Closet Makeover Before and After

When we moved into our house we were hit hard by all the expenses that come along with moving into new construction. Window covers for obvious reasons and landscaping for HOA reasons had to be prioritized, so some things had to wait. Like our master closet.

We Got A Roomba

I'm the cheap one in the family. Always have been always will be! So when my husband started making noises about getting a roomba, and saying that one day we would have one, I really wasn't trying to hear it. The usual objections applied. It's too much money. I can do it myself. We already have a vacuum. Although, I will admit our vacuum is probably on it's last legs. It's been making this really high pitched screeching sound, and I fear it's only a matter of time before it makes no sound at all. But the point is, that I'm perfectly capable of vacuuming our house and I don't need a robot to do it.

Working on that Home Decor Thing

Setting up a brand new house is very expensive. There isn't any fixing up to do, but not to fear, there are still plenty of things to spend money on. We bought four ceiling fans, three pendant lights, and so many other things I've lost count. It never seemed to end. I think we were at Home Depot every weekend for the first six months. We kept the majority of our furniture from our old home, but we did spend money replacing a desk, bar stools, fold out couch for a spare bedroom, and a buffet. The only additional item we've purchased is a 4 tier shelf for our entry way. Our couch is about to be ten years old and we're ready for a new one, but we've had to wait because of those darn priorities. Our biggest expense was outdoor landscaping, which we were required to take care of right away. Once we got that together we prioritized getting our patio cover, and outdoor furniture so we could enjoy the backyard. We also had to buy window coverings for 29 windows. We picked up a few items here and there to decorate, but for the most part home decor as fallen to the bottom of our priority list.

Things We Considered Before Buying New Contruction

When we started looking at houses our priority was a decent location, price, and a list of must have's that we were really, really hoping we could get. We tried to keep that list as short as possible. The part that stressed me out the most is that we had a home we would have to sell, before we could buy something else. I wasn't hopeful that the stars would align so that we would find a buyer for our house, and get an offer accepted on a home we wanted to buy at the same time. Between house hunting, making your own house available for showings, negotiations, inspections, and funding there are a lot of variables that need to pan out in a timeline that works for the buyer of our home, the seller of the home we want, and us. People do it, but I don't know how, without selling your house, renting, then doing the home search from there. We definitely wanted a newer or updated home. We didn't have our mind set on buying new construction, but doing so did streamline the buying/selling process. We didn't have to worry about competing with other offers, or trying to time out multiple closings. Sometimes the builder negotiates with discounts or credits, but the price is the price, and it's first come first served. Once you pre-qualify, sign the contract and hand over earnest money the house is yours pending funding, and any contingencies, such as selling your current home are taken care of. We ended up moving twice anyway, but we had a closing date, and could plan for it.  Having everything new is nice, but there are a lot of things we had to consider.

Pros and Cons of Apartment Life

Walking Distance to Mission Bay

Moving twice isn't ideal, but we felt it was what needed to happen, to make sure the selling of our old house and the buying of our new one went smoothly. We anticipated renting for three months (and even signed a 3 month lease), so we were shocked when the builders told us that we'd be closing in October and not December. More stress! Our landlord wouldn't let us out of the lease, but the builders made a concession for us on our home price as compensation. We've been homeowners living in a 3 bedroom, plus loft,  2.5 bath, 1800 square foot house for eight years. I wasn't thrilled about losing the comforts of home that I'd grown accustomed to, but I tried to look at it as a new adventure for us. And it was! But we are really ready to get out of here. So, let's talk about the pro's and con's of apartment living as I've experienced them for the last six weeks.

Apartment Life #confessions

I'll be the first to admit that I'm spoiled. I've lived in two different places over the last thirteen years and both were brand new. Our next house is brand new. Hell, even my childhood home was brand new. We moved in when I was five. I don't recall worrying about the cleanliness of things back then, but it was definitely of some concern during my apartment living years after college. I cleaned immediately after moving in "just to be sure," and usually felt a little uncomfortable during the first few weeks. My obsessive cleanliness disorder has gotten worse and worse over time, making my transition to a 38 year old apartment really hard after living in everything is brand new land for so long.

