Progress is Made continued...

After Sheet-rock is Hung:

This is the view of the door to the back of the house. It's so much brighter now that the walls are white. Its so exciting to finally get an idea of how things are going to look when we're all done.
We may just get to live in a nice house someday!

This is the front "door" this is the one that is going to be converted into a window.

We decided that we were going to put in the "arcitectual" details that Dan is looking at in this pic. We were concerned that there wouldn't be enough support for the house after we took out the bug center wall...we solved this by adding some extra support in the form of a 2x4. Then we had to figure out how to hide it. This was the solution that we came up with...I didn't really like it at first but as work has been progressing it has been slowly growing on me.

We are definitely making progress even though sometimes it seems like its going slower than I would like. The sheet-rock guy has been late for the past two days and that is getting a bit irritating. Dan is definitely more irritated than I am though. He has recently started to really stress about the progress and has since decided that we're just going to start on the kitchen right away rather than waiting until the front is done like we were originally planning. This is all fine by me...as long as it gets done at some point. As far as I'm concerned I've been living in a mess of a house and survived for years now and if I have to live in a bigger mess but get to see results sooner its all the better. They will probably be done with all the sheet-rock and texture by Monday so I will get new pictures and try to post them soon.

Progrees is Made!

Work is finally getting done! They are now in the process mudding the sheetrock. I am finally taking the time to post some more pictures of the progress.

After framing:

This is one of the front doors, this one is going to be permanently closed off and made to look like a window. We were originally going to replace the door with a newer more secure one but that will be like another $400. Then we decided that we were going to try to find an actual window to fit in there but ran into the problem of how it would look both outside and in as it wouldn't match the other windows and we don't have any extra siding to fill in the gap where the bottom of the door is. We finally came to the conclusion that it was easier (and cheaper!) to use the door that we already have and make it safer by permanently closing it off and trimming it out to fit in.

This is a pic of one of the windows...they are very cool multi-paned old school windows.



This is the other side of the room. The door leads to the rest of the house. The small area where we have been crammed into for way too long. I think that we're going to take a trip to Lowes to look at cabinets for the kitchen. We are starting to get moving on everything. Dan had HV/AC guys come out this morning to give us a quote on that and we are getting another quote later today. I will try to get the sheet rock pics up as soon as possible.

Photo Game

The rules of this little photo game:
Open the folder with all of your photos.
Open your 6th photo folder.
Take your 6th photo in that folder and blog it.
Write something about it.
Tag 6 fellow bloggers to do the same.


This is a picture of me and my friend Diana. We were at Jazz Fest in New Orleans. Jazz fest is the last weekend in April and the first weekend in May. In NOLA by this time it's usually pretty hot. This was taken May 6th, 2007 and it was absolutely blistering out and while it was pretty miserable we still had a blast. This makes me excited about Jazz Fest this year.

25 random things about me.

I have received this several times on FB and figured that since I took the time to do it there I would go ahead and copy onto here as well. Here are 25 random things about me:

Rules: Once you've been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. You have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it's because I want to know more about you.

(To do this, go to “NOTES” under tabs on your "PROFILE" page (you may have to add the tab by clicking on the + sign), click on "Write a Note" and paste these instructions in the body of the note, type your 25 random things, tag 25 people (in the right hand corner of the app) then click publish.)

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1. What I really want to be when I grow up is a stay at home mom.

2. I have an Associates Degree in Culinary Arts but have been to 3 different colleges. U of Minn, Century Community College (beauty school dropout) and Le Cordon Bleu @ Brown.

3. Sometimes I miss Minnesota...but only because of the people...definitely not the winter.

4. Sometimes when my husband isn't home I watch the cheesy tween movies on ABC family.

5. My favorite food is pickles and my mouth waters when I even talk/think about them.

6. I wish that I was more artistic.

7. I will always procrastinate when I can.

8. I really wish that I could get a nice golden tan at least once.

9. I only buy high thread count sheets...anything else feels like sandpaper.

10. I am very close to my extended family (aunts, uncles and cousins).

11. I am afraid of the dentist and spiders.

12. Sometimes when I get a bad headache or switch words around I worry that I have a brain tumor.

13. I have to be careful not to watch too many infomercials as I always want to buy what their selling.

14. I am addicted to Diet Coke.

15. I let my dog kiss me on the mouth.

16. I hate washing dishes at home but kind of like to do it at work...this may have something to do with the fact that I don't have a dishwasher at home...yet.

