demolition- day one

LITERALLY- day 1. We had only had the keys for a couple hours when we went down to start working on the house right away. There is lots to be done. For example:

We need new carpet...

...new paint...

...some drywall repair...

....and we need to get rid of ugly fixtures and scrape popcorn ceilings!

We are also getting all new windows, bathrooms, counter tops, and cabinet hardware.

So the first steps of our demo, was getting the mirrors out of the bathroom- so when we bust out the showers we don't wind up breaking glass.




Nathan was able to get the mirror out of the hall bathroom, but when he tried to get the one out of the master bathroom, it cracked. We had to leave it up until we could come back with gloves, and safety goggles.



After that we took off all the doors and closet doors. Those are getting replaced too! Pretty new doors, and mirrored closet doors for every room.



After that we ripped out the carpeting and the carpet pads. I don't have many pictures of that because I was helping carry the closet doors out to the garage.


While Nathan was pulling up carpet, he found 2 cents! See! We are getting a return on our investment already!

Naked floor- bedroom #1

Naked floor, bedroom #2

Once we were finished in the bedrooms, Nathan started on removing the counter tops in the kitchen, while I started emailing the pictures I had taken from my phone. He only got that little corner of counter top out. I think we are going back tonight or tomorrow to get the rest of it.

Not bad for only 2 hours of work- eh?

the "before" pictures

First off- I must apologize for the quality of these pictures. We have lost the battery charger for our digital camera, so all of the pictures were taken on my cell phone and then emailed individually (what a pain in the butt that is!) AND in case cell phone quality pictures weren't rough enough- it was also dark outside when I took these. We got the keys to the house yesterday evening, and Nathan wanted to get started on some demo stuff right away- so I had to take my "before" pictures, BEFORE he started tearing everything apart.

So without further ado, Our New Home- BEFORE our renovations:

I cannot take credit for this picture. This is actually the picture that was with MLS listing for our house. Like I said before, it was dark when we went over, so it was hard for me to take pictures- especially outside! This picture is probably at least 6 months old- but the house looks pretty much the same. Only differences is that the palmy looking plant is gone, it probably died about the same time that the grass did. We'll have to work on getting a lawn back, and picking up all the poop from the neighborhood dogs and cats! And of course, it is now OUR cars that will be parked in the drive way!

We plan on doing something to kind of modernize the appearance of the house at some point, but it's not on the top of our list. So it will look like this for a while.

This is the view as you walk in the front door. Ugh! I just hate the tile! Hopefully we are going to be able to get rid of it and put down some nice looking laminate.

I tried to take a few different angles of each room. This is front room from the corner left of the front door.

Another angle of the front room, with views of the coat closet, front door, and a peek of the kitchen.

Quite possibly my favorite part of the whole house- the fireplace!

Front room, taken from entry to dining area.

Dining area- can't take many angles of this room- not much going on there!

Our cute little kitchen!

The kitchen sink. It doesn't look so bad in this picture- my cell camera hid it's flaws well!

A close up of the cabinets in the kitchen.

The funky lighting in the kitchen. You know that I am all for being unique- but even I thought this was weird! It just doesn't fit the house- it will definitely be going!

The guest bathroom from the doorway. It the first room, down the hall, on the right.

The bath tub- once again, this picture doesn't make it look bad at all- but I promise you it is! It all dinged up and dirty and just yucky!

And here's a shot of the same bathroom from inside the tub! I must admit I was a little nervous to climb in there. There were some dead buggies lying around, and though I don't mind them dead, if I come across one alive, I don't do so well.

Directly across the hall from the bathroom, is the first of the bedrooms. This view is from the door.

And this is in the corner left of the door. This room, I think, is the most disgusting. The carpet is so gross- there are stains in there that I can't even begin to imagine what caused them. Not just stains either, but like dried on crusty stuff, and sticky tar like stuff- and just EW! There is coloring all over the walls too. This is the worst of the rooms, and really it's not all that bad compared to some of the houses we looked at.

This is the hall closet- between bedrooms one and two, and across from the master.

Bedroom two- from the doorway. A lot like bedroom one...

Except for that ever so magnificent artwork in the closet! Yeah....we'll be painting over that.

And even though this bedroom may one day be a nursery, I am getting rid of the baby bugs light switch. It's not quite my decorating style.

And the last of the bedrooms- the master. It's a fairly decent size- it seems small without any furniture in it though. I remember when we first moved into the apartment, I was so mad because I was sure the model they had shown us was bigger and that we would never be able to fit all our furniture in there. Turns out we had way more than enough room. I'm sure that will be the case in here too.

Here is another view, looking from the doorway of the master bathroom. This is the biggest window in the house. It's nice- and it's facing a direction that we shouldn't be blinded by the sun when it comes up in the morning!

And the final view of the master bedroom, from the corner opposite the door (obviously)

The master bath is equally as icky as the one in the hallway.

