Chim Chim Cheree

Well, out of the blue we decided to restone the fireplace. It had always been in the plans to someday do but I didn't expect it anytime soon. So it was a pleasant surprise when Danny told me to start getting ideas of what I wanted a fireplace to look like. *A special thanks to Pinterest for all the wonderful ideas!

Here's our wonderful stone guy. So talented! Not much English but we made do. I'm convinced Danny can make friends with any blue collar worker. He watched him work and found out half of his life story. I stayed in the kitchen and worked on Christmas crafts.

Here's before . . .                                                                          and here's after! What a difference, huh?!

 

One more picture with the mantle on. Danny hung the mantle himself with a tip he said he got from a conversation he had with one of my friend's on facebook. So BIG thanks to Daniel Vath for that tip bit! And while I'm at it . . . thanks to my Papa for the railroad tie from his wonderland of junk! :)

Floors Again?

We were told by several sources that the beautiful wood floor that I loved was not good to live in. It was meant to be the sub floor. Hence, why air came through it and the whole house shook when you walked. Sadly, I agreed to look at new flooring . . .  if the price was reasonable. Finally, after searching and searching, buying and trying, and a few mishaps along the way we found the perfect deal.

At first, we were talked into laminate flooring. However, it wasn't as easy to install as they promised, even for my talented, do-it yourself husband. And I personally thought it looked too fake. It would look good in a brand new house, but not our simple country house. It's just not our style. I like authentic looking - remember I'm use to solid wood.

So we left that place, drove out to a place in Mesquite, and Danny talked me in to buying the next to lowest grade floor they had. (That sounds like a ridiculous thing to do. But have you even seen Danny excited about an idea, he just looks so cute! Who could say no to that?!)  He had resourced that type of flooring ON THE INTERNET!!! (BY HIMSELF!) It had good reviews, they just commented that it has more knots than a higher grade wood. However, since we were planning on staining the wood those extras knots should give it more "character". I decided I could trust him, he hadn't led me wrong yet. And it was by far the cheapest. (I like saving money when I can.)

Alright, now we get to go through the sanding, staining, sealing process again . . . this time, we get to install it as well. Here we go:

Here's all the wood.

This is the installed mat we put down first. We used duct tape to put it down. However, we ran out pretty fast. Lucky for us, I had PINK duct tape on hand! :)

Here's how the floor is installed. It's a nail gun that puts the nails in at a slant so that you don't see them. I thought that was pretty cool. And as fun as this tool looks it's not that easy to use. I couldn't quite hit it hard enough and almost messed up the board trying. So we let Danny do that part; I just helped line the boards up.

Remember BamBam from the Flintstones? Don't you think he'd love a tool like this? Too bad we couldn't get him to do our floors.

Here's what the floors look like finished and up close!

Touch Ups

We had some paint touch ups that we wanted to fix before we finished the floors.

Note to self: When doing touch ups make SURE you have the right color (especially when you've used a slightly darker color in another room)! When your gut tells you it's NOT going to dry much lighter STOP and don't keep on painting.

The end.

P.S. I've now gone through and labeled our paint lids with which rooms we've painted that color with. Hope this helps :)

What Color Would You Pick?

This was the original door, and the star window on the door was one of the things I loved about the house when Danny was looking at houses. However, like many things in our house, when we fixed "A", "B" went wrong. And thus, the door would no longer close after the frame was adjusted.

 I really wish I had taken pictures of how we had to "lock" the door for several weeks by wedging a screwdriver through the door handle to keep the door shut and "locked" while we were gone. What a sight! It was a wonder no one broke in. God was definitely watching over us those weeks!

All that to say, we got a new door . . .

. . .  and now, several months later, we (or actually I) need to paint it. It has to have some coat because we bought it on discount without primer or the base. The question is what color?  Danny's no good at this. He says this is my area. So I decided to use my resources. And with that being said . . .

What color would YOU suggest our front door be?

