Dining Room Weekend

My husband and I are working on the dining room this whole weekend. I couldn't stand that room to be blank and empty for another day, so we are devoting some time to it (finally!). Yesterday, we painted and installed the chair rail. Today, we are going to try to do the rest, which is a LOT so we'll see how much we end up getting done. This might have to extend into a two weekend project.

In about an hour, my brother is going to come over to help us. A good chunk of today will be spent actually buying our dining room furniture! Exciting! Then when we get home, we're going to try to get as much of the crown molding and other stuff done as possible. Not sure how realistic that is, since I know shopping is going to take some time due to several factors, and we also have to grocery shop and prepare the house for a long-term guest arriving this week (a friend of ours is coming home from an honorable discharge from the Navy and needs a place to stay until he gets back on his feet). Either way, I REALLY want it to be completely done by the end of next week, because I am hosting a ladies swap meet on February 6th and would LOVE to have a beautiful new dining room to show off!

Before, during, and (hopefully!) after pictures to come shortly.

A little exterior sparkle...

Sorry it took me so long to post this next entry. We had our housewarming party last Saturday night and it was a hit! All of our friends seem to love our new house. We got so many compliments! And it was lovely to see everyone after spending so many weeks working hard on getting it ready. I felt like I hadn't seen any of our friends in AGES!

Anyways, we had to go smaller scale than I would have liked on the outside of our house. First, because we don't have a tall ladder yet to get to the roofline on the top story. Second, because we don't have $30194873108461438701 to buy all new lights & decorations! Hopefully we can pick up some good stuff for next year in the after-Christmas sales. We bought 2 strands of lights BOGO at CVS, bought some cheap greenery garland, used a wreath I had made three years ago for the door, PVC yard candy canes from the dollar store, and for the rest we worked with what we already had.

In-progress pic:


Door & walkway. Excuse our horrid lawn...again, the house was vacant for 6 months before we bought it (over the Florida summer too) and the lawn was grossly neglected. It's one of our priorities for after the holidays:

Close-up of door...We hope to get nicer & bigger porch trees in the future. These little ones were cheap finds 50% off at JoAnn's, embellished with berry/bead things (also 50% off).

And last but not least, the broader view of the whole house:

Merry & bright!

We are finally making some progress on our decorating. It is becoming more and more obvious that I will have to scour the after-Christmas sales this year in an attempt to really build up my holiday decor stash. But we are making due with what we have and having a ton of fun decorating our new house.

Last week I put up our tree:




I've been working on the miscellaneous stuff all week. Found these great star wreaths & the retro tree toppers on either side of the "HAPPY" sign at Dollar Tree!




Just got this little modular shelf unit for our foyer at Ikea for $39 last weekend! It was fun to add some holiday touches to it.


I bought these little snowmen tealight holders this weekend for $15 for the set. I knew I needed something for the powder room, since when we have our holiday parties, this is the restroom the guests will use. Aren't they cute?



Next up...exterior decorating!

Some decorating progress pics.

The living room is pretty sparse (luckily right now the Christmas tree is helping with that), but I love my red couch so much, I could not resist sharing. We actually got a new coffee table since this pic was taken. I also want to put some floating shelves on the blank wall to the side of the couch.


The kitchen is probably my favorite spot so far. Still working on building out my accessories above the cabinets. I absolutely love the plates over the pantries. They both have a little bird sitting on a branch.

The guestroom was cobbled together with a furniture set that my parents really wanted to get rid of (yay, free!). We gave the set a fresh coat of white paint, and will be adding new hardware as soon as I decide on some. My mom had this brand new comforter set on the bed that she asked me to take (free again!). I am going with the coastal/seaside look in this room, with light blues, whites, and sand colors. The print over the bed is of a lighthouse and some grassy sand dunes and the lamp is a Goodwill find that I painted white & added a sandy-colored shade. Since this pic was taken, I have already added a round seagrass mat under the lamp on the nightstand, and a silver lantern tealight holder on the short dresser. This room needs some serious accessorizing, but I am buying a little here and there as I go. The furniture set came with a mirror that is supposed to go over the short dresser, but I think I want to find an oval mirror instead...maybe one with a light wood wicker/woven frame.

My blank slate.

I thought I would post some pics of the house from the night that we closed. It is a TOTAL blank slate. White walls & builder-grade everything. I absolutely HATE every single light fixture. But it has SO much potential. I love it more and more everyday.

Here is my husband opening our front door for the very first time as a homeowner.

This is our foyer & dining room taken from the entrance to the kitchen.

The kitchen...Again, very basic, but I LOVE the dual pantries!

This is the other end of the foyer, standing near the front door, looking into the entry to the kitchen & family room. The center is one of two entry closets, and to the left is the stairwell. Just to the right of this pic is the laundry room.
This is the U-shaped upstairs hall, taken from the loft. The doorway on the right is to the master suite. To the left are 3 guestrooms & a guest bath.

Master bedroom.

Master bath...

I think you get the idea...it's a pretty builder-basic house. Needs lots of pizazz! Pretty soon, I will post some "after" pics to show you what we've done with the place! We are still working on it (I'm sure we will never stop!), but it's starting to come together.