The Moving Diet & Exercise Program

I don't mean to sound like a whiner, but I have to say that moving was a really really terrible experience. Something about putting every single thing I own in the entire world into 24" boxes was almost enough to send me over the edge. I felt so overwhelmed. My husband has more experience with moving and living in limbo. I have to give him a lot of credit for taking the lead and pulling me along. He knew what packing materials to order, and how to pack all of our glass while I stood stunned and motionless in our bedroom. Time was limited, so I knew I needed to do something, but I looked around and just didn't know where to start or how to do it. He takes everything in stride, and it didn't bother him too much, but the disarray in our house, having to decide what to put in storage for three months and what to keep, and the pressure of having to make everything disappear in three days was a lot for me to handle. We purged a lot of things from our house in preparation for selling...and still I felt so disgusted by all the stuff we had to move. It really makes me want to get get rid of everything! Burn it all!! Well that won't happen, but this experience has definitely renewed my desire to continue working towards becoming a minimalist or at least a quasi minimalist.

Moving Sucks, Moving Twice Sucks Harder

Real estate is weird. I feel like everything happens backwards. You sell your house when you don't yet have a place to live. You buy a new home, before you've sold your old one. You pay a hefty commitment deposit and agree to buy before you've had a home inspected or even built. You choose flooring and other design elements when the necessary funding for it won't be finalized for weeks or months. Every single  detail for moving or buying a home has been set in place, yet nothing is truly final until those keys are in your hand. None of this makes any sense, whatsoever in my head. Nothing is done in the order you'd think it should be done, and yet this is how it works.

How can anyone function like this? The answer is very stressfully.

Flat Screen Mounted

Before

Over the weekend Mj invited his friends over to participate in some unpaid labor. That's what friends are for right? He bought this 55" 3D monster of a TV about a year ago and ever since he's been talking about mounting it. I was against it because I'd heard it could cost hundreds of dollars and it just didn't seem worth it to me when it's fine just sitting there on the table.  TV's are so thin now, they really don't take up much space. I also have a fear of putting holes in our walls.  We aren't renting so we can do whatever we want but for some reason this fear has not gone away.

During

after

Well, he didn't listen to me of course and he finally did it. He found everything he needed on Amazon for about $100 and the only labor cost was burgers and beer for the guys so it actually turned out to be a pretty inexpensive project.  I thought the destruction of the wall would be much worse but only two squares of drywall were removed and they were filled in with plastic inserts.  He and his friends did a great job.  I love the way it looks. There are no cords and it just floats there ever so perfectly like a picture on the wall.  Like magic.  So yeah, Mj was right about getting hardwood floors and about mounting the TV.  It looks great and I'm just glad he didn't have to spend a lot to do it. Now, if only I could finally finish decorating and find something to put on all of those empty surfaces...but not too much otherwise dusting is a real pain in the butt.



  

Area Rugs, Bar Stools and Floating Shelf

7'6" X  9'6"Hand Tufted Alexa Pino Floral Red Rug from Overstock.com

I'm still getting my Vacation posts together so for now I'll show you the new rugs we got before I left for vacation.  The red one for the dining room came in first.  Mj was gone and it's so heavy that I wasn't able to put it down for weeks until my family came down because I couldn't do it by myself.  It is so soft and thick.  It feels like really good quality.  The size was perfect.  All of our chairs fit with room to spare.

5 X 8 Damask Trellis Navy Blue Rug from Rugs USA

The blue one was on back order so it came about a week before I left for vacation.  We don't actually have any Navy Blue decor pieces so we weren't even sure how that would look but we loved the color and pattern.  We'll be adding some Blue to tie in with the rug but even as is it doesn't look out of place at all.  It's 100% wool so it's a bit itchy but I can still sit on it.  After we got the hardwoods our sectional was sliding all over the place but the rug keeps it in place perfectly.  Both were on sale.  The Blue one was $149 and the Red one was $227 and although at first I felt like it was kind of a lot of money for rugs after seeing them I can say it was definitely money well spent.   I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE them both.  Sometimes I'm at a loss when it comes to decorating.  I see amazing pics and different pieces that I like and then I look at my house and can't quite figure out how to put it all together.  It's always so hard for me to tell if I'll really like something or just how it will fit into our decor based on the picture but I think we done good. . 