Red - to pull out the color in our red tin roof and match many color themes in our house

Brown - to match the outside trim and someday shutters

White - to match the siding and keep the look simple

I like things to match, so no John Deer green or bright orange. No thank you! I'm probably gonna stick with one of these basic colors. I just can't decide if I want it to POP or blend in.

Oh, and as much as I love Texas I'm NOT going to paint our door like the TX flag. I'm just saying. That would be too much!

Thanks! Your opinions are appreciated!



Let There Be Light

I know it's been a few weeks (or months) since the front porch was built, slowly but surely. The light fixture box no longer has to slide around in the back of my car! We have a porch light! And a beautiful one at that!



  

Don't you LOVE the way it shines!!! You think that's great it's even better in person! 

~It's the simple things in life that make me smile.

Our Attic is PINK!

Our heating bill was ridiculous last winter. So we've spent the last year "preparing for the winter," like farmers from the 1800s. Anything we've heard that keeps your electricity down, we've tried, within our budget. That leads us to our next blog . . .  Insulating the attic:

Check out that good-looking man! Here Danny is putting up those beams across the top. I don't think it has anything to do with insulating the house but it's needed to better support the house. ? - Details go over my head, I just take the pictures and try to write about it.

Ok, now that the prep work is done we can get into the insulating part. There is where my job comes into play. You take the pink bags and cut them into half. (There's a dotted cut-here line, like in school that shows you the way)

I'm not gonna lie, it takes more strength than you think. And this wasn't the sit back, read a book job that I thought it was going to be. I was constently moving, cutting, and loading this stuff into the machine. Danny even agreed that my job was more work. However, Danny knew best where all the insulation needed to go and how much was needed, and I was more likely to fall through the ceiling.

*Notice the gloves I insisted to have on. This stuff makes you itchy if you touch it. My dad told me that with our attic when I was a kid. But it was pink and fluffy, it couldn't be that bad. I now know for sure that it is. I wear gloves. End of story.

Next, you put half the package in this machine that we rented from Home Depot. The machine mixes it all around and spits it into the small tube at the bottom.

Good ol' Pink Panther shows you the instruciton on the package.

Final result: the pink fluffy stuff comes out of the tube and fills your attic up until it looks like pink snow!



From Our Front Porch Looking In

 

 We finally made it to redoing the front porch. One of the areas Danny looked forward to the most. He thought about it and talked about it forever. Something about the uneven waffer board Danny didn't like. I dunno why, but being the good wife that I am I agreed to redo the porch. Even if that meant the fake bricks had to go. Bummer!

So here lies the remains of our deck. R.I.P.

Danny got excited when he finally decided what weekend he was going to fix the porch. He gutted most of the porch and built the main beams that would be needed that weekend. He did this on Tuesday. That left us without a porch for 4 days.

Here's the maze we got to hop through during that week.

I sprained my ankle one night, showing off, trying to be an arcobat. Still hurts when I move it certain ways. And it's been a month and a half!

(Um Jessica, next time you're in town if you want to take a look at it. I'll buy you ice cream :). )

This job required more help than I could provide. I'm thankful we had more suitable helping hands. I sat in the yard with my mother-in-law while we talked, watched them put the porch together, and I put on my make-up. It was a really beautiful day! And the guys did an awesome job.

Here's our finished porch, all ready for fall!

After a long debate on what type of wood to use, we decide to try out Trex. A board that is made out of recycled plastic (we're so green) that claims to never rot, crack or slinter. A high saler for us was that it is water-resistent and promises to never need repainting or staining. Normally I want the real thing verses fake. But this did have a lot of pros and seemed more maintance free. And yet still had the authentic wood grain look of real deal.

And now meet Scara, our friendly scarecrow, who greets our guests.

 

And here's one more look side by side at the before and after.

Well and actually a true before picture would show how we switched the door and the window.

New Siding

When we first mentioned getting our house resided, some people's reactions were "Oh really? Why?"

Soo, here are some pictures of what the old siding looked like to help explain why we made the decision that we did.

. . . Besides the fact that we had holes that allowed air-conditioning to escape.

Mmmm, gotta love that look, huh?!



Yeah . . .

      

Ehh!

