Man Work!

So this past weekend was pretty nice weather wise...there was a threat of rain, but we only got a couple sprinkles. So finally we were able to do some yardwork (demolition) before we put anything new in.

 Remember that awkward looking bush out back?

Well it finally met its demise :) Now it is waiting to be hauled away...

 And remember that funny looking bush with the shovel holding it up?

 Well, this is all that's left of it! One day Robbie decided to take his massive pair of tree clippers to it, and three trashcans later we had its thorny branches contained. Then this weekend we finally were able to dig up the root!

But the real "man work" came when my dad decided to bring over his chain saw. There are not many things I have seen him get excited about more so than using his chain saw to chop something down at whatever opportunity he gets :). (Note the safety glasses and gloves - OSHA approved!)

Before I managed to make it outside with my camera, they already had one strangled holly tree chopped down and filling trashcans.

 Then Robbie's turn came with helping make sure the tall one didn't go crashing somewhere it didn't belong!

 When all was said and done, we were two holly trees shorter, four trashcans fuller, and a few loads of firewood greater for the fall!

 Fun times in the yard! And more to come! (If you hadn't noticed, our yard is 70% overgrown shrubs, 20% weeds, and maybe 5-10% flowers - but not for long hopefully!)

And now, for the outside!

We have spent quite some time focusing on the interior of our house. At first, it was of necessity, then it was due to the weather! Now that it is finally starting to be nice enough to go outside without a jacket of some sort, and that we have finished most of our major projects inside the house, we turn our attention to the outside of the house.

And what do we find? Well, we weren't entirely sure what we might see come up during the spring, but one thing is sure - we have a lot of bushes!

At the back of our house...

At the front of our house...

On the side of our house...

Bushes, bushes, everywhere! (No these are not all the bushes surrounding our house - only a sampling!)

This is a funny bush on the side of our house...

...Notice the shovel holding it up!

And this pyramid-shaped one is my mom's particular favorite - just an odd little thing on the side of our porch.

So in all of this greenery, shrubbery, bushery, it was nice to finally find something that wasn't just a bush. Yes, it is still a bush for most of the year, but for a couple weeks out of the year, it becomes something much more beautiful!

We'll see what else might pop up, but personally I'm waiting for the neighboring rhododendrons to open!

The last room...

We have now officially moved into the last room in our house! It is now one of the places we are most - the family room.

Originally, we figured we were going to move into this room first. Robbie was quick to tear down the wood paneling wall and almost as quick to put up the drywall. But, one thing led to another, and the room ended up becoming a long term storage room! Finally in October, we were able to get the wall plastered so that we could think about painting it. Remember this?

But with all the other things going on in the kitchen, and then the holidays, this room got quite neglected for most of the winter months. Eventually, I got around to picking a paint color (actually two!), we had a friend install some trim (the old stuff was ripped out because it was extremely markered up and had some holes drilled through it), Robbie and I both picked out curtains and rods, and we went to work transferring most of our living room into our family room. The results are below!

We just moved our furniture downstairs (hopefully we'll get new stuff for upstairs) and the wall hanging was a wedding gift!

Note the flowers spread all over the window - this one gets the best sun!

Yes, we went bold with a bright blue wall! No it's not going to stay bare like this! :)

 We're hoping to find some type of entertainment stand to replace this one, which has come a long way with me through college and everything else! We haven't fully moved everything down yet either, simply because we don't have any tables to replace them with upstairs. But soon enough, it will all come together!

So after quite a long wait, we are finally (mostly) moved into the last room in our house! It feels good to be using all the rooms as we thought we would. Now just to organize everything!

Three Years Ago...

I said "I do" to a tall, handsome, Irishman. He was just (barely) out of college, I was getting situated with my job, and we moved into a small (almost closet-sized) apartment in Murrysville. Those of you that visited us there, know that we weren't exaggerating - in fact, the apartment was actually a storage closet prior to being converted into an apartment!

Thankfully, we were only in that apartment for 2 months before we moved into a 2-bedroom, fairly spacious apartment in another building of the same complex. We could actually fit a bed set into the bedroom (before only a mattress would fit), a couch into the living room (before we only had a few chairs), and enjoyed a separate dining area from the kitchen (before it was all in one 'room').

 

Two years ago, we were fully settled into our 2-bedroom apartment, and had bought our first car together. Robbie was finishing his first year of teaching, I was very settled in my job and tackling a Masters degree in the evenings. Around our first anniversary, we still had not received our wedding pictures and discovered much to our dismay that our photographer had conveniently gone bankrupt. 

Unsure if we would ever get our wedding pictures back, we had a friend come out and take some updated pictures of us together in the Oakland area. The pictures were great (see the left picture below), and thankfully after some legal involvement were able to retrieve our original wedding pictures as well (see the right picture below).