These are the bar height stools I finally picked out in March after the usual obsessing after we raised the counter.  I found them for a decent price at a Bar Stool store.  They were $149 each.  I thought the back of the chair would be higher then the counter.  It's not, but it's the right height and it still looks okay.  It's a perfect red.  Not too bright or too dark and fits in nicely with our color scheme.

These are the floating shelves that Mj finally got around to putting up.  He wasn't totally sold on it but I really wanted them and after they went up he liked them just as much as I did.  Our house has really been a work in progress.  We've been here for two years now and we still have some bare walls and empty shelves.  We still haven't painted any of our bathrooms or spare bedrooms.  They are still builder basic White and who knows when or if that will ever happen!  I hate painting.  We've taken care of the areas that matter most to us though and I like the way it's come together.

Hardwood Floors

Home renovations can be a pain in the butt.  After our kitchen I was not looking forward to doing anything else so this was one 'honey do' I did not bug Mj about.  When he told me he scheduled the installation I can't say I was thrilled.  It's so much work.  I hate the dirt.  I hate having to move everything and how anxious I feel when my house is a total disaster.  I know I'm totally whining and I hate myself for it but I got over it and we got our hardwoods put in last week.  If you looked at our upstairs you'd think we were hoarders because we had to put most of our furniture up there. Poor Mj had to listen to my incessant whining while we moved everything upstairs and out to the garage but we both survived.  It took them two days and then on Thursday we cleaned and put everything in order.  It was so good to have our house back!! 

We did the entire downstairs with a hand scraped engineered hardwood from the Reward Grenada Collection in Birch Retreat.  It's already distressed so when the inevitable nicks and dings start to turn up they won't be as noticeable.  We went with engineered because it's cheaper and we have a concrete sub floor.  It's a good option because they can still be refinished.  Our cheapo baseboards were replaced with really pretty five inch crown molding.  I didn't even know we were getting those.  Since they had to pull up the toilet anyways we bought a new one for the 1/2 bath.  Without the sound absorbing carpet it sounds really hollow like we we're in a cave or a bathroom but I don't notice it as much any more.  

It's not that I don't like hardwoods but I can't say I was 100% enthusiastic about getting them.  Mj definitely wanted this more then me.  I love the look but to me carpets are more practical and easier to maintain.  I've grown very attached to our carpet.  We upgraded on it when we bought the house.  It looks nice and I like the color.  I like the feel of soft carpet under my feet and sometimes I like to sprawl out on the floor.  We don't have pets or kids and we don't wear shoes in the house so it wasn't that hard for us to keep them clean.  After two years it's still in good condition so it was weird to watch them tear up perfectly good carpet.  We like dark wood so that's what we got even though we knew that every speck of dust and dirt would show up.  I kind of feel like I just made more work for myself.  We still have my precious carpet upstairs so I can get my carpet fix sitting my butt on the floor up there.  We're searching for an area rug too so that should help. 

So we finally have those coveted hardwood floors.  Mj just loooves it.  As hard as it is he did lay on it "'just to see what it felt like."  I know technically, hardwoods are cleaner because unlike carpet you truly can clean them whereas carpet absorbs.  And it does look really good.  I mean, it's kinda hard not to like.  They're beautiful.  The more I see it and get used to feeling it under my feet the more it's starting to grow on me.

Our first house project:  Painting

Now We Need Bar Stools

We got our kitchen counter tops re done and raised our bar area so now we need bar height bar stools.  I love it that Mj cares about the home decor in our house.  The only problem is that he can be really, really picky.  This often makes picking out anything from throw pillows to shelves quite a frustrating experience.  There are times when he will tell me he doesn't like something without explanation.  No he doesn't know why...he just can't put his finger on it.  What am I supposed to do with that?  Especially if it's something I really like and he can't even tell me why he doesn't.  I'll show him item after item and he'll veto every single one.  So imagine my excitement when he tells me that I get to pick out the bar stools all on my own. His only rule is that they not be cheap.  El cheapo used to be my middle name so I know why he felt the need to emphasize this.  I don't want to bring anything home that he hates so as I'm searching I do run stuff across him.  True to his word he is mostly non committal unless he really hates it...which is fine because I don't want him to hate anything in his house.

