She's a beaut

Mark has fixed our old oven at least half a dozen times, replacing the heating element, patching corroded spots in the pipes, lighting the front burner by turning the gas on then using the back burner to spark it. 

It finally just wasn't worth fixing. 

So we began the search for a new oven. We had a few "mishaps". 

1. Mark bought one online and told me it would be delivered by the weekend. I mentioned I was hoping to be a part of picking it out. He felt bad and returned it. 

2. We drove an hour and a half for a Facebook marketplace find that turned out to be NASTY. 

3. We drove to a scratch and dent place, almost bought a gas/electric double oven before we realized that we didn't even have the right outlet to support the electric part. OY!

4. We talked to Andy to see if we could wire in the outlet. He said we could, but it would take some demolition. 

5. I resigned myself to the fact that a double oven wasn't doable. A new oven would still be great. So we drove out to a different scratch and dent place and asked to look at their single gas ovens. He wanted to show us the doubles as well. We explained that we didn't have the right set up for double ovens because of the dual source issue. He explained that there are other double ovens that are single source, both gas!

6. And two weeks after the old oven died, we bought this beautiful double gas oven! Well worth the wait. 

A spot for the whole family

Look what Mark found!

He not only found it, he haggled it down to 1000 dollars and he and Meg managed to get it home in just two trips. 

It was huge. Wall to wall huge. So he put one section upstairs in our room, moved the blue chair to the office and the old furniture is off to Savers. 

Whoever buys that furniture will get lots of extra prizes stuck under the springs! 

Pee carpet and Picklemans

The wedding is over and we have two weeks to get things under control at the house before the Newlyweds and In-Laws are coming for the open house. 

Am I stressed?

You bet your sweet bickes I am. 

But we still have to get our house to a point where we can move out of the garage. Kinda seems like we're getting comfortable with the premuim potty seating. 

Unfortunately, the refinishing of the hardwood floors did not go as well as we had hoped. They need to come back and fix approximately 63 flaws (if only I was exaggerating). 

The carpet installation was a disaster. Did you know there is worse carpet out there than the stuff our geriatric dogs peed on for 14 years?

There is. 

And it was recently installed in our house. 

I will not cry. 

There is no crying. 

We will figure it all out, but first....it is time to pick up Megan from KU! She is coming home to work for the summer and we will celebrate with sandwiches at Picklemans. They have magic bread. 

Under construction

Some might question our decision to undergo multiple renovation projects right before hosting an open house for Ethan and Kassie's wedding. 

Those would be the smart people. 

But here we are and there's no getting out of it. Let's all say our prayers and hopefully the floor won't look like this as of May 18th. 

After 18 years, 6 kids with a penchant for living room eating and two geriatric dogs....it was time for new carpet. 

The hardwood floors will be refinished and that means the banister will get an update too! Restained to a dark walnut and wrought iron spindles that don't pop out. 

The tick-marks scratched into the newel post have been sanded out. They are still ever so faint...and I'm not sad about it. 

The floor guy came and put down some samples for us, so we could choose which one we liked the best. I didn't realize he was going to sand down a large area and actually stain the actual floor with actual stain. 

I also didn't think he would get the wrong address and put down 5 colors we didn't ask for. 

No matter....back to stain a couple more spots!

We made our carpet selections....and then made them again when we found out that our choice was discontinued. 

In the meatime, we have guys in the back yard replacing our rickety fence with a new metal one.  It doesn't feel as private, but considering a large section of the old one had fallen down, its' definitely an upgrade. 

And guess who will never have to restain that fence again??

It's not all bad. We've been spending lots of quality time in the garage...sitting on our garage couches. 

 

Rage Clean

 I felt something pop in brain. 

I think it was acceptance/rage switch. 

It's been stuck on acceptance for quite some time.

I'm not mad at the results. 

Not pictured: a clean kitchen, mopped floors, spotless basement and pristine laundry room. 

It's been a day. 

