Destroying a Very Large Purchase



 

It's very stressful to renovate a house. We spent a lot of money to buy a cute little house then promptly started to destroy it. WHAT HAVE WE DONE?? 

Our living room (before)

Our kitchen (before). Hey, it actually looks pretty good in this photo. It could be the dim lighting...or the devilishly attractive female with the screwdriver.

 

But in the cold light of the flash...it's another story.

 

The other side of the kitchen. Note that one of the sinks is the size of a large hot dog. Who does that? 

 

Relaxing in our new kitchen

 

Laundry room off the kitchen

 

 

Demolition reveals a boarded up chimney that contained coal remnants and a toasty bird skeleton that Matthew relished showing Kellie and I.

 

So our first priorities are the kitchen and the floors. Those two things seemed good to get out of the way before we actually moved into the house. The floor refinisher starts tomorrow on the hardwood throughout the house, so that's one thing out of the way. Then we need to level the kitchen and dining room floor and pick an engineered hardwood to put down. We spent days getting up the Spanish tile, which was grouted to the cement board which was glued and screwed to the plywood underneath, so we might hire someone at this point to do the leveling.

 

The kitchen is interesting too. I think the chimney connected to the original kitchen stove, and the original kitchen was what is now the laundry room. I'm putting cupboards in the laundry room that match the new kitchen and taking out the sink behind the door and making it a pantry closet, basically turning the laundry room into a butler's pantry. Actually I just like saying "butler's pantry." I'm not sure if my laundry room qualifies as one. I'm a little nervous about the kitchen.

 

The basic idea

Except I don't like farmhouse sinks, or faucets that are hard to clean. Or those door pulls. Austin wants to go with white subway tile, but I worry that it's too much white. Plus everyone these days is doing a white kitchen with white subway tile. Too trendy?

We have a lot of decisions to make...any input is appreciated.

My Worst Nightmare

Goodbye, house!

 

A couple weeks ago, we decided to sell our house. My parents had some bad news about their health recently so we want to be closer to them, but also we have been wanting a change of pace and we both felt good about our decision. Anyway, we talked to some realtors who live up the street, decided the price they suggested sounded good, and told them we wanted to list it. That was on a Saturday.

 

Monday I started cleaning my entire house, spurred on by the thought of a professional photographer coming on Thursday to post photos of every corner of my house on the internet for hundreds of strangers to see. Actually photos aren't too bad. At least just the outside of things has to look clean. What really motivated me was the thought of total strangers coming into my house and poking around, starting Friday. It's like my worst nightmare to have someone walk into my bathroom and see how I really live when I haven't cleaned for a few days. Austin didn't really get why the fridge had to be cleaned out and my bathroom drawers cleaned and edited, but I watch HGTV, and I've been house hunting myself. People like to look in the fridge. They like to open bathroom drawers, they like to see what's in the closet. House hunting is an unprecedented opportunity/excuse to see behind the scenes in other people's lives.

 

When you sell a house, you should sell more than the actual home. You should sell the myth that if you live in this particular house, your fridge and bathroom drawers will be magically clean and organized, there will be no fingerprints on the walls and windows, and because everything is so clean, you will have plenty of time to sit on the artfully staged patio out back. 

 

In order for me to sell this myth along with our home, I basically ignored my children for four days as I painted the pink room back to the same color as the rest of the house, deep cleaned every corner, obsessively painted over chips in the walls, and packed up a lot of our less-used belongings. With my husband complaining that our house was like a museum where we weren't allowed to touch anything, we took off down to Provo and moved into my parents house while they jetted off on their adventures. It was perfect timing. We stayed there for a week and had a ton of showings back at the house. I didn't have to keep things clean or rush my kids out of the house. We came back Friday, took the best of the offers we received, and moved back in. So awesome.

 

My favorite moment of this experience came as we were sitting down at our kitchen table to sign our acceptance of an offer. As we were about to sign, we looked out our window and saw two people get out of their car and stand by our sign looking at the house. Our realtor saw them and jumped up and ran outside shouting back over his shoulder "Don't sign that offer yet!"

 

I think it was meant to be that we move now. Everything came together so nicely. We haven't really figured out what we're doing on the other end yet, but I'll keep you updated!

 

 

There and Back Again

We started out our summer peacefully, pulling weeds in the fresh mornings, taking luxurious naps in the lazy afternoons, and playing board games long into the quiet gloaming. Well, I got to take naps, anyway. Our relaxing/boring summers seem to rapidly morph into these massive journeys, and this year was no different. We left our mountain home in July and travelled to Nebraska, Paris, Venice, and Chicago before finally returning about a month later. I think we can all agree that the main point of going on vacations is so that you can bore people with your stories and pictures when you get back, and since that's the way its been for hundreds of years, I see no reason to break with tradition now.

Nebraska:

We loved hanging out with Nana and Poppy in Omaha, and our favorite thing to do there was playing by the lake. We almost always ended up being mermaids--Sammy gave Cici the mermaid name of Kayak, and her name was San Diego. She must have ran out of good names by the time she got to me, because I ended up with the name Trampoline. Austin turned 29!