I get to pick out whatever I want.  This is great.  The only thing is that I have no idea which ones to get!  I started out wanting something bright and modern.  Funky even.  Just because it's a chance to introduce something new into our decor.  Then, I changed my mind and thought that the more traditional chair might work better with what we already have.  Now, I just have no clue.  Red, Brown, wooden, adjustable height?   I read reviews, I browse countless websites and I compare prices.  I stare at our counter and try to envision them there.  I just end up more confused and undecided.  I cannot ask Mj to help me figure it out.  I'm determined to find the perfect ones on my own.

I've got links to ones I like bookmarked all over the place.  Here are a some that I'm considering.  Any input would be greatly appreciated.

Photo Source:  West Elm $338 for 2 (I'd get the Brown)

Photo Source:  Overstock.com  $186.29 set of 2

Photo Source:  morebarstools.com $104.78 each

I'm hoping that I'll have time on Saturday to go to a store that carries nothing but bar stools and that I can make a decision soon.  I'm pretty sure that I'm obsessing way too much over this but it's what I do.  I can't help it.

Our Kitchen: Basic to Bling

We did the backyard, we did the closet and so naturally it was time for the kitchen.  We are all set with our nice appliances and cabinets but the laminate counter tops had to go.

Basic Laminate Countertops

Trying to visualize it at home depot with our cabinet, granite samples and backsplash

Picking out the back splash was a little bit agonizing.  We spent at least an hour staring at glass tiles but I think we made a good choice.  We wanted a light color for the counters to contrast with our dark cabinets.  Mj found White Kashmir Granite on the internet.  It can be really hard to tell from pictures but we liked what we saw and Home Depot carries it so we got to see the samples there.  We've been watching Renovation Realities on the DIY channel and we think a more fitting name might be Renovation Nightmares.  We are not DIY people so we decided on the granite color, bought our sink and our back splash from Home Depot and then turned it over to the pros.

They actually had to build extra wall to raise the bar

It took five days when we initially planned for three.  We did decide to get back splash at the last minute so I think that did add on the few additional days.  They only work through the week so Mj and I had to juggle our work schedules.  On Thursday they got to our house at 8:00am and didn't leave until 8pm then were back Friday for a couple hours to finish up.  I can only imagine how long it would have taken us if we tried to do it ourselves.  Being without a kitchen was inconvenient and they had to shave some granite inside which caused a lot of dust but it was all worth it in the end.

It took about 20 sheets of back splash tile which was way more then I thought it would be for a small kitchen.  At about $17.99 per sheet it adds up but when we were choosing it I focused on what we wanted and not the price.  If we're going to do it we might as well get what we want.

This sink is deep enough to hide dirty dishes

The sink was $375 but once you put it under granite it's not getting changed out so I'm glad we got what we really wanted here too.  Slowly but surely I'm learning that while budget is important sometimes you really do just need to get what you want.  This is our house, it's permanent and we are already spending the money so why not?  Within reason of course.

Now we need to find bar height stools

Now that we have raised the counter to bar height we moved the two counter height chairs back to our dining room table and I am looking for two bar height stools to replace them.   I'm also planning on putting some floating shelves in that blank space next to the window.  Raising the bar height somehow made the kitchen feel larger and has given us a little bit more counter space.  Lighter counters has brightened up the space.   Thank goodness we found this contractor.  He did our crown molding and painting for us last year and he's also doing our floors.  He only charged us $2,600 for this entire project; that includes granite and labor.  I cannot believe I'm saying the word only in front of thousands of dollars but compared to what others are charging out there this is extremely reasonable.   This transformation happened in our own house and I still have no idea how they did it.  How did they cut the granite?  How do they make it fit perfectly around the sink?  How did he build that wall?  What a difference new counter tops can make!!  Our kitchen went from basic to bling and I'm so happy with how it turned out.

Next Project: Hardwood Floors

Home Decor....Slowly But Surely

It takes so long to get a house decorated.  We got all the furniture we need it's just the details and accents that are taking a while to come together.  Once you figure out what you want sometimes it's almost impossible to find it in stores and at the right price which can be really frustrating but slowly but surely we're getting there.

