The Day of Reckoning

All packed up and ready to move, we closed on our new house on Friday, July 30. Returning home with our keys, Jay immediately changed, hopped in his car, and headed to the new house to start working. Our intentions were to pull all of the carpet up in the old part of the house, thoroughly clean (as Grandmother would not let Lula in the house until it was spotless!), and start on the wallpaper. Well, the carpet and cleaning were bigger tasks than we'd imagined. So the wallpaper was left untouched for the time being. However, by the time the rest of us arrived at the house to get work about an hour later, Jay had already pulled up all of the carpet and rolled it into neat piles in the back. The bigger tasks was pulling the millions of staples out of our beautiful wood floors. I started to help with this until my dad also joined the efforts and literally worked at about three times the pace I was working! So I decided to do something more useful. The house was cleaned and scrubbed, all the window hangings removed, and the carpet completely removed. It was a very tiring and productive day. We were ready to move in! I guess now would be a good time for a tour before all the furniture gets moved in. So here's our new house:
Who wouldn't love a bass on their mailbox?!
Really cool brick garage. It's brick inside too and was covered with rickety cabinets and all kinds of random things. Jay and Dad spent most of one day taking everything out and filling up and huge dumpster.

Backyard: aka Jungle! Apparently the former owners were very extravagant gardeners, but both passed away after living here for 45 years and the garden literally went to pot!
Screened porch which was covered with blinds from top to bottom and well-insulated with cardboard and styrofoam scraps!
Master bedroom with a lovely outdoor entrance into the back area of the house. More randomness!
Our one and only bathroom which no longer has wallpaper or hideous 80s shade. (seen in future blog).
Lula's room pre-drape removal!
Living Room also pre-drape removal! There were so many drapes and curtains to remove. It was wonderful to let the light in!
Coat closet in living room with...yep, you guessed it! Drapes! I guess they were going for the appearance of a window?

Front door and living room pre-carpet and drape removal. Notice how well all the decor matches! Now blue is my favorite color, but this is going a bit too far!
Dining Room
Into back area (new addition) and kitchen.
Yes, I know, it's hard to tell what's going on. They basically opened up the old kitchen and added a new addition. But basically just added more cabinets in the new area. It's very confusing until you actually see it!


Basement door
Upstairs room. It's quite large, but there's no HVAC so it's not livable. Currently it's storage space.
Closet off of the upstairs room...more blinds hung instead of sheetrock.
And behind blind number 32...the old roof!!!
Another closet upstairs that opens into the attic space over the old part of the house. We're hoping to convert the whole upstairs into 2 beds and a bath someday....with heating and air!
Creepy basement! There's a creepy side and a decent finished side. Of course my laundry room is on the creepy side, but not for too long! It will be moved upstairs eventually. We did retain some really cool old metal cabinets though. I want to integrate them into the new kitchen and laundry room.
Finished side with random fireplace. Jay put his office down here.
And that's our new house! I'll try to keep posting regularly as we make improvements, but like I said before, I'm having trouble keeping up with Jay!

The Visitation

The last several weeks have been such a blur that I'm not sure what's happened during them! I know my parents and grandmother were here, Lula officially and finally started walking, we bought a house, moved, sold our old house, and have started renovations on the new one...and I'm 10 weeks pregnant to top it all off! Whew!

I fully intend to chronicle the progress of our renovations, but Jay has jumped in with both feet so quickly that I'm already very behind! I've barely been able to keep up with before and after pictures he's moving so fast. So I figured I better start with my parents visit and then we'll move on to the move and new house.

Below is Lula in her spiffy Steak n Shake hat...Grandmother likes to eat out and so Lula often found herself in locations I would not usually take her. They were such a blessing to have around while I finished teaching for the summer and packed up our house and battled nausea and exhaustion.

Lula was quite a little trooper as we packed up the house and put way too many possessions into boxes. She didn't seem to notice and was happy to help when she could. One day she sat on my bed while my mom and grandma neatly placed hangers in a box. Lula immediately caught on and started handing hangers to Grandmother until they were all gone! She also enjoyed climbing into boxes and being pulled around in them. This was not very helpful! But definitely fun!
Lula spent a great majority of these past weeks on the porch with Nana and Grandmother who love to be outdoors...especially if there's a porch and rocker involved. Lula loved it too.

She also fell in love with Brown Cow yogurt thanks to Nana and now steals it out of the fridge whenever she can.
My grandmother played with Lula endlessly while the rest of us did daily tasks and packed. She was such a huge help and Lula instantly fell in love with her. One of Lu's new accomplishments, along with walking, is placing the rings around the pole. She had such an attentive audience while my folks were here that any time she did something new, she demanded applause! She's turned into quite a little ham and loves attention...which she received plenty of!


We were also able to celebrate my gorgeous mom's birthday while they were here. Overall it was a busy visit, but we couldn't have done all that we did without them.

Summer Time!

Well, life has been busy to say the least! We've bought a new house in the University Heights area, our house is under contract, and we'll be moving in less than three weeks! Jay and I are very excited about our new house. It was built in 1937 and needs some major updating. It's definitely a project house, but we're looking forward to it. It's one of the few things that Jay and I love to do together as a hobby. So I think it will be fun. We move on July 31...if anyone wants to come help!!! :)

I've been teaching at MSU this summer in the afternoons and doing my online job in the morning and toting Lula to and fro. It's been a bit crazy, but the teaching will be over soon and I'm cutting back on my online job hours. Which will be good since I'll have lots to keep me busy in the new house!

My mom and grandma are also here for the three weeks. My dad will come a little later on. It's been such a blessing to have them here already during this busy time. Lula just loves them and is getting spoiled rotten! She's saying new words now: "apple," "eyes," "ball" and finally getting more interested in walking. She can walk, she just chooses not to! And that's about it for now!

Oh! And I found some fun pillows at Funtiques to put on my snazzy yellow couch (which will go in Lula's new room). Pillows make such a big difference! I'll be blogging a lot once we're in our new house and will "document" our renovations. So stay tuned!

New Couch! ...and Lots of Pillows

Many things have occurred in the last couple of weeks...Lula turned one (I should probably blog about that! My best friend beat me to it TWICE which you can see here: Dear London and here: The Stark Family), my mom came to visit for Lula's birthday, we found a new home for Maggie, I've been working like a mad woman (at my mysterious online job), and we FINALLY got our new couch!

We've been waiting for this couch for at least 4 months...maybe longer. We special ordered it from Tekka Gallery here in town and then waited...and waited...and waited. We suffered through Chinese New Year which set back the arrival date by a month...and so we waited some more. But last week, it finally arrived and we are delighted with it! It is HUGE but fits nicely in our living room.

Lula has discovered that crawling across the couch is a fun past time...not so fun for us since we spend the time making sure she doesn't fall off. She's also taken to mimicking us, which is hilarious, of course. Jay and I must lounge a lot because almost as soon as she started getting on the couch, she started fake lounging on the couch too! She crawls to a spot, sits back against the couch, and slumps down into a lounging position. We crack up, and she proceeds to crawl to a new spot.





After seeing our very neutral couch against our very neutral walls, I realized we needed some color! So I searched for some fun fabrics, found lots of polyester at Thrift Haven, and made a bunch of pillows to brighten up the room. I'm not finished yet, but needed a break after making seven pillow covers in two days. I also used my lovely curtains and an afghan my grandmother knitted. I'm very happy with the results.