Alive...Barely

Well I have officially moved into the new place. Sorry for not posting for awhile, but I went with the fam to Sandestin for a week and then moved, so have had no internet, and actually still don't. (I'm at AK's house right now and praying AT&T will be calling me very soon to fix this problem.) I have decided there is nothing fun about moving...it is one of the worst things in the world. My body is aching all over right now from this past week-I really understand the term "sweat equity" now. I have never worked so hard on something in my whole life.

Thank goodness for my mom. She came down on Monday night to help me start getting the place ready for the move on Tuesday morning. She is a life-saver and the best cleaning lady ever! I think I have worked her a little too hard, but I honestly couldn't have made it through the week without her. I knew the place was dirty when I bought it, but after all the construction it was even dirtier....or disgusting might be a better word. Two Men and a Truck (it was actually 3 young guys and a truck! haha) came out to the old place Tuesday morning and very quickly hauled out my furniture. I was kind of sad to leave the condo and my roommate Brittany, but very excited to be moving into the new place.

I finally got the carpet installed and I love it!!!! I still have no cabinets, so all my kitchen stuff is sitting in boxes around the house. I am eating off of paper plates/bowls and using plastic silverware! Also, my couch has yet to arrive from Pottery Barn, so all I have in my living room is a Crazy Creek chair!! That's right, I've had to pull out the old college chair...thank goodness I had not thrown it away. I had a wingback chair, but I had to send it to A'ville with Mom yesterday to get re-upholstered. (I found a beautiful French country toile in chocolate and blue) My new bed arrived on Wednesday and I LOVE it...it is sooo comfy. 61-it might be as wonderful as y'alls "heavenly bed". Mom and Dad are coming down tomorrow and we are going to pick up my new headboard and hopefully my new bedding will be done next week.

Do any of you ppl out there have a mounted TV in your living room? What I thought was going to be no big deal has turned into a nightmare. Due to the layout of my living room, the TV has to be mounted-no other options. The DIRECTV ppl came out on Tuesday and stayed for 5 1/2 hours!! They were incompetent and just couldn't seem to get it working. My contractor Mike told me to have them drill a hole through the crawlspace and to run the cable through the floor. The workmen tried to tell me it couldn't be done....but as I like to say, "If Mike says it can be done, it can be done!" So after shedding a few tears to the guys, they drilled the hole and what should have cost me a bundle, I got for free! (Crying always helps!) Now my electrician just has to come out and wire everything through the wall.

I'm in the middle of a little drama with my painters. They are charging us a fortune for the painting and it looks awful. There is TONS of touch-ups that still need to be done and not to mention they haven't painted the cabinets. I am NOT a happy camper with them right now. I can't use my kitchen or any of my vanities in the bathrooms because none of them have been painted. I'm sure y'all are getting a mental image of what my house looks like right now! Maybe by December it will all come together.

A big shout-out to my whole family for all of their help this week. My cousin Connor was here for a few days, and my Aunt Jen came down and fixed up my flower bed in front of my house. It majorly upped my curb appeal!! Sorry, I have no pics to post because I don't have my computer up and running at the new place yet. Hopefully I will have another update soon!

Weekend=Time to Work

This weekend, my Aunt Vicki, Uncle Dan, and cousin Bret came down from Chattanooga to help me do some work to my house. They can do everything! I wish I could hire them to help me finish my house and I am forever indebted to them for all they helped me do. We worked ourselves to death Friday and Saturday. Well, Aunt Vicki and I mainly delegated and did odd jobs (going back and forth to H.D.), while Uncle Dan and Bret did all the electrical work. We changed out every switch and recepticle (didn't know what that was until this weekend) in the whole house. We changed my old-school toggle switches to pimp/modern rectangular switches. My Uncle Dan is "The Man". He can do anything and everything. I think the grand total of visits to Home Depot this weekend alone is about four. People began waving at us on Saturday...that is a major indication that I spend too much time there. Here are some pics from our weekend.

Every girl has to have a pink tool belt!

Katherine wanted in on the work too!


Uncle Dan and Bret are hard at work!

So pumped about my new switches!

My new microwave got installed!


Aunt Vicki bought me "Hooty". My first addition to my house! (Of course it had to be an owl!)

