Moving right along...With the Help of Family

Woke up early this morning because it was a planned day to work on the house :-) Candace and I got everyone that was going to be helping (my mom, her mom, and her little brother, Christopher) free breakfast from Wendy's (compliments of Candace's good fortune). I must add Christopher was quite pumped to find out he could order WHATEVER he wanted. Anyways, today was an extremely productive day: 3 bedrooms, the hallway, and the living room ceilings are COMPLETELY painted and that dreaded 2nd coat was not that bad after all and really made a difference, 2 coats of paint down and one to go for "The Office" and "The Master" (we had to go ahead and name the rooms because everyone was getting confused as to where we were doing work), and spackling and caulking in the rooms that wouldn't get painted. The office is the smallest of the 3 bedrooms while, the master is the room that will greatly be missed the most because it no longer has the beautiful, alternating purple stripes : ( jk. Insanely enough after 2 coats of Sherwin Williams on the walls, a 3rd is still needed. Having a different brand to go in our bedrooms, I foresee as a good thing, because it will give Candace and I the ability to judge which brand we will prefer to paint with in the future (we're using Valspar, said to be excellent, in our Bathroom, Kitchen, and Living Room/Hallway areas). 

While we were painting we had two visitors that stopped by for the first time. Candace's granny and her sister Cheryl came over. This was the first time that they had seen the house and they seemed to like it along with the changes that we were making. While they were looking around Candace's granny commented on the light that was in the kitchen, she said that she liked it. Candace and I had plans of taking it out and putting in a ceiling fan along with recessed lighting in the kitchen. We had put the light on Craigslist because it was too good of a light to just throw away but, no one has called about it. However today we found a good home for it! Candace's granny said that she wanted it!! We are happy that it will be getting some use!!

While they were there they noticed that we were in need of a small step ladder, rather than lugging the big, one room to another. So they went to Wal-Mart and brought us back a sturdy and reliable new step ladder. The ladder was put straight to use the moment we received it! ----> (our new ladder on the right!:-)

Sonja has painted countless rooms in her lifetime, I think that she enjoys painting, but regardless Candace and I were very thankful for her help. She kept us on track and we were able to get all of what we had hope to accomplish and had a little fun while doing it!

I wrote this because I love Candace Lacey Craycraft HOWEVER this is Charlie, Christopher, Cathryn AND CL's initials as well! lol

Bradford Pear Trees!

I pulled into the driveway yesterday and right off the bat the Bradford Pear trees in the front yard caught my eye!! They are in full boom and gorgeous!!

I'm thankful that we have them! :)

Backporch Sunset

This was the view from the back porch!! It was just so pretty that I had to take a picture! :) :)



Just Because I'm a women doesn't mean I'm dumb!





All of the windows in our house are new(er) Champion Windows, except for the kitchen window. So I call Champions last week and set a time up for them to come and give me a estimate on the window in the kitchen. I also wanted them to asses what was wrong with the window in the master bedroom (there was mold-looking dirt in between the panes). They sent out a younger guy who really could not tell me what was causing the buildup in the panes of the windows but he did tell me that the only window we needed to replace (the kitchen one) was going to cost $1300. <---That's no typo... It was the cost of the ONE standard window in the kitchen but, WE WERE IN LUCK... because we had all Champion windows we were going to receive a discount, and it would then bring the cost to $830 (haha, some discount). I felt this was a little steep! I then went home and looked up the cost of a similar window at Lowe's and there brand, Pella windows, was going to cost $230 dollars. After my research I easily affirmed my "a little steep" conclusion to hold true. The major price difference led me to believe I was slightly being taken advantage of. Needless to say Clayton and I have decided that we will not be going with Champion windows. It's astounding to me that salesman think people these days (especially young ones) are still naive to the price on things given the numerous resources we have at our fingertips for comparison purposes. Oh well, live and learn!

Goes On Purple Dries White!

