Where are you Mr. Yard crasher!? weeds.

So today Preston and I had planned on continuing working on the foundation, a horrible task that if we had the money we would pay some illegals to do it but since we are poor we are stuck doing it ourselves. Lucky for us there is air conditioning and whiskey. Anyways, we woke up today on this beautiful Saturday morning and thought why be stuck under the house when we can work on the yard? So (like all the folks on DIY network) we got started on our actual work at around 2pm. Prior to that we went to Sams Club to get some $1 pizza and go around to all the free sample tables. Hey don't judge, we are just trying to get our memberships worth throughout the year with samples. Then to the Home Depot we went, getting things for the chainsaw and we began to work! We went C-R-A-Z-Y and it currently looks like a yard war zone. We already got a few people asking to help us (for money) and we were like nah we got it. Oh whats that? Oh yea I know we have a half a tree laying in the street but nah, we're good.

So went went to town tearing down miscellaneous bologna tree like things and other various bull shit plants out from all over the freaking yard. We also chain sawed down a tree that was hanging on the telephone line and after almost a year of them saying "they'll get to it" we put on our John Wayne britches and said WE WILL TAKE YOU DOWN!!!  After  a few hours of this we just took a break for whiskey and realized we had nothing left for the day. We went to the CVS to get the coupons and free shampoo and Taco Bueno for dinner to watch DIY network  and our recording of Rehab Addict. We love that show, but unlike Nicole we do all the work ourselves which is why you often times hear about whiskey.

Our mission tomorrow is to save up for a big magoilia tree ( which will take more than a day), rip up all the bull shit fabric layer of black junk that is a "weed stopper" layer, and put in some patches of St. Augustine grass so we can have it grow together. We know it's not going to be perfect, but it's gotta be better than what is there currently. 

 Tonight we celebrate and tomorrow you'll hear more! Pooped at 8:40pm and people our age are just now going out and being crazy! Man we are getting old but I love it!!!!!

Ps. We had some MAJOR weeds growing in the yard, not weed that would make Larry Hagman proud but crazy yard weeds check it out!

Caulk Party

Get your mind out of the gutter.

Today, day 2 of our vacation, we tackled the sunroom. Before it was a puke looking green, with green floor, ceiling green, and it just reminded us of the *beep* that used to live here. So this morning, we got all dressed up (and for us while renovating that means showered and not in hobo-esk clothing) and went to breakfast at the Waffle House! After that we decided on a whim to go to a place called Orr Reed Wrecking Co to check out the cool old stuff they have, we were in heaven. We didn't buy anything today but we will for sure be back.

Once we stopped by the Restore (Habitat for Humanity place that sells cool things, and cheap paint supplies) we went to work. Primed the sunroom and started painting. The colors? Yellow for the walls, and navy blue for the floor. I'm pretty excited to see the end result on this one.

After priming the walls, ceiling and floor we decided this room was pretty revolting as far as the lack of caulk goes, so yes folks, we had a caulk party. We caulked E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G! Used about 6 tubes of caulk:

     Yes thats right folks, I am wearing war paint. We have declared war on this *beep* who used to live here.

                                                                BEFORE

                                                                      BEFORE

                                                                   BEFORE

Then we painted it the first coat of yellow, more tomorrow on the finished product. For now we are having some champagne and Whiskey to celebrate the engagement of my cousin Austin to a wonderful woman and the start of a new year!

CHEERS YALL!

Finished pictures to come tomorrow. :-)

The Cinderella of light fixtures

You know you are doing something right when your husband walks into the room yall just worked on for two days and says " WOW! IT LOOKS AMAZING IN HERE!" :-)  The dining room is finished, and we are so completely thrilled about how it turned out! We painted the ceiling, walls, one door, and re purposed our ugly light fixture.

