I took a four day weekend…! Long bloggy.

…but it wasn’t all fun and games. On Thursday my mom stayed home from work with me! We got there really early and I started doing some of the sanding while my mom fixed the area around the old mirror. Then we went to lunch and home depot (I am so tired of home depot!). After lunch we came back to the house and cleaned and taped and painted the living room, and the trim in the bathroom. THANKS MOMMY! After dinner Erik and I went back to our house and he applied a bit more speckle.

I had the day off on Friday (my usual every other Friday off business) so I scheduled to try on my wedding dress! We went and I tried it on and it fit wonderfully, I can’t wait to wear it again. I scheduled an appointment for my fitting for June 12!

Then we (me and Erik’s mom) went back to our house and waited for the AC repair man to come and look at the AC. He told us the coils were leaking!? I have no idea what that means. Long story short they have to call the insurance company to see what they are going to pay for, blah, blah. Hopefully they will come back and just replace the darn thing. After he left we went to home depot (ugh) and bought some 2x4s and sheets of plywood. It was a crazy cramped ride back to the house but we got there. We then started painting my accent wall in the living room, I’ll post pictures when it’s all done; it’s a secret. The cabinets arrived on Friday as well!!! Here is a picture of all the boxes!

So Saturday morning Erik and I went to our house and started installing the cabinets. Luke and Hyojon came over to help. We called Tom like 100 times to ask him questions, and he came over and helped out too! Thanks guys! Here is what the cabinets looked like at the end of the day Saturday.

On Sunday, we installed the two other upper cabinets with Luke’s help, which took most of the morning. There were no studs in the wall we are putting the cabinets against, so we had to get a 6 inch screw and hand screw it to the header of the house! And by we I mean Erik, it looked exhausting. Tom also told us we have to go back and screw the cabinets into the cinderblock.

In the afternoon we started laying out the bottom cabinets. We thought the lazy Susan was an incorrect size, so we couldn’t install that until we got a hold of Tom to ask him about it. He told us lazy Susans are not supposed to be flush with the walls. They are basically held into place by the cabinets next to them.

Here are a few pictures of what the kitchen looks like now!! We still have a little ways to go before it’s done.

Still sooooooooo much work to do!

This past weekend Erik and Luke started putting mud on the drywall around our kitchen. Drywall mud is everyone’s least favorite home improvement activity. It is most likely going to take the rest of this week to finish all the prep work for the cabinet install. Erik and I are planning to go to our house everyday after work to see if we can get all of the prep work completed by Friday. While the boys were working on the mudding, I was gardening. Here is a sneak peak at our vegetable garden.

Later Saturday afternoon Erik and I put up the breakfast bar wall. We still have to put up some drywall on the wall, but at least we roughed in the location of it. We are also thinking that we are going to put some sort of stone work on the surface of the wall to match the stone work of the fireplace, (we still have to pick out the stone).

Yesterday before our kickball game we went to our house and Erik did some more drywall mud work, while I mowed the lawn (It was so hot outside). We also realized our air-conditioning does not work; luckily we have a home owner’s warranty service which will repair or replace the unit. We also ordered our backsplash tile which should be here by the end of the week.

CABINETS ORDERED!

YESSSSSS! We ordered our kitchen cabinets! They are scheduled to arrive at our house on Friday, May 1!!!! AAANND we picked out the tile backsplash we want (I think). We ordered two samples of the tile we really like, and they should be arriving either Friday or early next week. Oh it is going to look so amazing, I cannot wait. This means we are going to be crazy busy at our house for the next week and this weekend This weekend the boys and I are going to put up some drywall mud and hopefully sand. I really want to be able to start painting next weekend, so the living room will be ready when the cabinets arrive!

On another note, my wedding dress arrived at the store yesterday!!!!! YESSSSSSSSS again! I scheduled to go try it on next Friday. Trina is going to go with me :)

That is all… for now :)

A hood, bathroom paint, and a new window!

We were super productive this past weekend at our house. I had this past Friday off, so Erik’s mom and I went to our house and painted the bathroom. And (not to toot our own horns or anything) but we did an amazing job! I love the way the bathroom turned out. It came out a lot nicer than I had thought it would. Here is a before and after picture of the bathroom…

The bathroom isn’t completely finished because we still have to pick out and install a medicine cabinet for over the sink. I did however put in the new bathroom light. Take a lookie…

Also on Friday, Luke and Erik help Ross install the hood in our soon to be kitchen. It was a lot of work but it looks great. It looks a bit awkward right now because it is the only thing in the kitchen.

On Saturday, Erik and Luke installed the new kitchen window. It took all day and about 6 trips to home depot but they got it done. Look at how cute it is!

Floor work

As promised a bloggy about the floors. On Sunday Luke came over to help Erik fix the floors where we took down the wall. I have to say they did an AMAZING job. You can’t even tell it was a patch job. Wonderful work boys!

We started around 9 am, and Luke came over around 10. We had a bunch of prep work and had to get some tools we didn’t have, so the boys started working on the floor at around 3. At about 8pm the floors were done and we were all starving. Oh yea a special thanks to Tom (Bethany’s dad) for letting us use his tools time and time again, thank you so much. And to Parviz and Sina for also letting us use their tools.



While the guys were working on the floor I was painting the basement. I do have to say it looks aweeesome. After I was done with the basement I helped the guys out as much as I could (I didn’t want to get in their way).

