Shutters

After living in this house for more than four years, we finally have shutters! We just have them on these two windows. Hopefully in a few months the others will have them too.

Published with Blogger-droid v2.0.6

Sunday afternoon we went to Lowe's and got some glass covers for the master bathroom lights. We're one short, as we got all the one's that Lowe's had. My vanity light just needs one more. I still think the fixtures are way too high. Steve tends to like to put things high, outlets, light switches, and light fixtures. Maybe moving them down can be a project for another day. On the plus side, I can't reach them, so Steve has to dust them. :) The next thing on my list is mirrors! We have one for the guest bathroom, thanks to my in-laws. They bought it for us when they were here in February. But it still sits on the floor. So many projects to finish! I do have mirrors for our bathroom picked out at Hobby Lobby though. They're on sale, so maybe we'll get a couple more mirrors this week. Building a house is a lot of work and takes way too long for me. If you must build one, I'd reccommend paying someone else to do it! :)

Outdoor stuff

The appraiser came to our house last week and wanted Steve to finish the deck rail, which he did this weekend. It feels a little safer now. :) Eventually there will be stairs, but to get the rail done for now, he just did the rail all the way around.


And Steve is really proud of our solar power. We have a couple of solar cells on the roof that generate a little bit of electricity. Steve wants to get more, but for now it's enough to keep a couple of lights on.


And this is the view of the back of our house now. Now we need to get furniture for our deck. It would be so nice to go out there and eat dinner now that it's cooling off. I keep looking at yard sales. :)

Here's the most recent picture of the house. The siding and trim finally got finished a couple of weeks ago, other than Steve getting up there to paint it. That's something that's farther down a loooooong to do list.

My grandmother and cousins are coming to town this weekend. At least we hope they still are. We know that Grandmother changes her mind now and again, but I think they'll come this time. And Monday is my surgery, so I won't be back for a few days.

Doors

All but 2 of our doors are in now. These are from a couple of weeks when Dave, Jimmy, and Steve were putting doors in. Somehow, I'm always snapping pictures of Steve when he's blinking, or sneezing, or something. Anyway, this weekend Steve put in another ceiling fan, and we moved some furniture around to get ready for our first house guests. My grandmother and my cousin Emily are coming this weekend for a visit.




And I've been going to yard sales for the last few weeks, and found some really great deals. I've gotten another old quilt, a few lamps, some vintage looking picture frames, just to name a few. I got this silver tray and polished it up to look nice and shiny.

Our birds and insulation

As you might have guessed, I got my computer up again since we got our carpet this week. The carpet looks really good, and now I'm afraid to walk on it. I would hate to get it dirty! The next thing we need to get done is to finish the plumbing. But our other shower fixture has finally come in! So we're moving in the right direction.

Here's our two little birds a couple of weeks ago. They had five eggs in their nest, but unfortunately some animal must have gotten to them. Last week, when I looked out the window one morning, the birds and eggs were gone, and the nest was on the ground. :(


And this picture is from a couple of weeks ago when Steve and I blew the insulation in the attic. It's not the itchy kind, this is green insulation. It's made from recycled paper. It was a mess, and really dusty! There's still insulation on our deck and in the yard. But Steve, Dave, and Joshua finished putting insulation on the west side of the house on Monday.

Long time no blog

I know it's been a while! We still don't have our computer up at home yet. It's going in one of the spare bedrooms, and I'm waiting until we get our carpet in there. But I do have a couple of pictures now to hold you over until then.

I took this one of the living room the week we moved in. Just imagine more furniture, baseboards, and curtains. We still have a lot to do! But it's looking better.


This was taken two weeks ago, but we're still waiting for our carpet. It did come in, but they can't install it until next week. So we haven't unpacked much because of that.


Our countertops were put on May 8, and I LOVE them! They look really good. We're still waiting for the plumber to come back and put in the sink fixture in the kitchen, and finish the dishwasher. Still lots to do, but the countertops look great! I love the Corian sink. And did I mention that I love our countertops??? :)

We have plumbing!

We went to the house last night to take some of our boxes. Our plumbers came to the house yesterday and put in our sinks, toilets, and fixtures. Our shower fixtures aren't in yet. One wasn't in stock and had to be ordered, and the other one was a different brand & didn't fit, so we have to get a different one. But the rest are in! (Except for the kitchen sink, which we can't put in until we get our countertops and Corian sink.)






We took Nova with us last night. She loves riding in the car and going on trips. And she loves running around the house and exploring. It's almost like having a dog. :)


And here's all of our interior doors. I will have to prime and paint the frames before we can put them in. So we'll still have a lot to do even after we move in this weekend. We won't have kitchen countertops, a kitchen sink, garage door, or doors inside, but we still can't wait to move!

The last house update. . . .

. . .at least the last one until after we're moved in. Saturday Steve and Jimmy worked on the wood floor and finished up the living room and hallway. All of our interior doors were delivered Friday, and I took a picture of all of the doors standing in our garage, and I forgot to get the picture off the camera.


They put in our porch posts, which I painted yesterday. I also painted some baseboards, which we didn't get around to getting in yet.



I painted our refrigerator. It was pretty easy, and I think it looks really good. Now it will match our other appliances. I was annoyed with Steve for taking this one. I don't like having my picture taken.


