Thanksgiving and Our Christmas Tree

It's been so long since I've blogged, and November's already coming to an end! I don't know where this month went, it seems like it's been a blur. Since we've gotten back from San Diego, I've been busy working, but have also had time to relax at home (watching Hulu, Netflix and Hallmark movies!), and spend time with friends and family.

We got together with our families for Thanksgiving. We ate a lot of food and had a good time with family. The day after, I got some pretty good deals shopping online for Christmas gifts, and I spent the afternoon putting the Christmas tree up and decorating the house while Trent was working, as is my tradition!

This is the eighth (!!) Christmas we've had this tree, and it's the first one we've ever had. We got it right after I moved into the house, on sale at Target for Black Friday. It looks almost the same every year, except we always seem to get a few new ornaments every year, and it's been in a different spot in the living room since we got our sectional a couple of years ago.

It's strange to think that it used to be in front of this window. Now the couch is there, of course, and all we see is the reflection of the tree in the window. :)

It's actually a prelit tree, but most of the original lights are now burnt out. Last year, we had to get a couple of new strands of lights, and some are brighter and "less golden" than the others - I think due to being LED, so you can actually tell if you really look closely, that the lights don't match!

I still like our tree, because it's small enough that I can haul it out of the closet myself and set it up without Trent's help. It's easy to set up and fits perfectly in our living room, but this might be the last year that we have it... We'll see! I haven't decided yet if we should go another year with the prelit lights not working. I guess it depends on whether we find another good deal on a tree we really like!

On another note, this month was our 7th Housiversary! November 21, 2010 is when I moved in with Trent into this house. Usually I do a whole "Housiversary" post, but this year, we can just consider this my housiversary post. Close enough, right? :)

Next Tuesday I leave for another work conference, in Columbus, Ohio again this time. I'll be gone until the following Saturday, so expect another small leave of absence. The busy-ness continues!

6 Year Housiversary

Today marks 6 years we've been living in this house together. Hard to believe it's been that long! Each year comes with new memories and adventures, and we wouldn't have it any other way.

Each year, we've completed renovation projects in this house, both big and small. This year was a big one - the hallway, which we worked on year after year and finally completed this summer.

It nice to have a "brand new" hallway in this old house, and with each project complete, it seems like our house gets a little more homier for us. It's been some hard work along the way, but the reward of being done with a project is always the best part!

I'll always have good memories of moving into this house, and the projects we've worked on from our very first renovation to where we are now.

And though it is starting to cool down outside, this year is nothing like last year's Housiversary - when we had our first snowfall of the season, and it came in full force! Remember this?

Thankfully, we haven't gotten snow yet, and it's been a very mild fall here. I hope we don't get 6 inches of snow any time soon! I'm not ready for that yet. I don't even know if I'm ready to decorate for Christmas yet... I think I'll wait a little bit longer! :)

Christmas Decorating, A Little Early This Year

Yesterday marked 5 years in this house together. It was also the first snowfall of the season, which got me into the Christmas mood! Usually, the day after Thanksgiving is when I pull the tree out of the closet and decorate. But I broke my tradition and put up the Christmas tree yesterday.

I listened to my Christmas station on Pandora all day long while Trent was out clearing snow. I just decorated the living room though, not the porch yet...since the snow is kind of taking it over at the moment.

We're all decorated inside for the Christmas season now.

Can you believe we've been using this tree since the winter I moved in 5 years ago? It was on sale at Target on Black Friday, and we picked up the blue, white and silver ornaments, star, and tree skirt all on that Black Friday, too.

This is the 6th Christmas we've had this tree. You can visit this post from 2010 to see it back then. Crazy how far this room has come in five years, right? Our first Christmas here, we were sleeping on a mattress on this floor.

So, I know it's a little early to decorate for Christmas, but it makes it so much more cheery in here now! Call me crazy, but I'm totally ready.

Though I only have one lone present under the tree right now. Next step: buy more Christmas presents. Ha.

5-Year Housiversary and First Snowfall

Hello all! Today marks five years to the day that we started living in this house together! How time flies. I've been calling it our "Housiversary." And how perfect to mark the occasion, than the first snowfall of the year?

And what a snowfall it was. We've heard it's coming all week, and today on this lovely Saturday, it's here. I thought I would be mad, but instead, it oddly has gotten me into the Christmas sprit. More on that later...

We've had a nice little Saturday around the house today. Trent made strawberry banana pancakes this morning. And we watched Ernest Saves Christmas at breakfast.

I took a jaunt outside to check out the snow.

It seems the trees weren't really ready for all of this!

And neither was Trent. I guess it's not so fun when you have to shovel it all.

I'm not sure how many inches we got, but I think it's somewhere in the 6-10 range.

So I guess I would say winter is finally here in full force. It is kinda pretty, though.

The sad thing is we were ALMOST finished with the walkway. Just about 5 bags short of river rock is all that's left. 5 bags! Which means, we almost made it before the first snowfall...but not quite.