Except there is a gross shower instead of a gross tub! It's hard tell in this picture, but it's pretty dirty, the drain is all busted up, and the blue swirly tile on the wall is less than beautiful.

Our garage!! Yay for more than one guaranteed parking spot! Besides having a yard for Buster, I think this is the best upgrade from an apartment. It's the worst when we go out somewhere in the car that's not parked in "our spot" and come back to find all the visitor parking near our apartment is filled and we have to walk halfway across the complex to get home. Ah! A garage and a driveway- that's a possible 4 cars that we can have parked right in front of our house without having to make anyone hike to the front door. Sounds like we are going to have to have more dinner and game nights!

This is the only door to the back yard. For now, it is in the garage- but we are eventually going to make it part of the house, complete with doggy door!

The laundry room, which we will hopefully be able to make part of the house too.

This is just an extra storage room in the garage- Nathan is thinking about joining it with the laundry room and making it a walk in pantry.

And last, and yes probably least, the weird door in our garage that goes no where! We are going to yank that out and just make it a wall, like it should be.

So there it is folks! Your first glimpse of our new home!

Nathan wants to get all the work done, so we can move in as soon as possible- so this is probably the start of a lot of blogging over the next few weeks. We'll take you along every step of the way!

game night- octobert edition!

After the Super Saturday activity, we headed home to clean up and get everything ready for a fabulous game night! Kassi, and Marvin & Sarah came over and we had dinner, dessert, and game time!

For dinner I made delicious chicken parmigiana with garlic bread.

Funny dinner story: I had made two pans of the chicken parmigiana- each with 4 pieces of chicken on top of spaghetti. Marvin was the last of the five of us to get serve himself some dinner, and the 4 pieces of chicken from the first pan were already gone, but there was still quite a bit of spaghetti. He went ahead and scooped up the spaghetti from the first pan and sat down to dinner. About half way through the meal, he looked at Sarah's plate with the chicken on it, and said "Where did you get that?" and she was like "Out of the pan...." He had thought the chicken in the second pan was just a bread crumb, cheesy topping- he didn't realize there was any chicken involved. We explained to him the meal was chicken parmigiana and not just spaghetti and had a good laugh about it. Luckily, no one had touched the second pan yet, so he was able to get his serving of protein for the evening.

After we had finished up with dinner- we started the first game. Scattergories!!



This is one of my all time favorite games to play with Nathan and Marvin, because they come up with the most ridiculous answers. They have made me laugh so had that I cry!

Here are some of my favorite answers they have given:

Category: Something that jumps or bounces -- Letter: H
Marvin's answer: Hippo

Category: Someone in Uniform -- Letter: D
Marvin's answer: Drug Dealer

Category: Party Items -- Letter: G
Nathan's answer: Gazoo "Ya know one of those things you blow into?"
Tarin: "You mean a kazoo?"
Nathan:"Yeah"
Tarin: "That starts with a K dear."

Another time, I remember the category was Famous Females, but I don't remember the letter or what his answer was. But Nathan put down a name that none of us had ever heard of, and said "I think she has something to do with abortions..." His mom was sitting in the other room, so we asked if she had ever heard of the lady. It turns out she had been kidnapped or something like that, a long time ago- she had nothing to do with abortions.

Yeah, we always have a lot of fun with that one.

After we had finished with a full sheet round of Scattergories, it was time for a delectable dessert!
Option #1: The cake I had decorated at Super Saturday earlier that day.




Option #2: Apple pie! --Nathan had been bugging me for days to bake him an apple pie. So he was very excited.

Apparently, so was Kassi! =p

Typical Nathan....

Marvin went with option #3-- root beer floats. The boy doesn't like chocolate cake or apple pie! Can you believe it?!

Once we polished off dessert, we had time for one more game before the other Lunt family had to split. We chose Clue!

Only we encountered one small problem at the beginning of the game. Kassi and I both wanted to be Miss Scarlet! How did we solve this dilemma? Paper, Rock, Scissors, of course!

I won the first time. So we decided to go two out of three...

After a couple more tries, we had tied it up...

Sorry Kassi, I win!

After our game of Clue had ended, and Marvin and Sarah had gone home- the rest of us sat down and started chit-chatting- and Buster started being super cute!

He was hungry, so he brought us his bowl. I am so glad someone was finally able to get a picture of this! He actually does it all the time. Notice the chew marks all along the edge?

I like this one because it looks almost like he was squished by a big grey boulder! We had to take the cover off the love sack earlier that evening, because Buster's cousin Brick decided it would a nice cozy place to take a leak! Ewww! Needless to say, I wasn't too thrilled about that.

And this is just a cute one that Kassi snapped of my two babies- Buster and Nathan. Aren't they so cute?

After the cute puppy pictures, we played a quick round of Mario Party with Kassi, and then she headed out. I was soooo pooped after Super Saturday and Game Night, I just wanted to crawl into my bed and go to sleep! It was busy, but it sure was fun!