Decisions and Home Remodels

All right - let's talk home remodeling. Now when we bought out home a year ago, we knew this house would be a "project house". The bones were good, and had a lot of aspects we loved - walkout basement, tons of windows/natural light, open floor plan, etc, and at the right price, especially with our down payment.

Still, we knew that we wanted to gut the kitchen, and redo the flooring in the living space. We decided to hold off a little while due to a new babe and do a lot of minor projects our house needed.

We continued to debate whether or not we should put the project a little further down the list when we found out that L's company was doing some pay cuts, as we didn't know if this was the start of worse things to come (things have since picked up, and his full pay restored). Finally we came to the point that we just decided to save and go for it - ripped linoleum, and broken, unusable cabinets put us over the edge.

We started saving, and researching flooring options, cabinets, countertops ideas. We decided that we would not buy anything unless we had the cash, got a good deal, and liked it. L had his heart set on wider planked wood flooring, and surprisingly enough, we found maple planks that we both loved on clearance. It's in now, and it looks even better than I imagined.

The cabinets were a little more difficult decision for us. I'm cheap. I'll admit it. We looked everywhere for cabinetry, and boy, boxes that hold stuff is expensive! We both liked the shaker style the most, and we liked the painted maple the best (painted wood is an upcharge). After a little more deliberation, we just decided to buy it, only to find that there was a special on painted wood that week. We were a little more than excited. We were able to get our cabinets for $2000 cheaper than we were originally quoted.

The last "big" decision was countertop. We have a lot of countertop space, and found that the solid surface was priced between laminate, and granite, and we liked the look. We were a little nervous to put that in ourselves, as that can can be a pretty expensive fix. We looked, and looked, and waited, and waited some more. Finally we were at Home Depot and found a solid surface priced at the lowest we had ever seen - and that was installed. Praise God.

In between those purchases, we had a dishwasher to buy (also on sale, with an energy rebate), a sink, faucet, knobs, and lots of other miscellaneous items. At times we were burned out just deciding and debating. I'm not naturally someone who just knows what they want and can visualize how it will look, so it was a stretch for me.

But here we are, in the middle of our remodel, flooring completed and some of our cabinets in. We wonder if we made the right decision doing the work ourselves, but know that we could have easily doubled the cost to pay to have it done. We have gotten burned out, and doing a remodel with two little ones underfoot isn't easy. Still, we can sort of see the end now - and boy, it's going to look so so so nice when it's done! Can't wait to share how it looks once it's finished.

Some Green News

Our first strawberry off of our own plant! Yay!

It's been six months since my last blog. Yikes! Let's say life has been full - some family stuff, saving for, picking out, and gutting our house for our kitchen/living space remodel (more on this later), adjusting to two kiddos at work (this was harder than I thought it would be), and just the day to day wonderful stuff like having two kiddos who are too cute.

Anyway forward to fun stuff, this summer I was bound and determined to try our hand at gardening. We built two raised beds and filled them - perhaps a little too much - and we've seen a lot of good growth. We're growing peppers, broccoli, peas (lots of these), green beans, watermelon (crossing my fingers on this one), zucchini, cucumbers, and lettuce.

We also have some containers plants going - strawberries (shown above), blueberries, grapes, and some basil. Sadly, my last three are not doing so well. I bought them in an attempt to nurse them back to health (since they were such a steal), but no luck so far. Needless to say though - I am excited for harvest.

Honestly, I thought my garden would be dead by this point, since I don't have a green thumb, but weather conditions have worked in our favor thus far. I'm excited that we can continue our quest of eating clean and local food (what's more local than your own backyard?). It started with our CSA a couple of years ago, and has grown ever since. We've bought local grass-fed beef, eggs from church friends, and once this house project settles down (a kitchen is such a blessing we take for granted), hopefully some raw milk in the future. I love supporting local farmers, and love being able to grow our own food to know exactly what is put into (and onto) the plants, and cutting down on or food bill.

Isn't my garden pretty?

It's hard to believe that in just a few days Christmas will be here! E, R, and I have the next couple of weeks off, so we're hoping to eat, relax, see friends and family, and of course, play. The girl and I have been making cookies, wrapping gifts, and decorating Christmas tree ornaments. We don't go overboard with the gift idea - we didn't get R anything this year (as we didn't get E anything her first year), and our budget for E was pretty small, as she likes pretty cheap-o stuff. We want the kids to understand Christmas is about our Savior's birth. We also want them to understand contentment and have a heart that understands that there are those who don't have the luxuries we have here.

I think E is mostly excited to see the grandparents anyway. She's been talking about seeing her grandmothers for days now. I pray she always treasures family and Jesus above presents under the tree.
I'm sure you've noticed these pictures are not very "Christmas-y", but we found them on our camera the other night - one of our last hikes before the snow. I love my kids. R is seven months and so close to crawling - he'll see E run by and push up on his arms, trying to propel himself in a foward fashion while grunting. He's waving and getting pat a cake, which is so cute. He's starting to do the army crawl a little bit, but he doesn't go very fast. He's got three teeth at the moment, and we see three more coming in. Yikes.

E is becoming more and more independent. She likes to pick out her own clothes, and dress herself. And you know what? She actually matches a little bit - sometimes she's purple from head to toe, but we're impressed.

