, about 30% of the patients are visiting Las Vegas and end up in the ER. So discharge planning is interesting. Another 50% are from the states around Nevada. A TON of people from Arizona and California. The other 2 jobs sent all of their exciting cases down to the other hospital. Those 2 jobs would be mostly joint replacements and debility. No thanks. Needless to say, I took the job with the further commute on the strip with the more exciting and interesting cases.

Not gonna lie, so far, the commute sucks. But I had also worked everyday last week. So I had to do the commute everyday. In reality, I'll only do it 3 times a week. I've been using the commute to drink coffee, listen to music, make phone calls to family, and relax. It's really not comparable to DC traffic. DC traffic is WAY worse. So I just try to use the time away from Avery to do things that I wouldn't be able to do at home because Avery would be screaming for breakfast or to read a book. It's been good.

Q: How did you find your nanny? How is Avery doing with her?

A: We used care.com to find a nanny. I placed an ad on monday and had 13 responses by tuesday night. I responded to all of them and based on their responses, set up 5 interviews for saturday. Troy did not want to know ANYTHING about who I "had a feeling about" or what their profiles were like online. He wanted to go into the interviews completely blind and knew that I wouldn't ask someone for an interview if I didn't think they might be a fit.

We interviewed a couple different kinds of people. There was a lady who was in her late 60's, a couple of stay at home moms looking for some extra cash, and a girl in her early 20's who was in college. We ended up going with a stay at home mom who has a 20 month old little girl. We were debating on going with an in home day care because we wanted Avery to have some interaction with other kids to learn about sharing and being patient, etc.

When it came down to it, I leave for work about 7 and didn't want to drag Avery out of bed and spend an extra 30 minutes (so I'd leave at 630) in the car/getting her settled in child care, and I really wanted to have someone come to the house. So when Carolyn said that she had a 20 month old AND she would come to us, I was like, WIN! I had a feeling she was "the one" based on our emails back and forth before the interview on saturday. We had a whole list of interview questions and ended up not using it with her because the conversation flowed so naturally and she was able to answer our questions without a structured interview. And she was bringing her daughter so that Avery could get that interaction Troy and I wanted her to have.

When she left, Troy was like, "Ok, call the other people, she's the one. You can tell them not to come!" I didn't do that and we interviewed everyone, but we did end up extending an offer to her, which she took. And in the process of all the interviews, we found 2 people additional people to put on our babysitter list for date nights. Which was perfect because Carolyn wasn't available to start on my first day of work. Avery went to one of the their houses for monday and tuesday of my first week and it worked out great. Overall, we had a GREAT experience with care.com and would recommend it to anyone. Even if you are just looking for an occasional sitter.

So far, so good. Avery just loves her. She loves having another kid to play with. And she loves how happy her mommy is to see her when she comes home from work. Win all around.

Q: When are you coming back to the east coast?

A: Troy's schedule is crazy. The next time we will be on the east coast as a family will be in April for my sister Lindsey's wedding. We are going to Ft. Walton Beach. The next time I am coming back will be in January for Lindsey's bachelorette weekend in Savannah, GA. I'm pretty excited because Avery isn't coming, so that will be an adult weekend trip for me :) We will be using Carolyn to supplement child care while I am gone because there is no way that Troy will be approved for 4 days off in a row. Especially since the squadron is already scheduling leave for March. Ouch.

Anything else??

Backyard Landscaping: Demolition is Step 1

We have officially broken ground on the yard and the pool!!

We have our plans fairly finalized with the landscaper and so far, it's going great.

We are completing our backyard project in 2 stages. The play area/hang out area will be done in the next 2 weeks and the pool will break ground in the spring, just in time for use next summer.

Step 1 of the play area was demolition. For the pool. That requires some explanation. Our electrical is on the opposite side of the house from our side yard where the pool is going. All of the electrical needed to be wired for the pool before the play area went in because if we waited until spring when stage 2 starts, the play area would have to be dug up and we would have to pay for labor costs and been out a backyard during the entirety of the pool digging. That would have been sad because we hear that fall and spring in Vegas are gorgeous. Thank goodness, because the weather isn't giving us high hopes thus far.