The ceilings weren't in total need of being painting however, since we are painting the walls we figured that that we would go ahead and paint the ceilings while we were at it. Clayton and I picked up three gallons of Valspar ceiling paint that painted on purple and but dried white. We thought that this would be a good idea so that we could see where the paint was going. We found out the level of difficulty of judging where you've painted to be pretty high when trying to paint his parent's living room ceiling back when we remodeled their house for their Christmas 2010 present.

Patrick offered to come and help paint! WHAT A BLESSING THIS WAS!! Jaclyn, Patrick's girlfriend came too and I had to agree with Clayton, who mentioned the wonderful job she did taping the plastic drop cloth down, because she did. We (I say we even though I didn't paint; I'm too short for the ceiling) got a lot accomplished with painting the first coat on the three bedrooms and the living room. The ceiling took the paint in like a dry sponge does to water (therefore, the 2nd coat, which Clayton was trying to avoid because he loves painting that much, is totally inevitable)! If you've ever painted alone, then you know it's on the same "fun level" as sitting there watching it dry once you're finished (no fun AT ALL)! It was a lot more enjoyable to have Patrick and Jaclyn there to help Clayton and I even though some "accidents" happened; I think that Patrick went home with more paint on him than the ceiling did! Jaclyn thought that it was funny to take the paint brush and paint him (on total accident)! Coincidental, at the very least, given our total conversation before hand consisted of someone, if not everyone, would end the night with paint on them...

While the boys were painting, Jaclyn and I decided to paint the flowerpots that Clayton and I picked up at the Waddy Dump(Free)! A couple of Saturdays ago Clayton and I took a load of renovating trash to the dump and while we were pulling out he just so happened to glance over at the concrete pile and noticed two flowerpots. From the view of the truck they seemed to be in good enough shape to stand up and with some paint would look great. We both got out of the truck to pick up the matching flowerpots and put them into the bed of the truck. For whatever reason free stuff always seems to be better!!

With a pint of paint that Patti(Clayton's mom) bought while she was at Lowe's Jaclyn and I took the two pots in the grass and painted them and a lil bit of the grass :-). When we were finished they looked awesome!

Patrick and Jaclyn's help not only got things accomplished while having fun it was also GREATLY APPRECIATED!!!

Thank You Mom!

My mom (Sonja) spent a few hours patching some dings, imperfections, and sanded the walls. This is something that Clayton and I don't really enjoy doing! So we are very thankful that she did us a favor and came over to do those tidious tasks!! While she was doing this my brother, Christopher, made a few friends outside that he played basketball with. When the boys came back over my

Mother informed the kids that Clayton and I loved supporting fund raisers!! --Thank you mom, now every kid is going to stop by and want us to buy things such as popcorn, cookie dough, wrapping paper, candles and much more!! lol Besides that, thank you Mom for your help!!!

Our 1st Piece of Mail!!!

Today we pulled up to the house and I decided to check the mail. Candace and I were both unsure if we need to contact the post office or not until we opened the mail box and found mail inside! Our 1st piece of mail we got from our realtor, that we couldn't so enough positive things about, a card that she had sent us just wishing well and hoping that everything we were wanting to do with the house was going great :-) Thanks Lisa!

On a side note, the address is something we are both going to have to get use to because last weekend we went to a home renovation expo down in Louisville and when we would enter for drawings we would both mess up about every other time putting our, I guess you could say, old address. I must admit this whole "having your own house" has yet to FULLY set in but, I've got a feeling that the sensation will hit me once our renovations are complete and Candace and I can lay down for our first night's sleep in what will be our very own home!

Sweet Smells!!

Clayton and I both love candles.  When we had our apartment from time to time Patrick's Mom, Jackie, would give us candles and we TOTALLY LOVED that.  Now that we haven't been in our own place for a while we seriously have missed not having a candle burning all. the. time.  But, that's no longer going to be missed thanks to Jackie once again :-).  We now have 12 different candles that we can burn in our new home.  THANKS JACKIE you're gift for our new home was AMAZING and will TOTALLY be burned to its fullest!!! YAY!!!:)

One thing that has to change...

