Date: June 21st-July 4th
Mission: To get our house live-able and our backyard play-able in two short weeks.
Logic behind this mission: Again, complete I-N-S-A-N-I-T-Y.
During our time in Orlando we were able to rent our house out here in Mobile. This was a huge blessing. It was great to have a house to come home to when we were done with seminary. We knew there would be A LOT of work to do inside and outside the house. We knew that our yard was not going to be in as good of shape as it was when we left. Shane had worked for 10 years on our yard and it had become a truly luscious green semi-Eden :) We loved our yard. We made the mistake of not hiring someone to take care of it during the two years we were gone. When Shane pulled up with the U-haul, he said he started to cry because, as you can see, our luscious yard was no longer....sad times. More work to be done than anticipated....
One thing I was looking SOOO forward to when we moved back was having a FENCED-IN BACK YARD!!! Yay. We did not have one in Orlando and I longed for one. The girls love playing outside...but they definitely need BOUNDARIES :). When we got here our back yard was C-O-V-E-R-E-D in leaves. I mean it was like a river of leaves. We knew we only had two weeks to stay at Ms. S's house before we had to move into ours. The yard definitely needed to be "play-able" before we moved in. It literally would have taken Shane weeks to rake and bag the river of leaves by himself. Thankfully, he got a few guys to come over the first few days and help him with this very overwhelming task. They worked for 4 straight days to get all the leaves raked and in bags. FOUR DAYS STRAIGHT. It was only 110 degrees, too. Fun times. At the end of the task, they piled 94 bags of leaves beside the road to be picked up. That is totally insane!
This is just a few of the bags....
We decided a few months before we moved back that we were going to do some renovations to our house. We thought it would be a good time to do these changes while we had a chance to stay at another house for a couple of weeks. Things we wanted to do: 1. Close in our screened-in back porch and make it into a sun room 2. Re-do our half-bath in our bedroom and add a stand-up shower and linen closet 3. Turn the storage closet that was attached to the screened-in porch into a walk-in closet in our bedroom 4. Paint every single room in our house (this would be my job :). We knew the major renovations would take longer than two weeks, but we could get a major jump-start on them before we moved back into the house. Mr. Joe, a guy from our church here, started the work a week before we got back (the major demolition, etc.) Our goal was to have all the rooms in the house painted (minus the renovated ones), have the girl's room set up, have the front bathroom done, and have the kitchen as functional as possible before the two weeks were up. Because the back porch was being re-done and our bedroom and bathroom were off-limits as well, we had to pile all of our boxes, etc. in the kitchen, dining room and office. Needless to say, those two weeks were P-S-Y-C-H-O. Thankfully, GiGi and HayHay were here during the first week to help us with the house and watch the girls so that I could paint my life away. Literally. My mom also drove over several times during those two weeks to watch the girls. We definitely would have been up a creek if they all had not been able to come. Thank you!
Here are some before and after shots of all the work. Of course, the "finished-product" pics were not taken at the end of the two weeks because the renovations were not done for another 4 weeks after we moved into the house....but you'll get the picture :)
This was the storage shed connected to the screened-in porch. It butted up against our bedroom wall so it would become our walk-in closet.
Our gutted bathroom.....
Bedroom and future walk-in closet shot...
Finished product!! Love it. Love it. Love it. An ENORMOUS shout-out to my sister-in-law, Julia, who graciously came down (along with her hubby, Lance) and helped me "put it all together". She is the most multi-talented person I know....decorating is just one of her MANY talents. Thanks so much Julia!!
Our new bedroom....
Sliding door to our new walk-in closet...
Door on the left is to our new bathroom and other door is the new linen closet...
Walk-in closet....WHOOP WHOOP!!!
New Master Bathroom....
YAY!!! We finally have a shower in our bathroom!!!!
OK, here is what our house looked like when we first moved our stuff in....we were just a BIT overwhelmed. Like I said, we didn't have anywhere else to put all the boxes, etc. b/c of the work being done on the house. I just had to shift all the boxes around as I painted the whole house. Boy was that fun :) Oh, and see that tiny space on the living room floor that was empty....that was where Shane and I slept after the initial two weeks passed and we had to move into our house. Our room wasn't done for 4 more weeks so that was our room. Probably won't do that again...EVER :) Oh, and I forgot to mention that the day we moved into the house, our AC unit DIED. Completely dead. We had to get an ENTIRE new AC/HEATING system. Nice. Then the hot-water heater died. Had to get a new one. Then the dishwasher broke. Hey, when it rains, it pours I guess, right?? It's comic now. Not so much then :)
Living Room, Dining Room and Kitchen...BEFORE...
Finished Product!! Kitchen....
Kitchen....
Kitchen.... (Obviously :)
Bar...
Dining Room....
LOVE this wall-art that Julia gave me as a gift.....Fantastic quote...
Living Room.....