So while all of the mess with the bathroom fixing is going on, the landscaping company shows up, with a GIANT backhoe. I was like, "oh no." There were 5 people working at the house. 1 doing drywall, 2 doing outdoor stucco siding, and 2 operating the big backhoe for the yard. I was like, I did not sign up to be a construction manager. It was SO loud. And it was almost Avery's nap time when the jackhammer started to dig under the fence in the side yard for the electrical for the pool. RIGHT under her bedroom. Of course.

So here is the progress so far:

The area above where the backhoe is sitting is where the artificial turf is going. The area where the covered porch sits is getting doubled in length (extending straight out) towards the back fence with pavers. The pavers will cover the existing patio and extend straight out so that half is covered that the other half is in the sun. The pool is going on the side yard to the left of the patio. We are having the safety gate (required by law in the state of Nevada) installed now to keep Avery and Optimus out of the "unfinished" portion of the yard.

Here is the giant trench dug all the way around the house by the backhoe for the electrical.

The whole back fence is getting 1/2 inch gravel in "copper rose" color all the way around the edges of the yard. The whole backyard will be framed with about a 3 foot border. Like a picture frame with the gravel being the frame and the turf/pool/patio all in the middle. We also have to be strategic about plants and flowers because Optimus likes to kill everything will his kryptonite urine. We are going ceramic pot shopping and potting everything and running irrigation into the pots. So those will become a permanent fixture of the house.

This is another view of the trench. They filled it all back in after they laid the electrical. The electrical is for the pool pump going next to the air conditioning units, which we plan to fence in (they will be right next to the pool deck).

We are supposed to start actual landscaping on October 1st. We are already approved through the HOA, so that's a relief. They are saying that the play area should only take about 4 days. I am hoping by my birthday we will be done :) BBQ in the back yard!!! WOOO HOOOO!

My New House is Busted

This is for your listening pleasure while reading this. You can substitute in "my new house is busted" for the lyrics.



I went San Diego last week to visit my cousin, Laura, and her son, my new cousin Jameson. If anyone is educated on family trees, I have a question for you. My mom and Laura's mom (Kim) are 1st cousins. That makes Laura my mom's 2nd cousin and Kim my 2nd cousin. I think that makes Laura and me 3rd cousins. And Avery is Laura's 4th cousin and Jameson is my 4th cousin?? Does that make Avery and Jameson 5th cousins?? I need help, clearly. I could google it, but I'm a little lazy.

We had a lovely time for 5 days together. And then I drove home 4.5 hours. The drive was great. No issues. And then, I came home to this in my house. It looks like a straight up Dexter killing room:



Oh woops. Just kidding. I LOVE that show. Here it is. I walked in from the garage and saw this. The whole door frame is ripped off. And the room is taped off like Dexter is about to do some slashing in there.

It normally looks like this:

The inside looks like this...all the drywall on the back wall is missing. BUT WAIT! Let me pan up for you too...

THE WHOLE CEILING IS GONE!!!

Troy came home from a hike with Optimus on saturday and the ceiling was soaked and dripping into the bathtub. PANIC! He called me all, "What do I do?"

He called the emergency warranty number for our builder and they sent a plumber out within an hour. Talk about service! They ripped out the ceiling. AND the walls. The bathroom wall that was wet shares the garage wall so if you sat on the toilet, you could wave to our across the street neighbor all WELCOME TO THE NEIGHBORHOOD!!

And they put TWO holes in the outside of the house right where Avery's bathtub is on the second floor:

When Troy texted me the pictures of the house on saturday while I was still in San Diego, I almost had a stroke. I could only think bad things.

"Oh my God. Our builder sucks. We just closed on our house 2 months ago and we are already having issues? What else could be wrong? What if the whole inside of the wall is moldy now?? Avery's room is on that side of the house. Is she going to be sick all the time? How much is this going to cost? Thank God I won't be back until tomorrow. Thank God I didn't find the problem. I would have gone into full meltdown mode. I'm glad we are here. We don't have to deal with the noise and dust and people all over. What if something else is wrong? Are you going to be able to tell where they patched the holes on the side of the house? What if bugs are crawling into my house where they are putting holes? Or a bird is making a nest inside the house? AHHHHH!!!"

The culprit was found right there.

The blue rubber tubing is the cold water to Avery's bathtub. Apparently the ring that holds the rubber tube on the metal pipe wasn't tight enough. Giving Avery baths was increasing the pressure in the tube and it got loose and started dripping. All down the inside of the house. After the culprit was found, the plumber came with a thermal imaging kind of thing that detects water. Thats why all the walls and ceiling and door frame are off and being replaced. They were wet.

