Thursday, January 7, 2010

Before and After pictures- Part 1

When we started this project, I was hoping that I would be posting these pictures back in November or December, and then for a while I thought the day would never come that I would be posting these pictures, but believe it or not folks, the time has come! Here they are! What you have all been waiting for! The Before and After pictures of Tarin and Nathan's first home.


BEFORE: View of living room, looking straight in from the front door.

AFTER: View of living room if you walk through the front door and look to your left! Haha- I had forgotten exactly what my before picture looked like.
Besides the furniture, the big changes made to this room:
New flooring! No more ugly ceramic tile!!
New baseboards and trim, new paint, new light switches.plugs, painted vents, new doors and knobs, and we put in a ceiling fan because this room had no light fixture at all, believe it or not.

BEFORE: Another view of the living room, facing the front door.


AFTER: Living room facing the front door. We are going to be adding window treatments and blinds at some point too.

BEFORE: Living room with a view into the dining area.


AFTER: Living room with dining area behind. There will also be a piano against that wall with the sign on it- but that's a post for another day.

BEFORE: View of the living room from the dining room.


AFTER: Looking at the living room from the dining room.


BEFORE: Fireplace

AFTER: Fireplace. We didn't really do anything to the fireplace besides add decor. Our love sack doesn't fit in the front room like it did at the apartment, so that's why there are so many pillows around- for additional sitting space. =)
We haven't officially decided if we are going to do anything else to the fireplace or not.

BEFORE: Dining room.

AFTER: Dining room.
Besides the furniture and decor, changes to the dining room:
New floor, new baseboard, new paint, new light fixture (the old one was brass and hideous!), new switches/plugs.

AFTER: Dining room from another angle. I like this one better because it shows off my fabulously huge mirror. =D

BEFORE: Hall bathroom- from the door.


AFTER: Hall bathroom from the door.
Changes to hall bath:
New tile, the baseboard/trim, new paint, rebuilt vanity, new cultured marble vanity top and shower walls, new HUGE bath tub, new toilet guts, new faucet, new light fixture.

BEFORE: Hall bath from the tub, looking downward a bit...


AFTER: Hall bath from the tub, with a more straight forward approach.
I like this view- the view from my fabulously awesome tub, which, as I predicted, is fantastical for bubble baths! Great news, considering my husband bought me 5 bottles of bubble bath for Christmas! (See my cute candles lined up against the mirror? I also have a cd player with Micheal Buble in it under the sink!) I think I might adopt this bathroom as my own- at least until we have guests or children.

AFTER: Bathroom tile.
I must apologize, as the tile is not at it's best in this picture. Try as I may, there is still construction dust lingering in my home- the tile is proof; it needs a good cleaning.


BEFORE: Tub in the hall bath.
One word: Gross!

AFTER: The new and improved hallway bathroom bath tub! Woo hoo!
So white and pretty! I love it!
And in case you are curious, that is Black Amethyst bubble bath in the corner there. ;-)

BEFORE: Master bathroom

AFTER: Master bath!
Changes that we made in here:
New tiles, new baseboard/trim, new paint, rebuilt vanity, new cabinet hardware, new faucets, new mirror, new cultured marble vanity tops and shower walls, new shower doors, new toilet flusher, new light fixture, new towel bar/paper holder AND I bought new tooth brush holder and soap dispenser. w00t!

AFTER: Master bathroom, from inside the shower. This shower is so huge compared to the one we had the apartment. I could probably live in there if I had to. I love it!

BEFORE: This is one of the nasty ceiling fans that was in one of the bedrooms. Ick. Also notice the disgusting popcorn ceiling.

AFTER: Our super new ceiling fans! Woohoo! One in the front room, and one in each bedroom.

AFTER (no before pic, sorry): the hallway. There is a giant mirror at the end of the hall that makes the hallway look super long. Almost every dog that has visited our house has run into it at some point- it's a pretty hilarious thing to watch.
Having a giant mirror at the end of your hallway that you can't avoid, is also a good motivation to lose weight and get in shape. That is now on my to-do list- because there is no way I am taking down such a fabulous addition to my home.

AFTER (again, sorry- no before pic!) : The hallway from the other direction. This picture nicely showcases our new flooring, which I couldn't be happier with! It looks so much nicer than the tile that was in here before. Honestly, it changes the entire look of the house- I barely recognize the place from where we started.
Oh yeah, while we are the hallway, we made an awesome discovery here! We can change the sound of our doorbell to play different songs depending on the season or whatever. For Christmas we had it play "Deck the Halls!" Nathan just changed it to a dog bark, and the puppies are freaking out- I won't be able to handle that for long....
Anyway, this concludes the Before and After Picture-Part One. Please tune in a week or two for Part Two- featuring the kitchen , the bedrooms, and our addition: the attached laundry room!