Soooooooo tired. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...

Well, we FINALLY moved into our new house. Due to delay after delay, we did not actually close on the house until last Monday night! Long story. We painted a few rooms on Tuesday, then the movers brought our stuff on Wednesday, we got appliances on Thursday, and have been unpacking and fixing everything up ever since. I am EXHAUSTED!!!!!!!

Very soon I should have some pics to share. I need to finish straightening up and adding a few items here and there. Everything HAS to be ready (or as close as possible) soon because we have relatives coming for Thanksgiving on Tuesday! Eeek! In the meantime, here is a teaser pic taken while we were painting the kitchen:

Moving forward? A long overdue update.

I really have not felt like posting lately. Our house situation had deteriorated to the point where we were actually scheduling appointments with our agent to view other houses. We were getting NO answers about the title problem and it seemed like it might go on forever. All my original excited energy that built up when I first started this blog went out the window with the prospect of losing this house. I no longer felt like thinking about paint or decor or anything of the sort, it just stressed me out and made me sad. Nothing fun to post, so I didn't.

Then yesterday we got some news! The title problem is close to clear...the selling bank wants to know if we can we close in 20 days. We double-checked with our lender and he confirmed we are set to close anytime, he just needs to get the paperwork together for the new price. YES!!! One major step in the right direction and I have renewed hope.

The only thing we have left to deal with is the low appraisal. The selling agent is giving us a very hard time about this, but our awesome agent and our awesome lender have actually joined forces on this and are both confident we can get this cleared up, and get the price in line with the appraisal.

So we are not out of the woods yet, and we still don't have a definite closing date, but everyone seems confident that we will get everything cleared up. That means that very soon (hopefully!) I will be back to posting happy fun house stuff!

Getting frustrated.

Now we have title problems. Former owner of the house we are purchasing went into a complicated bankruptcy situation, so we have to wait for the title to clear before we can proceed. It is currently tied up in Florida state red tape. Our agent will not bring up the low appraisal until the title situation is rectified, because she is worried that they will let the deal fall through. She says the closer we are to closing, the better a time to bring up the low appraisal because the bank will just want to lower the price and be done with it already. We are feeling frustrated because it means we have no earthly idea as to when we will be moving now. We would have been closing in less than 2 weeks, but now it looks like it won't be for awhile...

Sorry I have not posted much lately, but our frustration, coupled with the fact that my laptop is STILL broken (might be permanently so) has meant I have not had the motivation or the easy ability to share on this blog. Hopefully once things get moving along, I will be much more active here. I just haven't felt very excited about the house purchase lately, because it's more a source of stress than anything right now.

However, I do want to thank PK over at Room Remix for linking my post about stencil canvas art on one of her recent posts. And I also wanted to give a big hello and thanks to anyone who has wandered in via her blog. I'm new around here and happy to have new readers!

Inching closer...

We finished submitting all our documents to the bank yesterday, and pre-signed a lot of our closing documents. My agent is STILL waiting to hear from the selling bank and the closing date is still up in the air. We have resigned ourselves to the fact that we will be paying rent for the month of November. I just hope our closing date doesn't get extended TOO long. I want to get settled well ahead of the holidays, and aside from that, we are just anxious to get on with our lives! It has only been two months since we first started looking for houses, but it seriously feels like it has been an eternity at this point!

Last weekend, Tadd and I went to the flea market (or the "dirt mall" as we like to call it...any guesses what movie that is from?) and wandered for awhile until the 90+ degree heat got the better of us and we HAD to get out of there. Almost left emptyhanded, until we happened past a booth that was looking to completely rid itself of its inventory. In the very front of the booth was a 5-tier corner shelf unit thingie. It's about 4 feet tall with shelves that get gradually larger from top to bottom. Not the most spectacular item, but I thought it had potential. We got it for $10! Score! I know I want to paint it, but can't decide what color yet. It will be a great spot to hold some fun knick knacks and help to fill up space in the house. At least until we are able to actually afford to properly furnish all this extra square footage we are about to move into.

Not much on the agenda this weekend that has to do with the house...Tonight we are going to see my brother's band New Man play in downtown Orlando. Tomorrow, we are going to the Food & Wine Festival at Epcot! Busy weekend indeed.

I'm back...and very tired.

Back from my whirlwind trip to NYC. Had a great time, but I'm so sad it was so short. Weather was overcast, but the temperature was perfect! And it never rained.



I attended an event at the Central Park Boathouse, which was lovely. Then we went to an after party at the W in Times Square. LOVED Times Square! Loved Central Park too, but there is just something about Times Square...magical! I told my husband we HAVE to go back on a real vacation. I think he would love it there.



I came back to some problems with the house...could be potentially good, but it's still making me nervous. The bank did their appraisal and it came to $8000 less than the offer we made. Our agent is in the process of renegotiating our offer down to what it is worth. It means everything is currently in a holding pattern...But getting the house for $8k less than what we thought we were going to be paying sounds VERY appealing. I just hope it all gets ironed out and we can keep the same 10/15 closing date. Tadd and I already got time off approved for the week after closing so we could paint/fix up the house and move. I just want this process to be OVER so I can start focusing on the move!