For the last couple of night we have not only been working on the house but also eating fast food. Tonight Clayton and I ate White Castle, becuase it was convenient. While we were eating I got to thinking of all the money, if we keep eating out, that we will end up spending just on fast food. Not only is it costly but its also NOT healthy!! So something has to change.....Yes, I want to finish the house but, I don't want to gain 15lbs along with the completion!! So we are going to bring over a mircowave and start taking over food. This way we can eat, not only healthier but, cheaper too.

--However on a postive note Clayton discoved that White Castel has a hot sause that he calls "chronic." He also made sure I knew for "Next time you get food there make sure you pick some up for me; its good"

Pretty Keys!

I just couldnt restist!! When I went and had our new house keys to go with the new locks that we had to install, I didn't want just any key I wanted a "cute" or "pretty" key not just for myself but Clayton as well. So naturally I got a pink Princess Key and a camo key for Clayton. But I didn't stop there I got Charlie my brother a camo key, Patti a tinkerbell key, and a pink polka dot key for the spare!

The Almost Finished Hole!!

Today was my first official day of Spring Break. No, I wasn’t on a beach getting a tan, I was at Lowes; for about three hours! There I priced appliances, flooring, and cabinets! Not sure if we will be getting all of our materials’ from there because I am going to take the estimates that I got today and compare it to other companies tomorrow. I just want to make sure that Clayton and I are getting the best deal along with the biggest bang for our buck! While I was there pricing cabinets they gave me a draw up of what our kitchen would look like with the new cabinets along with the HOLE in the wall is so neat looking; I just love it! !!

Yes, Yes, Yes! The hole in the kitchen wall was my idea!!! And it just THRILLS me that Clayton fell in love with my idea as much as I did.:) Not everyone thought that it was a good idea…but in the end it was something that we both wanted and liked. When we left on Sunday night the studs were still in the wall and needed to still be removed. Today, Patrick came over to help us remove the three studs along with help us prepare for the walls to be painted. The boys (Clayton, Patrick and Clayton’s dad, GW) removed the studs but also ran into a few minor electrical issues so while they handled that I tapped off the bedrooms so that we could be ready to paint!

Sounds super easy putting tape around the trim work in each rooms…well….it wasn’t a problem until I got to the master bedroom. The walls are currently painted in PURPLE stripes……UGH!! I was so sick and tired of looking at purple by the end of the night!! All I could think about while I was tapping the bedroom was BARNEY! ! It made me recall some of the old Barney VHS’s I had as a child along with some of the songs that he sang…. “I love you, you love me …”

At the end of the night Asher and Katie came over to check the house out and while he was there we had him answer a few questions that we had concerning flooring (He's a professional tiler <--if that's even a word). Not only did Asher answer the questions we had but he also broke AND fixed the back door! The door didn't necessarily break but the newly installed door knob came OFF. The washer that locked the door knob on to the plate somehow came off and we just had to secure it back on there. It was TRUELY a blessing that this happened!! Lol:)

After everyone had left Clayton and I, looked around at the drywall dust on the ground, peeled back flooring, and the mess of tools around us and smiled! Nothing in life is easy but at the end the reward is always worth the effort put into it! It’s not going to be smooth sailing from here on but, having the support of each other, family and friends to back us is what we are going to use to make it all come together.

