End of the crazy day recap

It's a two blog post kinda day. It has been a crazy weekend, one that would make Kanye West jealous. This morning I wrote about what we planned on getting accomplished. Getting the metal off and getting the siding prepped for paint. Well, we got a little bit side tracked. And by we, I mean ME. We DID get most of the metal off, but while blowing the gutters/roof of the garage I kept looking at the stupid, ugly, dilapidated, creepy "arbor" between the house and driveway.

As we went to Home Depot for some supplies for the siding, we realized it was only 10:30 am, and we had already done pretty much everything on our to-do list. This is really unheard of for us. We've been so dejected and depressed, thank you Tom, we didn't really ever get started until about 2 pm after hurricane Tom. I should also mention the extremely funny conversation we had in the store. ~ it needs just a little bit of backstory~ when we fist started our renovation we used to say "man, can you not wait until we can be those people who go to Home Depot to just get light-bulbs and filters?" So we were strolling the aisles of Home Depot getting odds and ends like, WD-40, bug spray, big gap filler, brillo pads, screws, a galvanized steel plate for the squirrel hole in our siding and whatnot.

Our conversation:

Bailey:  oh sweetie - we need some light bulbs and filters!
Preston: laughed and said, well, we don't have any arms to carry them. (we didn't get a cart).
Bailey: okie dokie hokey pokey.
Preston: Let's just order it on Amazon. I don't even use stores anymore. (in his most mean girls, Regina George voice).
Bailey: *laughing so hard in the aisles of Home Depot with people looking at me like I escaped an insane asylum.*

*ahem*

Bailey: okay.

Back to normal brain function. On the way home from the Depot we started driving to look at other peoples painting jobs. As we drove around here is our conversation:

Bailey: hmm. that one is kind of cute! I don't know about it though.
Preston: White siding with black trim around the windows; that's like mascara for your house.
*driving around looking more*
Preston:........actually...on second thought....it makes your house look kind of slutty.
Bailey: yeah, you nailed it. It's like dark houses need white mascara and light houses need no mascara.
************The jury is still out on the colors for the house, but we're pretty sure which way we're going. Tune in later for the reveal.

After a little bit of driving around looking at other people's paint jobs, we went home and decided we needed more time to decide the fate of our colors.

Then, Preston went to get the big ladder from his parents house, I got started demoing the ugly arbor. I was on a good role, but then I heard something buzzing around my head - having been in absolute war with wasps several times before, I froze and got to the driveway to check things out. ~PS. I had officially declared war on wasps 4 years ago..... (Preston informed me while he was showering the day off, "knowing your tract-record i figured the ugly-ass arbor would all be gone by now" Luckily, I noticed the buzzing because on the board next to the one I was ripping off, was covered in yellow jackets. ~ notice, I said yellow jackets, not the paper wasps we had been encountering in the house. Yellow jackets are mean little bastards that get mad if you mess with them and come after you with a vengeance. Just ask my sister Shawna on this one. She got stung by 42 yellow jackets. Trust me, they're mean.

When Preston got back from getting the ladder, we ate the yummy pizza his dad got us (so sweet :-) ) and got to the massacre. With wasp spray cans in both hands we started spraying like we were at the Texas State Fair in the midway, playing one of those water shooting the red circle games that you get the whatever to the top. ~ As a fun side note, Preston proposed to me 5 years today in front of Big Tex at the State Fair of Texas. <3 <3 <3

To make a long story short in the ending, we killed a ton of yellow jackets, finished demolishing the arbor and sat in the grass for about 20 minutes basking in our awesomeness, and went inside to watch the Cowboy's kick some butt. Today was a great day. Enjoy some pictures. #micdrop.

Preston's quote of the day:

"if a building could be held liable, this one should be."

<3

the ugly white lattice with some vine-y bull-honkey taking it over is what we destroyed today

my goodness, can he be more wonderful? seriously. God broke the mold on this man. 

Dead yellow jackets. *please note, not all of them made it into the picture. 

Preston here; Bailey is showering the crazy off. I took this awesome picture today without the ugly arbor we had. We are so pumped that the Cowboys won the game. What a great weekend. Stay tuned to for the next week for some amazing updates!!!!! Isn't our house cute????

