And it Begins!

Life has been packed to the brim with cleaning & un-packing & demo-ing & Goodwill-piling! Cody & I had an awesome team of family friends devote the weekend to the beginnings of our home. We had many truck loads of boxes and furniture to load and un-load. And then lots of cleaning, some repairs and demo. The house has fresh interior paint and freshly refinished hardwood floors, so grateful for two less big jobs! Here's what we have accomplished so far:

New toilet

New kitchen faucet

New shower head

New locks

Clean drawers & cabinets + they're freshly contact papered

A fridge that fits

Kitchen stuff all unpacked & put away

Bathroom stuff all unpacked & put away

Drapes hung

Bagged excess clothes to donate

Clothes put away (will still need some re-organizing/round two of donating)

Bought a new mattress (delivery on Saturday!)

New shop door

Demo-ed patio room

Demo-ed broken brick BBQ

Demo-ed back storage garage room

Power washed backyard concrete & back of house

Snooped two open houses on our street (its all part of being a neighbor!)

I think that's everything. Oh and I have officially made dinner in my own kitchen :) It was a BLT celebration. So how about a house tour? (The stats: its a 2bed/1 bath, 980 sq feet on a 6500 sq ft lot)

Front door/porch (that wood post is gone now too!)

I'm thinking this door needs a fresh fun paint job (as well as the exterior of the home). The engravings remind me of sunflowers, a nice little nod to our wedding!

Love the corner kitchen window (the sink is just below the windows) and the garage is the full depth of the house, making it feel much larger than your typical single car garage.

See? Cody took this standing in the garage storage room pictured below.

Lots of big cabinets here, which we removed over the weekend. They were just a bit too large, we'll have to build or find some smaller ones down the road once we settle on what this room will be for.

This is an inside view to the patio room which we tore down over last weekend. Without it our yard feels so much bigger (and it was big already!) and lets in a lot more light to the back of the house windows (bathroom and two bedrooms).

Most of that brick is gone now (the line down the yard & the BBQ area). We love the idea of an outside kitchen, but weren't sold on the placement of this guy so we let my brothers have at it! We have a TON of use-able brick left over and lots of ideas for it.

We have an avocado tree! So excited about that. On my dream house list, I wanted an avocado tree, lemon tree and a lime tree. Well I got two out of those three! We have a lemon tree, orange tree and persimmon tree. Yum!

We were a bit skeptical of this shed, it certainly didn't appear to be in the best shape. But my Dad discovered its high quality redwood inside, with no rotting since it sits on a concrete slab. Cody has since replaced the door with a solid core outside door (this one was pieces of plywood nailed together) and plans to use it for storage/dirtbike space. So we'll have to work on ripping down the black paper inside and its already got some serious electrical power...whether that has any relation to the multitudes of clay pots also found around and under the house we'll leave up for debate.

Now for the inside! (All the furniture you see? Not ours, these were taken when we first toured the house.)

There's a lot of room in the kitchen and we have a lot of ideas for what to do with it. More counter space and a dishwasher are definitely on the top of that list!

I am in love with our open living space. This is the view from the door to the kitchen. Check out that huge front window! Seriously sold me on the house. Love, love, love it!

Here it is from the front, we're thinking a bay window down the line?

And this is what sold Cody on the house. Ok, not really, but you know that man loves his air conditioning. 

The window AC unit above and this heater means a HVAC system is also on the to-do list. But check out those hardwood floors. Love them.

And the closets! This was another "this house is meant for us" moments. Cody's great-grandmother's vacation home (then it was Cody's grandparents and as of two weeks ago Cody's aunt & uncle's!) has closets exactly like these--raised up with drawers underneath. I think its such a fun detail.

And bedroom #1! 

And bedroom #2. Although it doesn't look like it in this picture this bedroom is a bit larger and we'll be using it for the master.

And the bathroom, so happy to have that long counter top.

The privacy corner...now it has a much prettier toilet (I didn't think toilets could be pretty til I had to buy one!)

And the shower, now it has a new shower head and no whales in the tub. It's also got a fresh line of caulk to seal up our walls & sub-floor.

And that's the OUR house! I have so many more pictures since our first walk-through that I need to download so please bear with me while I get around to that!

BIG FAT, FATTER AND FATTEST THANK YOU TO THOSE OF YOU WHO WERE ABLE TO HELP US MOVE AND START PROJECT-ING! 

Dad--for keeping me focused and being the 'jack-of-all-trades'

Mom--the original clean freak

Steve--heavy lifting and truck packer

Cathy--bringing over yet another load of stuff

Matt--demo master and truck loading

Joey--another demo extraordinaire

Christian--more demo & hardwood floor polisher

Sarah--bringing our second wind to unpack the kitchen

Blake--demo master & brick slinger

Katy--contact paper queen/slave 

Preston--master plumber 

Ashley--cabinet cleaner & contact paper support

Byron--for keeping the mood light and breaking in our backyard

Emily--cleaner & drapery advice

Chrissy--cabinet cleaner & contact paper support

Gram C--huge supporter and source of our first piece of mail

Our Lord--providing the means, house and all the right people to get us here!

I really, really hope I haven't missed anyone....