My parents were also in town this weekend and helped out a lot. My dad repainted my house numbers and installed some new shower heads. In the past couple of days I have learned a lot about renovations and tools. I am now familiar with channel locks and crescent wrenches. In my last post, I mentioned how the fridge that was delivered was too large and we were going to have to do repair work to make it fit. Mike (my contractor) called me Friday morning and informed me that it would NOT fit...Of course I burst into my tears and called my Dad. He ripped me a new one and told me to get a grip and immediately go to H.D. to try and rectify the situation. (My Dad and I obviously handle stress differently! haha) I spent an hour with the store manager and got everything handled...or at least I think so. I have a new smaller version of my original fridge arriving on Tuesday!!

Drama, Drama, Drama

Let's start with yesterday. I was out at the house because the guys were installing my granite vanity top for my bathroom. I was standing in the kitchen writing something down and all of a sudden I began to hear running water coming from somewhere. I looked in the room that has the AC unit and hot water heater and find gushing water coming from a pipe in the wall. Panic mode set in. The plumber had just left about 15 minutes prior to this happening. I of course began screaming and tried to fix the pipe myself...I know you all are laughing right now..but I at least tried! Thank goodness I was able to get the plumber back out to the house to fix it. Apparently one of the granite men turned on my shower upstairs and that's what caused the leak. I'm just glad I was out there when it started leaking or we could have had a nightmare situation. Here are some pics of my new kitchen sink and my new vanity top in the master bath.

Today is the biggest day we've had thus far in the renovation process. My blinds were installed ( a week ahead of time and they look amazing!!!) and my appliances were delivered. I get a phone call around noon saying the appliances would be delivered in 30 minutes, so my mom and I decided to run to Chick-Fil-A to pick up some lunch before they arrived. We get there and they are closed!!! When is Chick-Fil-A ever closed??!! Very annoyed at this point, we head to Roly Poly. Did I mention we look super-gross and have on work clothes and no make-up?? Of course we run into someone from A'ville...there are Sand Mtn. ppl everywhere! haha While there I get a call from the appliance men saying they'll be there in 10 MINUTES! We are at least 2o minutes from being back at the house..and then, it begins storming. It hasn't rained here in weeks and of course when my appliances are being delivered, the bottom falls out. Thank goodness my mom was with me because I was about to have a breakdown. The workmen had a huge GE truck filled up with goodies for me. When we saw the fridge, I was like, holy cow-that thing is huge. My mom said, "That's not going to fit".

Will the fridge fit????


Nope, it won't fit!!!!

At this point, total breakdown mode was about to set in. The guy said, "Ma'am, it's not gonna fit." !!!!!!! He said the problem was when I measured for the fridge I had linoleum on the floors and now with the hardwoods, it just won't fit. So now I have to trim down the cabinets and remove some molding along the floor. Eventually it will get installed, but for now my monster of a fridge is sitting in my breakfast nook.

Dishwasher and Microwave

The oven looks great! Well, it will once the granite men come back out and remove the piece they put behind the stove. Did everyone know that some ranges don't go flush to the wall? Well, of course mine does and now it's sticking out farther than the cabinets because of the granite running behind it.


We were worried the washer and dryer wouldn't fit through the kitchen and into the laundry room but thankfully, they did! They're up and running and ready to tackle dirty clothes!

Also, Happy 10 month Birthday to my niece, Katherine!! A huge thank you goes out to my Aunt TT (she's the bomb) for making my new header for the blog. I am a blog retard and had to call her for help. I thought I'd represent my Chi-O roots and put some owls up. For those of you that know me, you know I LOVE owls!! Hooty-hoo!!

OOC Weekend

Every summer my group of friends from college get together for a weekend of fun. We used to call ourselves the Fockers (we don't remember why we named ourselves that) but we have recently renamed ourselves the 12-pack. We all live in different places, but for one weekend we all come together for good food, great drinks, and hilarious conversations. We congregated in Gulf Shores, AL at Mrs. Alex Robinson's beach house, where we got to meet baby Jay, Alex's precious son. Things have definitely changed since we graduated from college, but when we all get together it's as if no time has passed at all. We had an amazing time and I'm so sad it's already over. Here are some pics from our weekend.

We love a day on the beach-Casey, Sydney, and Chelsey, we sure did miss y'all! Looking forward to the 12-pack reunion '10!!!!!

I'm so Excited...

And I just can't hide it!!!!! This is what I saw when I walked into my house today.

Hallelujah!!! Hallelujah!! I have BEAUTIFUL granite countertops and my hardwood floors are being installed this weekend!!! Life is great.
I hung out with the workmen for awhile while I was there..5 men and me..haha! These guys are really good at what they do, my granite looks amazing. And hopefully the man who we purchased the granite from is going to hook me up with a remnant slab for my vanity top in my bathroom. I'm heading out to his store in Trussville in the a.m. to see what he has!!

