We Bought a House!

After more than eight months living in the lower floor of my in-laws' house (for which we will be eternally grateful, but it's time), we finally closed on a new house this week!

Blue's first order of business was emptying our two smaller storage units so we don't have to pay for the month of May. His brother helped and they got that done, plus moved a bunch of patio furniture from the in-laws' house, which will save us some moving costs in a few weeks. Woohoo!

That's a lot of stuff. We just put it in the dining room and living room to begin with. Today, we moved it to the basement. The basement is huge, folks. The square footage of the basement is larger than the square footage of our entire old house. Ridiculous.

We put all the stuff from storage (and some from my mom and stepdad's house) into piles divided by room or theme (Christmas stuff, kitchen stuff, baby stuff, etc.) so that it'll be easier to organize later.

Like I said: HUGE. This was a major selling point for us. One of the biggest, in fact. We have big plans for this basement. Think projector, movie theater, poker table, pool table, a bar. Paradise, my friends. For now, it has all our stuff, so that we can refinish all the floors upstairs. A good portion of the main floor was covered in grody carpets that were probably 20 years old. Underneath which was imprisoned perfectly lovely original oak hardwood floors. So, of course, we had to free them.

Here are some before/after photos.

Old owners' listing photo

Not even refinished yet, and I love it more

The den. The carpets in here were multi-colored (not on purpose) and had to go.

A work in progress, of course, but so much potential.

Owners' master bedroom photo

Gorgeous flooring

It's amazing how much light the window can let in when not hidden by drapes!

Another big selling point for me was the master bathroom. After 5 years of having to go downstairs to pee in the middle of the night (extra fun when pregnant; you may remember we put a bed in the living room toward the end), I am super psyched to only have to walk a few feet. I won't even have to wake up!

So, that's what Blue and my dad have been doing the past two days. Blue did most of the ripping up himself yesterday, and then my dad has been helping pull up staples and nails today, among other things. Huzzah for helpers!

Meanwhile, I got busy as well.

Lining shelves and drawers might seem silly and unimportant, but it had to be done. Some of these shelves just needed to be hidden (after being washed, of course). I love the fun pops of color it brings to the otherwise fairly drab kitchen.

Listing photo

Plus, it allowed me to start unpacking (and washing) dishes that have been in storage for the past 8 months. The kitchen feels homey already!

Monday, the floors will start getting their makeover. We are going to refinish not just the floor we uncovered, but also this prettiness in the living room and dining room (unless they say they can match the color exactly, in which case we'll just leave it, but we're not terribly hopeful).

I cannot wait to tackle designing this room. I have curtains, rugs, and pillows all picked out. Blue tried to veto my curtain choice, but he was overruled. I told him to give them six months. I look forward to your opinions when that's done.

And yes, I hope to blog the next few weeks of decorating and home-making. The kids will show up too, don't worry! They are very excited to finally "go home" and love running around in the backyard. The first order of business out there will be to put up a fence around this bad boy:

It's like there's a magnet that draws them toward it. Exhausting.

We also have a friend who likes the pool, too!

 Yup, a duck. He came by twice today to take a bath. Methinks we need to add a bit more chlorine...