- - - Start your Renovation Engines - - -

Things NEVER happen this way! We started renovations last night and when it comes to major projects like this I LIVE BY A GAME PLAN, a SPECIFIC game plan. Well, we had an overall game plan on what we wanted to do (replace the cabinets, tile the kitchen floors, put a hole in the wall from the kitchen to the living room, etc.) but a specific one, like I’d PREFER, was not present! Renovations started and to me it seemed almost if we were doing things that we should not but, why would I complain… things were getting done. We started on a part of our renovations that I didn’t think we would begin for at least another week (the hole from kitchen to the living room which you can see from our pictures; need I remind you this was my FIRST ever major home renovation so what exactly did I know what needed to go first) but, to my surprise the spontaneity (something I enjoy in other aspects of my life) of this projects beginning went over surprising well. My Dad, I, and even Candace put work in on cutting the main frame of the hole out, that will give us an opening from our kitchen to our living room; something we are totally pumped to have! We definitely feel it makes the house have an open feeling.








Once we finished with the start of a project, I had no idea we were even going to do, we finally got into what I had set out to be the start of our official renovations. The kitchen cabinets, which I found to be OAK under the white paint, were quite easy to remove. We simply unscrewed the 1-3 screws which held the cabinets into the wall, cut through the caulk, removed the quarter round or crown molding around the cabinets and then pulled them away from the wall.

Although this was Candace and I's first day to many more days of renovations I have to give a big thank you to- my Dad and another thank you - to Mom (she was the photographer for the night) because I would not have had the courage to complete the hole without my Dad and would not have the pleasure of posting the pictures without my Mom taking them. It was also nice to have the first of our friends over in our house (LaDonna and Derrick). Of course, you’re probably wondering what Candace had to do with this entire 1^st day, well the pictures show how she helped, but more IMPORTANTLY the hole between the kitchen and the living room was HER idea! And what an AWESOME idea it was (more props to come to Candace as we continue to finish this)!

SOLD!!

Rain rain go away….Yup we had to wait on the rain to go away so that we could get a picture of the two of us in front of the house with the SOLD sign. And because Lisa is so awesome, she met us at the house today with a sold sign so that we could have a picture.

Once we were finish taking our “Sold” picture we went inside to assess the colors that we had sample painted the walls. The yellow turned out to be perfect!! I am in totally love with the shade of yellow that we had picked out!! However, the blue that we painted in the living room was a little to –blueeee- I feel that if we were to paint the whole wall that color it would jump out and yell at anyone who was to walk through the front door. The both of us still want blue however, we think it would be best to lighten it just a little bit so that it’s not so blue. The green we had picked out for the bathroom turned out to be the right shade of green that we were hoping for.  We'll be posting paint sample pics shortly!  Let us know what you think.

I know our picture overtakes the page... Sorry but, we just loved it and it was such a good picture. : )

Paint, Paint and More Paint!!

Paint, Paint, Paint!! I just love looking at all the paint samples! It makes me excited to think about all the colors that we are going to paint our house! Since everything can’t be a different shade of PINK (like my dream Barbie house) I have decided to compromise with Clayton. Clayton got out of class early and I met him at Lowes, we were going to buy full gallons of paint since this coming week we're on Spring Break but, instead the paint guy talked us into buying small samples of the paint color we wanted so that we could then paint a small square on the wall to insure that we will like the colors. We decided to buy yellow for the kitchen called “tulip”- - - a pale blue for the living room and hallway called “bed n’ breakfast”- - - and a green for the bathroom called “aloe vera”. The both of us couldn’t wait to see what the colors would look like so we by-passed being upset about not having had our official "sold" picture (the picture you take in front of your house after it's officially yours) and went on to the house and painted three squares. While I was painting the yellow square in the kitchen I decided right away that I didn’t like it. It looked way too pale. However, the way the paint goes onto the walls vs. the way the paint looks when it dries can be totally different (and it was). When the yellow started to dry and show the color that it was truly going to be I started to fall in love with it!

Our 1st Gift for Our New Home!

After Clayton and I got done signing papers at the bank I came back to Clayton's mom and dad's house to finish some homework that I had forgot about. Opps! Patti wanted to hear how everything went at the bank and then said that she had a gift for me. She reached behind her back and gave me a stack of bright YELLOW towels that she had picked up at Target to put in my soon to be yellow kitchen! :) She had been listening to how I wanted a yellow kitchen and decided to buy me my 1st accent pieces to go into my kitchen!! This made me ever more excited about the house and less focused on my homework that was due in an hour!