Exciting times at the 'ole homestead

I have started this post many times over the last month or so, and yes I apologize for the delay on the "creepy bathroom reveal" I will post that next. It's mid October and the weather in Texas is getting cooler- well, as cool as the beginning of fall in Texas gets. I woke up yesterday at 4:30 am completely psyched about the house. I know, this realization almost knocked me over too; after so much bitching and complaining (and you haven't even heard the whole "Tom the contractor" story)  I realized something very important. We are on the downhill slope, it's incredibly overwhelming, and actually as I type this my eyes are filled with happy tears.

Preston and I bought this house thinking "we totally got this", it's not that bad", "we can get this done in about a year or so and be the baddest of them all". Luckily we were unaware of just how naive we were. Many people, including our realtor, said "I don't know guys, this is an awful big undertaking", "you guys are crazy" and my personal favorite, "dude, yall must be out of your damn minds. Do you even KNOW how to fix any of the problems this house has?!" None of it phased us in the slightest. You see, Preston and I are, oh what's the word......stubborn as hell. I am a Taurus, and fit it to a tee. T? T-ee? whatever, you know what I mean. Ask my mother, she'll tell you some awesome stubborn Bailey stories. Preston is stubborn too, and that, in this case is the best thing ever.

You see, we don't get hung up on the little things like, neither one of us had ever done any plumbing, tiling, drywall, foundation, electrical, you know, that kind of little thing. We just knew deep down, together we could do anything. And this still holds true. We are also just crazy enough to try anything, and if we can't do it ourselves, we'll think about hiring someone. One of our motto's during this renovation is: let's give it a try, because we can't mess it up any worse than it already is.

Something to keep in mind. At the time of buying/beginning to renovate our home there weren't really any TV shows about it, no Chip and Joanna Gaines, no Nicole Curtis. Nope, it wasn't "popular" yet. There was a show called Renovation Realities which is amazing, I strongly suggest you watch it. If I could only go back in time and tell HGTV, hey -  our renovation is something yall really need to film, I would. Those shows like Fixer Upper and whatnot are nice to watch, however it's not a true representation of a real renovation at all. Chip and Joanna get to go home at the end of the day to their gorgeous farmhouse, don't have to worry about sleeping in a different room with just a mattress on the floor because the room that was their "bedroom" last week has been demoed, and don't have to be stressed all week because their actual job is renovating - not a 9 - 5 job which means most of the renovation can only happen on the weekends. If I'm not mistaken, Chip and Jojo lived with her parents while renovating their farmhouse, so again, not actually living a renovation. I am way off track now, but I felt that was important to say.

So as I get back to my original point of the downhill slope, I think of our to-do list. The last really major thing is painting the exterior of the house. At first, we were like, cool! This shouldn't take long. Well, throughout this renovation we have learned something very important. Do it half ass or 90% and you'll find yourself doing it again but the right way in about a year. *cough* downstairs creepy bathroom. *cough*. So we began researching how to prep and paint an all wooden exterior - mad credit to Google and YouTube, thanks guys. Getting the siding ready for paint is the hardest part. The actual painting will be a walk in the freaking park in comparison.

Currently this weekend we are removing the nailed in metal strips along the outline of the windows. doors and corners of the house, (2nd story corners are super scary) that used to hold the old siding (most likely filled with asbestos) and figuring out just how much work the siding needs before we can paint. While we were on the roof taking care of all that, we figured why not go ahead and use the leaf blower to clean the gutters? You know, since we were already up there. Today we tackle the rest of the metal, blow the garage roof/gutters, and clean the siding on the garage. This is really exciting to me, hence why I have gotten up for the past two mornings at 4:30 am psyched and just too excited to sleep. It's finally time to see some real pretty changes and knowing this is the last big hurdle before just the little things, is truly more exciting to me than almost anything that comes to mind.

Metal hanging on for dear life

Grave yard of metal strips

Here's the point where I will ask for your help. Pretty please.

I will post a picture of our garage (as that is the starting point of the painting) we are trying to decide whether to:

1. Paint the house AND trim white as it was originally.
2. Paint the trim white and the house grey.
3. If the garage will look stupid with the white garage door, white trim and white siding.

So please, take a look at this picture, show it to your friends, family, co-workers, the mailman, grocery store checker and tell me your thoughts. I thank you in advance.

More to come soon!

<3 B