A Pretty Garage and Some Decor!

So I know y'all have all asked for pictures!
I snapped a few and have some saved on my phone for writing blogs in the "future".  I am trying to save some of them for the different projects we are working on, as I don't really want to show them off til we are finished!

We have a long list of "to do" things in this house, and we are slowly tackling them as we have the time.

I wanna show off our blinds. I have seen a lot of posts recently about window coverings and such.  We chose to do faux wood blinds in our house, and we bought them from Home Depot.  Seriously SUPER easy to install.  We still have a few to buy and put up in the house, but those are coming as budget allows.

If you're curious to see what we bought, check em out here.

And a few photos of what they look like!  With 18 windows in the house, it's kind of overwhelming to think about putting coverings on ALL of them.  We still need to get them for our morning room, and bedroom 2 (closest to the master bedroom).


So this is while I sit here and blog.  We are watching the Buckeye game.  Don't mind the TV stand. It's two different heights.  LOL.  I am still working up the courage to actually hang the cabinets across the top.  We had planned on doing that this weekend but have since changed plans and have other things going on.  So, it's a bit of a dark photo, but these are the blinds in the living room.

And then I got up and went into the "dining room" and snapped some up close photos of the blinds in there so y'all can see them up close with bright lights.

These were super easy to install and I love the detail with the valance across the top.  There are cords on both sides.  One to tilt and one to move the blinds up and down.  They do great at keeping the light out and look perfect in all of our windows!

The majority of our windows are 35-inches.  We have a couple that are 39 and one that is a little ole 23-inch one.

Now let's check out our garage!  One of our first house projects was painting the walls grey, which you can check out in this post if you don't know what we did or what it looks like.  Well.  Our next project was to epoxy the garage floor.  I pretty much knew from the beginning that I wanted some sparkly red floors in our garage.  And, we have some red sparkly floors now!

The epoxy process only took a couple of hours to complete.  It took 5 kits to completely cover our garage.  The kit says that it covers up to 125 square feet.  Our garage measures just over 400 square feet.  We were lucky that our neighbor across the street has also epoxy'd his garage floor, so he had some tips.  And one of those was that the kits cover closer to 100 square feet rather than the advertised 125.

We did have a hiccup at the beginning.  I started to mix the first kit together with my paint mixer, and panicked when I saw there was BLACK in the epoxy.  It's sparkly red.  Black didn't seem right.  I had used the paint mixer in some black paint prior to our epoxy adventure, so I was worried I had mixed paint with it.  So, I sent hubby to Lowe's to get a new paint mixer, and I used that first kit that I thought was "bad" on the edges of the garage floor.

Well, when he got back, the epoxy in the container I had was almost all hardened (I am guessing due to the heat and length of time I was using it, as it's only good for about 45 minutes), so we mixed our next container.  New paint mixer yielded the same black color in the epoxy as we mixed.  So, I sighed, gave a big womp womp and realized that it was probably just the epoxy and NOT black paint mixing in with the epoxy mix.

Anyways.  I'm sure y'all don't want to hear any more about our epoxy experience, and you'd rather just see the photos!  If you DO want to know more about our epoxy-ing, just ask!!  And, for those wondering, this is the kit that we used.  It was Rustoleum's Rock Solid "Cherry Bomb".

Here are a few photos!  First, the "before" photo:

All nice and power washed and ready to be epoxy'd

The exposed concrete on the top of the epoxy now drives me NUTS! I want to get some concrete paint and paint it black.  The stairs to the door we will probably stain white with leftover stain from our deck staining, which is a later project!

Details.

That last photo, the "details" one, really shows the color of what it looks like.  All of these photos are from my phone, which isn't the best, and lighting sometimes makes it look funny.  But, we LOVE LOVE LOVE it!  It's swirly and sparkly, and once it was done, we really wanted to find some roller skates and skate on it, it was so smooth!  It's fun and gives a great "personality" to our garage.  Who knew I'd love painting and dressing up a garage!

We've got all of our stuff back in the garage, and can still fit our cars EASILY!  I want to get some pegboard for the walls to hang things, and probably one set of shelves. I found some super fun red pegboard at Home Depot, and that will probably be a fun future purchase.  I also have great aspirations to maybe one day paint a Cincinnati Reds logo on the garage wall that's next to the door!  If there's ever a "best garage" award, it'll be ours, haha!!


And now a bit more decor!  Our plans for our loft are to make it "travel" themed.  We LOVE to travel!  Our honeymoon was to Ireland, followed by a few days in New York City.  A couple of years ago we took a two week trip to London, Paris and Rome.  Last year, our trip took us out to the West Coast as we followed the Reds.  We started in Phoenix and ended in Seattle.  Saw 12 baseball games, 7 new ballparks, and made a TON of memories along the way.  No trip this year as we saved for this gorgeous house we are now living in!  Not sure what next year's trip will be.  That all depends on the Reds schedule!