After we had dinner at our new house we then went to my brother Christopher's basketball game. My mom also decided to give us a gift as well. Since she knows what a sweet tooth the both of us have she decied to give Clayton a box of peanut butter cookies and I got a bag of lemonheads! While on our way home this is when I came to conclusion that not only will I have a YELLOW kitchen but, I am also going to have a lemon and lime theme.

Our 1st Dinner!

Our 1st dinner in the house!!

Believe it or I was the one who cooked/prepared Clayton and I's first dinner, lol (half bacon and banana peppers ((Claytons side)) and half pineapple ((my side))!!! I went and picked up a pizza from Papa John's in Shelbyville and some Blackberry wine and we ate dinner in the living room with the pizza, few napkins, a bottle of wine, two glasses and one smiling happy couple--no tv, chairs, plates or noise. It was so peaceful and nice just to look around and know that the house was now ours! This was the happiest either one of us had been while eating on the floor! :)

The Day has FINALLY come!

The roller coaster has now reached it's climax! Yet the flips, turns, stops, and fast forwards to this point have been full of climatic times all their own; the FINAL climax has been reached. :-) We can honestly say The Ride along the way was fantastic and much more exhausting than anticipated; the FINALE to it all takes the cake!

If you are curious as to what this "roller coaster ride" is all about (and if the Blog Title did not give it completely away) then this will surely give you the idea... Today was the day that Candace and I became homeowners and the picture above is of the keys to our 1st house!

Now that our 1st ride is now finished and we are ready to tackle the projects (paint, tile, hardwood, etc.) before we fully move in to Our Very Own Home! We, as soon to be married couple, view this blog as a way to keep track of the projects we accomplish and changes we make to our 1st house for everyone to see. (This blog is mainly something I wanted to do because Candace loves a physical scrapbook so that's something she's going to do as well!)

The Ride

Renting is something that we knew we didn't want to do for long (as frugal as the two of us are together; throwing our money away to rent with no return was useless). Our ultimate goal: find a house we could put some TLC into, "flip it," and sell it for enough profit to have a down payment for some land where we could build a house.


We could have NEVER predicted in our wildest dreams what we would go through before we found the perfect realtor and the perfect house (that fit our shoestring budget).

Our search for a house was quite minimal at first (due to us not being engaged played the biggest part in our slow start) where we started looking for houses around Louisville close to the apartment we were in at the time (roughly August 2009) which was conveniently located 10 minutes from UofL's campus (a big deal for two full-time students). A handful of houses seen and a realtor that stiffed us on showing us a house we were extremely interested about later we were derailed on our house hunt. School took priority and our house hunt remained idle for roughly 6 months before we started hunting again.


We got ahold of another realtor when we completely changed our house hunt for houses in Shelbyville. Getting engaged and moving back home helped us realized that in the end (after college and once we were married) we wanted to live in Shelbyville. It's where we both grew up and we both think it is where we will always live. The 2nd realtor that helped up during our search was friendly and seemed to care but was extremely hard to get ahold of we were never sure why but, after struggling to get just a couple house showings with her we decided to part ways and take the house hunt into our own hands. (Final conclusion on why we couldn't get ahold of her was the dollar value of the houses we were looking at. We were obviously looking at houses under $125k and that was well below her average sale price. That being understood on our end we knew we needed to find someone who had interest in US finding our first house that fit us BEST and not just forcing us into a house that would END our search.