Wednesday, January 6, 2010

boogie down, boogie down

my morning boogie jams






Friday, December 11, 2009

our attempt to take a christmas card picture

My lovely bestest friend Kassi was kind enough to take some Holiday photos for us to use with our Christmas card this year. My goodness, what a handful, trying to get two puppies to cooperate and get a decent photo!

In this one, the tree looks so nice, but Buster's face says "I hate you Christmas!"

Of course, in the majority of the pictures, the dogs wouldn't look at Kassi.


Looking opposite directions...


We used a handful of treats to try and get their attention- but there were pigeons and ducks everywhere at the park we were at. Everyone knows pigeons and ducks are more exciting than Christmas pictures.




We decided to take pictures on the other side of the waterfall. Buster didn't want to go.

So Nathan carried him. =)

This one wouldn't be bad if Nathan didn't have to have Buster in a death grip. Dave was pretty well behaved. He's usually content to just sit a lap though.

We finally put the puppies away so Nathan and I could take some nice pictures together. Like this one. Yep, this is the one for the Christmas cards for sure....

So cute!!

Not so cute!

This is Nathan doing his sexy model pose.

At the temple grounds.

One that Kassi took as we were discussing Nathan's keys.

This is one of my favorites.
I especially love the perfectly green grass and sunshine in DECEMBER!

And then we did some repeats of a few of our favorite wedding shots.

Yes, even that one!

So, which one will we be sending out on our cards this year? I guess you will just have to wait and see!

silly pup

I am not proud to say, that since Nathan and I have been working on this house, our eating habits have gotten really crappy. For example, the other morning I had some of Nathan's left over powdered "Donettes" for breakfast. I left the bag the floor that morning, leaving behind 2 or 3 of the mini donuts, and completely forgot about them. That evening when I came home with the pups, I had to take a quick trip to the ladies room- when I came out this is what I found:






Buster got his head stuck in the Donettes bag! And while it was stuck in there, he went ahead and gobbled up the 2 or 3 that were left in there.

This is his shameful powdered sugar face. Later on, Dave got his head stuck in the same bag and ran smack into the bookcase as he tried to run away down the hall. Silly puppies! What will they do next?!

Nathan's birthday & Black Friday

Ok, still playing catch up here on my post- so forgive me, but these two events have become one post- even though they really have absolutely nothing to do with each other.

On November 19, my fabulous husband turned the big 22! I wanted to spend the whole day doing fun, awesome things together- but my worker bee husband wanted to work on our house! So instead of taking a trip to Williams for pie- we went to Rock Springs which is only like an hour away. Then we hit up:

Nothing like some good ol' bad ass bbq! It was quite delicious. Sorry, I am a slacker and don't have many pictures of his special day.

That night we had my parents, his parents, and Marvin & Sarah over for dinner (since it is Marvin's birthday too.) I must admit, it was a pretty tasty spread. We had Mexican style flank steak, mashed potatoes, salad, and spanish rice with homemade ice cream for dessert. DELICIOUS!

Speaking of delicious...

Check out my breakfast of champions on Black Friday morning! Yup, an orange monster with blueberry donut holes. It doesn't get much better than that. That is the kind of fuel you need when you are waking up at 2:30 am to pick up your sis and hit the stores! There were all kinds of awesome deals going on this year! I only wish we had more money so I could have taken advantage of more of them. For example- the only thing I reeeeeeeeally want for Christmas is the Cricut Expression and WalMart had it on sale for less than $200! Usually it's like double that- and WalMart even had it in like 4 different colors! Unfortunately, I didn't have that much to spend.


My sister however, was able to get one of her bigger ticket items. Here she is holding her golden ticket to get one the limited quantity cameras at Best Buy. Best Buy is smart- they hand out these tickets to people who get there super early, and it guarantees the ticket holder the item they desire as long as they are back before noon to claim it. That way, you don't spend your entire morning waiting in long line, in the cold, for just one item.


Jessica rocked Black Friday. I'm pretty sure saved just as much if not more than she spent and knocked out a huge chunk of her holiday shopping all in one morning. It was totally fun! Here's where we went:

-picked up the ticket at Best Buy

-went to Kohl's to get Barbies for the girls

-over to WalMart, which was chaos, so we left

-back to Best Buy to get Jessica's camera

-Paradise Bakery for breakfast

-off to Target

-quick stop at Old Navy

-potty break at Mom & Dad's

-K-Mart

-Harbor Freight Tools

-then Big Lots!

- dropped Jessica off back at home so she could decorate with her family

-THEN the Kirkland Store

-Deseret Book

-AND a quick trip to the Dollar Tree.


Later that day I also went to Sams Club and Costco- but not for shopping- just to get some membership things squared away. It was a super busy day, and I did it all on about $100 and less than two hours of sleep. By the end of the day, I was totally pooped!!
Check out all the fun things I got though:


NICE! I can't wait til next year. I'll have to start saving up ASAP.