So anyways.  Travel.  That's gonna be our theme in the loft.  I want to get a big giant map of the world to put on one wall in the loft, and put shelving on the opposite wall.  The shelving will display all of our goodies and such that we collect when we travel.  Shot glasses, sand from different beaches and oceans around the world..... I also want to get a little bench for the nook under the loft window.

With the loft being travel themed, I found some great stuff at Bed, Bath and Beyond that would allow me to extend that travel theme into the hall bathroom that is upstairs!  It's called the Passport Collection and is perfect in our bathroom!

Check out some photos I snapped of the travel decor in that bathroom!!  Y'all can just ignore that damn ugly vinyl on the floors.  We won't even talk about it.

These are NOT from BBB, and rather I got them off EBAY.  But aren't they PERFECT!?!?!

Shower Curtain (it's super soft!)

Towels.

The accessories are all monuments from around the world!

Even a cute rug to match.  And my floating hands in the mirror, haha!

The goal is to eventually stain these cabinets to match the maple espresso cabinets in the master bath as well as our kitchen cabinets.  We WILL paint, but we aren't going to do that til after our drywall stuff nearing a year.  We just don't want to paint "more than once", haha!  As of right now, I am thinking a shade of purple (not a pastel, but more of a darker purple.. just not too dark as I don't want the bathroom TOO dark).  Purple might bring out some colors in the vinyl too to maybe make me like it.  I also want to get some metal prints of some of the photos I took from our travels around the world to hang in here.  I'm thinking square ones, probably about 6x6 in size.  Just not sure if I want color or black and white.  Being that the decor is black and white, that's what I am leaning towards.  But maybe if I do black and white, I can do that color pop on certain parts of the photo.  Believe me, I have TONS of photos to choose from.  I tend to be pretty snap-happy on vacation.

Besides that, we bought a couple more cabinets from IKEA for our bobbleheads in the basement.  WE are S-L-O-W-L-Y getting everything unpacked in the basement, and even slower getting it organized and ready for display.

That big black blob on the right is actually a gigantic vinyl poster thing from the All Star Game when it was in Cincinnati.  We found one and bought it and will be hanging it on the wall opposite our mural.  We love it and can't wait to hang it.  And, the purpose of this photo:  another cabinet built.  Two more are still waiting to be put together.

And a "motivation" photo for some of you guys that are just getting in your houses, or even have been in your houses.  We still have boxes.  They're scattered throughout the house, but we still have boxes full of stuff.  We are just taking our time and unpacking and finding homes for stuff when we have the chance.

This is all in our dining room.  You can see some fun projects we are working on... The "living room" has bookcases that we are putting in, and that little black table has our paint supplies on it as we work on painting our interior doors :-)

And then a few more photos for you, just for fun.

We see some gorgeous sunsets and sunrises from this house.  Don't know what it is, but the colors most nights are just amazing.

And it's so nice and peaceful in our little cul-de-sac.

And our boys!  If y'all have any pointers on getting dogs to NOT chew on walls and trim, feel free to share them!  Our puppy, Crosley, is in the crate when we aren't home... and the main reason for that is because he was chewing on some trim at the stairs (which I am still trying to figure out how to fix..... sigh).
But, he also chewed some of the wall WHILE in his cage the other day.  I really do think it's stress from all the noises he hears, seeing we live in a construction zone.  He's naturally nervous and everything scares him... but any advice for chewers is appreciated!!

Cody, sitting at the top of the stairs (closed door is the laundry door)

Crosley practicing his mug shots a couple nights ago.  He has a great smile.

So, just a few pictures for now!  Our projects continue as we have the time, and I think once baseball season is over we will have lots of projects done!  We are slowly getting our interior doors painted (which I LOVE the pop of color), and our next big project is going to be staining the deck!

We also have our first *official* house guests scheduled to come up!  My sister in law was up right when we moved in, but that was to help unpack and organize so I don't consider that a guest since she was working, haha!  But, my mom and stepdad will be coming from Florida, and at that same time, my sister and her family (4 kiddos and hubby and dog) will be coming from North Carolina!  They'll be traveling from NC to ALASKA and are stopping to see us along the way!  So, we will have a house full and can't wait to utilize this big ole house with everyone in it!!!

Our First Week Has Come and Gone.....

.... and it's been a stressful and exciting one!

I don't even know where to begin!  Y'all already know about our shenanigans on closing day with the cleaners coming in our house, our closing the garage door on the car.....

Well, the stories just keep getting better.