Now it's a little snow covered. Trent has been a trooper this week and has gotten supplies right after work, then worked to lay it all down in the dark when he got home. We knew we wouldn't have much time left to get it finished. But it's almost done, so at least it will be so much nicer this winter not having to tread through as much snow.

Can you believe there are even still leaves on some of the trees?

Oh well.. And back to being in the Christmas spirit now, I know it's not even Thanksgiving yet, and usually I put up the Christmas tree the day after, but.... I put the tree up today. :)

I'll have all the deets tomorrow. Stay tuned!

Four Year Housiversary

FOUR YEARS. That's how long we've been living in this house together. It's a presidential term. It's a college freshman's years 'til freedom. Can you believe it? I barely can. You can see the progress we've made on the house from the beginning in my three-year post from last year.

So what renovations did we get done since that last 3-year post a year ago? Well, not too much! We did replace the old basement door with a new one, and Trent built a much-needed new custom shelving unit for the bedroom.

We've done some little projects here and there, but nothing too substantial in the realm of renovations. The big one was the foundation repair which took place almost exactly a year ago, and left the kitchen in pretty bad shape. Counters moved away from the walls, the door suddenly didn't open and shut, and the front porch now looks a tad crooked. You can see most of the aftermath here in a previous post. This summer we were going to fix all that....but life got in the way. Too busy with work and other priorities.

There's always this next year though, right? Maybe by five years of living here, we will have finished the hallway at least? One can only hope. Seriously - Longest. reno. project. ever.

There's one thing I can say though, and that is that we have already made so many good memories living here, and even though we may not feel like working on renovation projects all the time, or may not have the time...at least we have plenty of memories and good times shared together in this little house of ours!

From Valentine's Day dinners, to carving pumpkins every Halloween, bonfires in the back yard, opening presents Christmas morning, to Saleen entertaining us with her antics...I kind of feel like a presidential candidate when I say this but, here's to four more years. :)

Three-Year Housiversary: A Timeline

Today marks three years we have been living in our house together! Sunday, November 21, 2010, I moved into Trent's house - the house where he grew up and that we inherited together. 

We had just renovated the living room and made our first big purchases of a TV and a washer and dryer. That first month we slept in Trent's twin bed then on a mattress on the living room floor while we renovated the bedroom. We had our first Christmas tree in the living room that we got from Target on sale on Black Friday. I graduated from college that December, and we finished the bedroom reno in January. It all seems like yesterday.

Our temporary sleeping arrangement in December 2010.

Now, three years later it's fun to look back and see what all we've done with the house and how far it has come since we started. As we've discovered over the past few years, renovating your house takes time. (Especially if it was built in the 1800's and has problems that are much bigger than just cosmetic.) We've been going little by little, chugging along, project after project since 2010. In order to help visualize the major projects we've completed with the house so far, and to show how much time it really takes in between renovation projects, I thought I would create a little 3-Year Home Renovation Timeline of our house so far. So! Here goes....

Summer 2010

• Trent's dad moves out and we begin a complete living room renovation.

Fall 2010

• We finish the living room.
• We give the front porch a huge makeover.
• We start on the bedroom renovation.
• I move in, mid-bedroom reno.

Where the Bedroom reno started!

January 2011

• We finish the Bedroom Makeover.

Summer 2011

• Kitchen Phase 1 makeover - We painted all the walls, trim, and cabinets, and installed a beadboard backsplash. Doing what we can until we can gut it entirely and start from scratch.      

September 2011

• We begin a complete hallway renovation.

Fall 2011

• We give the Stairway and my office upstairs a little makeover.

2012

• We continue the hallway renovation - added a closet, doors to the bedroom and bathroom, lighting, finished putting up drywall, etc. (See more of our hallway renovation here, here, and here).

Summer 2013

• We landscape the west side of the house. 

Fall 2013

• The foundation work has started and we got the foundation wall rebuilt on the east side of the house. We all know how that project went...and is still going!

So those are the major improvements we've made to date, which doesn't count all of the many little projects in between that have helped to make our house "our home," like cleaning up the front and back yards, hanging art, filling our home with furniture, and planting a garden, just to name a few. Up until this fall, we had done everything entirely by ourselves without hiring outside help. The first project we contracted out was the dreaded foundation repair project. This project has been our most expensive project yet, by far, but in the long run will also probably be the most crucial so far as well. Fixing the major structural hurdles that this house will allow us to completely renovate the kitchen, and in general, just make the entire century-old house more stable, level, and structurally sound.

We have so many other major renovations and projects to take on yet, including eventually replacing all of the electrical, getting a new roof, putting up a fence, complete kitchen and bathroom renovations...and we have barely even touched some rooms yet, like the upstairs bedroom, the master bedroom closet, pantry, and the back room. I have a feeling it's going to take several more years to completely renovate this house so that we can finally sit back and relax! But maybe then, it will all be worth it. I can't wait to see where this journey will take us...

P.S. - Tour the whole house and see all the Before and Afters here.