It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Last Christmas we were so busy working on the house that we never found the time to decorate or get a tree (much to my disappointment) so this year it was priority number 1 to get a tree and deck the halls. We contiplated cutting our own tree down but due to our super busy weekends we decided to go down the street and pick one out of a lot. Before we went we carefully meausred to see how big of a tree we could get and decided a 6 and a half foot tall tree and 4 and a half foot wide tree would be perfect. What would have been more perfect would have been if we brought a measuring tape with us. After picking out a pretty tree (from Maine yay!) that according to the tree man was about 7 feet tall (according to his "if I hold my hand up it's 7 feet" rule) we paid and loaded the tree on the car and drove home. Now our ceilings are 8 feet tall, so theoretically, the tree should have had no problem fitting into our living room. We set everything up and got the tree inside, started to tilt the tree up, and realized when the tree was still at a 60 degree angle and touching the ceiling that it was too tall. Now, if I were the tree man I would invest in a tape measure since he was charging by the foot and we got basically a foot and a half extra on our tree. Anyway, we were able to cut enough off for the tree to fit with the star on top and if I do say so myself, it looks quite nice.

We also added a few decorations around the house including stockings for the dogs and us. (please don't judge our music on the TV it was Pandora's choice not ours).

fuzzy but gives the effect

We have a place down the street from us which is a Catholic Shrine (called La Salette) that every year creates a display of 10 acres of Christmas lights. It is extremely impressive and people come from all over to come and see them and if you're around you should check them out and come visit us! Since we live on the main street that brings everyone back into town, anybody that leaves the Shrine drives down our street. This means that everyone on our street does a pretty good job with their lights (even though anything we can do pretty much pales in comparison to the shrine) and we wanted to make sure we did a good job as well. Even though it was really cold today, Nate climbed ladders and hung lights and made our house very pretty (and didn't fall off the roof which was good).

Finished products

While there are technically a few things we have to do around the house, since I think there will always be something to do, I'm going to call our house DONE. Here is what we've finished in the past week.

Porch: After impatiently waiting 5 days for the plaster to dry and then going through 5 tubes of caulk making sure all the seams of the trim were filled, I finally was able to paint the porch (something I have been waiting for for months). You really don't know how big a room is until you paint it. We went with a cream/yellow with white trim.We will eventually add storage benches in the hall and cabinets.

New Closet

Upstairs Hallway: I am so excited that we can no longer see where the door used to be at the end of the stairs. Now it is all painted and nice (we're going to get carpet in a few weeks for the stairs and upstairs hall)

 

Until we decide to put a bathroom in, we're using the nook upstairs as a reading area

The offices: I don't think I've shown any pictures of Nate's office or my office in awhile and since they are now finished, I will show you.

Nate's Office: Nate's office is in the second bedroom upstairs and is also our second guest room when we have a lot of guests over (the couch is a pull out). It isn't fully decorated yet but since it is the biggest bedroom in the house, we can fit all of our files (there are two large filing cabinets in there) and such in there and still have space for everything else. Eventually we will put Nate's chalkboard up as well.

My Office: My office is on the first floor and is the smallest room in the house. It is great because during the winter it gets super warm and so it doubles as a den (we have a tv and a couch in there) so we don't have to turn the heat on as high. The built ins are finally painted as well and work great at holding all my stuff.

While the house is "done" the blog is not. Stay tuned for a room by room before to after progression. And just in case you forgot we were renovating with two dogs running around, this is what happens when you are painting and don't pay attention for a couple of seconds:

 Thank goodness they got hair cuts two days later

What a difference a year makes

One year ago today, as I write this, we sat down and signed the papers to our house. While we didn't get the keys to the house and start working on it for another three days, this day marks the beginning of a tremendous year of change, not only with our house, but in our lives. While we are not completely finished, and we may not reach our goal of being completely done in a few days, we will be finished within a couple of weeks of working on it for a year. Here is a run down of what we have left to do. Most of this list will be finished tomorrow but we're going to hold out on a black Friday deal on carpet.

clean and seal the deck
trim exterior of kitchen window
plexiglass the side door
seal porch door
paint rest of my office, trim in living room and kitchen, upstairs hallway and back porch
finish kitchen and bathroom cabinet
attach caps on backyard retaining wall
carpet stairs and upstairs hallway

OK. Now that you know what we have to do, I'll show you what we've been doing the past couple of weeks.

The back porch got a huge transformation this week. We finished dry walling and hanging the bead board. Then we did something completely uncharacteristic. We hired someone to come and plaster which is the only person we've hired besides our plumber. It was actually our neighbor who did it and he came in at 4 yesterday and was finished a cleaned up by 7. It was awesome. When we plastered, it took two weeks and it wasn't nearly as good of a job. Now we just have to wait a few days and we can paint. In the mean time, Nate has been putting up the trim.

Look at that Plaster!

Trim up

Trim around door

Our neighbor also took care of the plastering upstairs so now we can finish up there as well.

Nate put a back door on and finished putting in the Plexiglas windows in his work area. He also finished putting together the back retaining wall. I painted the caps to the front retaining wall as well.

 

 We also finally got around to installing a doorbell. When we took the old one off we were pleasantly surprised to see that it was wired in so it wasn't to hard to replace it.

Buttoning up the House

I don't know if any one has noticed, but it's gotten COLD. With the cold weather comes the realization that we have been in our house for almost a year. Our goal is to have all current projects done by our 1 year mark so that we can have a little break and do normal people things like sleep and eat. Here is an update on our progress.

Deck: This may not look too different, but all the railings are now on.

 

Front Retaining Wall: Newly painted retaining wall with new cap

Driveway: We were going to seal the driveway this fall but when we went to wash the driveway we noticed a few spots that needed more than just a seal. This resulted in patching those spots but you can't seal over patched areas for 6 months :(

Back Porch: We're getting closer to getting the back porched finished. We're in the process of hanging drywall and are hoping to have that finished by the end of the week

Double insulation on Ceiling

Bead Board on Back wall

We have a new Half Wall!

Miscellaneous Stuff:

New Railing on Side Entrance

New Doors on Laundry Room

Fun Stuff: Here is some random, non house related, things.

This was in toy store window..... it makes me a little sad

These are made out of Soda Bottles for Halloween

Zonked out in costume (Spider Queen and Demon)

I, of course, am not in costume but the dogs are