Gonna try to go in chronological order here, but that might not happen, lol!

MOVING DAY:

Our movers show up bright and early at 9 AM {okay, so not so early, but we were happy to get a morning time slot}.  We had both of our cars packed with stuff because this company charged by the piece instead of by the hour.  So the more boxes and such we could take over ourselves, the better!

Once they got started packing up our stuff into the truck, we loaded the dogs into my car and I headed over to the house.  I drive a little VW bug. Both dogs started out on the front passenger seat, but it wasn't long before Cody made his way to my lap.  Then, Crosley decided he wanted over too, but Cody thought that was too crowded (which it was) so he made himself comfy on the passenger seat.

Well, about 5 minutes away from our NEW HOME, Crosley decides he wants to vomit.  He's still a puppy and hasn't gotten the hang of car rides yet. We were on back roads so I was able to get him into the passenger seat while he was sick, but then both dogs immediately jumped in my lap for the remainder of the car ride to the house.  No one wanted yucky ole vomit on them.

When I pulled into the driveway, our PM was walking up to the front door and knocking.  He had mentioned he was going to stop by to make sure everything was going well and to make sure our keys worked on all the doors as they had to be re-keyed for us.  So, I park the car, attempt to get the dogs out.  Crosley jumps out right away but Cody doesn't like this new territory and wants to stay in the car.  So, I have carry him out of the car.  Our PM asked if he should come back, and I told him that he didn't need to.

In the house we go.  Our basement door hadn't been re-keyed so that needed to be done.  I don't know if I mentioned it or not, but the cleaning crew that had been in the house had told us that our half bath toilet was "running constantly" and they noticed it while they were cleaning the toilet {aka using it to relieve themselves}.  So, our PM was out to look at that too.

So in the house we go.  We are standing in the kitchen and our PM was looking at the toilet, and Cody decides to poo in the kitchen.

Way to christen the hardwood floors my sweet boy.

Right in front of the PM.  It was gross.  But, he was nervous and I hadn't really given him a chance to go outside because we had immediately come inside.

So now I have poo on the floor and vomit in the car.

I scrambled to find some TP or something to pick up the mess.  Well, of course, PM is working on the toilet downstairs.  So, I decided to just throw the poo outside over the deck.  Fertilizer for the yard, right?

The toilet was constantly running because of some dirt and grit that was under the plunger.  The plunger wasn't able to go down because of it.
So, while our PM cleaned that out, he also broke a piece inside the toilet.  So now he has to call the plumber to come out to fix a broken toilet.

Moving day also meant refrigerator delivery day! We ended up having both the movers there and the fridge being delivered at the same time and nearly completely blocked the street at one point, haha! But, our fridge was delivered, it's beautiful and I don't think I could love it any more than I do.

The movers were really efficient getting everything out of the town house and into the new house.  I'm a little bummed because they did scratch a piece of hardwood near the stairs, and they really banged up the trim outside the laundry room.  We have a call into their claims department and are waiting to hear back.

The plumber also came out and fixed the broken piece on the toilet in the half bath and all is well with that toilet now.



FIRST COUPLE DAYS IN THE HOUSE:

So, we noticed this on moving day, and we had to deal with it for a couple of days.... We didn't have hot water :-(
Yep.  No hot water.
We had luke-warm water at best, but not hot water.  Chatting with our two neighbors across the street, I learned a thing or two about hot water heaters.  I learned about the thermostats on them, and even figured out how to adjust them.

So we adjusted the thermostats on them, but still only luke-warm water.

So I text our PM the next morning and he stopped by to check it out.  He also checked the thermostats, and thought that maybe one of the heating elements was bad on the water heater.  So, he set up an appointment to get someone out to check out the hot water heater.

Water heater guy changes the elements, and we still only have luke-warm water.  Ugh.  He thinks that it has something to do with the plumbing in the house.  Like lines being mixed somewhere.  NOT what I want to hear.

So our PM comes back to check on things, and to install a cabinet front in the master bath that was scratched.  Well, the cabinet front was the wrong one so he had to get another one for us.  He also messed with the hot water heater and he felt that it was a water heater issue and not a plumbing issue, so he wanted to get the water heater guy back out to check things out again.

Fast forward to a couple hours later.  The cabinet guy was now at our house touching up some spots on our cabinets that had dings or needed sanded down.  PM says he has talked with the plumber and the plumber has given him a couple of things to try.

So here's what they did:  They adjusted the water mixing valve on the hot water heater.  The valve has something to do with our master bath being ginormous and the bath tub and yada yada, so apparently the mixing valve had been turned all the way "on" and was mixing too much cold water.  Easy peasy fix and we now have glorious hot water.

Oh! And our PM "took" a cabinet front from another house and put it on ours.  So that was taken care of, lol!!