Vintage looking Boudoir lamps from Pier One

Finally, after 1 1/2 years of living in our house we finally got bedside lamps for our night stands.  We have recess lighting so it's more decoration then anything else.  I looked everywhere!  First I didn't know what we wanted.  Then we decided to add color to our room with the lamps but finding the right one in the right color at the right price is hard.   I originally went in looking for a different lamp but found these pretty vintage looking ones at Pier One Imports for $40 bucks each.  I had a $10 off coupon so that was a bonus.  I had to take a picture and send it to Mj for approval and he liked them too.  We could have gone bigger because our headboard is high and our nightstands are a good size but eh...I just wanted something small.  These are 18" high.  I plan to add a satin ribbon around the bottom rim to add color once we get some accessories in our accent color; which I think will be purple.

Bargain price ottoman found at Ross for $99

Room for everything

Mj let me keep the black Ottoman.  He didn't say anything for about a day or so and then decided that he liked it.  My pajamas are all nicely organized now in one place where they all fit and are convenient for me to get to.  It's a nice little seating area too.  We're going to find a nice piece of wall art to put over it.

We didn't get the mirror that came with our dresser.  We found our own.

Can't wait until these make it onto the wall

 Back in October we found a large black mirror to hang over our dresser at Marshall's for $99.00, which is great because like everything else mirrors can get pretty pricy too.  I got a great deal on these matte picture frames at Michael's and framed our wedding pictures over Christmas Break.  They've been sitting there waiting for hanging for a while and they will go right over our bed.  Mj if you are reading this...how bout this weekend?  The black rimmed full length mirror needs to go up too. 

Sloan Espresso Leaning Book case.  Photo Source:  Crate & Barrel

Red Bamboo Vase-Photo Source: Pier One

In other rooms.  Just before the holidays we bought two leaning shelves at Crate & Barrel to put on either side of our TV downstairs in the living room. I was trying to go for the less expensive Walmart version but Mj wasn't having it.  At $149 each it's more then I wanted to spend on these but they are great quality and they look good.  We also bought a red vase from Pier One that we filled with sticks.

Next up.  We are getting the downstairs carpet and flooring replaced with hard woods.   Our kitchen counter tops will be replaced with granite and we're adding back splash.  We'll be getting started on those projects after we get our tax refund.   And lastly, we want to do something with our master bathroom.  I'm kind of itching to do it now.  The flooring is builder basic vinyl (like our kitchen) which I actually don't mind so much but I hate our very hard to keep clean fiber glass shower and tub surround.  It really can wait until next year though.  One thing at a time.  It's a work in progress but I love our house and I love how everything has been coming together.  House pics coming soon.

The Garage: Step 1 & 2

When you become a homeowner you go to Home Depot a lot more then you ever thought you would and you do things you never thought you'd care about like pay good money for rocks and paint floors.  I've been dreading the day we'd face the garage for a while but it's one of those projects you just have dive in and do at some point like it or not.  If it were up to me I'm not exactly sure when this would have happened...if ever!  I came home from work Friday exhausted.  All I wanted to do was sit down and watch TV but Mj was already out in the garage working so I did what any good wife would do.  I dragged my tired butt out into the heat, complained about how hot and tired I was and then joined in the fun.

Boring old concrete floor

Step 1:  De clutter the garage.  It's really easy for the garage to become the dumping ground for all things you don't know what to do with.  We can't get too out of hand because we park our cars in there but there was a lot of junk accumulating and it was time for it to go.  We went through the various bins and boxes and loaded up the car for a trip to Goodwill the next day.  On Saturday everything that we were keeping went outside overnight and it was on to step 2.

Sweep, squeegee, scrub, squeegee...then we finally got to paint

Step 2:  Epoxy the floor.   A lot of dust accumulates in the garage and this is a good way to help cut down on it and make the garage floor look pretty.  As if it really needs to look pretty...but whatever.  This was an all day affair and we sure picked one of the hottest weekends ever to do it.  It's quite the process.  You start by washing the floor.  We swept out over a years worth of dirt and cobwebs.  Yuck.  I made Mj do the corners.  Then, we wet the floor and went over it with a giant squeegee mop.  Then we wet the floor again and scrub a dub dubbed it with a scrubbing brush using soapy cleaning concoction from our epoxy kit that sizzled.  Then we wet the floor and did the squeegee thing yet again.  By this time the garage floor was cleaner then any floors inside the house and clean enough to eat off of.  We waited hours for it to dry out and then we could finally start the painting.  Mj painted with a roller and I artfully sprinkled the pixie dust decorative chips all over like a little Fairy Epoxy godmother.  It's a big job and I imagine we saved a ton of money in labor by doing it ourselves.  We were able to put our things back in the next day but we can't park in there for 3 days.  I love the way it looks.

