Kiersten’s Blog

I love my living room

When I was in college, we had a few times where we would have get-togethers or sometimes even class at a professor’s home.  Being a music major, we spent a lot of time with the same students, as well as taking a lot of classes from the same handful of teachers.  Some of these teachers became somewhat of adopted parents for some of us.  It was always fun to “party” at their house.  Especially as a group of young college students living with roommates in apartments, it was a breath of fresh air to get out and spend time in somebody’s home.  I know things are a little different here, but on Friday, Taylor invited his music theory class to our home during their class time.  We had breakfast burritos with them and they jammed on their instruments a bit.  It was kind of nice to see how the tables have now turned.  I get to invite students into my home now.  I love having a home where we can do things like that.  Tonight we had one of Taylor’s co-workers and his wife over for dinner.  They had us over when Taylor first started his job, so we were long overdue to re-pay the favor.  I really love that we have a home where we can entertain.

When we first moved into our new house, it was a mess.  We weren’t finished with the remodel and we hadn’t unpacked much.  Since then, we’ve made a lot of progress.  My goal has been to keep our home clean.  Isn’t that always the goal?  I’ve tried my best to find a place for everything.  This process is a long one.  There is still a bunch of stuff in our messy garage and our closet downstairs is also a bit of a mess.  Besides those things (and a couple of others) I have felt like we have kept the house pretty organized.  In fact, London’s room stayed cleaner for a longer period of time than it ever has.  But in the last week, I haven’t been very on top of things.  Other things have kept me busy, not giving me the time I need to keep my home organized.  As it got worse, I had less and less motivation to clean it because it seemed like such a huge job.  Today I had the time (not really the energy) and the endorphins from my run this morning, that I got to work.  I started with London’s room and moved on from there.  We got rid of some toys and consolidated the rest.  I was afraid to tackle the kitchen, but once I got started, it wasn’t as bad as it seemed.  Now I feel so much better!  Sure, I’m not finished cleaning the whole place yet, but having clean carpets and a clean kitchen sure make a difference.  Hopefully I can keep it up better this week.

It’s been two months and two days since we moved into our house.  It’s high time I posted some before and after pictures.  The guests are gone and the place is fairly clean, so here it is!

There you go!  That’s your tour for the day.

I’ve seen a number of posts lately of confessions.  Most are confessions of “famous” bloggers who want to show that they’re normal too.  They talk about how they don’t usually show the slightly negative things in life.  They just talk about the good things they’re doing.  They post daily about crafts they do with their kids or other similar stories.  In reality, this just makes them look really good and it makes a lot of moms feel as though they’re inferior in some way because they’ll never be as crafty or as innovative or as organized as so-and-so.

That brings me to my confessions.  Oh wait, I don’t have any.  I know that any of you who read my blog don’t feel at all inferior after reading.  In fact, I probably make you feel really good about yourself!  But let me make you feel even better.  It’s kind of embarrassing, but I vacuumed my carpet for the first time on Saturday.  If you recall, we got our carpet on the 23rd of December.  Saturday was our carpet’s one month-iversary.  Good thing I vacuumed that day.  I have so many excuses that I won’t go into, but it just didn’t get done.  After cleaning up on Saturday, I looked around and sighed.  It was the first time that I’ve actually looked at the place and felt no anxiety.  Things are turning out so well.  I promise I’ll have more “after” shots soon.  I’m almost done.

I’m sorry about the lack of posts lately.  I know that all of you are sitting on the edge of your seat, just waiting for another post from me.  Well, today is your lucky day!

I think the last three months have probably been the most stressful of my life, with all of the escrow madness and then trying to get into the house and make it a home.  We’re not quite there yet, but it gets closer every day.  Let me give you a rundown of the things we have done and the things we have yet to do.  (By we I mean mostly Taylor and lots of other help we had from family).  Oh, and for those of you who would like to stop by and see us and our place, we would love to see you too.  We miss our friends.  But give us another week.  And just for fun, here’s a cute picture of the kids driving the cart at Lowe’s today.

Done:

scraped and re-textured ceilings

painted all ceilings and walls

painted kitchen cabinets

painted and installed new base boards

painted vents

added ceiling fans and new light fixtures

demolished and built a new fireplace

installed new laminate flooring downstairs

had carpet installed upstairs

got all new appliances

scratched new floor and new fridge while moving it in

got new blinds for most windows

installed most of the new blinds

made curtains for patio doors

made valances for the rest of the windows

moved in

moved out for fumigation

cleaned up nasty, nasty messes

scrubbed and scrubbed

To do:

finish hanging blinds and curtains

hang valances

put doors back on cabinets in kitchen

finish baseboards

put finishing touches on flooring

put vents back on

put smoke detectors back on

paint mantle

organize

dust

clean mirrors

install new toilet

touch up paint

decorate

dust

vacuum

laundry

find Christmas gifts for Taylor’s grandparents

send my brother and sister-in-law their Christmas gifts (isn’t it still December?)

never buy a fixer-upper again

Most of my kitchen cabinets were in pretty bad condition.  I bought a bunch of shelf paper and my mother-in-law and I went to town.  Some of them we just covered over the existing paper, but if it was peeling up, we pulled it up and re-covered the shelf.  There were three layers.  I love to see the changes in the paper from decade to decade.  I’m guessing the first one was added in the 70s sometime, maybe when the place was brand new.  The next, I’m guessing was in the 80s, and the final layer (walpaper) was probably added in the 90s.  Lovely.

London really wanted to help with the flooring.  She was excited that it fit together like a puzzle.  She found scraps and placed them together so she could help Daddy.  She was so proud of her work.  She’ll probably always think that she actually did some of the floor all by herself.