SOLD.

I know it's been a ridiculously long time since my last post, but it's because we've been going through the process of selling our house! I know what you all must be thinking - we're crazy! I thought so too when Mike brought up the idea. But after a couple debates and spreadsheets (of course) and running the numbers, we (I) realized that we could make a sizable profit on our house. This is just due to the mainly cosmetic updates that we've done in the past year.


So we dialed up our realtor and got in listed. It was such a whirlwind after that!


Tuesday, May 21th: put the For Sale sign up We had planned to have an open house the Saturday before, but of course I got sick and we had to cancel. So for about a week, our house sat unlisted (by that on mean on MLS and other common house hunting websites).

Friday, May 24th: First showing! (Pre-listing) We were so excited! We hadn't even listed it yet or had an open house! However, it turned out to be the past owners wanting to get a sneak peak. I don't blame them but I do wish they had disclosed this to us before walking through. Clearly no sale.

Saturday, May 25th: Open House (Pre-listing) A few couples walked through along with a couple neighbors. We had one couple that was interested but not seriously.

Sunday, May 26th: Officially listed our house This is when our realtor's phone started ringing. We had a couple walk through that Sunday afternoon, and one other scheduled for early afternoon on Monday.

Monday, May 27th: Five showings and an offer! We started the morning with only one showing scheduled, and it ended up being a total of five scheduled for the day by 10AM. At 4PM, I received a call from Mike. We had gotten an offer and it expired tonight at midnight! It was crazy and exciting and totally threw me for a loop. I had figured we'd have at least a couple months of no activity after the initial excitement wore down. An offer less than 24 hours after officially listing?! CRAZY.

Monday, May 27th (10PM): Accepted Offer! We were blown away by this and quickly went into the next phase. He scheduled an inspector within the next couple days (we passed with a couple minor things including fixing a broken screen door and mudjacking credit for the walkway), and an appraisal.

The appraisal is where it got hairy. In total, we ended up having 3 appraisals done on our house and he switched lenders. The first appraiser was unprofessional and untimely. So the report was hard to follow and made the underwrite (the loan approver, as I call them) ask for a second appraisal. The second appraiser (the one we ended up going with at the different lender) came through for us in a pinch and was able to do a 48 hour turnaround. The third appraisal was thrown out (but still done) becuase it was for the original lender.

July 29th: Appraisal/financing approved We didn't start packing until a week before we moved because we weren't even sure we would be moving because of the appraisal craziness! You can imagine how frazzeled my planner nature was at this point.

July 3rd: Moved out of the house The majority of our things were out of the house at this point. We moved out early because all our movers (family) clearly had plans on the 4th.

 

 

 

 

July 5th: SOLD! It's crazy to think this was all done in only a little over 6 weeks after deciding to sell.

In the next post, I'll show you our listing pictures. They were done by an amazing photographer and I loved how they turned out. And then we'll get into the exciting part - the new house!

Stay tuned!

Kitchen Upgrade!

This is completely overdue but at least I'm catching up now. Ever since we moved in, Mike and I knew we wanted to update the kitchen with granite counter tops. Just to remind you, this is what our kitchen currently (as of a month ago) looks like:

 

 

I love the white as you all know, but I also LOVE contrast. And since these current counter tops are HORRIBLE, we decided an upgrade was in order. I say they're horrible because they're such cheap laminate that little bits of dirt (or spilled sauce) gets into it, making it look grungy. Yuck!

So onto the upgrade! The night before Mike started tearing out the old counter tops (to save on the money to remove and also because I think he likes demolition). Don't mind that we didn't paint behind the stove - it was too difficult in our defense!!

 

 

 

 

Then the REAL professionals started to install...

 

 

And here's the final picture!

 

 

 

And here's my favorite part of posts - Before (like when we moved in) and After!

 

 

 



The Rug Difference

It's quite amazing what a rug can do to a room. I don't think I realized the impact until our new rug was officially laid in its place today! We ordered this rug a couple weeks ago from rugsdirect.com (I have mixed reviews because it was late and they didn't have the best communcation. But because of that we got it with an additional discount so they made up for it?)


Anyways, here's a couple shots of our old rug and we got from Mike's grandparents that we gracious enough to give it up. It woked well for our apartment and for the house up until now, but with all the furniture updates it just doesn't make sense in the room.

 

And here's our new rug!!

 

 

Much better! So much brighter. I love the clean lines. LOVE LOVE LOVE

That's all for now - I have another blinds update coming soon! Our kitchen is on the brink of being completely finished! WOOHOO

Our growing furniture family

Hi all (don't freak out about the Christmas picture yet - there's a point)! Short but sweet post to introduce the newest additions to our furniture family! We've been looking for chair to go in the alcove by the fireplace. See here, where are Christmas tree is?

Well, without the tree, it's essentially an empty space. As much as I would LOVE to keep the tree up year-round, Mike says no. Ergo, we needed to get a chair. So here it is (sorry these pictures don't do it justice - eventually we'll get something that's not a phone camera!)

