A new year and almost a new home...

Who knew that in "Pack time" tomorrow really means next month or better yet next year? If you read the last post, I had made promises (last year) for new pictures to be posted of the status of our work on the house. Now that it's a month later exactly and 2011 I figured it was about time I actually followed through with that promise. That and the case of pink eye I contracted from our 15 month old daughter just happens to of freed me up just enough time to be able to do so. Yes, we both have pink eye for the first time ever and it is horrible I must say! I apologize though for my delay if we kept any of you waiting. It seems we have been very deeply focused on our task at hand so much we have found it hard to even find the time to blog or even get a good nights rest. That being said... we have survived 2010 through the Christmas holiday and New Years holiday all while working our little asses off and being sick as well through most of it. So happy late Merry Christmas and New Year, we hope everyone had a great holiday. Since the last post was around Thanksgiving we have accomplished a tremendous amount of work on the house inside and out. Thus the countdown to our actual move in to our new home is much awaited. I'll keep you posted as to when it actually starts!

 As for the house I have quite a few pics of what the house looked like before we started painting and after. Today as I type the new carpet is being installed and Brannon should be finishing up the upstairs installation of the new wood flooring. On Sunday members of Brannon's amazing family Brant, Katie, and Falyn showed up to help him and Les get the floor started. Without them Brannon wouldn't even be half way done by now. Thanks guys and gals, it really meant a lot! We have gotten the new kitchen hardware installed on the cabinet doors and drawers and have hung everything back in place.  Just having it all back together in the kitchen and off of the floor makes the biggest difference and really shows how well the cabinets turned out. It really makes it look like a whole new kitchen already and it looks fabulous. A job well done to Emilio for making them look as wonderful as they do! Now if I could just get all the tools and paint supplies out of the kitchen and off the counters I could take a picture so you could see for yourself what I'm talking about. In the rooms all the paint is on the ceilings, walls, and even some floors here and there except for the downstairs den and laundry room. Throughout the house we used this really awesome ceramic paint that creates an insulated barrier on anything you paint on inside and out. It's actually a product that was developed by NASA to be used as an exterior heat shield on the shuttles and things of that nature, it's some amazing stuff itself. Here are pics of what the rooms look like so far before and after and then after we move furniture in and decorate we'll post the final product with floors and everything and what the rooms look like as a final product.

Here are some better pictures of how Destiny's room downstairs turned out. The other one posted last time did absolutely no justice at all. These pictures actually show more of the brightness of the color in her room and give you a way better idea of what we are working with. When she was here visiting over the Christmas break her Nonnie took her to buy new black and white bedding that should look amazing in her room.

Then I have also inserted what her closet looked like before we had to prep it for painting by peeling off the multiple layers of wallpaper that had been used in there and then some pics of after. In all honesty the wallpaper really wasn't all that bad since the majority of it was already peeling off but it was fun to see the arrangement of all the different colors and designs that have been in there through all the years. 

Below here are pics of the downstairs den which is adjoined to Destiny's bedroom. We are not doing any painting in here since it looks fine as is but we have installed the new carpet and will be doing some touch up painting after move in. Here you can see what it looked like before the carpet was laid and after. I do still have a bit of cleaning to do and as you can see all of my plants have gone into severe shock from the move. Please pray that I'm able to bring the poor babies back to life. Some of those plants I have had for almost a decade and I think this is the worst I have ever seen them. The only thing you can't see from these pics is the fresh coat of ceramic paint that was applied to the floor in between pics being taken to keep the cold moist air from getting in since most of this room is under ground.  Oh and we will be installing a new fireplace mantle as soon as we get one and figure out what we want it to look like. And also the oxygen tank in the middle of the living room floor is available to a good home if anyone wants it.

 

Here to the right is our loverly laundry room that we have no clue what we want to do with. If you have any color ideas please feel more than free to make suggestions. I'm thinking possibly just a basic khaki color or maybe even a shade of red. Before this picture was taken there was indoor/outdoor carpet in it that had been glued down to the cement and smelt like dead fish. I was really scared as to how hard it was going to be to get it up but to my surprise it was rather easy. I do know however that we have the same problem in the garage with carpet being glued to the floor and i have a bad feeling that that carpet isn't going to be as easy to get up. We are hoping to epoxy the garage here in the very near future and I'm thinking we'll go ahead and do the same to the laundry room floor at that time. Lowe's has a wide variety of floor colors too. If we do the floor a tan color then we will most definitely do red but please give me some ideas since my idea bank is running close to empty.

These are some quick pics of the entry way and stairwell where I'm wanting to hang the rectangle candle chandelier I mentioned previously. Right above the stairs and to the right is the half wall/banister wall where we are going to install the double open-sided book shelves that will go all the way up to the ceiling. We were wanting to get it built and installed before hand but I'm ready to get other things done so we can get moved in and then we can always do the shelves later. 

 Most importantly is the babies room! Here is Charli's room before and after. Now I know you all are thinking it looks a little crazy but I'm really hoping when we get her room decorated it will really put things all together. Her bed is made out of dark wood and her bedding has these two colors and a variety of many other colors that really seem to compliment the idea of what I have in mind for her room for the next few years. Overall if I can keep her room a basic array of colors and designs instead of cartoon characters and princesses then I'll be beyond satisfied.  I have included below a pic of what her bedding looks like to help give an idea of what it will look like.

 

Amongst everything have even managed however to also do some light landscaping on the east side of the house and I rebuilt this little rock wall all by myself in a matter of about five hours. I literally had to dig half of these heavy puppies out of the ground where over the past decade or so they sunk down into the dirt from the first time it was built. Before it was kind of amoeba shaped so I straightened it out and gave the flower bed a little more room. It was cold and wet outside and I worked after dark with the headlights of the car but I got it all done in one day.  I am quite proud of myself as to how well it turned out.

Brannon and his cousin Jack got all the bulldozing taken care of. We now have a huge burn pit in the back for all the crap that was yanked out of the house for us to burn baby burn, yay!?! At least that's how it's done here in Arkansas so I'm told. The boys even took out a few trees and shaved out the dirt and leveled out the ground where our new driveway will be. Please take notice to the brand new garage door that was installed thanks to Nonnie and Papa Maestri so I can drive right up to our new/old garage turned game room and now turned back into a garage! Double yay for that and my not having to brave the cold in the winter time just to get Charli and I into the car!!

Amongst that the guys did an awesome job and had lots of fun just being boys playing in the dirt. I would have gotten a pic of them actually in the bulldozer but it was too cold and I know if I had gotten too close they may have tried to pick me up in the bucket and bury me in the yard. ; p

Grandpa Tanksley even made a visit earlier this week to install the storm window where the crappy paper doors to the storage room used to be. Through out the years those super thin doors had been letting all kinds of cold air in  the house right under the floor of the master bedroom. Hopefully now it will be nice and cozy upstairs and down. Here is a picture of him working and the window he installed as well as the super sweet bird house and feeder he and Grandma made special for us to hang outside our new home. <3  

Well everyone, that's all that we have for today to get you caught up. I would give you more details on everything else but I need to take more pictures before doing so. I do however promise not to promise anything by tomorrow because I just might get caught up into working on something and i really don't want to let anybody down. So until next time...