The light fixture was an ugly-stupid-colored-with-stupid-looking-globes-crappy-ass-light-fixture.  So since we are poor, we decided to paint it and put in false hoity-toity light bulbs (edison bulbs, you remember when we were sitting in our kitchen drinking whiskey wearing sunglasses in awe of our newly found favorite $8 light bulb?) I do. Well, we spray painted the light fixture that made us want to puke before and now we are just so in love with it. Mind you, the bigger and more amazing Edison bulbs are about $10 a piece. * also, as a bonus our local Home Depot has a "coin star" type coin acceptor in the self check out line so we were able to take our mason jar filled with coins and it was enough to pay for two!

Here are some pictures of the dining room that is done!

PS. whenever you are taking down trim and crown molding always number or label the pieces so it makes it easier when you put it back in. Unless you just love puzzles, then why the hell not just scramble it all up.

Disclamer: the camera phone (thank you yet again jerk face who broke into our home and stole both our cameras) doesn't truly express the beautiful color the room is painted.

More to come tomorrow, 5 days off work together, this is so amazing.

 

Dead animal, whiskey, and one hell of a day.

Okay folks. It has been a while since I have posted, honestly between Thanksgiving, and Christmas we haven't been doing to much work on the house. But today Preston and I decided to get crazy with it (seeing as we both had the day off) and on Preston's last day off he crawled under the house to work on the foundation and when he was finally feeling pretty good under the house all by him  self he turned his head and saw a half decomposed cat or something like it and had to get the hell out of dodge quick.  About two weeks later (today) his brothers came over for a little bit and we all went under the house to get the "thing" out.

Once we were all suited up for the job we went under, and the boys had devised a plan:

                                           1. get under the house
                     2. using a rake, get the opossum into the Home Depot bucket lined with a trash can liner
                                           3. get it out.
Well, the first two things worked out well, however moving the bucket while keeping the petrified opossum inside the bucket proved harder than they realized. Since I was already back inside the house and since there is a opening to the underneath of the house in a spot in the house I was watching them struggle for a minute. When the bucket (with the opossum dangling out of it) was about a foot away, I just grabbed it with my gloved hands and got the damn thing out. After throwing it in the nearby dumpster we all washed our hands and proceeded to our next venture, finishing the dining room. It is still not finished, we got a little worn out, and had perhaps one too many shots of whiskey to do the best painting job ever.


Since we decided to work on the dining room, and of course I had to rip out the ceiling. We are using the same color for the walls as the Mammaw room so we (I) decided the corny nailed in stupid looking cheap tiles had to go. So I started off by taking all of them out, which filled up one entire trash can. after taking the tiles out there were a few scary places in the wooden ceiling, not to worry! That's why they make big gap filler though right? Right. There was actually a big enough hole that we could fit my phone into it and take pictures of what is above the wooden ceiling. :

   Inside the ceiling gap

The room Before

                                                                                           More from inside the gap

Opossum! Happy New Year!

Black Friday=never again.

So my Preston's little brothers wanted to get a taste of the "Black Friday Fever" so naturally the only kind of strangers we would want to spend any extended amount of time with over night was Cabelas. So indeed, we (Preston, his brothers, their dad, and I)  got to Cabela's around 10:30 PM on Thanksgiving and began the wait. In the beginning it was fun, then we began wondering why on earth we had thought this was a good idea. Soon we realized that Yes- the first 600 people in line got a prize. What we failed to realize that there was only ONE rifle, ONE smoker, and pretty much the best after that was a hoodie. It was too late to turn back, at about 1:30am the folks from Cabela's had about a dozen heaters going, had s'mores that people could make, and hot dogs, all for free. That made it a little bit better. (luckily I had planned ahead and brought a flask. just saying) Soon the people around us got a little bit excited, as the 4:30 hour came close, that is the time when they started handing out the prizes, the crowd got excited and so did we! Maybe after all this we'll walk away with something good! So we pack up our sleeping bags, and chairs and wait. They start handing out the prizes (little things where you peel back a part of it and it shows what you won) they went down the line, and since we had gotten there so early we didn't have to wait too long. Right before the man got to us they said the rifle had already been won. Boo. When we got our prizes, $5 dollar gift cards and 1 $20 dollar card, we realized a few things. Black friday is not something I ever want to do again; My Grandma and Great Grandma loved doing this, I never really truely appreciated the things they went through for us, and also if there was a situation where we needed to bunker down for any extended time, It would be at Cabelas- after being outside and tired with them for about 7 hours I realized the people who shop there are the people I would want around me in the situation of the end of the world.

