House Updates!

Before I break it down room by room I wanted to give you some reference! What's a blog without pictures? A book? All of my rooms are a work in progress for sure. We bought our house in January of 2012 which means we are quickly coming up on 4 years of homeownership! Forget the depressing fact that January is coming up quickly, disgusting. Winter. In Ohio. NO. Just no.

We closed on our humble abode and lived in it for a few months, again WINTER... before getting to work. I specifically remember having a mini breakdown regarding owning a house finally and living with white walls and cracked countertop and freaking wallpaper border with pink ribbon and blue flowers. Shivers. For reals. It's a small house, only 936 square feet. That is not including the 300 square foot in the three season room or the 500 square feet in the basement. One of the first things we had to do was install some flooring in both the three season room and basement. We had an escrow that enabled us to be reimbursed from the bank. From there the remodel dragon was released!

Here are some before pictures just to give you an idea of where we have come from. I hope to put up some detailed room by room posts soon!

Chris day one in our house, changing the locks

Chris reading some directions on how to change said locks. Sad to say, these floors remain today. Note it was freezing and our heat wasn't turned on at this point.

Front Door- green. Oak trim, yellow outlets. Totally a 1990 house.

Our first furniture. haha

Ipod photo of our guest room. 

Chris after replacing two pieces for the subfloor and adding the luan with some self-leveling gray stuff?

Rolling on some BIN primer or Killz. This room smelled like the previous owners had some kitties that did not use their litter box. It was pretty terrible

Before the luan, This is just the subfloor.

More subfloor

Subfloor!

Originally this was apparently a door from the 'master' bedroom into the sunroom. They removed the door and patched and this is how it looked when we moved in.

Living Room

Living room shortly after we moved in

Our unfinished basement. I wanted a teal color to provide a nice deep color to go with all that natural wood. Notice, no carpet! Just glue. 

More shots of the wood. That was an unfinished bathroom that I have NO photos of! On the other side of that room there was an old toilet, small vanity and shower. No drywall, no floor, just cement. 

Don't mind the orbs... Todd looks scary up there! Apparently the purpose of this stone platform was to hold a wood burning stove? 

Chris sanding the wall to prepare for primer.

Piper, orbs and the wood steps leading to the sunroom door.

Basement after primer, chalkboard wall and loading up the teal paint. This was our first paint project!

Painting away

A look at the stone wall.

We have carpet!

Our kitchen from day 1. See that fancy wallpaper border

Our original sink/faucet.

A little bit after moving in. That end cabinet was added by the original owner.They blended pretty well! This was after we replaced the hardware. There was white marshmellow knobs previously.

Some new hardware. See below for the original white knobs that drove me nuts! 

Original knobs, cabinets. 

Bedroom. This is the other side of that wall where they removed a door leading to the sunroom.

Main floor bathroom day 1

Main floor bathroom after we put up our new curtain

Alright! That's your first look at our home as of 2012. Can't wait for you to see what we've done! We have come a long way.

I Won't Give Up

 

Our Wedding May 19th 2012

Me and Chris finally got hitched! After 7 years of dating and 1 year apart, we made it official. We've come so far in our lives together and I can't believe I almost lost this man. I remember when I first saw him, it was my first day at Meijer in the housewares department. I saw this cute man stocking boxes and just HAD to know his name. Funny story really, I sent this co-worker of mine, Virginia to go get his name and she came back with Drew's name, who I ended up dating before Chris. We were the best of friends for a year while I lived in Hilliard and failed miserably in beauty school. We shared everything. He dated a co-worker and I dated Drew and we talked all the time about our relationships, and where we wanted to be and what we wanted out of life. Eventually our relationship with our significant others went south and we started spending more time together. Just the two of us! 

I moved back to Shelby after dropping out of beauty school (yup, beauty school dropout!)  He visited me there for about 6 months before the opportunity arose for me to move back to Columbus, this time to Bexley to live with my best high school friend Chelsea. Fast forward 3 years and a bunch of drama (not between us) and we decided to live together. We had our own cute little apartment with Todd (our first fur baby) and while rocky at times, for the most part had a great experience. Now, I don't know what got into me last April, but I just couldn't do it anymore. I wanted to be married, and have a baby (the real kind, not the kind with fur) and a house and a career! I wanted it all! And the way I looked at it, he wasn't giving that to me! Stupid, stupid, stupid. My family didn't love this time in my life, as they loved Chris. We took a break of sorts. It was hard, but I needed to figure it out. We were either going to end up together forever, or we wouldn't. I moved into my own apartment and he lived with his best friend and girlfriend. During this time, amazingly- I found out what I wanted was in front of me the whole time. He never left my side, he gave me space to figure it out and while he was scared what I would end up wanting, he let me figure it out on my own. And boy did I ever! I know what people say, and think about it. And that's fine. They don't live my life. But it was a true genuine wake up call for both of us. I think after 7 years, we just didn't make ourselves a priority. That's something we try to do now, everyday! This short summary of our relationship doesn't provide a full picture obviously but I wanted to include it to explain my title of this post. "I Won't Give Up" by Jason Mraz was our first dance, and now maybe you can see why. For deeper reasons than it's a beautiful song by one of my favorite singers! When I first heard it, which was the live version on youtube, I just knew, it was perfect! I never really gave up on me and Chris, I just was lost. I didn't feel deserving of him or his love. But I am, and he is of mine and together- we're unbeatable. We've been though our ups and downs and I truly believe it when the older generation says, you fall in and out of love throughout your entire relationship, but you stay committed and together in all aspects of life. And we're in it for the long haul. I couldn't imagine my life without him. 

Okay- enough talk, here's some pictures of the best day of my life thus far with the best man I've ever met and am honored to share my life with!

Chris & I painting our gnome cake toppers :)

Thanks Color Me Mine of Dublin!

Prepping with my momma (look at that adorable face!) and sisters maid or honor #1 & maid of honor #2

Our wedding guests (small & casual ceremony in our backyard)

My mom & dad

During the vows

Newlywed eskimo kisses!

Us with our families and a few friends

Mr & Mrs Graham

Wish I had gotten a manicure lol

Some flowers we planted to adorn the deck

This speaks for itself!

At our reception June 2nd 2012

My sisters with their new brother

First dance, yes, I teared up

I love this ;)

Father/Daughter dance to "Daughter" by Loudon Wainwright

Mother/Son dance to "Starlight" by Muse

We were good, Chris hates getting messy!

My Aunt Donna made these beautiful cakes

Mr. & Mrs. Gnomey

Olivia & I made these centerpieces from pre-lit trees, vases, black beans, cotton balls & moss!

There were leaves for people to leave us messages and in the favor boxes were flower seeds for planting

Finally married & it feels so right! I love being a Mrs. especially to this Mr. 

I wish you all love & happiness even if the road leading you there is rocky and full of surprises!