Tag: renovation

Nov 03

The Stairs

So we have tossed around the idea of painting our staircase for about a year now. I cannot tell you how much I hate painting trim, though. Love the look. Hate the work.

Hubbin and I have come to sort of a crossroads with regards to the house. It’s zoned Residential/Commercial and located in between two cities. Do we move? If so, what work does the house need? If we sell it residential, it needs a lot of work. If we sell it commercial, they’ll likely tear it down. And where do we move? Do we move to the better school district that is closer to our friends and our church, but farther away from my job, adding to my already long commute? Do we move closer to my job, but farther from everything else?

So Hubbin and I have been in that dance for a while now, which has paralyzed us. It’s now time, though, to get to it. The house needs work, and we might as well do it in the meantime of deciding what we’re going to do or where we will go.

That isn’t it, y’all. You have to click here to read the rest!

Aug 22

And now, a bathroom break (or a break FROM the bathroom)

Hubbin chose our vacation spot this year and I have to completely give it to him, he did phenomenal job. Browsing flipkey.com, he showed me a listing and asked if he was reading it right.

Listed was a “Castle in the Sky“, high in the Smoky Mountains, and located in Sylva, NC. Built on 75 wooded acres, it had exactly what I wanted…a pool. And not any pool — a private pool. No yelling kids aside from my own, a pool that overlooked what appeared to be paradise? And affordable. And available.

So he booked it for the

second week of August. With 3600 square feet and comprised of five bedrooms and as many bathrooms, we asked Jason’s best childhood friend and his family to join us, and they accepted much to our delight.

The drive down was pretty uneventful. We pulled over at an overlook and I offered to take a picture of a family for them, and they happily accepted and returned the offer. So, we posed, our little family of four, and it wasn’t until I got back to the car that I saw this picture and just…laughed. Grumpy Toddler strikes again. That poor woman was just trying to do a good deed and take our family picture, and Grumpy Toddler looked at her like she wanted to burn down her house.

That isn’t it, y’all. You have to click here to read the rest!

Aug 21

A Bathroom Reno, in GIFs

Contractor Extraordinaire Daniel refuses to to acknowledge his awesomeness, but I came home last night and our bathroom was pretty much done. To put that into perspective, our toilet was in the living room two days before this picture was taken.

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It’s time to cut the modesty, Daniel! His sidekick Tyler also has put in ridiculous hours (I know they worked long shifts while we were gone, and I know at least one of the days they were there from 8AM until 10:30PM. Complete and utter insanity. And I like to follow up complete and utter insanity with gif stories.

I’d give you details, but the bathroom isn’t done and still needs finishing touches. There is an inch of dust over everything (I am not even lying, I mopped the walls last night), and there’s remaining grout work that was curing behind that shower curtain, which will also soon reveal one of the major changes in the bathroom, too. In fact, during that first “Houston” phone call and hearing the words “black mold” and “the standing water under the floor was deep enough to splash”, Daniel adding “but you get your [surprise]” was the only thing that kept me from throwing myself off the mountain.

That isn’t it, y’all. You have to click here to read the rest!

Aug 18

I hate this bathroom.

burn-it-down

I wish

Ok, so we stayed on vacation an extra day because the contractor let us know that the bathroom wouldn’t be done in time. This was expected for a few reasons, one being that the “little bathroom renovation” turned into like…rebuilding a house. The floors were saturated in “things that had leaked” which is what I will term it because just trust me. The walls behind the shower surround were crumbling and covered in black mold. It had to be completely rebuilt. In fact, it was in such bad shape that it was almost a downstairs bathroom.

We had a great trip back, to be honest, especially considering we had Grumpy Toddler in the car. It’s amazing what two iPads, a dual screen DVD player with 12 DVDs to choose from, books, crayons, a big sister, barbies, baby dolls, and a Daddy that will sit like a pretzel just to hold a toddler’s hand will do. Whatever, it worked and I should probably be ashamed but I am not because we all got back alive and really, that’s my job as their mom.

That isn’t it, y’all. You have to click here to read the rest!

Aug 15

The Bathroom That Wouldn’t Die

One of my friends said it seemed like Love it or List it and that’s pretty accurate, except Daniel is way smarter than Hillary, thank The Lord.

We were on our vacation paradise when I saw a missed call at 11AM from Daniel, our contractor, which is like…never a good sign when they know you are on vacation on a mountain paradise. I called back, only to hear the words “black mold” (SCREEN YOUR CALLS, READERS) and I almost hit the bricks. It was more involved and luckily we trust him and he’s wonderful, so we put it in his hands. Also, we are six hours from home and that’s the only real option.

He sends me these pictures because I have asked for the worst and he obliged with these:

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At nearly 4PM on Thursday, I get a text that says

Your entire sub floor is saturated with water. Have to pull it all up and replace. The mildew smell is horrible. Trying to ventilate the house as much as possible. Oh remodels…never as easy as you think.

That isn’t it, y’all. You have to click here to read the rest!

Aug 08

Is that green paint in your hair, ma’am?

No sir, that’s Sea Sprite paint in my hair.

Here’s your other sneak peek, because I paint seriously quickly. Also, I’m nearly positive I found Patient Zero of the stinkbug epidemic. Like seriously. I took the lights off again and like a gazillion came out. I’m not even kidding you, I looked like this:

Anyway, the paint. It looks surprisingly good. Well, not surprisingly good to me, because I’m the one that picked out the color and I knew it would look good. It’s Sea Sprite, which is by Olympic, but I shop at Lowe’s because they are the closest store to us and I am super lazy (hello, title of the blog and all), so I had them mix it in their Ultra Reserve whatever paint that’s supposed to be the best of the best. And no, this is not a plug for them, because seriously, no one will pay me to write.

That isn’t it, y’all. You have to click here to read the rest!