The building superintendent came to check things out and told Troy that we won't be responsible for paying for damages (PRAISE THE LORD) since it is a construction error. We were lucky.

They should be done putting all the drywall in tomorrow. YAY for speedy work. Love it. Dexter's killing room will be gone tomorrow.

Monday: The Day I Learned About My Husband's Non-Patience with Non-Living Things. More Specifically DIY Projects. And My Inability to Shut Up.

My husband is SO patient. With me. Most of the time. I'm weird and quirky. I like things how I like them. I honestly don't know how I got so lucky to find such a wonderful and sweet guy to tolerate all of my weirdness.

I have never met this tool throwing, cursing, exasperated, sweating guy until when tools were involved.

I have never seen this side of him. The most "DIY" thing we have ever done is put together an IKEA bookshelf. Actually, that's not true. In Dover, we installed a storm door that had a doggie door cut out of the bottom. Prior to the doggie door project, I was convinced that Troy was Superman with a power drill because he's a guy. Apparently that's not how a man is made. By their ability with power tools. I'm pretty sure that I blocked out doggie door installation from my memory because it was so unpleasant. This memory came raring back full force on our first day of "get-as-many-home-projects-accomplished-as-possible-before-the-movers-come-on-wednesday."

Picture me wondering why "this" isn't working or why "this" isn't going faster. Then Troy muttering why am I so impatient under his breath and it escalating to huffing breath and tool throwing and marching around the side of the house to pull a "Tebow" and kneel in the side yard, asking God for strength to finish without killing his wife. That's how the doggie door install went. We finished, but I forgot about this incident from July of 2009 until halfway through our first day of inside-our-new-house-work.

We Troy woke up Monday morning after our all of our shopping on sunday and was very optimistic. He was feeling confident that we could install ALL 12 of the blinds, ALL 6 of the ceiling fans, seal ALL of the grout, and seal the granite in one day. With a 15 month old. I knew better. And probably so do you. Especially after reading this list he wanted to accomplish. He's goal oriented and ambitious. Two of the reasons that I married him. However, neither one of us had EVER installed a ceiling fan or a set of blinds, but it couldn't be rocket science. I was feeling confident that our learning curve would increase exponentially after the first installation of each was complete.

Troy decided to start with the most basic ceiling fan that comprised 3 out of the 6 fans that we had purchased. My job was to open all the fans in the rooms in which they belonged and distribute the blinds in front of the windows they had been cut for. I finished my job while carting Avery around the house with me. I went up into Avery's room (where Troy was working on the first fan install) after about an hour and Troy was still bent over the directions, holding the ceiling fan mount in his hands.

Natalie: What's going on? The directions say that the fan installation should take about an hour. It's been over an hour. Shouldn't you be in the next room?

Troy: Really, Natalie? Why don't you just beat me while I'm down? I don't think I can do this. There is no "outlet box" to mount this to. *throws screwdriver onto the ground and throws the mount like a frisbee*

Natalie challenges Troy's manhood, thinking anger will motivate him (boy, was I wrong): Are you kidding? Jared installed 5 of these. Nate installed one and so did Dan. You can't do this? Do you need a help from a girl? Do you need to call Jared and get over the phone instructions?

*Disclaimer: Ok, I was totally being a bitch. I know. But we were on limited time. We were stressing. But my job was done. My next job was to watch Avery so that Troy could be successful at his job. Which he clearly was not. Anyway...

Troy: Natalie, you are not helping. Maybe it's just this ceiling outlet in the bedroom that sucks. I'm not totally convinced that it's designed for a ceiling fan. It might be designed for just a light. No fan. I'm going to try the one in the loft that is definitely already wired for a fan. That might be easier.

Natalie while snapping her fingers and stomping her feet: Good idea. We've been here an hour and nothing is done. Keep moving, keep moving, chop freakin' chop.

So we go out into the loft and I start taking blinds out of the box to figure out screwing them into the window. The directions are WORSE than Ikea directions. You know what I am talking about if you have put something together from Ikea before (image from Apt Therapy).

In the meantime, Troy has figured out how to mount the loft ceiling fan. Then he drops a curse word. Again.

Troy while climbing down the ladder: The screws are too soft. I totally stripped it and NOW I can't get it mounted all the way in the ceiling. Awesome.