Ok, whoever lived here before us did a lot of strange things. One of those things was cover up one of the windows. I understand that the sun does rise on that side which makes it pretty bright. However, There's a great new invention called blinds and thick curtains that helps with this problem, and won't leave the outside of your house looking off-centered.

I'm a very Asymmeterical person. I like things looking even. So I suggested that before we got new siding and were already replacing windows, why not just add a window where there should be a window, and probably once was. I got lucky. Danny said ok.

The back of our house now has two nicely proportioned windows.

Oh, and even more reason to reside the house. :)

Now , the moment you've all been waiting for:

Ta Da!   A thousand times better. LOVE the new siding!

Um, minus the water bottle left in the yard, and of course, the old porch which will soon be replaced.

Red Neck Window Repair

Before we could get new siding, we wanted to replace all the windows that were old and no good for various reasons.

 This one lovely window was giving Danny the hardest time to pull out. Most of the windows we replaced came out with enough effort and force. This window, however, was held down strong by nails and would not budge. So Danny scratched his head and then, being the creative man that he is, decided to pull it out with his all powerful Jeep.

As you can see, it worked!

No misson is too impossible for a Mayberry!

P.S. And that's why I'm a Mayberry ;)

Our little Island

We finally added an island to our kitchen. The "original" kitchen had an island and that was one of the things we really loved. We decided when we cleaned out the kitchen that we would someday build an island back into the kitchen.

You may not be able to see this now, but this is Danny's old desk. His parents brought it by our house one day and he really didn't want it . . . I say yes to everything. Bad habit. - I'm getting better though. With Danny's help I'm learning the word "No".-  I thought it would look nice in the guest room. Danny had other plans. He came to me with the idea of turning it into an island for the kitchen. (I wish I had a picture of what the deck looked like before, bummer.) Not really convinced, he did his best to show, draw, and explain to his visual wife what it was going to look like when it was done.

Long story short-ish, he raised the deck to the same height of our other cabinets, we added on so I'd have a place for a trash can, and my amazing man added an electrical plugs for easy cooking. :) Oh and we added paneling around it to better blend where we extended the desk.

Danny wanted to put those angle things on which I wasn't really crazy about . . . until we found TX star ones. Then I was game. The Texas star makes everything better looking, doesn't it?!!

I'm all about convenience, so I made the suggestion to install a pull out drawer for the trash can. Genius! We both love it! It's our favorite feature. Thanks Lowes!

Oh, where the big (non-hanging) pots, and pie pans are all crammed, will someday be nice organized shelves. They are already marked off just haven't built them yet. :(

The island in all it's glory! :)

It's all starting to come together.

In case you were wondering, this picture has nothing to do with the island but I just really liked it and thought I'd throw it in for your viewing pleasure.

2-Stepping Through Our Kitchen Remodeling

Remodeling the kitchen has been like a country 2-step dance. The steps are simple and the music is slow but put the two together and I still end up getting off beat. We knew what we wanted to do to the kitchen (well, ha, the whole house for that matter) but throw in time and money (a lot) and it starts to get a little off beat. :) But it's all getting done and so worth the dance!

 Well if you saw the last kitchen post, you'll remember that the kitchen was completely gutted! I can happily say that took place BEFORE we got married and moved in! The next step was to put in new cabinets, a sink, & dishwasher. A shout out to both of our dad's for their skill in helping with that! And now here am I with my first, but far from the last, staining project.

 Danny's helping stain the cabinets while I get the doors.

 Ta da! Here's our humble little cooking area!

 And here, we've added some backsplash, AND my favorite part . . .  our double oven, stovetop! We saved up for 6 months to get that, and used my grandma's old electric skillet (that even SHE didn't use anymore ha) in the meantime!! Talk about having creative meals when you can only microwave and use an electric skillet. It's was like college all over ago, although I'm pretty sure I had better facilities in college. :) Even though I don't cook now as much as a good Harding wife (ha) should,  I do appreciate it very very much . . .  and so does Danny ;)


The dance isn't over yet, keep looking for more kitchen updates. Trust me it gets better! :)