It's Official...

I'm an adult now...I made my first mortgage payment this week. I'm not sure the reality of it all has set in yet...probably won't until I'm actually moved in and living there. I met with my flooring man Monday and picked out my new carpet and he promises me the hardwood floors will be installed by the time my appliances arrive next Thursday..I'm praying he sticks to his promise! Someone from H.D. came out and measured my windows for my new wooden blinds and they called today with the reasonable estimate, so I placed my order. They will hopefully be here and installed within two weeks! My sister and niece accompanied me to Mayer Lighting on Tuesday. As you all know, I am renovating my house on a budget and I'm really trying to stick to it. While at the lighting store, we were looking at some pendant lighting for my kitchen and of course my sister picks out the most expensive ones they had...I had to drop a bow on her! haha I was able to buy all my lighting that I needed and all of it was in stock except for my pendant lighting, which will hopefully be here within a week!! Here are some pics from our excursion.

Powder Bath fixture

Guest Bath fixture

My contractor Mike called me this morning to check on things. He told me my countertops were being installed tomorrow! This afternoon while driving down the road, Sean, my countertop man called me. This man is hilarious...he is a very large man and has a thick country accent. This is how the conversation went: "Virginia, I have some bad news. I don't think we can have your countertops in for another three weeks." I said, "What??!!!" Then Sean said, "I'm just messin' with ya Virginia, they'll be installed tomorrow." He was dying laughing and I had almost driven off the road with the news...I'm glad he has such a sense of humor!!

I'm the new VIP customer at Home Depot

It has been another busy week in the renovation process. The painters have finished all of the painting on the inside and I am very pleased with the colors! It's amazing what a fresh coat of paint can do for a house. Here are a few pics of the newly painted inside.

My newly painted kitchen with no cabinet doors, appliances, or countertops...kind of looks funny!

After getting four more quotes on my granite, I finalized that and my countertop man came out EARLY (6 a.m.) Friday morning and removed my existing countertops and laid the templates for my new ones. The new ones should be installed by this Thursday! There was a little controversy over a drop-in sink vs. an undermount one. He had initially told me he thought a drop-in sink would be easier, but he told me Thursday that I could go ahead and buy an undermount...I was thrilled!

Dad had the day off of work on Friday, so he and Mom headed down to B'ham to help me shop for home stuff. It was nice to have Mom and Dad to myself and I think it was the most productive day we have ever had. We spent almost two hours in Home Depot and we somehow managed to escape without getting in an argument and no one's feelings getting hurt, which is a miracle in my family!! Here is a list of what all we purchased: front-loading washer and dryer, refrigerator, range, microwave, dishwasher, stainless steel sink, garbage disposal, faucet for the kitchen sink, two ceiling fans, a granite vanity top for my powder-bath, a vanity top for the guest bath, new faucets for the master and guest bath, and two medicine cabinets. Also while being in H.D., I made an appointment for them to come out and measure my windows for some wood blinds. We filled up one buggy and one flat-bed cart. It took all three of us to make it to the register!! Every time I purchased something, they were like, you look familiar-apparently I am spending too much time there!! Here are some pics from our shopping extraveganza.

I'm so excited about my new washer and dryer!

Anyone smell cookies baking??!!

OOC!!

You know you've spent a lot in H.D. when the staff voluntarily comes out and helps you loud up your car! After filling up my dad's Expedition, we headed back to the house and unloaded everything. I am tyring to buy as much ahead of time so the contractors can start installing everything before I have to move in. The only thing I did not get to purchase was the vanity for my master bath. Apparently, it will have to be custom ordered...just another item to add on my list of questions for my contractor on Monday morning. We had planned on going to Mayer Lighting and buying all the new lights, but they were closed for the 4th. After unloading, we headed to Macy's to look at beds. I think my family takes the cake for the fastest shoppers ever. I picked out my new mattress in under 3 minutes. Our sales lady loved us!!

I got a Sealy mattress that is "Plush". I can already see deep-sleeping nights in my near future! After the purchase of the bed, we were finished. The only problem I'm having right now is with my flooring man..he's very sketchy and unreliable. I'm going to call him tomorrow and drop a bow on him because the appliances are being delivered on the 16th and my floors HAVE to be installed before they get there!!