He proceeds to unscrew the whole thing using a wrench. His arm is falling asleep. It takes 10 minutes because the screw is so long. He gets the mount off the ceiling and gets another screw and tries again. And proceeds to strip it with the drill. He curses. I laugh. I guess that doesn't help. Oops. Troy quits with the fans and decides to join in on the torture with the blinds. I am still staring at the horrible faux Ikea directions for the blinds.

The way they go together, there are two metal clamps that are shaped like a C. The "back" of the C sits flush against the window frame and then the "top" of the C screws into the inside of the window at the top and the side screws into the side of the window. The the blinds click/slide into the C. Trouble...here it comes. Not only have we not put in a SINGLE ceiling fan, but now we are having difficulty with the blinds.

Our issue was screwing in the screws on the top of the C that screws into the inside frame at the top of the window. Because it's shaped like a C, that means that the bottom of the C is in the way of screwing in the top.

Troy was swearing and throwing things again.

Troy: You are SO cheap!! It was $99 to have Lowe's come out and measure and install the blinds. BUT NOOOOOOOOO you wanted to save a buck and now we are wasting a whole day!!! This agony is worth $99!

Then I said the wrong thing. Well I actually started saying the wrong things about half a page up.

Natalie: I wanted that money for a rug and throw pillows!!

Troy: Oh, the necessary things in life.

So little does Troy know...

Swear swear, stomp stomp. Troy stomps down stairs to get his phone.

So what does he do? He calls Lowe's. He asks to speak to the window treatment department and talks to the specialist person.

Troy: We were in yesterday and had blinds cut. Can we hire someone now to come to our house and install them?

Dude: No, you have to do that at the beginning because we measure them. If anything goes wrong, or the measurements aren't correct we are responsible. But since you already measured, had them cut, and took them home, we won't install them for liability issues."

Then Troy got desperate.

Troy: What if we sign a waiver so that you aren't responsible if the blinds don't fit?

Dude: Sorry, no can do.

Troy: So you're saying we f***ed up from the begininng?!!

Dude: Well yes, but I can't say that.

And then I'm pretty sure that Troy hung up on the guy.

Back to the drawing board. And I'm pretty sure it merits a mention that Avery was napping though all this, by the way (I put her in a pack and play under the stairs storage area all Harry Potter style) because she can only sleep in the dark.

Then I did the bitch thing again. I was like, "Jared installed ALL THE BLINDS in their house by himself. We can totally do this together." He made a face. And possibly a hand gesture.

Lesson to everyone: You truly do not know your spouse until you complete attempt home improvement projects together.

Troy finally figured out how to use the drill extender to drill through holes in the bottom of the C to get the screws flush with the metal. The day was saved. Thank God. There really is a very steep learning curve once you get the first one installed. VERY steep. Like Troy was installing them so fast, I couldn't get the blinds and all the hardware out the box for the next window before he was done with the previous one.

We ended up getting all the blinds installed in less than 2 hours. The first one doesn't count because it took an hour and 15 minutes. Ooo that looks so bad when written out. So a total of 3 hours and 15 minutes for 12 blinds. We have two more coming that are custom ordered. From 10am to 330pm we got all the blinds in. We spent the first 2 hours messing with the first fan that was a total fail. Then we spent another hour with the loft fan and THAT was a total fail. Then we spent an hour and 15 minutes arguing about the first set of blinds and then called Lowe's. After getting a "you are on your own" lecture from Lowe's, it was 1:30pm. That's when we starting rocking and rolling. We were done by 3:30 with blinds.

Then we moved onto hanging curtain rods on the sliding door off the kitchen and the big window in the family room that has a custom blind set coming. It was very important to us to have something covering all the windows on the first floor before we left to drive back to Alamogordo because all of our stuff would be inside and we didn't want any creepers looking around. Goal accomplished. With a very little yelling. I think Troy was feeling bad. I was too. Extra effort was made to be nice.

True story, we didn't have a tape measure. Who does that?? The inexperienced people right here (points at self, Troy should have known better). Troy fashioned a crazy craptastic one out of the extra long curtain rod box. And our first attempt to hang the curtains level was a fail. It's ok. If at first you fail, try again. And try we did. After some more yelling and tool throwing. We bought spackle. Don't worry.

