Renovations

Renovations:

I had a genius idea: we should paint our kitchen cabinets before we moved it.  Both Brent and I hate moving and we knew that we needed some time to make it a semi-smooth transition.  We decided that we would give ourselves 3 weeks to move from our apartment to our house and in that time we would update a few things in the kitchen before we moved in.  Unfortunately during that time, Brent had finals and his during finals week Brent’s grandmother passed away and he was asked to speak at her funeral. Our kitchen remodel took a wee bit more time than we planned, and like all projects they got blown out of proportion. 

It took a while for me to convince Brent that we should paint our cheap crappy looking cabinets white.  Once Brent was on board, he was on board.  Our simple painting project turned into a complete kitchen demo and remodel.  We tore out 3 layers of floor and installed an awesome tile (only after fighting with the staples in the hardwood), took out the cabinets, repainted and basically rebuilt, built  and installed hardwood countertops, painted the ceilings and walls and installed bead board, installed a new sink and many more things along the way.  Here are a few pictures from the before….not bad, but a little paint would do wonders.



Looking into the kitchen from the living room.  Didn't they just do an awesome job of hanging the cabinets?  There were gaps everywhere...a huge pet peeve of Brent's

Check out the awesome pink backsplash, with blue diamonds.  Unfortunately Brent was not a fan and he happily tore that off the walls.

The kitchen is so small it is hard to take any pictures.  This is a view from the back door. (To the left of the stove was where the first two picture were taken).

From the dining room looking into the kitchen.  Not a bad kitchen at all, we just wanted to spruce it up a bit.

Our kitchen is so small I was not able to back up far enough to get the whole thing in the picture!

This is our dining room.  I would like to point out the awesome archway between the kitchen and dining area, but unfortunately the refrigerator takes up way too much room.  I wonder what appliances they had back in 1930 when they built the house, because they do not fit in this space very well. SPOILER ALERT: We fixed that problem :)

And yes, the water does work.
 



Here is a teaser/motivation for me to post the after pictures.  We did plan the new cabinet height around my kitchen aid that is taller than the typical counter to cabinet height, but we did not plan the colors to be so coordinated.

After pictures to come shortly!

Our First Home

Our First Home

The end of 2012 Brent and I decided that it was time to start looking for a home to buy because we will be in Bosie for at least 4 years while Brent is going to Boise State.  I have loved every area in Boise that I have lived in.  Brent wanted to live in the North End, but we definitely could not afford a house there and the tiny roads just scared the crap out of me.  We were currently living on the Boise Bench, which is an area of Boise that has a lot of older and smaller homes.  I had heard people talk about the Bench before we moved their over a year ago, had no idea about that area.  After living there in our last apartment, I fell in love.  To me, it was the best of everything.  1. It is in Boise. 2. There are trees 3. There are no neighborhoods; just nice wide roads lined with trees 4. It is pretty close to BSU.  Amazing!!

Brent and I wanted to stay in Boise proper so we were limited on the homes that we wanted to purchase.  We also wanted a home with character and old houses are full of unique character.  We found a cute little stucco house in our price range and in the location that we were looking at.  Score!! We had looked at a few houses, but nothing had really left a mark for either one of us.  When I was searching online and found this cute little house, we scheduled a time to go see it.  After we saw it, Brent told me that it was such a “cute house”. I considered that a sign, Brent actually said that the house was cute!!  But there was a downfall; it was a shortsale.  We recognized that shortsales are no optimal and they have potential to take FOREVER to go through, but in our price range and in our location, we did not have a lot of options.  We were in love, so we moved forward.  We placed an offer in January and we started the process with the bank.  I don’t even want to right about all the headache and crap and more crap that we went through to get this house, but we finally got it!!  We became homeowners on May 6, 2013.  (On a side note Brent is such a trooper. Trying to buy a house while in your first semester back in school was no easy feat.  I am thankful that we wont be doing that again any time soon!)

Here is a little history about our new home.  It was built in 1930 and has a lot of the original features, such as nice hardwood floors, glass door knobs, and a pretty legit wood burning fireplace, just to name a few.  Thankfully people were living in the home, so when we purchased it, it was ready to move in.  I have been waiting to finish our projects before I wrote these post, but who am I kidding….we will never be done.  If we wanted a house with no projects, we would have bought a new house, but that is not what we wanted at all!

Here are a couple of pictures:

There really is grass in the front yard, just not visible from this picture lol
 

Unlocking the door

 



Our Café Rio picnic.  Our first meal in our new home

Yeah for mug shots!