VERY long overdue update..my apologies.

Wellllll... I had forgotten about this blog, admittedly. Being so busy with school starting up again, work, and renovating the house has taken a toll I guess. No time for blog writing. However, some more news has prompted me to write again, because I just need to get it out into the world! But for now, I need to provide a teensy-weensy update of what has happened over the past...3 months, whew!

So I actually haven't moved in yet, because we have been waiting until the house is more livable, and a complete living room renovation put the entire moving thing on hold for a while. But this weekend, I think it is finally happening! *Crossing fingers.* We started roughly the first of September, ripping out the living room, down to the bare bones. Plaster and all..from the walls and the ceiling. See below picture for what it looked like in the process:

Ripping out the walls and ceiling! Fun fun!

Actually it wasn't too fun, but it had to be done! There was no insulation at all, the plaster walls were covered in wallpaper, panel board, paint, and wall paper borders. It was nearly impossible for the room to look nice unless we ripped everything out. We eventually installed insulation, got all new drywall up on the walls and ceiling, mudded, taped, and sanded, installed some small heating pipes, new electrical sockets and wires to the ceiling, and finally primed and painted! Here are more pictures of the process for your viewing pleasure:

Trent hard at work!

Drywall is up

This wall is officially...MUDDED.

Hooray for paint! Glidden's Water Chestnut from Home Depot. We love it!

We then refinished the floor by sanding it down with a huge sander we rented from Home Depot, (Trent did that part), cleaned and wiped it all down with mineral spirits, then applied sealer and two coats of poly. We decided against a stain because we liked the natural look of the wood. And the lighter floor just seemed to brighten up the room even more. Below are pictures of the floor while we sanded and then after it was done. Huggeee difference! We like it a wholee lot (Sorry some of the pictures are small):

The partly sanded floor - Can you see the major difference??

The sanded floor

Trent applying the sealer

Finished project!

Before the renovation, I purchased our washer and dryer set, a Samsung front loader set, from Craigslist for $900. It was less than a year old, came with a transferable warranty from Lowes, all the paperwork, only used for a few months. We have yet to hook these up, because we still need to make the laundry room/back porch decently livable. haha. Hopefully we will have laundry soon :) Anyway, then we purchased (well, my parents bought it for my early graduation present) a new couch from Sofa Mart. The Stonebrook model, seen here: http://www.furniturerow.com/SofaMart/Stonebrook-Sofa-Group/Stonebrook-Sofa/prod531202/. We got a great deal on it, because it was on sale. And we like it! It's very comfy if I do say so myself.

Since then I have picked up some more decorative items for the living room and other rooms in the house. And we were finally able to buy the trim for the LR, after Menards was out of the stock for roughly 2 weeks, due to a huge sale on trim. The baseboards and window trim are still sitting on the LR floor, but they should be up soon. In the meantime, here is a glimpse of our lovely room so far:

Our couch, rug, and coffee table, sitting pretty

Of course, this is only a few of the items that are now in the living room, but let me break it down on what we have so far: New walls and ceiling, refinished floors, our sofa with some lovely Dwell Studio for Target pillows, and some more pillows I got on sale at Kohl's, a throw from Target, a light-colored 5' x 7' area rug on sale at Kohl's for $26! And the coffee table was in the room previously. We're going to use it for now, even though it's not really matching our decor too much. On the opposite wall (not shown) is the TV table we got at Target, and our Samsung 40" TV that I bought from Best Buy a couple of months ago. The room is coming together, but it's the only room that really feels "homey" right now! (lots more to do...) We have some IKEA curtains and some curtain rods that I am dying to put up, but the trim needs to be up first! Trent will have to "get on that" soon. hehe :)

Along with the living room, we've been cleaning up other areas of the house, and we also made-over the front porch! It's looking more beautiful than ever, after we added a new porch railing that Trent made himself from boards that were lying around - so proud of him :). And we have been painting it white, with lots of coats of semigloss! We also painted the new posts Trent put in, and the porch ceiling & floor. It has a whole new, fresh look. I will post pictures soon hopefully! Unfortunately it's almost winter, and it's getting too cold to do much more work outside, but it's looking pretty great right now. I even picked up a new little doormat and it loves its new home on the porch.

Other updates include getting HD Satellite from Dish Network (long process, but well worth it!), getting a new, faster internet set up, and our current project - the bedroom. We're peeling layers of old paint off the walls..it's a pain in the butt, but has to be done so we can paint the plaster walls temporarily. Until we can renovate the entire room like we did the living room. The floors have also been sanded down and just need the sealer and poly coats applied. Then we can move in our new bed, which we've been looking for and will hopefully purchase on Monday when we pick up our new mattress :) We bought that baby today at Denver Mattress, and picked out a perfect bed, but it's a bit expensive... so I'm going to hold my breath and hope we can either afford to buy that bad boy, or look at some other options. Not sure what to do yet!

Nonetheless, we've definitely been busy working on the house for the last few months. I will be back to give another update soon. For now all I can say is that I am so very excited to move in finally!!!