Is that even right?!!? Time is flying and I can't believe we are 209 days (about 7 months) in!!!
And on top of that-- HELLO everyone! I know, like others, I promised to keep the blog up- but let's face it: Life happens. I have a huge list of house projects and this is how it goes: start a project, love it and get it like, half way done, and then move on to something else.
Yep, the projects are those kind of projects.
Things like painting the interior doors black-- there are like, 18 doors in the house. That is taking quite a while.
Painting. That most definitely hasn't started yet but we are trying to pick out colors.
Furniture. It's a heck of a task to go from a 1300 square foot apartment to a 2600+ square foot home, and trying to fill it with furniture.
We need more furniture. Lots more furniture. Lots of empty space right now, but we are getting there.
And then just having the time to do these projects. We do lots. We love to stay busy, and a lot of the time our house projects kinda get put on the back burner to go have fun.
But-- I thought I'd update a bit of what we DO have done..... The majority of the interior doors have been painted black. What a huge difference it makes! Such a nice pop of color from the boring ole white and off white walls.
We switched out our shower head in the master bathroom for a fancy-schmancy one that does all sorts of fun stuff (it was on my Christmas list and we got it for Christmas!).
We have our awesome entertainment set up put up from IKEA that we bought before we even finished building the house. It needs some slight adjustments and I don't wanna do those adjustments til we paint. But, it's massive, and amazing and looks great against the wall between the 2 windows!
Furniture stuff: Another Christmas gift we received was an awesome entryway bench and hutch from Home Depot. It was a bit of a headache dealing with it, but it's AMAZING and fits in the space perfectly. Loooooong story short: I loved the bench, showed it to the in-laws and they got it for us or Christmas. My Father-In-Law noticed on some of the reviews that the hutch didn't fit the bench perfectly. Shame on me for not paying closer attention to that. And sure enough- when we got the hutch in and assembled it, it didn't fit perfectly on the bench. I did some research and actually got in touch with the manufacturer and they shipped us an updated hutch that is perfect for the bench!!!! YAY!
Front room (on the floor plans it's technically designated the "living room"): We got some Billy Bookcases from IKEA and filled up the entire wall with book cases. I'll eventually try my hand at adding some molding to them to make them look "built in".. but I love all the space for all of our media goodies!
And naturally, we are having our "new home" woes-- specifically a couple of cracks in our foundation :-(
Yeah. You read that right. Cracks. In our foundation. We first noticed a leak in one of the unfinished parts of our basement. It dried quickly, but we had some pretty wet weather there for a while and the leak came back. We surveyed the outside of our house and found 2 cracks in the foundation (we have a pretty high elevation and have a good part of our basement exposed to the elements still-- which includes our amazing walk out basement).
So here we go with something I've become a pro at: filling out the online service request. The first one I filled out got NO response, so I filled a second one out about a week later. A foundation company called me the next day. I gave them an earful as they wanted to schedule a time during the WEEK to come out and take a look at the crack. Luckily this worked, as well as the fact that they also have weekend hours (woohoo!). So we had someone come out on a Saturday.
The guy (well, more like a kid) that came out told us that the crack was from the pressure of the support beam running across the top of the basement, as was fairly common. He did some nifty filler thing to help stop the leak. We asked about the SECOND crack on the foundation. It is smaller in size than the crack that caused the leak, but he walked it to "measure" the distance and believes that crack is the same type of thing as the one he repaired. This one is a bit more tricky as it's in a finished part of our basement. He checked the support beam area and said that he didn't see any signs of leaks or anything, and even mentioned that Ryan Homes puts in baseboards that turn a yellow color if there's water behind them. So, he did nothing with the crack. I think when it gets closer to our 1 year, or when we have a few days off, I am going to get them to come out and assess that one again. I don't want to be dealing with it when it's our problem and not something that they should have fixed anyways!
So how about some photos! I have tons and will do my best to put descriptions on them, haha!!
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| This about the extent of the snow we got this year so far. Just a little dusting to freak out the puppy, haha! |
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| Fancy new shower head <3 |
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| Before painting the doors upstairs (this would be the master bedroom, hall closet and guest room) |
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| After painting! (this would be the master bedroom, hall closet and guest room) |
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| More before shots |
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| After shots |
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Before (this would be the master bedroom, hall closet and guest room)
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After (this would be the master bedroom, hall closet and guest room)
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| Our new hutch and bench in the entryway off of the garage (mudroom) |
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| Our new hutch and bench in the entryway off of the garage (mudroom) |
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| This is in the front room of the house (family room)... Billy Bookcases from IKEA |
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| Another view of our bookcases in the front room of the house |
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| random photos: Sitting on the couch looking towards the kitchen |
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| random photos: Standing in the entryway (mudroom) door looking towards the family room |
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| random photos: Standing in the kitchen looking into the morning room |
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| random photos: Standing in the morning room looking towards the front of the house |
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| random photos: another view from the couch into the kitchen/morning room {we will one day have a dining room table in there} |
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| random photos: Crosley <3 |
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| random photos: our IKEA entertainment stand-- we still need to put the middle piece on its legs and then adjust the height on the cabinets to the right. But this won't be done til we paint. I'm not taking these things up and down a bajillion times. |
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| random photos: Standing in the hallway by the stairs looking towards the family room. |
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| random photos: The "dining room" according to the floor plan. For us, it's the bunny room {yes. you read that right. We have 2 bunnies}, and random boxes yet to be put somewhere/unpacked |
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| random photos: Front entryway |
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| random photos: Messy floors and Crosley doing the dishes. |
And, the foundation crack:
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| Wet basement floor. |
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| Worse wet basement floor. |
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| This is the *second* crack. This one isn't fixed. It coincides with a finished part of the basement and the foundation kid didn't do anything to this one-- just checked to make sure it wasn't leaking. |
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| THIS one is the culprit of our leaks. |
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| The other side of the crack. Awesome, huh? |
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| All filled and fixed and no longer leaking. |
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| But it's kinda hideous. |
So I most definitely plan on having someone come out and address the second crack before its all said and done. It's just finding time with the great time slots that Ryan Homes and their contractors offer.
We have TONS of other projects going on/waiting to work on. We stained our deck before it got cold, but it really needs one more coat.
We have lots of stuff built in the basement for our "man cave/Reds room" but don't have it all organized yet.
The loft: We are going to make this a "travel themed" area. We LOVE LOVE LOVE to travel and have so many awesome trinkets and memorabilia and things from our travels to display. Well, another Christmas gift that was on our {my} list... A giant wall mural that is a map of the world. It will nearly cover the entire wall in the loft on one side. We haven't put it up yet because we need to paint {since it won't cover the ENTIRE wall}. I found it on Wayfair:
Check It Out Here.
We love our home and have so many great memories already that have been made and can't wait for more.
And, to end the post: a super adorable photo of our sweet boys from yesterday, in our 65 degree weather in February.