Overall, it was a stressful day. Troy and I NEVER fight or talk to each other like that. Home-ownership just brings out the bitch in people, I guess. When we got back to our lovely hosts' home and told them our progress for the day, they thought we did great with our productivity. Especially while chasing a 15 month old up and down the stairs. Ugh. Read my lips writing: BABY GATES.

It's this exact situation that demonstrates why we have a pre-lit Christmas tree. We disagree on exactly how the lights should look, how to string them, how dense they should be, where they should sit on the branches (all over versus strung on the ends of the branches), and the color (white lights TROY, he always wanted colored ones...ewww). We learned that after the first 2 years of marriage the day we put up the tree has nothing to do with the "spirit of Christmas" but rather a giant lights argument. Our tree is the best $100 dollars we ever spent. Christmas literally got better. Because we didn't walk past the tree making adjustments to the way we wanted it to look while making sure the other one wasn't watching. And it would end up looking a hot mess. He wanted a pre-lit colored lights tree. EWWWWW. Troy would beg to differ. He would have spent the $100 on blind installation.

I actually learned a lot from this horrible day. It was our first time doing DIY anything. I love DIY blogs. Young House Love is my absolute favorite. I now know that they are liars. HUGE! Or the most polite people ever and just put on a happy face. There is NO way to DIY anything without something going wrong. Or at least not going the way you expected. You cannot be that cheery about DIY. I just cannot be that positive when things don't go the way you envision! Why can't everything go perfectly and exactly the way you plan??? That, my friends, is the reality of DIY. SOMETHING will go wrong. SOMETHING! Get ready for it and plan on it. Except for that you can't because you never know what it will be.

Things I learned on day 1 of DIY:

1. Don't challenge your husbands manhood by comparing him to the success of others DIY projects. It's not nice.

2. Use a tape measure and a level. Always.

3. Pilot holes are your best friend.

4. Sometimes reading directions is not helpful. If you are doing multiples of something, make your errors in a room that you don't frequently enter and hopefully no one will notice your practice project.

5. If your spouse yells or curses or throws things, it's (90% likely) not your fault. You'll only make it worse by yelling back and taking it personally. Stay calm and drill on.

6. If you have young children awake while doing these projects, close drill bit cases, extra hardware bags, and the tool box. Then you won't be tempted to jump off the ladder and almost die to prevent your child from trying to eat a drill bit.

Oh don't worry. There's more. Troy brought Jared over that night to get a fan tutorial. And we got all 6 in the next day. And I made it to Costco. It was love. We had a GREAT day. We definitely learned a lot on day one. Just because things went poorly. So day one: massive fail in communication and support. Day two: success because of day one's failures.

Troy, I love you so much. I will promise to be more patient with you. You are always so patient with me. You humor my weird and quirky and silly personality traits. Thanks for putting up with me. You're the only one who does. You know the saying, "a face only a mother could love"? Well my mother has told me that I am emotionally draining. And you put up with me anyway and want to make more babies with me. I got me a good one, I tell you. Hands off ladies, he's mine.

Anyone else have a horrid home improvement story? Or just a great story about a stupid fight with your significant other? Fight about Christmas lights?? It sure would make me feel better right now.

Just In Case You Missed Us - Instagram Roundup

I already shared the pictures from our drive here. But here are the rest. For those of you who don't have smart phones with an Instagram app. I understand. That's not a dig. I just want to share :)

Curtains from HomeGoods. I LOVE THEM!

SUCCESS with blinds. Winning. Only barely. Post about that tragedy coming tomorrow.

The Santa Fe plank doors. I may have hugged them and petted them for about 10 minutes when we first walked in. There may have been a few kisses. Open mouth. I am obsessed. They add SO much character to an otherwise cookie cutter house.

Curtains and rods from Target. We also installed the fan. It's ORB. And gorgeous. It moves some serious air. Which is great. It was 111 degrees on saturday. Gross.

Wednesday. Moving day. I was so thankful for great movers. They were awesome. They unpacked everything and nothing was broken. Nothing. A few scratches, but nothing significant enough to file. God is good!

We went to Buffalo Wing Wings. Avery ate celery. We tried to get her to chow on french fries. She ate them, but enjoyed the celery more. Whose child is this? I keep telling myself that her teeth were hurting so the celery stalk felt nice on her gums. I hate celery. It tastes like it doesn't belong in your mouth. It's stringy and watery and weird. French fries are golden and delicious morsels of potato from heaven.