Paris:

Paris didn't start off on a great foot. Our airport bus dropped us off at the Arc de Triomphe, and after we checked it out Austin thought it would be a good idea to give me the map and have me tell him what street we were supposed to walk down to get to our hotel.



That's the Arc in the middle

With my famed navigating skills, I managed to take us all the way around the massive traffic circle (under the scorching Paris sun) until we ended up one street away from where we had started. Oh man.



Look, we're really in Paris! Right after we took this picture, (probably as revenge for earlier annoyances,) Austin told me to look down at the river, where I was greeted by the sight of a hairy, Speedo-clad Parisian man soaking up the sun. Thanks, Austin. Now one of my lasting memories of Paris.

As part of our romantic vacation to Paris, Austin took us to the Sewer Museum. This is a picture of him standing by a display of stuffed rats. Basically, you pay money to walk around the sewers of Paris and like all museums, end up in a gift shop at the end. (With toy rats though.) I was very disappointed with their bathrooms. You would think the bathrooms in a sewer museum would be pretty incredible, but instead they were pretty gross. I came across an incredible variety of bathrooms during our travels. Someday I will write the coffee-table book, "Bathrooms of the World," and offer advance copies to any readers of this blog. !!!



Venice:

Ahhh, Venice! We got upgraded to a tower room...I never wanted to leave. I've always wanted to live in a tower.

Getting lost was actually kind of enjoyable in Venice. You can't go too far wrong on an island.

Goodbye, Venice! Back to the good ol' U.S.





On the way back, I discovered the real reason people like airport lounges: it's not the drinks, it's the airplane-shaped gummies.

I also discovered the real reason we went to Europe: so Austin could experience the new 747-8I business class on the way back. 



Chicago:

Hello Chicago!

Hello San Diego!

Thanks to Nana for staying with us in Chicago and for taking us fun places like the Children's Museum.

They expect a lot from the kids there.

Good thing I know a lot about sewers now.

And now back to our humdrum real life:

This is the Place???

The other night Austin and I took this quiz that is supposed to tell you places to live that you would really like. (The site asks for personal info at the very end, but I made that up and gave it my junk email address.) The first three places were in Washington State, where my hubby grew up. Then a lot of places in Pennsylvania, a few in New Hampshire, one in Alaska, one in Maine, a couple in New York, and a bunch more in Washington scattered throughout. I've been to Washington quite a few times, and it just isn't calling my name. New Hampshire definitely intrigues me, and we both liked upstate New York when we went on our massive road trip last summer. I just want to go to all these random towns and see if they are, in fact, the perfect place for us to live. I want to fall in love and know that the town we are living in is absolutely the town for us.

Do you think that there is a place out there that is a perfect match for you? Or could you just move anywhere and love it if you made enough effort? I think the perfect place would have lots of trees, four seasons, a fun community vibe, some cultural things going on, good friends, good schools, and family nearby.

The family thing is really important to us, but also very limiting, because our family lives in places that we like, but don't love. Of course we love being close to family, so it's hard to know what to do. Do we live in a nice, albeit uninspired place, or search for that one special town and then figure out how to get our family to move close to us? Choices, choices.

Early Morning When I Wake Up, I Look Like Kiss

...but without the makeup. I'm a homemaker. What do I do all day? Here's an average day for me.

6:30 am: Cici wakes up, Sammy wakes up, we eat breakfast, read scriptures, get dressed.
7:30 am: Exercise--walk w/ girls or Wii Fit, or just clean up supper from the night before.
8:00 am: Cici down for morning nap, I shower, read books with Sammy, clean up, do prep work for other meals, sometimes Sammy watches a show while I shower (Television, the universal symbol of parenting failure. Oh well.) we listen to music, I check email, blogs, read the online news for the day, and/or work outside on our lawn.
10:00 am: Snack time, Cici wakes up, feed her, play with girls, work on project
du jour (usually sorting something) email people back, make phone calls
11:00 am: Lunchtime!
11:30 am: Naptime for Sammy! Cici and I hang out, I read books or blog
12:00 pm: Cici down for nap, I read scriptures and take a nap (Both vital! A nap is not a luxury!) Sometimes I write in journal or blog, watch a Tivo'd show, or read a book. (Just finished reading Amy Chua's "Tiger Mother." Must be a tougher Mom!) This is my rejuvenation time when both the girls sleep. When this doesn't happen, I get grouchy.
2:30 pm: Both girls wake up around this time. Snack time! We run to the library, grocery store, or park. Dinner prep, last minute tidy up before Austin gets home, I primp a little.
5:00 pm: Supper time!
5:30 pm: Family hang out time, walks, errands, bathtime, play with girls, read books, etc. Sometimes we clean up supper.
6:30 pm: Bedtime prep starts. Cici gets last feeding, girls in jammies, Sammy teeth brushed, songs, prayer. Cici gets plopped in crib; Mom counts Sam's bedtime rountine as part of Cici's.
7:00 pm: Blissful silence, punctuated by Sammy talking to herself and finding excuses to get out of bed.
8:00 pm: Girls more asleep. Mom and Dad hang out, watch tv, read, work on projects, etc.
10:00 pm: Sweet sleep! (unless I'm reading a really good book)

p.s. I noticed that I put exclamation marks for most naps and meals. I guess that's because we really like to eat and sleep