Move. and a house tour...

Sorry for the long hiatus. My life has been flip turned upside (name that song!) and I've been so busy I haven't had time to blog.

But remember back when I wrote this post at the beginning of the year? My word for 2013 is move.

Well, that was a very intentional word. Not only did I remark on the running aspect of move (I finished my first ever half marathon - you can read all about it here) but I also had a little secret that couldn't yet be told- move meant so much more to me. We were literally moving this year.

This has been in the works since last year and now that summer has come and gone, and Monkey is outta school, it finally happened. Moving. We didn't just move to a new place but moved out of state. Scary. I've never made a secret of the fact that Florida is not the place for me (just read about the many things I don't like about Florida here and here).

While I was excited about moving there are things I will miss. One of the things I will sorely miss is my home and neighborhood. I. absolutely. love. it. I mean, if I could transport my house (and neighborhood) to the new state- I would! But alas, tis not possible.

As anyone who's ever moved or sold a house knows, there is plenty that has to be done.  I'm not going to drone on about a bunch of moving tips or anything but I wanted to discuss the aspect of selling. Selling your house is definitely a stress maker.

And I gotta say, when you start getting ready to sell your house you realize all the things you've neglected cuz you're lazy you're just okay living with it. Cuz it's your house. So, you think- I'll get around to that sometime. If I were a stay-at-home mom I wouldn't have been that neglectful. But with both of us working full time our weekends are precious (and the lazy in me couldn't be bothered).

But when you're getting your house ready to sell... well, all those things come screaming out at ya. Cuz nobody wants to see that when buying a home. Neglect I mean. For example:

Smoke detectors you couldn't bother to replace cuz you already had 4 more in your house so you left the wires hanging out? Check.

 The curb appeal you just never got around to making cuz it required 1 full weekend of your time (and manual labor-shudder!)? Check.

Finishing those baseboards that started out that awful creamy smokers yellow and you only painted half of them in the house? Check.

Unfinished stairs project -  that you hadn't touched in 2 years? Check. yes, I lived 2 years in my house with half my stairs looking like this:

Holes that hadn't been filled, scuffs that needed painting, cabinets that needed painting, rooms that needed decorating, and the cleaning of clutter, clutter, clutter everywhere. Our lists were miles long.

So, needless to say, I've been busy. Every weekend was dedicated to painting, spackling, packing, painting, painting, painting. If I don't paint for years I'd be happy. But paint works wonders on the overall look of a house (apart from deep cleaning/decluttering). They aren't kidding when they say it's the cheapest way to make an impact.

All of this to say- I've never really shown pictures of my house. I've shown bits and pieces when doing a project but never really a full tour of it.

And now that it's "sell ready" I figure I might as well show her off. For posterity's sake. So, enough babbling. Let's take a tour shall we?

The outside of the house makes the biggest impact so we made sure most of our "upgrade money" went there. We replaced the sod (ourselves to save $) and had the house painted (contracted out). In the 8 years we've lived here we never had it painted and I don't believe the people before us had it done either so it had been well over 10 years since it'd been painted. It needed it. Here are the after pics:

Look how lush that grass is! Ugh. it's so beautiful I wanna roll around in it. But don't be fooled, Florida grasses are very hard (this is St. Augustine -very typical grass for Florida). It looks lush but it feels stiff-not soft like you'd expect. That's probably why it looks so good from far away though- the upright, stiff, wide blade of it.

I don't have a close up of the front door but it looks pretty similar to when I last redid it.

here's the living room. Our house has an open floor plan and vaulted ceilings into a loft and I love how much light that huge window always brought in (colors on the wall- Light color is Revere Pewter by BenMoore and the Dark color is Rockport Gray by BM). It was difficult painting those high walls but we got it done. Here's the befores:

And the afters:

 

From the living room we move to the breakfast nook.

Just to show you how lazy I've been- I got those shutters from my In-laws who were getting rid of them about 3 years ago. I've known what I wanted to do with them for over 2 years. I just hung them this year. Lazy.

The wall they are hanging on used to be red in color. I got tired of that very quickly but only painted it last year when we started actually getting serious about fixing the house up (in preparation for moving!). 