Here's our refrigerator after its makeover. It's made the transformation from Steve's grandma's frig to our refrigerator. I took this picture after it rained, so some dirt splattered on the bottom, so the little spots will come off.


Here's the porch posts after I painted them. Most of the anyway. It started raining, and I just need to get the ladder out there and paint the tops. The color is called Southern Shadow (from Glidden). It's the same color as our siding, but a few shades lighter. I know it looks white, but it's not. It's Souther Shadow. I feel better knowing it's a color besides white.




And Steve finished up the last of the wood floor this weekend. This is in the other hallway. He was getting irritated with me when I was taking these pictures. I'm very meticulous with things like this and having a pattern, or in the case of our wood floor, not having a pattern. I was giving him a hard time about the length of different pieces so it would look more random. I'm weird. We have two more boxes of flooring left that we can return, along with a bunch of other stuff we need to return to Lowe's and Home Depot. We should really get a frequent shopper discount or a punch card or something. But we've been able to use a lot of coupons and price matching. I think we've saved over $1000 just with coupons alone!

The proverbial light at the end of the tunnel. . .

We bought our fixtures for the spare bathroom, and all 3 sinks this weekend. We should be getting the rest of the fixtures this week and getting our plumbers back to finish. Steve bought our porch posts. Steve worked on the floors some this weekend. I vaccuumed all of the rooms in the house on Saturday. I'm finally seeing a light at the end of the tunnel! The long, dark, trying, long, discouraging, long tunnel.

Steve had a helper putting up siding this weekend. Josh came over and helped. I think he wanted to help mostly because he wanted to climb the ladder. And we all know I don't climb the ladder. Ladders, scary.

We got our refrigerator from Steve's grandma's house last fall. I spent Sunday afternoon cleaning it. Had I known it was so dirty, I would have cleaned a long time ago, but anyhoo here's the after picture. I won't show you the before pictures. I didn't take any. But if I did, they would give you nightmares. Really. It was super icky. But after lots of bleach, it looks great now. Now I want to paint the outside of it black to match the rest of our appliances. Maybe this weekend.

And here's the back of the house now after Steve, Josh, and Jimmy's work on the siding. Now we're out of siding. But it's close to almost done.



And the front of the house after Steve & Jimmy put up trim last weekend.

And for the last few days, these caterpillars have been everywhere at our house. There's dozens of them all over our garage and on the back and east side of the house.

Part canine and some house news

This is what greets us whenever we come home. A little blurry. She even seems to recognize our car. Every time I pull into the apartment complex, she jumps up, stretches, and runs to the door. Either she recognizes our car, or she does this every time any car pulls in. We went to the house last night to work on some stuff, and Steve wanted to take the cat. She loves riding in the car. I think there may be a dog in her family tree. She plays fetch, she does tricks, she loves to go for rides in the car. One of these days, I'm going to get a video of her doing her tricks and post it.

But anyway, we have electricity at our house now! And not just from an extension cord going out to the pole. Entergy came Monday morning and got it hooked up and put in our meter. And we have a septic tank. They haven't finished, but it's in the ground. Lots of things are happening at the Meeks house! It's a good thing too, because we have less than 3 weeks until we move in. We have a member at the credit union that says the following all the time. You know what the monkey said when the lawnmower ran over his tail: It won't be long now! :)

Countertops and other house news

We ordered our Corian countertops yesterday, and this is the color we decided on. It's called Eclispe. Unfortunately, it's going to be about 4 weeks before they will install that. But we get a free Corian sink, which I love! Today on our lunch break we looked at a plumbing place at fixtures. Wow! Fixtures are really expensive! Our septic tank should also be going in soon, maybe this week. Entergy is supposed to be coming back this week (for the third time now) to get our permanent electricity set up. We've just had a temporary pole with an extension cord going to the house. The first time Entergy came, our pipe wasn't buried deep enough. The second time our wires from the house were going where their wires were supposed to go. Hopefully this time, everything will be right.

We're so tired. . .

. . .but we got a lot done this weekend. I finished the bathroom tile in the master bathroom yesterday. Steve finished the tile in the spare bathroom Saturday.



Steve and Jimmy put up some trim on the outside of the house, which I forgot to take pictures of. They set all of the cabinets, stove, and dishwasher. Now we're ready for them to be measured for countertops, which I'll order today.

Who to vote for?

My mother in-law e-mailed this to me a few days ago. I thought it was pretty funny and just wanted to share. :)

Things are moving along quickly with our house. I ordered our dishwasher and stove last night at Lowe's. They deliver next day on most appliances, so that was really important for us. They should be arriving today, if they already haven't. Steve bought some more wood flooring and will be working on those and our finishing up our bathroom tile. I'm hoping he and Jimmy will finish our cabinets this weekend and put in the dishwasher and stove so I can order our cabinets. We've decided on Corian, and we'll also get a $675 Corian sink for free! I've been reading up on Corian, and have decided that will be the best thing for us. I've read mixed reviews online, but I think we're going to like it. I got some more plastic tube thingies for my chandelier. The ones that were on it were melting from the paint remover we were using. That really wasn't surprising, since it was burning my hands right through the gloves.

Happy Friday!