Stylish epoxy-fied floor

The decorative chips really make it pop

Step 3:  Buy shelves, bins and hooks as needed for organizing.  We've got our eye on some heavy duty shelves at Lowe's.  I parlayed my credit card points into a $100 gift card from there so I think we'll get them next week.   We'll use bins to organize everything and hooks to hang up bikes and tools.

Step 4:  Move some of the things in our storage closet under the stairs out into the garage.  This closet has has also become a dumping ground that could use some organization.  Some of the things in that closet can go into our newly re organized garage so we can organize the closet and make room for other things in there.

Most of the indoor house projects I've been wanting to do have come to a screeching halt so it was nice to get something accomplished even if only to the part of the house where our cars live.  A garage has always been sort of a scary place for me.  It's dark, dingy, dirty and creepy crawly things hang out there.  Ideally, our garage will feel a lot less like something out of a horror film once it's clean, organized and user friendly.  How can you be afraid of a room with a shiny pretty floor accented with blue, black and white sprinkles?

House Project:  The Kitchen

1 Year House-iversary

 Under Construction

We didn't officially close until May 24th, 2010 but we signed the documents on Thursday and were given the keys on Friday May 21st that allowed us to move in. One year ago we packed up our moving truck and finally got to move into our new house.  I remember this overwhelming feeling of relief and happiness mixed with exhaustion as we pulled into our new neighborhood.  We weren't there to sign some documents or measure one of the rooms.  We were there to stay.  The house hunting and home closing process was so stressful.   You almost don't believe that the house is really going to be yours until the keys are in your hot little hands.  By the time you get towards the end of the home stretch you are so anxious and you just want it so bad.  You want to be excited that you are buying a house but it's hard to because for every step you bypass there is another step around the corner that you have to get through in order to make it real.  Should we buy points? Would we get money towards our closing costs? Turns out yes. What will our interest rate be? It ended up nice and low.  But getting answers to those questions was excruciating at times.  At one point we had to scramble to get a back up loan in place then we didn't even know if we'd be able to close on time and move in when we had already scheduled our moving truck. The knowledge that at anytime something can go wrong and the deal could fall apart was always in the back of my mind but it got to the point where I just had to let it go.  It was out of my hands.  We provided every scrap of documentation that we were asked for, sometimes repeatedly and if this was meant to be then it would be.  And it was.

Thank goodness because if the stress of buying a home wasn't enough to drive me mad then the stress of living in a too small home surely would.  Two people, 400 square feet.  Not good.  I felt like I was being suffocated.  I'd lived there for five years and had already outgrown the studio, street parking, community laundry lifestyle but now there were two of us and I was OVER IT!  I hear all of these stories about a trend in mini houses and couples minimizing their lifestyle living in 200 square feet.  That sounds all nice and good and I'm all for downsizing and getting rid of excess but c'mon.  That is just not comfortable or natural on any level to sustain.  Like your job, if your living situation isn't right it affects your whole outlook on life.  Everything else is filtered through this lens of discontent.  I was just aching for space.  Aching to breathe and make my day to day life more functional.  It's not just about potential investment so the decline of the real estate market did not sway us a bit.  Like a lot of people out there.  We still wanted to buy.

Almost done

When I come home to our house I still love it just as much as the day we moved in.  It might not be the ultimate dream home but I don't feel like we settled either.  We got everything we needed and a heck of a lot of what we wanted.  I remember when we first walked through the models.  Our Realtor told us about this new development that turned out to be down the street from where we lived.  As we walked through, many of the features satisfied a lot of must haves on our list but I would not allow myself to get excited or even really consider it.  We were just looking.  I checked out the walk in closet, dual sinks and the cute little loft area with longing.  I remember walking out of there and saying, "That house would be perfect for us, but oh well.  It's too much."  We took the paperwork from the sales office but dismissed it as we continued with our house hunt. 

