March Madness, part 2

Hey Hey Happy Dance Friday peeps!!

Well we covered March Madness, part 1 earlier this week.  If you missed it here is the link so go catch up, I'll wait right here.

As many documents are published with definitions at the beginning let's do that:
Big House  - current house we live in but sold and closing date of March 27
Rent House - our former rental house that we are temporarily moving to, renovating and selling
Compound - the new big house (not divulging much as we are pending inspections on Monday which                  may prove to be tricky) Technically we did down size in the sense of square footage.  :-)

Ok, now that everyone is all caught up let's continue on with the saga.   Since our big house sold so quickly and with a March 27th closing date looming on our horizon we needed a game plan.  The housing market is so tight right now, very limited options on pre-owned homes and a 6 month wait for a new construction, we realized that our best option was to move back to the rent house that I bought when I moved to Texas and has been rental property for us for the past 5 years and take our time waiting on the right house to come along and not rush a big decision.   Now I was blessed to have good renters but facts are facts, if the house ain't yours you don't do the routine maintenance.  A double edged sword is having renters who don't want to bother you with the little things but then when the little things get left for several years without any attention they turn into medium things that need some attention before they get full blown nasty!   So long story short, we had a lot more "little" things to do than we anticipated at the rent house.  


Let's see some photos of Before:

looking from kitchen into den and entry area

den fireplace

Alex's old bedroom

previous guest room, aka Kermit the frog room soon to be Mere's new temporary room

master bedroom 

(1st renter painted the ceiling BADLY without my permission so that was lovely)

master bath (also bad paint job by first renter

So as you can see we had lots to do. Carpet was ripped out and these new puppies went in.

We went with a nice high end wood laminate flooring in the den, office and hallways.

The 3 bedrooms got new carpeting.

Then it was time to paint and bring this place into 2014 color wise!

The den, office and hallways were all fretted up with a nice new coat of MSL269 Winter's Day paint by Behr and Martha Stewart Living. It is actually grey with some blue undertones.  I'm in total love with this color and plan to use it at the new house in the dining room and formal living room at least.

Kitchen went from dark and red to bright and 300C-3 Bagel by Behr

I love yellow, it's my favorite color and this picture makes the paint look much more yellow and brighter than it really is.  You'll get a better idea when you get to the professional photos of the actual color.   My current kitchen at the big house is Bees Wax by Sherwin Williams and I think I actually like the Bagel by Behr a little better but my days of yellow kitchens may soon be over.  It's time for something new but yellow will find its way somehow because it makes me so very happy!

There have been lots of take out, frozen foods, and junk consumed in the last three weeks and this lunch of frozen taquitos is a shining example of the lousy food we've eaten.  We have gone to eat at a couple nice restaurants with friends to take a break and one wonderful couple sent us home Eggplant Parmesan when we returned the truck they were letting us use!! THOSE are the best kinds of friends!!!     

Pretty much every single wall and baseboard in that 2108 sq. foot house has been painted and/or touched up.  It's been long and tiring and remember, we've been trying to move into this house too since we now have less than a week to be out of our big house!!  We are mentally and physically exhausted and we still have a week left before Stage 2 is over.

 Since this is getting long and I've got many things to do I'm going to wrap this up with the MLS photos of the Rental house.    They really show off the house well and now we can move all the way in to the house and try to keep it clean!  We had to keep furniture to minimum for the best quality photos.  

Front of the house

More front of the house from a different angle

Front porch area

Den as you walk in from the front door

Den/Kitchen view from the office area

Den view from kitchen

Den and front door

office

breakfast area

kitchen island

kitchen

(see that yellow isn't that bright)

kitchen

kitchen

kitchen  -  can you tell what room tends to sell a house??!!

Master bedroom - now lighter brighter and the ceiling is normal again!!!

this is a huge master suite

master bathroom

super deep garden tub

Alex's new (old room)

Kermit the frog room ready for MereBear

2nd bathroom

covered back patio

And the back yard

So peeps that is all for today and don't worry there's more to March Madness coming your way.  Hopefully it will involve a second sold sign too!!  We went on the market at 3 yesterday afternoon and we've already had two showings!!!   whoop whoop

Peace, Love and Eternally in paint splattered yoga pants!

March Madness, part 1

Hi Dee Ho Peeps!!!

I KNOW I've been absent around here lately but I swear I have super dee duper good reasons for that!!

I'm gonna do a quickie blog post today for you to let you know what's going on around here and where we (as in me, the family, the dog and the blog) are headed!

First of all we decided to put our house on the market and BOOM...  24 hours later we have a contract. Right smack at the beginning of the Olympics too!! So yeah, I'm thinking you know where this story is going already!!

Just because I've gotten more than a little sentimental in the packing process a few times I'm sharing the MLS photos of the house we just sold.  This was mine and Hubsters first house together and where our family started.  As of March 27th it will be the new home of a young family.

The outside

(yeah we decided to sell in the dead of winter)

As you walk into the front door of the house.

Hubsters N.O. Saints gold office

The formal living room

(AKA...dead space)

The formal dining room

(and yes, we retained possession of my fabulous chandelier)

view of kitchen from the dining room

Another view of the kitchen

(that counter space in the front on the right NEVER that clean! haha)

View of kitchen with my gorgeous stone archway surrounding the cooktop

I'll definitely miss this unique feature! It was something that made me fall in love with the kitchen and the house the first time I walked in.

The den area

(this is not how this room is normally arranged-things were moved around for pictures)

Another view of the cozy den

The den from above

Master bedroom

Master bathroom

The noisy but fun game room

Since we sold the house the poker table and the foosball table have gone on to live in new homes with new families!

The media room

Back porch and the fire pit area where we worked and toiled away building in the dead of a summer one year!

Another of the back yard.

So there you have it.  We have 4 other bedrooms and 2 and ½ more baths that weren't featured in the photos but you get the idea.  This home was perfect for our family and now that we have 1 little chickadee who has left the nest and graduated from college and married, 1 more little duckling about to graduate in May and make his way in the world and 1 baby chick just beginning her journey of college life we find that our needs and desires have changed in a home and it is time to move on to something that suits our life as it is now.  

So where are you moving Samma?  Well funny you ask as that will be part 2 of March Madness.  You know we never do things easy around here!   Also it brings me to this blog.  I love this blog and the fact that I've just not been here at all to cook and craft with you has really bothered me.  But in the painting and scrubbing and box packing I've found that I have a clearer idea of this space and where we are going with it. In case you didn't know, packing boxes and scrubbing walls and painting can be very "meditational".   I'll keep cooking for sure because believe me, I'm ready for something besides take out, restaurant and hamburger helper but we're going to be doing some DIY stuff for the home and no worries, LL and I will be up to our crafting shenanigans again soon enough.   So the blog isn't going away, it's just expanding and growing.  So keep hanging around with me to see where this adventure takes us and don't forget to come back for the continuation of the house selling saga!

Stay tuned for March Madness, part 2!  

Like I said, we definitely aren't doing the conventional things families normally do when they sell a house!!  

Peace, Love & Packing Boxes!!!