Not another second

If I have to look at that stupid cap in the countertop or fume over the wonky tile, I'm gonna rip it out myself.

That doesn't seem wise. So we called some guys who know what they're doing to take a look. 

After the embarrassing amount of times they said "I have never seen a worse tile job that this." They gave us a quote to rework the countertop and replace the tile. 

 

It was about a week of gaping holes and construction guys in the kitchen, but I am so thrilled to be able to cook without white hot rage blossoming in my heart. I love it!

Cocoa bar and old linoleum

 First things first....how cute is this situation?

We are new to the Keurig and having cocoa just a button push away is irrisistable to every little sugar addict in this house. I predict the cocoa station will be ransacked in mere hours. 

Meanwhile, in the basement......

Ooh la la!!

The Doors

 The garage doors finally got installed today! And we seriously love them. They make the whole house look so fresh and crisp. 

And the light inside the garage is wonderful. I love seeing the trees through the windows!!

And that concludes the parade of pandemic-inspired home improvement projects for the year!

Face Lift

 It's not that the house looks bad....

It's just that it looks so brown...

We've been talking about new house colors for months now and we finally settled on a dark grey with white trim. It's crazy to watch these guys work...they are up so high! I wonder if they do seasonal work and hang Christmas lights. 

We replaced the light fixtures and the house numbers while we were at it...I love them! It really made it look more modern with just those little touches. And I'm particularly proud of Mark and I finding a light fixture style we could agree on. It took us 3 years to find lamps for the living room.

And the final touch...the door color. Mark said he would be good with anything but white, black or grey.  He wanted something kinda fun! 

So we went with this teal blue. 

I'm still freaking out a bit over it. 

Almost done! Now we wait for the new garage doors!

Money talks

On February 28th, I took advantage of a sunny day to start restaining the fence.  Today we finished... just 8 days shy of 6 months later. I think we can all agree that that time frame represents an impressive level of commitment to procrastination. 

In the end. 

I paid them. 

I told the kids I would pay 5 dollars per panel. The offer was good for two days. After that, we'd all go out together to finish and they would be rewarded with room and board and high fives. 

Anna and Everly ran upstairs for their painting clothes. They have BIG barbie needs. 

They knocked it out and they are ready to do some shoppin!

And the fence is done!!!

Free time

Picture this.

Mark and I sitting on the steps just inside the garage. Looking around at the nasty white walls that show every bump and scuff from the last 14 years. We think about painting. We talk about the color. Would grey be too dark? What about a fresh white coat? But dude. It's summer and it's SOOO hot in that garage. We should do something like that in the fall. 

And then we walk away and we have the same conversation in a year. (We are having way to much fun in the fall to ruin it by painting the garage.)

But this year. 

This year is different. We've got nothing better to do and we have plenty if time to burn. And as we sat on that step this time, all those old conversations came flooding back into my mind and I remembered that once or twice, I promised we'd do that for his birthday.  

Or Father's Day. 

Anniversary......

There's only one thing to do.....CARPE PANDIEM!

We picked a color. Bought the supplies and decided to do the "one wall at a time" method. There is way to much stuff in there to take it all off at the same time. 

Spackling those walls. My word. You have no idea. 

Mark and I make the perfect painting team. I love the trim. I love to cut it in with a high quality brush. That feeling you get when you first see that new color against the white ceiling. It makes me smile just thinking about it. Then he comes in and rolls it out. We are totes MFEO.

The first wall done and we moved on to the tv wall. Look at that nastiness!

Doesn't that look so much better??

And the worst one. That's a lot of stuff to move. I'd bet a thousand dollars that there is at least one mouse family in there that are about to be super ticked.

Inevitably there comes a time in every project when we realize that we are both outside sweating and working and the kids are inside racking up shameful amounts of screen time.

We can take care of that.

It took us 4 days and 23 trips to Home Depot....but it's all done! And we LOVE it.

Happy Father's Birthiversary!