Her speech is insane. L was reading her a book the other night, and she pointed to a picture (it was a squirrel), and said, "Daddy, that's terrifying!" and her prayer before bed the other night was "Thank you Jesus for a nice day. Thank you for Daddy, Rhys-y-pie, Grandma Mona, Grandma Linda, Mommy, my bed, Emma, Madeline (her friends), Megan (cousin), Ann, Steph, lights. Oh, and my toes. Amen." I'm thankful I have toes too.

As far as our family goes, our life is very full right now - we have been, and continue to be very blessed. As you've probably seen on this blog as of late, I haven't been posting much. That is probably not going to change much - in fact, I've debated bringing this blog to a close. I'd like this upcoming year to be focused on my personal journal that can voice what this blog cannot. My main goal for the new year is simple - I want to love Jesus more deeply, and my journal helps me do that.

So this is a close for now. May you all have a lovely Christmas filled with wonder, and a happy New Year that brings you even closer to our Savior.

Nice Day

We are at the end of Thanksgiving weekend, and it's been full of friend and family fun, Christmas shopping, Christmas decorating, a lovely church service and of course, good food. You can see that the little guy was pretty tired by the end of the Thanksgiving day that he just crashed. The girl sighed on the way home, "Nice day, Mom", as she says every time she sees friends or family. She went from one grandparents' house to another, not wanting to leave either one. We are truly blessed to have such wonderful family to love our kids. E and a couple of her cousins had a great time playing together, and R wasn't left out of the mix. Cousin M wanted to touch his head over and over - evidently my sister in law said that she talked about it all day. It was cute. E announced later as we drove home that she wants to see her cousins "lots more times".
Typically we spend the Friday after Thanksgiving with family, but the hubby had to work, so we headed home. Our little town had their annual tree lighting ceremony where kiddos can make and decorate an ornament and visit with Santa. We heard kids yell "Eden" over and over again - we both kept looking around to see who was calling her name (because seriously, this name isn't common in these parts). We discovered two of her daycare buddies there, so we visited with the parents and the kids ran around, loving life.
It was a lovely weekend filled with many of the blessings we are thankful for. L and I have two pretty amazing kids - a crazy chatty two year old, who has a new interest in board games, Bible Stories, Jingle Bells, and counting to 14 (who knew?), and a happy happy 6 month old who is so curious, yet pretty relaxed and smiley. My girl is so right - it has been a nice day.

Our Bedroom

"The After":

Per Kristin's request, I have uploaded some pics of our bedroom. This really isn't the project we're working on, but since that is still in process (trimming out windows/doors/hanging curtains), I thought I'd show you these.

There are still a few things we need to do in this room, like painting the window and our chest, getting our closet system set up, but it's "done" for a while. As you can see in the "before" pic of our room, they had painted the walls an insane purple, and then sponged one wall blue and purple. You know, they put effort into making it this busy - yikes. The carpet was nasty and ugly, so we pulled it up, kilzed it (it smelled like dog urine, so we primed the subfloor), laid new carpet, painted it like 30 times, and put our stuff in here. Sorry for the last dark pic - it didn't save the changes I made to the photo.

House projects with two kiddos underfoot is a slow process, but we have the rest of our lives, right? We remind each other of that quite often, because we get impatient. Still, with each little project done, the house feels more like "home".

Popping In to Say Hi

Life is good and full right now. We're settling into our new normal, as R is settling into his regular sleep routine. It's amazing how much more productive I am now that the babe is sleeping better! We've been working on house projects like crazy people, but are still making sure to get lots of kiddo time in. E requested the playground yesterday, and we were able to get some shots of the kids. Boy, they are cute, aren't they?

Hope you got lots of sunny time in too!

Planning It Out

Well now that we're into October, we're starting to think about preparing for the holiday budget, and thinking about the increase of our heat bill, since we live in the lovely north. Now we don't spend a lot on each other or the kids, but it's nice to have a plan of action so we know how much we have to spend.

We don't really know what to expect for our heat bill, since it's our first winter here, and for two winters we were in a free utilities rental (which was nice). Some things we have saved on, some things we haven't, and some things we're looking into:

1. Our mortgage payment is pretty low for our neighborhood (rumor has it that the neighbors were trying to organize themselves to put an offer on it for rental use since it was such a steal). We tried to put as much of a downpayment as our budget would allow, since we paid $10000 a few months earlier for another car, and to fix our current one.

2. We shopped around for cheap(er) car, life, and home insurance. Wow. We should have done this much much sooner.

3. We tried to save by going to cell phones, since I "need" one for my job (and so our daycare worker can contact me at all times). Unfortunately, our service is less than stellar (actually it's terrible), so we ended up getting a landline anyway.

4. We're hoping to have an energy audit done.

5. Continuing to get our food bill in order. I feel like we have the most control over this area, but also the area we struggle with too.

6. We're taking advantage of craigslist as much as we can for appliances and furniture. I'm not sure we've ever bought a new appliance in our lives.

7. Staying away from debt. No money = no spending. Thankfully when one of us is ready to give in, the other is encouraging us to stay the course.

8. We do pay PMI, so after we do a bit more work to the house, we'd like to have another appraisal to get rid of it. I look forward to that day a lot.

9. Cutting down on our eating out. Seriously, why do we stink at this?!

10. One that I'm aiming for, but don't like: turning the thermostat down. Being cold is yucky.

What are some ways you guys have saved? Or need to work on saving?