I just ordered some pictures to put up under this verse....I'll post a pic of it after I get them up....
Here is the used-to-be screened-in porch in progress...
Finished Product!!! We LOVE the sunroom/playroom. I have a feeling we will be spending ALOT of time in it....
Girl's Room...BEFORE....
Girl's Room...AFTER...
Jocelyn's crib...she wanted to pose for the camera :)
When we moved back, we had to put them in the same room. I was totally nervous about it b/c Gabbie doesn't like to sleep near as much as Jocelyn :) It has been a hard transition. Basically Jocelyn is getting about 3 hours less sleep a day than she was when they were separated. The first couple of months were really hard b/c Jocie was tired ALL the time. I think her body is adjusting to less sleep now b/c the past few weeks she hasn't been quite as tired. Other than the sleeping issue, they love being in the same room. They think it is hilarious and they laugh ALOT :)
Gabbie's crib...
Laundry room. I forgot to get a before shot. It was this bright green color. I decided on yellow. Also, this is our kitchen pantry as well :)
Our front bathroom.... BEFORE. I've always had a hard time with this crazy 1970's blue tile on the walls and floor. The tan wall and striped shower curtain just wasn't cutting it for me anymore. My sister and brother-in-law volunteered to come over and help me re-tile the floor. I thought that would help tone down the overwhelming blue....
Ranks up there with one of the grossest (is that a word?) things I've experienced....that toilet had not been moved in like 40 years. Nice.
New floor!!
Finished Product!! Love it. Julia gave me the black/white idea. It actually looks like I WANTED the blue tile there :)
There was this HIDEOUS medicine cabinet and light fixture here. I forgot to take a before picture. I would make you appreciate this new light (thanks HayHay!!) and mirror SO much more!
The only room not pictured is the office. The reason is because it is still a complete mess!! It's my final house project so hopefully I'll be able to give some before/after shots of it. It's going to be super cute if I ever get it done :)
Shane is taking a day this coming weekend to tackle his "used to be semi-Eden". Pics of the progress will follow...
When we bought this house 11 years ago, there was this monster-looking swing-set thingy in the back-yard. We had wanted to get rid of it for years, but never did. After we had the girls, I was so glad we kept it b/c I knew one day they would want to play on it. Well, when we moved back, we accessed it, and realized it was in very poor condition. HayHay volunteered to make it his project during that first week. I thought he was just going to replace some rotten boards and maybe clean it up a bit. UMMMMMM.....he had something else in mind.....
This is what it looked like when we got back....
The Project begins....out with the little ladder, in with a mack-daddy staircase...
Take down ALL the boards and replace them, along with adding a ton of new ones for added security and safety...
Hand-rails for stair-case....
Power-wash entire thing, put two swings up, put double timbers around entire area, make sand-box underneathe....
Fill with mulch so that the ground is soft and beautiful :)
Ummmmm......hello....we have an entire playground in our back-yard!!
The girls LOVE it (as do I!). Thanks so much HayHay!!!
Some BIG, HUGE, ENORMOUS thank you's to several people during those first couple of weeks, especially! Thank you to my brother for coming over and helping Shane unload the U-Haul in nasty tornado weather! GiGi....thanks for watching the girls for a week straight so that I could paint 12 hours a day! Thank you for buying them little bunny rabbits with bottles :)
This is a totally random picture that has nothing to do with thanking people...well, technically, I guess it could be signifying a thank you from Jocelyn to Gabbie. Those two weeks at Ms. S's were the last sound, interrupted sleep Jocelyn would ever experience (they were in seperate rooms there). This is Gabbie every morning there. She woke up at the butt-crack (as usual) and would sit on the counter while I made her breakfast. Hope you enjoyed those last few days of sleep, Jocie :) (Not sure why this is showing up underlined. I tried to get it back to normal...oh well :)
Thank you to my sister and brother-in-law for coming over and helping me (rather, teaching me) to tile the bathroom!
HayHay and Gigi....no words can describe our gratitude!! Julia and Lance ( I don't have a picture)...but THANK YOU SO MUCH for all your help!! Could not have done it without you!!
Thank you Ms. Shrop for letting us destroy your house for two weeks. You are way too kind and gracious!! The girls tried to clean it up as best they could :)
(Yes, Gabbie has my bra on......she is too funny :)
Thank you MawMaw for driving over so many times to watch the girls. We definitely would not have made it without your help!!
Thank you to Mr. Joe for the splendid work on our house. By the way, the girls thought that Mr. Joe lived in our bedroom b/c he was in there working everyday for weeks. They called it Mr. Joe's room forever after he got done with our house. They still think Mr. Joe is a family member I think. I guess technically he did "live" with us (atleast in their minds) for a LONG time! They go crazy when they see him at church every week. It's so funny.
Well, I've got lots more posts coming on the Blogging Updates. This was a big one...I'm glad I'm done with it :)