We could already see how difficult it was going to be to find a house that we liked in our budget.  There seemed to be multiple offers on houses within minutes of going on the market and you know what that means.  A bidding war.  And you will always lose against offers with cash or a hefty down payment.  It was like a full time job.  You had to be on those listings and you had to go see them fast which was hard to do around our work schedule and wedding planning.  Some of the houses we were looking at were beat up and we are not the fixer upper type.  We also started to get cold feet about the 1 hour Northbound commute to work every every day.  Suddenly the new house started to look better and better.  While still not centrally located, the Eastbound commute is only about 30 minutes, the HOA was low and there were no pesky Mello Roos like the other area we were considering.  Oh, and wouldn't it be fun to pick out all of our design features?  About a week later we went back to see if we could make it work.  It was about 25K more then I wanted to spend but  we wanted out of the studio and with our wedding coming up in six months we didn't want to spend a year house hunting.  We couldn't get everything we wanted but I think we paid a reasonable price for the house we got.  The payments are comfortable, once I got used to the number and I don't feel that we are house poor.  Just regular poor!!  

All moved in

We saw all kinds of horror stories on the net about our builder but it's been smooth sailing for us.  Being a new construction we had a 1 year warranty period for them to fix up any little thing that needed fixing.  No matter how small we called them because we could.  It was like still having a landlord.  We still have a long term warranty for structural defects and a lifetime warranty on the roof but we are officially on our own now.  The home decor is an ongoing work in progress and we are enjoying the little projects we have done so far.  Watching a house get built from the ground up is like watching your dream grow.  I never imagined I could afford a home in California.  It just didn't seem possible.  Then Mj came into my life.  He wanted the same thing and together we made it possible.  There were so many bumps along the way but every hurdle and every mini anxiety attack was worth it.  Now we have the things that a lot of people take for granted.  Outdoor space, a laundry room, extra closets, a garage and enough space to stretch out.  Our day to day life feels functional now.  It feels right.  I totally appreciate and work really hard for what we have and I will never take any of it for granted.

House Pics:
Contract to Close:  Our Home Buying journey
The Home Building Journey
House Projects 
What I love Most About Our House

Girly Girl Gets Dirty in the Yard

I'm a self proclaimed girly girl.  I love Pink, shopping and things that smell pretty.   I am afraid of bugs, I hate feeling dirty and I prefer it when Mj handles all the heavy and technology related tasks around the house.  So when Mj said that I was going to help him in the backyard planting herbs and other assorted plants the first thing I said was, "No way.  My mama couldn't make me get out in the yard and you can't either."  "Oh, yes you are," he said.  And he basically didn't budge which is why I found myself outside sitting in dirt in our backyard on a Sunday afternoon.

We headed to Home Depot first for supplies and spent $130, but who's counting right?  I can't believe I spent money on dirt.  So, we got our plants, dirt, mulch, planters, miracle grow, and other supplies that Mj as project manager deemed necessary and we got to work.  The only way I agreed to this is because I was promised gloves.  I put 'em on and started grabbing handfuls of dirt and putting it into the planter box and an interesting thing happened.  I realized that I didn't hate it.  There was something somehow soothing about digging into the dirt with my gloved hands and using it to plant something and make it grow.  I enjoyed placing the roots of these little plants into their new home.  It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be!!

Herbs

When we stepped back to look at our  handiwork I felt proud of it.  I actually had fun and felt like we had accomplished something together.  Now Mj has fresh Basil, Chives, Cilantro, Rosemary and Thyme to use for cooking.  I suppose I can use them too considering I do get in there myself and cook these days.  He also has the tomato plant he wanted.  I don't like tomatoes but I got the dwarf mandarin orange tree I wanted.  It's nice to have a bit more greenery out there.   Planting it with my own hands gives me a greater interest in their survival which means I'm less likely to forget to water them and less likely to kill them. At least I hope so.  I was so inspired that I FINALLY even ordered our patio furniture. 

Orange tree on the left and tomato plant to the right

It felt so good to take a hot shower and relax after that.  This is just another example of me being forced out of my comfort zone by Mj.  I can be so stubborn sometimes but when I allow myself to be swayed 9 times out of 10 I'm glad that I did.  We wanted a small yard with no grass so it would be low maintenence.  There is no reason that I can't participate and help out.  The weather is warming up nicely.  I'm looking forward to finally enjoying our outdoor space and seeing the fruits of our labor. Literally.