Here's before - you can see the red. It's also a good view of the HOFF (Honey Oak Furniture Flip) that I did on the before kitchen cabinets:

Anyhow. On to the kitchen. You've seen the most recent pics of it when I redid the cabinets last year:

If you'll notice from the other post on the kitchen reveal we've now upgraded our fridge and microwave so it's more seamless rather than those ugly smokers yellow appliances.

Then we come to the formal dining room:

Looks a little barren. But it's not much too different from before other than the wall color (BM Rockport Gray) and major decluttering. Here's the before with buttery yellow walls (unk color-was here when we moved in):

Ironically enough I think the before is nicer. Warmer. But the wall color really had to go and I couldn't keep all that stuff out so, it looks kinda cold now. It could really use a rug in there but oh wells. Working with what I got trying not to spend too much.

The downstairs powder room:

Difficult to get a good pic in here. It's tiny. I painted the cabinets black, hung a mirror on the builders mirror. Added new fixtures and that's about it. The wall color is unknown since I just color matched it from the previous owners.

Further down the hall is the laundry room. I didn't do too much special to this room. It was on the backburner and therefore just functional:

 

Downstairs is the master bedroom (which I didn't particularly like being separate from the other rooms).We painted the room a dark, moody color (which I have no idea what it was- it was an OOPS Olympic paint from Lowes):

 



But I was in loooooove with the bathroom:

Again, we painted the cabinets (which was another HOFF project). And I just laid another mirror I had on the builders mirror. New fixtures all around make it more updated.

Heading upstairs (which are finally done!) :

into the loft area:

This was another one of those quickie fixes. We cleared out  A LOT of clutter and just rearranged a little. You can even see I failed to put up the curtains I had and I just left it. EH. I call it done. Up here we replaced the carpet (realllly needed it!) and painted and that's about it. You can see I haven't painted that awful Honey Oak futon. It's just crying for a HOFF project makeover.
Wall color is BM Revere Pewter as well like most of the common areas of the house.

Down the hall we have 2 bedrooms and a full bath:

You've already seen Monkey's teen room:

 But I'm not sure if I ever showed you the guest bedroom before. It's one of my favorite rooms in the house:

 

 I actually redid this one almost as soon as we moved in, ages ago, so I didn't have to do anything to it to make it stage ready (wall color is a basic white above and a custom mixed color below that I made with leftover paint colors I didn't like). The chandelier is a decal from whatisblik.com

Then there is the full bath upstairs:

 Again, painted the honey oak cabinets. I used the same paint color I used on the baseboards throughout the house- a straight off the shelf Behr paint and primer in one white. I even left the old hardware that the previous owners had on it (beach shells and seahorses) not my taste but I was just trying to make it prettier. Not everything is perfect. This is a full bath but I didn't take a pic of the tub/shower.

And that's it. Our little Kingdom that we sold. I am more than grateful that we sold quickly so that we could move on with little problem but I still struggle with sadness that we left our first home. It was my daughter's childhood home and she will always consider this her home I think.

I am now living with my sister (OMG NOOOOOOOOOOOO) who has been kind enough to take in me, my husband, and daughter along with a cat and dog until we find a house in the new state of Oklahoma (to be closer to family).

I just had to show and tell for posterity's sake so that I would have a written document of everything. Unfortunately I didn't get pics of the backyard. I am trying to push off any sadness I have for moving and leaving our home for excitement on starting on a new home with all new decorating potential (which my husband and I have made a pact to not neglect like we did with this house.)

So that's it. Except to say--moving is hard. And very sad. :(

Look how optimistic I am!

I think I'm becoming more optimistic. I've always been a glass is half empty kinda gal with sarcasm aplenty. So, it came as quite a surprise when I realized that I was starting to see things with a silver lining.

The other night I had a dream that someone died in my bedroom while I was in the kitchen (freak accident). If you've seen Inception (or have ever dreamed) then you know that dreams feel real when we're in them--it's only when we wake up that we realize something is strange or off.

 

So, when I walked in and found my friend dead in the bedroom I immediately thought I'd murdered her. When Luh-vah came home (in the dream), I distraughtly told him that I'd murdered someone and didn't know what to do.

And, nice guy that he is,

he helped me hide the body. In the wall.

About a week after, when we were attempting to patch the drywall, I had a bout of conscienceness and told Luhvah that maybe we should call the police. Which concerned us cuz we'd sat on a dead body for a week and attempted to hide it. We knew that that wouldn't go over well with the police.