Anyways, not too much done on the house, but we are hoping to finish the guest bedroom by next weekend.

Home renovation heals the soul

"They" say that everyone grieves in their own way, and I think I have realized my kind home renovation soothes my soul. Yesterday my grandma (Mammaw) passed away, she was fighting for her life for seven months, between cancer, pneumonia,  staff infection, and countless other things she went to see Jesus on her 70th birthday.

With having the day off of work and no school I was faced with an empty day with the feeling of sadness to company me. I needed to do something, so when I woke up I realized one of the last rooms upstairs that needs work is the guest bedroom! So after Preston went to work, I began to work. Now, this room has been a pain in the butt for a little bit. Preston spent countless hours scraping the popcorn off the ceiling and mudding and sanding it all to realize it still looked like crap so then we painted half of the ceiling with a sand textured paint, still looked like crap. So today I started off by getting some  paint stripper, didn't work. So I took off the air vent and had a thought: What is the sheet rock covering? You guessed it, just like the kitchen floor I called Preston and asked what he thought about me ripping out the whole ceiling. He (being the most incredible man in the world) said go for it! One of the best things about Preston is he let's me do all my kookie crazy borderline insane ideas, and sometimes they actually work out perfectly!

So I began tearing down all the sheet rock, and tearing down the wallpaper with fabric backing. And under it all, yes, a beautiful wooden ceiling. So I painted it white, 2 coats, painted the walls, and most of the trim. (I would have painted all the trim but I ran out of paint)


       *Pictures*

             You can't see the color of the wall too well, but trust me, it's a beautiful light golden yellow. Thank you ass hole again for breaking into our home and stealing both of our digital cameras.

Kicking our office's butt

The office (that used to be a girls bedroom, and she apparently thought that putting gum all over the floor and on the trim work was a good thing to do) is now somewhere we would actually like to be!

We started off by scraping the pop corn off the ceiling, and of course mudding, sanding, and painting. Then we painted the walls, trim work and we were really starting to see major improvements! We were getting pretty excited and there was just one more thing that we needed to do- the light fixture.

Preston and I had seen some fan/lights at Home Depot and so we set off! After looking at those fans, we decided to look at Lowes, nothing. So we looked at a smaller store, and decided to go back to Home Depot. Picked out a beautiful fan and putting it in was a snap!!

While we were getting our fan, we saw THE COOLEST LIGHTBULBS EVER! Yes folks, the Edison Light bulb is now on the shelves of Home Depot. It was a splurge for us, at about $8 a bulb we could only afford one. Once we got home, we couldn't wait to see our new light bulb in action! As we marvled at it's beauty, Preston said to me: "If you had told me 10 years ago that I would be sitting in my kitchen, at 7pm on a Saturday night having the time of my life looking at an amazing light bulb, I would say you are crazy!" But since we are crazy, and pretty lame we were both extremely excited! Now we are just waiting to be able to afford more!

Got the first coat of polyurethane on the office floor, and it's looking AMAZING! Here are some before and after pictures and also a picture of our new cool lightbulb!

                                                           BEFORE

                                               BEFORE (YES THIS IS THE SAME ROOM)

                                     DO YOU SEE THE BEAUTIFUL POPCORN CEILING?

                                               NOW IT LOOKS LIKE NORMAL PEOPLE LIVE HERE!

                         AFTER (P.S THE GREEN PAINT WAS A 'OOPS' PAINT, WE GOT IT FOR $5)

                                             THE MOST INCREDIBLE LIGHT BULB EVER!