17. My husband makes me a better person.

18. I feel like my only real friends in New Orleans are my husband and my dog.

19. I fart...a lot.

20. I want a baby but know its not the right time.

21. I don't talk to my dad...sometimes its okay and sometimes its not.

22. My husband always beats me...at 500 Rummy.

23. I want to be 4 inches taller...I am under 5'1".

24. I will probably end up shaving my head some day.

25. I am very indecisive.


All done. Kind of cleansing actually.

The house progresses!

Yay! We finally have the money to start fixing up the house! My wonderful husband went out and got a loan so that we can fix up my blunder of a house.

Here's a bit of a backstory:
My house has been in a shambles basically ever since I bought it in December of 2006. I bought it with a now ex-boyfriend (a carpenter) and we were planning on renovating it and reselling it in the hopes that we could make a little extra cash. The ex had just finished demo-ing the front of the house when we broke up. I was then left with a half finished house that was way too big for just me and too torn apart to sell. As my great luck would have it I met my husband in late 2007 and it has now become our problem. He has been great about this whole mess and is now willing to take out a loan under his name only so that we can finally set the house to rights.

I thing that I want to start documenting the progress on the house via this blog. I'll start out with some pics from before I bought it and go from there.



PRE-PURCHASE

This is the kitchen...it still looks much the same today.

This is the front right side of the house.
The green wall and the walls on the left of the screen are now gone.
That is my realtor in the pic.

This is the front left side of the house.
Like the last pic, the wall with the arch and the walls on the right side of the pic are gone...
as well as that ugly closet type thing on the left side of the screen.

POST-PURCHASE/POST-DEMO

This was taken while we were removing walls.
We took out the center wall that was dividing the two seperate sides of the house.
This gave us one big space to work with.

This was how it looked after we got most of the walls
knocked out and some of the old flooring up.

This is the wood floor that we found...
after Dan peeled up 5 layers of old ugly tile.
We will eventually have this refinished.

This is the bedroom that Dan framed out.
There is a really nice closet that will be paneled with cypress that we saved.
This is what the house looks like today.

So this is the starting point. I'll try to keep up with the posting as things progress. I have called the contractor and started the ball rolling there. I am waiting on a written quote and if everything looks good, work should start in here in the next few weeks.

I have now come to realize that this blog is probably going to become an out for all of the bitching that I need to do. I suppose that it's better to get it out here rather than forcing someone else to listen to my endless griping. Nobody has to read this shit. If they (or you) don't like it, STOP READING! I'm such a "nice" person in regular life. Sometimes I can be kind of a pushover. I'm not sure how I got this way but I am realizing that its not a trait in me that I like. I think that I need to grow a backbone and stop letting people push me around. I think that this blog is going to be a start to this process. If I can say what I really think on a digital page where anybody could stumble across it and read it, then, in theory I should be able to tell people what I think in real life. I have such strong friends who don't take any guff from anybody and I want to be more like them. I'm such a people pleaser and always want to make everybody happy that I don't always consider what is the best for me. What is best for me right now I think is bedtime.

All the Time Spent

So I love my husband and I love the security that his job provides but sometimes I get irritated at all of the time it takes up. He is a trombone player in the Marine Corps. This may sound like an easy, cushy job and maybe compared to some jobs it is...but, his career takes up a ton of time. He goes on several tours throughout the course of the year and always seems to be traveling somewhere different to play a gig. And that's only the music side of things. He also does all of the stuff that all of regular marines do such as Field training, Martial Arts training, handgun and rifle quals and a ton of other crap. Not to mention all of the times hes been called (sometimes in the middle of the night) when one of the Marines that he's responsible for fucks up. I guess that sometimes I feel like the second fiddle to his job. Its just something that I need to suck up and get used to as its not going to change any time soon. But really, sometimes its hard being the good supportive wife who is happy that her husband has a job that provides for us so well. Sometimes I just want to be selfish and see him for New Years or the 4th of July or even be able to wake up next to him more than 2 days a week. Is it wrong for me to want some of these things? Am I being too selfish and unsupportive?