I'm a Maxx-inista!

Ok, so technically I would be a Marshalls-ista, but thats not nearly as catchy. Don't you love it?! I do... and let's be honest, that's all that really matters ;)

Cheers to the New Year! I can't wait to plop my butt in this chair in my *SOCLOSETOBEINGDONE* living room!

(And the important details, it's a Lane chair like I referred to in this post, and it reclines. Double whammy baby!)

PS I've added (and entered, of course!) some super cool giveaways to my sidebar - you should check them (and the blogs that are hosting!) out! Who wouldn't want to win some free CSN goodies?!

2010

I thought with the close of 2010 inching it's way closer it'd be fun to take a little trip down memory lane... By god this year was full to the brim!

January

Hosted Courtney's baby shower for miss Olivia

February

Miss Olivia Lauren graced the world with her presence

March

Dealt with some no fun health issues

Chris sold his death machine motorcycle

Had one of my favorite pieces of jewelry made

Chris was hired on full-time at the state

Found out my company was going to be merging

April
Pulled off a great April Fool's Day prank on all you bloggy friends

created my 23 before 23 list

Had a girls trip and got a little fabric crazy in Paducah

walked for the cure

May
I began the house hunt

I began getting ocular migraines more frequently

A close family friend's precious baby went back up to heaven


June

I worried a lot

Spent a lot of time with my niece

made a lot of cake balls

celebrated grandpa's 75th birthday


July

Chris' car got crunched by a driver's ed student

We spent a weekend in Louisville

Rocked out at Hullabalou

Found what I thought I wanted as my first home

Walked away from a short sale situation


August

Put an offer in on a house

Walked away from that second house

Bachelorette partied it up

Spent a lovely week in Jamaica


September

Chris got promoted at work

took a first look at my future home


October

Chopped my hair off

Put an offer in on the house- accepted 2 days before my birthday!

Celebrated my 23rd birthday

Spent a long weekend in Vegas

Became a mail-order bride


November

Had my first ever blogger date

Chris became a Big Brother

Played purse bingo

The world lost a fighter

Closed on the house

Started tearing up the house


December

Hit a wall with the house reno

Chris & I hit the 2 year mark

Saw Wicked

Found out my furnace needs replaced

Made lots of progress on the house

Enjoyed super close seats at the Pacers/Celtics game thanks to Aly! (PS look how big Shaq's feet are hehe)

And those were just the big highlights of the year! There were plenty of holidays, date nights, ups and downs and laughs strewn across those 12 months. I hope you all have a safe & happy New Years and ring in 2011 with the ones you love!

A place to dine

Last night I scored a dining table & chairs. Oh how I love Craigslist! I bet you're thinking "I thought she got a table and chairs a few weeks ago (circa this post) however, I decided I just didn't LOVE the legs on the table, and I bailed.

Then I found another set that was even cheaper, however the guy was a J-E-R-K and sold them out from under us without even telling us (literally we had borrowed mom's suv and hooked up the trailer and were on our way to pick them up, and Chris called just to clarify on the address and the guy was like "oh sorry, I know I told you I'd save them but I just sold them" - grrr)

Regardless, last night this set came home to live in my house! I plan on giving her a fresh coat of white paint once it warms up outside (spray painting large pieces of furniture in the house just doesn't sound like the best of ideas). I love the detailing in the back of the chairs and can already picture some super cute fabric options to replace the kelly green that graces it's presence now.

She'll be going in here once the chair rail gets put up, and the mini fridge and camping chairs get removed!

Back to back, butt to butt

Did anyone else used to sing that on the school bus? Back to back, butt to butt (or maybe it was bottom to bottom) that's the way we sit on the bus...
Our bus driver relentlessly tried it everyday, but I'm sure we all showed our 4th grade rebellious side sitting backwards, in the aisle and every which way but the "safe" way.

Speaking of bus, I am pretty sure this school bus yellow chair would look AMAZING in my living room, with my "spa" couch (note: NOT seafoam green, Chris!)