One year ago, we decided that the time was right to look for a house, and after I completed my Masters degree in March, we spent the entire month of April searching for just the right place in time to qualify for the homebuyer's tax credit. Robbie was now in seminary part-time taking evening classes, so I really wonder how we squeezed in seeing so many houses in such a short amount of time.

As Robbie will tell you, my first impression of our house was not a good one - everything was old, dirty and in some instances just plain gross, and I had a really hard time seeing beyond the filth and work it would take to make it feel like a home. Thankfully (and providentially), there really weren't any other houses that were really drawing me, and our time was running out. We took a second trip to the house with my parents this time and decided that there was a lot of good in the house under all of the "bad", and it would just be a work in progress for the next few months.

Well, as you may have seen from the series of blog posts, this project has lasted a lot longer than a few months :) . But on the whole it has been a good experience and made us appreciate what we have now more fully (it also makes me want to stay here a very long time --- so we don't have to go through that again!).

Now that we have been married three years and owned our house for almost one year, I am finally feeling quite settled. Although we have things we will continue to work on with the house, both inside and out, the vast majority of the house is furnished, unpacked, and settled into like it should be. Now I am looking forward to enjoying a summer here without having to be stuck inside painting and cleaning! I am looking forward to spending more time at our house with family and friends - so please, come over and join us sometime! If you're in the neighborhood, come see if we are there - we'd be glad to have you.  :)

On the Road (Blog) Again!

Yes, I am alive, if any of you were wondering. No, we actually didn't stop doing home improvements, but we combined them with so many other things that I haven't had a chance to write a cohesive thought lately! :)

The house is actually coming along quite well and starting to really feel like our house --- finally! I believe that is a combination of (finally) moving into all of our rooms, (finally) unpacking (almost) every box, and (finally) hanging some things on the walls. Not to worry, for those of you who are thinking - it's been almost a year! - this is actually quicker than what it took me to hang curtains and fully decorate my 2-bedroom apartment!

So, for those of you who haven't been to our house lately (which is pretty much everyone, thanks to our crazy weekday and weekend schedule), here's a bit about what we've been up to in our living room:

The newest edition to our living room is this rusty red sectional. Since we both enjoy to spread out and relax after the day's work, this was just perfect to fit both of us comfortably in the reclining position :)

For awhile (until we finished the family room) we had this sectional in the living room - in addition to the other furniture (a couch, coffee table, 2 end tables and a large rocking great chair). But eventually the family room was finished and so the old furniture got moved down there.

Now we definitely still have some space to fill since the room is so big, but we're still deciding on what should accompany the sectional, and where to find it. In the meantime, the room looks big and open again - much like it did when we first moved in. But not to worry, it's high on both our lists to get it finished soon!

Next step for this room is also some curtains! My hubby has been desperately wanting them for a looooong while, so as soon as we pick the rest of the colors for the room/furniture, that's my next task!

Pictures on the wall!

I believe I have mentioned this before, but it takes me quite some time to figure out what room I want pictures to be hung, and then where! Well, today I decided it was time to stop thinking and start doing! (I tend to over think these things when really I can change them whenever with a little work - probably less work than it's been taking to put them up in the first place!)

Well, a couple weeks ago I took a survey of where I should hang pictures in our kitchen, and today we finally managed to get them hung. So here's the finished product! (Looks a lot better without us standing in the way of the pictures hehe.)

 

The vertical votes won, and I agreed - it just went better with the rest of the kitchen layout.

Not today, but we also hung some pictures in our dining room that we had for several months and were just waiting to find a hutch to match our oak table. Well, thanks to craigs list, we did indeed find one that was reasonably priced, matched, and just the right size for what we needed!

After we got it put back together (hutch separates from buffet) and got our dishes in there, we decided to complete the room with these fun pictures from Kohls! You can't exactly tell in this picture, but the grays in the paintings matched perfectly with the dining and kitchen gray colors. Woohoo! Definitely better than boxes and college wire stackable cabinets! ;)

Now if only I could get the other rooms in order! Hopefully we'll be having some trim work done in our family room soon so then we can move all the furniture in, and finally get "fully" settled into our rooms. Happy Saturday!

Snowmaggeddon...again!

In light of our little burst of Snowmageddon last week, and despite the fact that today is the 1st day of March :), I thought it was appropriate to revisit the craziness of 2010's snowstorm. I might add that if the burst of snow we had last week had continued for as long as it did last year, we would have had even more snow than we did last year!

Thankfully I was not working in Cranberry that day last week, for many people waited over 2 hours just to get out of the parking lot, and some never made it home that night!

The back of our apartment complex, after the snow hit.

"After" the snow plow came through ;)

Trying to dig our truck out of the snow...

...Still trying...

...Then, trying to find the car!

 I'm still amazed by how much snow we had, and now that we have a house, really really glad we have a 2 car garage and a short driveway - plus a Robbie-sized shovel!  :)

Hope your first day of March looked nothing like this!