Adirondack rocking chairs. Does life get better than this? I think not. The arms are a perfect width to hold a mason jar of sweet tea, a beer, or a cup of coffee. It's amazing. They were perfect because we put them together thursday night and our new couches didn't get delivered until sunday morning. We watched the Olympics from these in the evenings until then. And I watched the news in them in morning while I drank my coffee while everyone was sleeping. They are gorgeous and comfy. I cannot say enough good things about them. Thank you Grandma!! I love my presents!

Baby gate. Enough said.

Hanging out while having a drink and watching the Olympics. Adorable.

We took a trip to Sam's Club with my Dad, aka Grandpa Geno. He decided that Avery could not live without a bigger-than-Avery hippo. She loves it. It looks like she is about to cry, but that is actually her "effort face." She is picking it up (it's rather heavy) and grunting while gritting her teeth. She's a lady. Basically. My little piggy grunter.

Optimus enjoying some of my girly-purchases. Throw pillows. I'm addicted.

Avery finally fell asleep on the way back to Alamogordo. We had been driving for about 11 hours and she finally fell asleep for about 45 minutes until we pulled into TLF. I love this picture. Look at those eyelashes and the rosebud mouth. LOVE.

That's what you missed on Instagram. You can find us at BarnesDailyCircus.

The Big Bad To-Do List...Cut in Half

A little while back, I shared our list. It's big. And a lot of things that are on it need to be purchased. I am proud (well, actually a little horrified) that most of the things on the list have been accomplished/purchased. My mantra "that's what savings are for, that's what savings are for..." It's on repeat in my head. Continuously. Every day gets easier.

This is our first time buying a house, so sticker shock on things that you have never bought before is crazy. Blinds, ceiling fans, and curtain rods was an arrow straight to the heart. An extra long curtain rod will kill you. It's more vicious than the Hunger Games. Thank God for military discounts. We don't have that many windows in the house, but window treatments are expensive. The blinds, then the rod, then the curtain. Dang. But SO worth it. It is amazing how window treatments diminish echos and make the room feel more home-y. It's true love. Really. "That's what savings are for." Repeat.

We left Alamogordo on Saturday at 4 am.

Avery and Optimus did great. I'm terrible in the car. I'm all "are we there yet?" 15 minutes later. "are we there yet?" Every 15 minutes. It was 12 hours in the car with 2 stops. One for breakfast and one for lunch. By the way, the McDonald's maple oatmeal with fruit is AWESOME! We made it to Las Vegas in a total of 13 hours, with stops, which was AWESOME! Avery LOVES to read. My Mommy heart SINGS every time she walks up to me with a book and signs "read" and hands me a book. Then she turns her back to me and plops forcefully right into my lap. I love her.

So we pulled into town saturday night at 4 pm west coast time. All of the shopping occurred on Sunday. 3 hours at Lowes, an hour at HomeGoods and Tuesday Morning, 2 hours at Ashley Furniture, an hour at Pier 1. It was crazy. Even as I sit down to write this and again to read it again, I can't remember if/when/what we ate. I know we did. But I cannot remember. That's how much of a blur this day was.

Anyway. Here is a list update.

- Blinds - buy from selectblinds.com - DONE and installed - we ended up buying them from Lowe's because it was cheaper. We were also able to have them cut while we shopped and pick them up that day. We had to special order 2 of them because the windows were almost 97 inches wide. Can you say custom order?

- Ceiling fans - DONE and installed - we bought 6 of these. Don't even get me started on that nightmare. Actually I am going to tell you all about installation. Just not right now.

- Family room:

- rug - DONE - 8X10 from Tuesday Morning. If you haven't heard of this place, you, my friend, are missing out. It's more awesome than Home Goods selection wise, but not has well organized.

- sofa - DONE and delivered - we got 2 sofas is a charcoal grey from Ashley. They were having their huge stock sale so we jumped on that.

- curtains - DONE and hung - from Target for the family room. I also purchased curtains for the guest room from HomeGoods. The dining room curtains are also from HomeGoods. We are reusing (from Texas and DE) the ones hanging in the front room, Avery's room, the loft, and the upstairs guest room. We bought 4 blackout curtain panels from Tuesday Morning for a STEAL.

- buffet/sideboard (antique?) - hunting craigslist. No winner yet.