Side note, we are hoping to book our honeymoon either this week or next week.. YAY, and I am working on getting hair and make-up appointments squared away!

Green Thumb

This was yet another very productive weekend despite the fact that Erik had to go to a conference for work all day Saturday. My mom, sister and grandparents came over to our house on Saturday to do some gardening. I watch too much “Curb Appeal” and really just HGTv in general and I was tired of our house looking so “blah”, for lack of a better term.

These are the two flower beds in front of our house, my mom and grandma cleaned all the leaves and dead plants out of them and we planted these flowers. My mom and I woke up early Saturday morning and went to home depot to buy flowers (less people traffic). We have A LOT more gardening to do, apparently we have a huge yard haha.

This is the little area around the pond; we planted a few lavender plants around it. Boy does lavender smell amazing. I can’t wait until everything is complete and we can sit outside and enjoy all of the hard work.

Sunday was another full day of work, but I won’t tell you about that until Wednesday.

Engagement Photo Session Scheduled!

Hooray! We scheduled our engagement photo session for May 15! It will give me a little time to figure out what I am going to wear and maybe lay out and get some sun in our backyard!

I can’t believe there are only 21 more weeks until the big day! I think wedding planning shenanigans are going to start picking up again. I am going to be ordering my cake in the next few weeks, but really other than that I don’t have much to do until May. I think in April I have to schedule hair and make-up appointments and plan the welcome baskets. Oh yea and we have to go and order Erik’s wedding band!

ANNND my wedding dress is coming in the second week of April, eeek, I have to start hitting the gym harder and no more sweets. I am going to try and schedule my dress fitting for May 1st. Then have to buy some shoes. My veil is arriving at the end of April and my tiara comes in around May 20th. After I get those I will go in for my mock wedding hair appointment (once I figure out where we are going to get our hair done! Eeek)

Domestication!

On Sunday Erik and I bought a lawn mower! I know a bit of a dorky thing to get excited about but hey, it is our first lawn mower. This lawn mower has a little blue garden hose attachment thingy so we can attach our hose to it and clean out the bottom of the mower. It is also a self-propelling lawn mower which I told Erik would be a good idea to buy so I can mow the lawn too (I have much to learn about this lawn mowing task).

This weekend was spent doing some much needed spring cleaning. Saturday we started out by breaking down the rest of the cabinets outside organizing the pieces (All Erik’s idea, I am so lucky to have a very tidy and organized Fiancé; he makes all of this mess easier to deal with).

The weather was so wonderful this weekend neither of us wanted to be inside. So we decided to empty out the pond because it was literally beginning to smell like sewage. At first we started to pump the water into a bucket and carried it out to the street but after two trips we decided it was going to take about six days to complete. So, being the brilliant engineers we are, we decided to set up a series of tubes trying to lead the water out of the pond and into the street. We got as far as our fence. We tried to attach the garden hose but that sprayed water everywhere. Then Erik realized we could use the sliver clampy things (I know not very scientific description) to attach the larger tube to the smaller garden hose. Long story short here are some pictures of our creation.

Demo-weekend!

This past weekend was probably out most productive weekend in weeks! Let’s see… we finalized our lighting contract with Ross (a family friend of Erik) and he said he will begin work on either Tuesday or Wednesday of this week. To make his job a bit easier Erik and I did a lot of demo work in the house.

Saturday we took down the wall that was separating the kitchen from the living room. I wanted to take a hammer to the wall but Erik suggested we should take a slightly more organized approach to the demolition.

We did however have a little fun smashing a few parts of the drywall in with hammers. It took us about 5-6 hours to complete the wall demo-ing but it was well worth it. Don’t you think…?

Sunday we got a late start but went over to our house around 11 am to take the bottom cabinets out of the “kitchen”. It look us about and hour and fifteen minutes (but who is counting) to figure out how to remove the garbage disposal. Once that was out, we call Bethany’s dad, Tom, and asked if he could come over and help us take out the stovetop. It took him literally five minutes to take the stovetop off (it would have taken us hours haha). I really don’t know what we would do if we didn’t have such wonderful and generous family and friends!

After they moved the countertop Erik’s mom came over and helped us take out the rest of the bottom cabinets. Four hours later….

We cleaned up the dust and debris, which took FOREVER, then we measured and taped off where everything in our kitchen was going to go. I totally forgot to take a picture of that, but we now have a visual sense of where everything is going to go. Oh yea and we ordered our island hood and should be getting that in the mail sometime this week.

That’s all for now. When Ross begins the electrical work I will bloggy again! Have a great week everyone!

Crown Molding and Invitations!

This past weekend we put up some of the crown molding in the bedrooms and Erik re-grouted the bathroom.  Putting up crown molding is a LOT harder than it looks; the angles do not make any logical sense. After a great deal of frustration we finally got the hang of it and managed to put up crown molding in 2 of the rooms.  Hopefully we can finish that up this coming weekend, but we have to wait and see if the tools are available for us to use.

 

Our mom’s came over and helped clean off the haze on the bathroom tiles, which was left over after the re-grouting.

 

Six months to go until the Big Day!  I order the invitations last week and approved the proofs, which means the invitations are set to arrive at my house this Friday!  I have Friday off so I will take that time to figure out how I am going to go about addressing the envelopes.  I have 3 months to address them (or have someone address them) before I mail them out at the end of May.

 

Also a quick reminder: Please book your hotel rooms ASAP.  The contact information for the hotel can be found on the left hand side of this page.