It's reclines too. Not just adorably chic, but functional too. Have you ever sat in a Lane chair? They are to die for. die. Honestly. So stinkin comfortable. When you're stuck waiting and hour and a half for the HH Gregg guys to deliver your appliances, you can dang near fall asleep in it, THAT'S how comfortable they are.

Unfortunately, it's not cheap. Directly from Lane it is just shy of 10 Benjamins, and the cheapest I've been able to scope out was $641. I just don't think I can justify that much for one chair. Sniffle.

I scored two other Lane brand chairs for my sitting room from TJ Maxx for way way less than the original price, so here's to hoping this little daffodil beauty finds it's way into my local Maxx!

It was bound to happen

When my realtor and I were walking through the house before I had been handed the keys we made a joke that hopeful all of the big appliances would break within the first year.

Sound a little odd? Well sort-of. The seller was including a 1-year home warranty with the house, which supposedly covers all the major stuff, for the first year. Being that the 'major stuff' (furnace, air conditioner) was nearly 20some years old, that was a good thing!

Well, our wish came true last week... three days before Christmas my furnace called it quits.The good: It's covered by the home warranty, well for the most part. I will still have to shell out $300ish for a handful of things that supposedly aren't covered (like gas line conversion or some junk to that effect). Thankfully I haven't moved in yet, so I'm not living in an ice box

The bad: It's still going to cost me around $400 once it's all said and done. I am furnace-less, meaning that no painting or anything that needs to "dry" can be done in the house. And the obvious, why would I want to move into a cold house (possibly pushing back the move-in date even further)

The ugly: I'm still waiting. On Thursday afternoon I gave them the go ahead to move forward with the process of replacing the furnace and after five 19degree days here in Indiana I still haven't heard anything about when I can expect my poor little home to be heated again. I understand that there was a pretty important and widely celebrated holiday in that time period, but regardless I have the threat of frozen pipes amongst other things to contend with!


Thankfully, my parents have a big kerosene heater that we have been running 3-4 times a day to keep the temperature of the house above freezing!

I'm unsure of my stance on home warranties as of yet. The people I've had to deal with have been incredibly friendly, but they don't seem to be too concerned with getting things done in a timely manner....

Evolution of a kitchen floor

If you haven't noticed, I love to bake. A kitchen is a VERY big deal to me in the grand scheme of a house, and it gets me all giddy in my toes that mine is finally starting to come together.

It was the first room to get torn up, and dang near the last room to get finished!

Let me remind you what it looked like to begin with...

Then the old linoleum was pulled up to reveal some very heavily glued plywood subfloor....

Once all of that plywood was painstakingly pulled up(literally in 3" pieces), we found a mess of sticky tar/glue

We tried every kind of adhesive remover and chemical to remove it, because underneath that layer of yuck was hardwood floors.

It involved a lot of scraping and picking, and I had help from my wonderful friends!

Unfortunately, when that just wasn't moving along very well, gears were changed and a new subfloor was installed over that mess...

 

And Friday, Christmas Eve, a WONDERFUL man gave me the best Christmas present... he installed my new floor! (Sorry, Chris, it wasn't you)

One of my mom's clients (she's a hairstylist) installs flooring, and he offered to do mine for nearly 1/3 of what the company quoted me for the job. Dave arrived bright & early Friday morning, after picking up my flooring from the warehouse, and got to work

 First he sealed up all the seams from the subflooring, and then he took 200 measurements (better safe than sorry right?!) and rolled out my floor in my driveway to do some rough cutting...

 Then it was brought into the house and he began to unroll it and lay it out. This is when I REALLY started getting excited! I think I had texted Chris & my mom about 80 times by this point telling them how much better it looked already!

 I really love how well it goes with the hardwood floors that are in 2 of the 3 rooms that connect to the kitchen

It didn't take long at all for the whole floor to get put down, honestly maybe an hour or two!

Here's the bathroom (newly expanded, and not quite finished yet... that'll have a post of it's own soon!). The floor was carried into here, and it turned out so good!

Pretty great improvement, huh?! Now my fridge & stove can be moved into the kitchen instead of keeping the toilet company in the sitting room, ha!