- sofa table/coffee table - DONE - I found one on Craigslist (needs some refinishing) that is going up in the loft and the storage ottoman from up there is staying downstairs. We are also splitting the side tables so one is staying upstairs and the other one is going down in the family room.

- Curtain rods for the whole house - DONE and installed. Also a nightmare with so many and Troy's awesome patience. Sarcasm. I will tell you about that too. We are still married. No worries.

- Patio furniture (adirondack chairs and I found a DIY dining table we are doing) - 1/2 done - my grandma sent me 2 white rocking adirondack chairs for my birthday. Troy and a friend put them together one night. They are SO gorgeous! We still want to get a patio table for some outside eating.

- Matching wingback chairs for the front living room (library area??) - DONE - my mom bought me a GORGEOUS pair of grey linen chairs for the front room. They are tufted and amazeballs.

- figure out something for the master retreat - for now, we are using this as an office/Optimus's room. For serious.

- TV stand for the loft - DONE for now - We have a temporary solution and we are using our old coffee table from before we got the storage ottoman. In Texas, it sat out in the garage the whole time. It is very happy to have a new home.

- New TV for master or loft - our bedroom TV is now in the loft. So we still need a TV for our room. Not a priority. Maybe in the next year.

- Furniture for the master (not a SINGLE piece of furniture matches, including the night stands) - this is not a priority right now. I on the craigslist hunt. If I find something awesome, I will be sure to let you know.

- toddler bed for Avery (or go right into a twin bed?) - we are going to get a safety rail and use her crib whenever she is ready to transition.

- Entry table by the front door? - still on the hunt

- Bench to make the breakfast nook table a 6 person table? - still on the hunt

- 2 bar stools for the island - DONE and in use - found these are Pier 1. They were having their end of summer "everything is 20% off sale." These were not marked down at all. I talked to the manager and was all "DUDE, the windows said 20% off!" She was all "these aren't on sale and aren't included". I was all "give me 20% off for false advertising." She was all "ok." WIN!

- Gas dryer - DONE and delivered - we picked this out from Lowe's. It was delivered the next day on "nightmare DIY day." The delivery guys did not find us in the best spirits. Especially since our gas wasn't getting turned on until wednesday. Oops.

- Backyard landscaping - this is definitely a priority but not right now

- Deep freezer for the garage (costco?) - we priced these bad boys at Lowe's and Costco. We are still trying to decide if we want to get the cheaper deep freezer or just get an extra refrigerator so that we can keep soda pop, extra juice, milk, and beer out in the garage. Will keep you posted.

- baby gates - 1/2 done - We need 2 of these. 1 for the top of the stairs and the other for the hallway between the kitchen and dining room/entry to the bottom of the stairs. We have installed one at the dining room/entry way wall to keep her away from the stairs. It looks awesome. It's a nice one with a locking metal door. Avery is super smart and is already trying to figure out how to open it. But she is too short to slide the button to the right, lift the door, and push it at the same time. She is obsessed and it scares the crapola out of me.

So there were 22 things on the list when we started. We have crossed off 12. I am counting the patio furniture as half because we still want an eating area and the baby gate as half because we still need another one. So a little more than halfway done! And a lot of the stuff that is left is not time sensitive. Or is Craigslist worthy. YES! We are feeling pretty good about it overall.

What is left do you ask?? Why I have a new list!

- Antique buffet/sideboard for the family room from craigslist
- Patio EATING furniture - BUILD IT
- Figure out something functional for the master retreat
- TV for the master bedroom
- Craigslist furniture for the master bedroom
- Avery's big girl bed
- Entry table for the foyer
- Bench for the nook table
- Backyard landscaping (pool)
- Freezer or fridge? The debate continues
- Baby gate for the top of the stairs

Pictures to follow of all the goods. And conversation play by play during DIY installation of blinds, ceiling fans, and curtain rods. Let me tell you folks, it wasn't pretty. It was pretty funny. Looking back on it now. Not so funny at the time. At all. Here is a preview of the goods:

Those are new dining room curtains from HomeGoods. OBSESSED! I love them :) "That's what savings are for...."

Our LARGE To-Do List

I sit in a very small room every day. I haven't lived in my house or had any of our stuff for almost 6 months. It has given me a TON of time to think about projects, decorating, cooking, and landscaping. Now that we have officially closed on our house and hotel living is almost to an end, pinterest is an addiction. The end is near and crafting is about to begin. I have a blank slate of a house. IT'S AWESOME! Sort of. Not on the budget.