Long story short, I woke up from the dream with this takeaway:

Even in my dreams I know Luhvah's got my back. I trust him and I honestly know he'd be there for me in my time of need-even if that need is to hide a dead body.

Check it--silver lining baby.

 

Analyze this:

What does it mean when I find the brightest part of my day is the joy I felt when my phone didn't autocorrect the word ''shit'' when I used it?

I guess my phone has resigned itself that I will never change my vulgarity to "shut".

One point = me.
Zero points = autocorrect.

13.1 MILES...The Princess Half

So, I did. I finally did it. It hurt. I'm not gonna lie.

I won't bore you with all the gory details (okay, I will--- just for my own record.) But I'll try and make it interesting at least.

Once Upon A Time... a *ahem* youngish girl (suspend reality a little for this story) set off on an adventure at the Most Magical Place On Earth:

It all started out benign and exciting. With the allure of the Expo to win her over, our heroine Princess had a grand time getting checked in and browsing the many booths of running paraphenalia.

Though she was nervous, she knew once it all began that peace would come to her, just as it had at every other run she went on. Still, the butterflies in her stomach would not be contained when she saw the clock counting down as if it were recording a silent death notice:

Nevertheless, our Heroine Princess found happiness amongst her peers:

After an exciting day at the Expo it was time to fall into a deep  not-so-deep slumber. This Heroine Princess had to wake early:

And dressed in her appropriate Princess outfit:

With even her glass slippers upon her feet :

She prepared to embark into the unknown.

Upon arriving at the waiting location our Heroine Princess took many pictures of the festivities to alleviate her growing anxiety:

But, alas, before she knew it, it was time for her long (20 minute!) walk down the plank to neverland:

Little did she know, the 2 hour preliminary wait before her run would be her undoing.

After a very long and lonely wait our Heroine Princess was off! (along with 3000 other people in her group). In all, there were 23,000 runners!

The Fairy Godmother did right by her and gave a magical send off:

And just like that, she began the ardurous journey set before her:

The first paced time of her journey wasn't too bad...despite having a very slow running pace due to the large number of people crowding her:

It could have been worse. At this point, our Heroine Princess still felt like she had a chance... she was optimistically hopeful that she would be able to finish in a reasonable amount of time...with little to no pain (ahhh, the optimism of the innocent running virgin!). 

She continued on and arrived at the edge of the Magical Land:

When she arrived at the castle her hope and vigor was kept strong by the wondrous sites she saw:

 Before she knew it she was almost half way done:

That is when it started getting very trying. Our poor Heroine Princess was tiring quickly and her feet were much too sore to run well. (If she had truly been chased by some awful monsters no doubt she would not have won.) She slowed down considerably coming up to the 8 mile marker:

And it was noticeable in her 15K (9 miles) timed pace:

By the time she rounded the 10 mile marker she was thoroughly exhausted and her feet would barely carry her more than a slow jog.

It certainly did not help that the crowd was still thick as thieves and she had difficulty going around slower runners without weaving -which caused her to expend her energy faster.

With much effort, and little peace, our Princess finally came to her last mile:

The most excruciating mile yet. Although there were distractions:

 our Princess could barely stand the pounding of the pavement. Dismayed by her running time as well, she was feeling all but spent. She did not trust to hope that the finish line would come soon.

That last mile hurt the most. It did our Heroine in. By the time she crossed the finish line she was very near to tears. Still, she held her head up high and smiled:

She had done it! She did not need a Prince Charming to come and rescue her --she had accomplished so much on her own! And yet, when all was said and done...he was there, her Prince:

There to help her as she ungracefully hobbled the half mile to the car. There to tell her he was so proud of her. There when she teared up for some unnamed reason...the relief that it was over? the regret that her time wasn't better? the pain felt in every step she took? What it was, she could not say. But she was glad, nonetheless, that he was with her. He reminded her of the great feat she had accomplished-something no one else had done (okay, maybe 23,000 others had too...).

When she got back to her car and (finally!) sat down she was able to reflect and realize it was a great accomplisment. And upon reflection, she found her pride in herself. And she realized she did pretty well, all things considered.

After all, it was all about getting the shiny medal anyway.