Photoshop Life

I seriously have a problem. An addiction. Photoshop. I should be packing since we move in 7 days and my goal is to be done packing in 4 days. But what am I doing instead? Photoshop-ing what our future living room would look like with certain furniture in it. It all started because I wanted to see what the room would look like with built-in shelves around the fireplace. Once I learned how to distort images so they actually looked like they somewhat belonged there I had to do the whole room.... It pains me to say this is what I've been doing for the past...hour and a half.

If we ever do build shelves around the fireplace they won't look quite like that, but similar. Somewhere we can display some frames, books, and whatever other knick-knacks we accrue along the way. Then I joked with Phil that I could probably find a picture of our couch and make it look like it somewhat belonged. So...I did. I added the pillows that Emmie recommended for us, some pretty blue chevron curtains, and a super cute tufted ottoman. I think I like it. I'm not sure how I feel about the green walls/blue curtains though. What do you think?

10 days!

In 10 days we close on our very first home! We're currently in the midst of cleaning, packing, and researching! We're going to try to get a few things done at the house Thursday and Friday before the big move on Saturday. I'm going to start priming/painting the trim in the living room/kitchen and Philip is going to be working on a few different projects. He was able to take Thursday & Friday off work so he will be replacing our kitchen faucet (it's got some major leakage happening) and Finnigan-proofing the backyard.

We don't really trust Mr. Finnigan to play under the deck, so Phil is going to work on blocking that area off with lattice. The fence also needs a little bit of adjusting so that Finnigan can't sneak out. While we're talking about the backyard, here is our pretty view (sorry the quality of the photos aren't great, they're taken from Zillow):

It's much prettier now that the trees actually have leaves! The best part is we don't have any neighbors directly behind us. Hooray! We're super excited to actually have a yard! Now I'll leave you with a picture of Finnigan being a good dog so that we will give him a backyard to play in:

Chevron Chev-rocks!

I love chevron. Who doesn't love a zig-zag pattern?! We needed a rug for our dining area (the floors are fairly new laminate floors and, believe it or not, Phil is very concerned that it will get scratched). Area rugs are expensive! Even most of the not-so-cute 5x7's I found were around $150. So when I spotted this beauty at 8x10 for just under $150 we snagged it!

Overstock had a mother's day special going for $15 dollars off but we were about a dollar short of getting the deal. If you've ever wondered "Gee, what can I get on Overstock.com for $1.04 that I have no use for???" The answer is: Crystal Butterfly Beads!

These are going directly in the trash (or maybe the goodwill bag that we have started?) but I do appreciate that they saved us $15 on our rug. Thanks Crystal Butterfly Beads.

Light Reading

We're super excited to be able to do projects around the house, from basic repairs to decorating, and this weekend we got some reading material to help us!

We ordered The Home Book and the Black & Decker Home Repair books from Amazon and my Dad gave us Reader's Digest 1001 Do-It Yourself Hints & Tips and The Right Color for my birthday! My brothers also went in on a lawn mower for us! Pretty dang awesome, huh?? Good job brothers. They sure do make up for how mean they were to me when we were children!

Now we can read up on how to do some of the repairs that will be necessary right away, like fixing the toilet in the master bathroom and replacing the kitchen faucet. We can also read up on some things that aren't exactly necessary but that we would like to do, like adding stairs to our deck.

First, though, maybe we should just focus on packing...

Thanks Mr. Inspector

Hello, my name is Philip Stewart Meyer. If you have been following from the beginning I am the aforementioned husband. I have gone into this adventure with an open mind and tried to see the positives and potential in all of the houses we looked at. Some required a bit more imagination than others but, in the end we found what would be exactly what we wanted in the biggest investment we have made. And I couldn't be more excited! The process seemed pretty cut and dry. We look for houses. We find the one we like. Offer. Counter Offer. Rinse. Repeat.

Then we had the inspection. I went into it knowing that the house would have things wrong with it. More than a few times did people tell me that there is no such thing as the perfect house. That being said, there really wasn't too much wrong with the house. Mr. Inspector was a great guy and walked me through the process and the house (Or I followed him around like a wide-eyed puppy). As he checked cabinets, behind appliances, shined his flashlight on ceilings, and took plenty of pictures for the report, he explained what he was doing and what he was looking for in each instance. Not everything he checked was a problem i.e. he showed me the main load bearing wall and pointed out that there were no 45 degree cracks from the corners of the doors which all fit into the frames nicely, this meant that there was no shifting of that wall. YAY! The only things that were major issues that needed to be fixed right away were the breaker panel, which was not only recalled a few years ago, but had multiple wires going into some of the plugs. Not good. So that needed replaced. And the furnace was original to the house, for those of you keeping track. House was built in '84, so its pretty damn old. (For a furnace) The rest that Mr. Inspector noticed around the house were things that I could fix by myself with the help of my handy dandy new Black and Decker DIY book, or with the help of family and friends.

All that to say I feel the inspection went well and now I am even more excited to move into this house and make it ours. Stay tuned for the next exciting episode coming to this blog soon...

Visualize!

One thing that I very much dislike about renting is the inability to paint. I'm super excited to do some painting in our new house! I found a really great tool to help visualize what rooms would like if they were painted. It's the Sherwin-Williams Paint Visualizer which you can find here. First, a picture of our future living room:

I love the vaulted ceiling and the brick fireplace, but I'm itching to paint all that trim white. See how the mantle is painted the same color as the walls? Yuck. Philip wasn't too convinced so I used my fancy Sherwin-Williams tool and voila!

PRETTY. I think he's a believer now. I'm trying to decide how I feel about the wall color...it's called "Rosemary." This tool has provided so much entertainment for me. Geez I'm a dork. Time to go see what the kitchen would look like with white cabinets! Hooray!

Haggling

We certainly didn't expect to find a house that we really liked quite as quickly as we did. After the 5th house we didn't really feel the need to keep looking. We brought some family members back the next day to look at it, mulled it over, and decided to make an offer! This was definitely unchartered territory for us. We had no idea how to go about making an offer, how low was too low, etc. With the help of our realtor we made our initial offer and then had to wait an excruciating 18 hours to hear back. I didn't anticipate just how anxious I would feel during this time. We haggled for 3 days and I don't think I've ever checked my email/ cell phone so much in my life. Wednesday afternoon they finally accepted our offer!

Phil's parents, whose opinions he very much values, were in New Zealand during this whole process. Before they left, Phil mentioned that we were going to start looking at houses. Next thing we know, we have an offer accepted and they're still out of the country! Um, surprise! We bought a house! Phil was finally able to Skype with them before they returned and, needless to say, he felt much better knowing they were in the loop!

We had our inspection last week and there were really only 2 big things that needed to be addressed. The electrical panel has been recalled and is a fire hazard (!) so that will have to be replaced and the furnace was "short cycling." Other than that, the house has some minor things that we'll need to fix over time...typical stuff for a house built 28 years ago. Philsey had a great time following the inspector around and learning all about home repairs, maybe if I ask him nicely he'll write all about his experiences soon :)

I will end this blog with 2 things:

1) We are newbies at all of this. Phil is eager to learn/tackle some of the simpler home repair projects (We have a basic home repair book on the way!) and I am eager to paint and decorate and make our house a home. Unfortunately, I really don't have an eye for all things interior design, though I wish I did. Luckily I have wonderful, talented friends like Emmie Reine to create mood boards for our house! Check out her blog about how to spruce up our living room by clicking here!

2) Don't you want to see the house that we almost own?

Adios Muchachos!