A few days after we decided to search on our own we finally got in contact with a realtor, who from start to finish, was PERFECT (was flexible with our schedules, we could contact anytime and actually get ahold of her, built our house hunting knowledge, actually CARED about what we wanted in a house, and most importantly was PATIENT!!! Buying a house is a big-time life changing decision and we wanted to make sure we got the right house before we decided 100%. A shout out to LISA PHILLIPS for being the best realtor known who is extremely helpful, knowledgeable, and patient (3 things extremely hard to find in a competitive industry as real estate is.) When I say patiences, I mean PATIENCES, Candace and I viewed/researched into roughly 30+ houses that caught our eye, were in a good location, had an appealing price, and/or had an amount of land (enough to have a garden; my dream) that was alluring to us. Oh, I almost forgot, a place that had potential for making money on after the sweat equity we were willing to put into. Through those standards in a house we were looking for, Lisa kept pace with us the whole way and never got discouraged from our fickleness to decide 100% on a house that we would be excited about but the final approval from our parent's would not pass 100% surety.


With the hunt in full and many houses failing to receive 100% approval across the board; we find THE house. This house had it all: land (with garden potential), all brick, under our price range, sweat equity possibility, and in an area that after few years from now could be easy to sell a house in. After we (Candace, her parents, my parents, and I) racked our brains about being 100% we informed Lisa we were ready to offer... and come to find out so were 5 OTHER buyers. Lisa, keeping her modus operandi (words I learned this semester that stand for what you hear detective's refer to as "m.o."), she informs us that when multiple offers are on the table the most appealing bid typically wins. With that info on our minds we now had to come up with the best offer (thinking of repairs and what we wanted to earn down the line) so we decided on an amount a few thousand OVER the asking price which we thought set our offer apart more than any other offer because surely no one would offer much more than what we did on that house.
Thinking we had the house because of our confident offer we started brain storming what we would do to the house and we took a trip to Lowe's to start pricing different items we would need to purchase (that confidence came back to bite us where the sun don't shine.) We lost THE house. Someone offered more than we did. Completely crushed and disheartened we put the serious hunt off for a couple weeks. When we finally got over what had happened and started realizing that THINGS HAPPEN FOR A REASON we started finding other houses we liked again and would continue to explore (in the back of our minds we secretly kept hope between the two of us that something would bring the first house we fell in love with back to us).


A few weeks after our search picked back up from the "debbie downer" incident with our "1st House Love," we found another one. The one we quickly fell in love with it's charm. It was an older home with hardwood floors throughout (a characteristic we knew we could bring out in the house from just refinishing my parents hardwood floors two weeks prior to viewing this house), old woodwork, a basement, sweat equity potential, "grow in to" potential (we could be comfortable there with 2 kids,) AND it was up the street from my parents, to some that wouldn't appeal, but I did because it would save me money; I could do without cable, washer and dryer, and dinner on most nights by just going to my parents when needed :-). So we were set once again with approval from both parents that this house was IT... and best of all we were the only buyers putting an offer in. I sign the paperwork for the offer to be submitted and it is sent in.


Then the tornado of emotions start the very next day...
Lisa calls me and that hope that I mentioned eariler came back to life!!! She informed me that the listing agent on our "1st House Love" contacted her to see if we were still interested (of course we were) in the house because the financing fell through on the previous buyer (the person who's bid was higher than ours). Not jumping on the opportunity, I told Lisa I would need to talk it through with Candace because we had fallen for the house up the street from my parents just as much as our 1st house. Lisa then let's me know that the house is going to be open to US ONLY and if we offer the asking price the seller would cover the closing costs.<-- that right there sold me on giving up our 2nd love for our 1st but, this decision was going to be made between Candace and I together. We talked through it and after tough deliberation we decided to go with the house that we FIRST fell in love with and lost and now getting back.


Through all of this Candace and I learned so much but we took 2 main things from the ride of house hunting: 1. THINGS HAPPEN FOR A REASON and 2. PATIENCE PAYS. Patience on our end as buyers paid off in the long run because our first offer on our 1st house was above the asking price by a few thousand. When the house came back on the market, we were essentially forced to give full asking price which we were fine with doing because that price was almost $10,000 LESS than what our first offer was on the house leaving us to honestly believe from now on that THINGS HAPPEN FOR A REASON!