The problem is, my head is exploding with ideas and excitement. I started to not be able to sleep because I was stressing that I was going to forget something. So I made a list. I am a list person. It helps me be sane. I wrote it all down. And I know I will be adding to the list or taking things off as I realize some things won't work or others that will. Here it is. Avery got excited too and kind of grabbed it and started waving it around. And crumpled it. And took a bite out of the top left corner. But it's ok. I can still read it. And now if something happens to it, it is now documented for all time via the internet. Go technology.

I just wrote things down as I thought of them, not necessarily in order of importance. While I was at the gym one day, Troy happened upon my list. I'm pretty sure he almost had a heart attack because I put a family room rug up higher on the list before getting a gas dryer.

Sidenote - Apparently, most of Nevada uses a gas dryer and very few homes have electric hook ups. WHAT? I have never heard of this. Maybe because I have lived on the east coast most of my life. Do you have a gas dryer? So yeah, we need to buy a gas dryer and Craigslist our old one. So sad. I love it :(

So Troy grabbed my list and numbered things so I was aware of where the priority of purchase lies. I know TROY! Many of the things on the list are DECOR choices not necessity, but things that down the road may be purchases for tracking down on Craigslist, thrift stores, or things that we DIY. And sometimes (ok lots of times) pretty trumps function. For example, jewelry. Doesn't do anything except look pretty. But everyone wears it. A watch does not fall in this category.

Here is the list as I wrote it:

- Blinds - buy from selectblinds.com
- Ceiling fans
- Family room
- rug
- sofa
- curtains
- buffet/sideboard (antique?)
- sofa table/coffee table
- Curtain rods for the whole house
- Patio furniture (adirondack chairs and I found a DIY dining table we are doing)
- Matching wingback chairs for the front living room (library area??)
- figure out something for the master retreat
- TV stand for the loft
- New TV for master or loft
- Furniture for the master (not a SINGLE piece of furniture matches, including the night stands)
- toddler bed for Avery (or go right into a twin bed?)
- Entry table by the front door?
- Bench to make the breakfast nook table a 6 person table?
- 2 bar stools for the island
- Gas dryer
- Backyard landscaping
- Deep freezer for the garage (costco?)
- baby gates

And here is how Troy numbered it:

1. Blinds
2. Ceiling fans
3. Gas Dryer (I actually think this should be first...but hey, he can wear dirty clothes if that is what he chooses)
4. Sofa for family room
5. Curtains and curtain rods
6. Family room rug
7. New TV for master or for loft
8. Backyard landscaping
9. Toddler bed for Avery

He didn't number anything else. He actually was like, "everything else is up for discussion. We don't actually need any of that other stuff on your list." Well you know what TROY, Momma hasn't had a house in 6 months and I can do a lot of this stuff on the cheap so BUCK UP! I'm gearing up for some serious Craigslisting and I'm hoping soon we can discuss a budget for either all of my projects or a room by room budget. We'll see.

In recent news, we bought a new dining room light fixture. The builder grade looked cheap. The lighting "upgrade" was the exact same fixture in ORB. But you know what? You can't fix ugly with a new color. Not in this case. It just looks small and chintzy in such a nice, big, new space. It doesn't have shades on it. It's just a few light bulbs. Ew.

Enter Joss and Main. HELLLLLO GORGEOUS! I love Joss and Main. They have some really really nice stuff for great prices. This is where I found our new dining room chandelier.

It is ORB so it matches the other lighting upgrades that we did in the foyer and breakfast nook. And look at the glass shades! They're pretty. We shipped it to Nate and Karen's house. They live about 100 yards from us. So it's awesome that I can still buy things as I find them for a great deal and ship them to our neighborhood. The chandelier retails for $279 and was on sale for $119 with free shipping. YES! So anyway. That is our official first home owner purchase.

I plan on craigslisting the other fixture. But I might spray paint it and hang it in our master bedroom closet to make it fancy. I joked with Troy about painting it and hanging in the potty room in our master. Apparently that's not funny.

Once we get there and I see our stuff in the house, I'm sure the list will grow and we will have some things to do/change/buy for each room. Thus a budget for each room. And then if I come in under budget, it can roll into the next room :) That sounds like a win-win to me. We'll see. Especially since Troy's list for the backyard includes a pool. Ouch. I need a job.