Surprisingly we found the chair at Target (I L-O-V-E their newest home line, Threshold!) And I had a coupon so it was even better! However, I didn't like the ottoman Target offered with it (it was too similar in size to our exisiting ottman). Luckily, we found this square beauty of an ottoman at Marshall's for only $40!!

And here's a close up of my new wall art. I love it! Another great find at Marshall's; it was more expensive then I would've liked but I couldn't resist. Again, sorry for the poor quality of the picture, but it's an awesome modern sketch of New York. Love Love Love!

 

 

That's my update for now! Look for a tutorial on how to make a side table. We want to make one (similar to our coffee table design in our living room) to put next to the chair. I love that spring is coming because now we have the ability to start building things again! You may wonder why that matters - well, it's because our garage has been a freezer for the last couple months. And sadly, the garage is our "work shop." So get excited for the projects ahead!!

Home Away From Home

We have a guestroom downstairs, right off our family room. It's been pretty ho-hum since we moved in. It had hand-me down sheets (meaning my mother-in-law gave them to us unused!) and a cheap bedding set I picked up. Looking back it seemed a bit juvenile. See below it's sad state:

 

And here's it now! I bought a new (crisp & clean) white down alternative comforter, white (crisp & clean again!) sheets and a charcoal gray bed skirt. I can't find the link for that but all I can say is upgrade! I got everything for super cheap because of coupons and sales!

 

 

 

 

The flowers on the night stand I found at TJ Maxx ($14!) and the 2 pillow shams too ($12 each). The throw pillow is from Target. To finish up this room I want to spray paint the lamp base a glossy white and find a more contemporary lamp shade. In addition, I want to get wall art for above the bed. But for now, I'm content with how the project has started!

Blinded By the Light!

I had to make the song reference. It's so much more fun than "Blinds." I'm sorry for the delay in posts. Christmas came around and the house project money turned into gift money. Alas, we stopped updating for a bit. And we were just busy, people!

Anyways, we're back at it again! We finally got blinds! You may be wondering how we've been living without them, and I'll tell you. Downstairs in the family room they didn't seem to matter because it's pretty private. Upstairs ...well, we scamper. But nooooww we don't have to!

I have no tutorial because Mike installed all these as a surprise! All I've got is a Before & After (and we know how I live for those!)

Upstairs Living Room - BEFORE:

 

 Upstairs Living Room - AFTER:

(We had to wait for the sun to go down to take a picture of blinds. Too much light! Haha - literally BLINDED BY THE LIGHT! I know, I'm a cheeseball).

Downstairs Family Room - BEFORE:

 

Downstairs Family Room - AFTER:

 

OH! And do you see my new mantle decor! Slowly but surely I will decorate this large room! And I realize I haven't shared any pictures of our new ottoman (Christmas gift! Woohoo!) so here you go:

 

 

 

All we need now is wall decor. And a new rug. And another chair. And And And!! Until then...

Sink Installation!

So for Christmas, Mike and I asked for new faucets. I think that makes us officially old because we asked for a practical thing. Along with the faucet, Mike and I got a gift card for Home Depot - we know some great givers! So we decided to get a new sink/countertop since we were already installing a new faucet. If most of you are like me, you're already saying "JUST SHOW ME THE BEFORE AND AFTER" so here's a sneak peak:

 BEFORE 

AFTER

 

First, Mike unscrewed the original faucet and pulled it out. (Oh, I guess TECHNICALLY, first Mike turned off the water and disconnected the pipes underneath. But I didn't watch that part because of the stress of a potential waterfall in my bathroom.)

 

Look at all that copper! We're stock piling it from all our home projects to eventually take to the scrap yard to get a little extra dough (aka more house project money).

 

 

 

Next, Mike unscrewed the rest of the old countertop once the faucet was out. There was a little adhesive as well, so Mike had to put a little muscle into it.

 

 

 

 

 

(You can kind of see the towel that was there just in case of a flood. Thankfully it stayed dried!) Before the next step, Mike painted the walls since the new counter didn't exactly match up to the old one.

 

 

 

Here's a view of the countertop laid down. Mike used liquid nails to secure it to the cabinet base. I clearly missed this step in my picture documentation.

 

 

Next he installed the faucet (we just followed the package instructions). If you notice, the right side of the countertop doesn't have a side splash. We had to buy this separately.

 

 

 

 

 

Had to - here's a closeup of the faucet. So shiny and pretty and clean and new!

 

 

 

 

 

 I also missed the installation of the side splash because Mike did it while I was at work as a surprise. But he used caulk to secure it against the wall and to attach to the countertop and backsplash. We were lucky that the countertop was the same color as the caulk so it blended nicely. Mike also painted the caulk that adhered the side splash to the wall with our wall color so it wasn't noticable. He did a great job in my opinion! Don't you think? Before and after again

 

 

It's a subtle difference in pictures but makes a huge step towards updating the bathroom!