Left on our list from our pre-settlement walk through include fixing some stone on the front porch that had fallen off (pretty much after installation, and it's just been sitting on the porch) and one of our loft windows needs replaced because it's cracked.

The sprinklers that were in our yard from Ryan Homes were taken pretty quickly to put into another yard, so we had to put our own hoses down.  We got some snazzy timers that turn the sprinklers on automatically.  I think we have 6 hoses and 6 sprinklers going to hopefully keep our yard growing.

I got all of the pieces put together on our IKEA shelving unit for the TV.  It's gorgeous.  The problem is that I am entirely too nervous to try and put the top pieces up myself as they have to be screwed into the wall.  This means wood screws, finding studs and leveling everything just right.  We are currently trying to find us someone that can come out and do it for us.  I'm just too scared to do it myself.  I do now have my very own stud finder which should be handy for hanging all the stuff we need to hang, lol!

Homeownership is an adventure.

Projects inside the house:

Unpacking.  Lots and lots of unpacking.

Building things.  Our TV stand is completely assembled, we just need to put the top shelves on the walls.  I'm not comfortable doing this as I don't want to ruin our walls or this awesome TV unit we have, so we are looking into hiring someone to do the work for us.

Blinds.  We have 18 windows in this house.  As of right now, almost all of them have blinds minus one bedroom, the loft and the morning room.  I only have one more to put up and we still need to buy the rest.  We won't be putting a set of blinds on the round window in the loft, and the bathroom window in the master bath will be getting something different than a blind.

More unpacking.  The majority of the kitchen stuff is unpacked, but that's about it.

Next up on the list:
This weekend we plan on painting the garage.  It drive me BONKERS to have unfinished walls in the garage.  They're all dry-walled and taped, just not painted.  That's not gonna work for me, haha!  So, we must paint it.

The week after we want to epoxy the garage floor.  That's why we will be painting the walls first.  Much easier to just scrape some paint off the bare floor than the pretty epoxy we will be putting down.

So a couple of photos for now.  It's a mess.  There's lots to do.  But you know what?  It's home, and we are so happy to be here.

Moving Day... The plethora of boxes after the movers were finished unpacking the truck.

Moving Day in the morning room.  Literally, boxes EVERYWHERE!  I seriously had NO clue we had this much stuff.

Moving Day kitchen view.  Such a mess, but it is OUR mess

Let's play find the puppy!

Thursday- an organized mess perhaps?

Friday view.  Slowly getting things put in their places, or just moved out of the main living area.

Saturday.  A little more progress.

And Sunday.  You can actually see the majority of the floor!!

They finally installed the shutters on the front porch!  There's a piece of stone that still needs fixed down at the bottom.

Sent this photo to hubby asking if he knew what this was.  It was my announcement to him that we FINALLY had hot water!

Blinds! I'm proud of myself for actually doing these myself.  They're really easy, but they make such a huge difference.

The TV stand.  Everything is put together, we just need to find someone to put up the top pieces for us

We bought a rug for our morning room! It's a great grey color and we loved the pattern!  The puppy was testing out new smells.

Our gorgeous fridge!  I love this thing.  Still need to organize inside of it as it's all just kind of a jumbled mess right now.

Moving wears the puppy out.

He also strategically laid on top of my IKEA directions so I couldn't put the TV stand together.  We don't think he liked the sound of the drill at first.

He also has a love of boxes.  So now he's helping us put stuff together so he can have the boxes.

One of our two bunnies!  They got new cages once we moved in, so this was miss Scarlet hanging out on the stairs while we put her new cage together.

Hose timers.  Super convenient.  Hopefully we can actually grow some grass!

And my nemesis.  The damn dryer hose.  We went to Home Depot and the little man working pointed us to these hoses.  Definitely didn't like this one.  It's not flexible, and I cut my hand on it.  We ended up going to Lowe's and getting a flexible one, and now our dryer is all hooked up.  I think the movers have the hot and cold water lines reversed though and I still need to fix that.  Please disregard the ugly vinyl flooring.  It's not growing on me yet.

Our adventures are definitely going to continue on and I'll share progress and projects as we go along.  We are so happy to be in our house and are already loving making it our home!!

And one more funny story for ya.  That would be a tennis ball in my glorious glass of wine.  We were unwinding for the evening, and Crosley comes flying across the living room with his tennis ball that we were just playing outside with, and he literally plopped it right into my glass!  Perfectly placed and didn't miss!  He didn't get his ball back, and I didn't get my wine back.

It was pretty much a good summary of how our day had gone that day.  Hot water issues, cable guy taking all day, people all in and out of our house.... it only made sense that the puppy would put his ball in my wine.