And so the work begins...

These past couple weeks have been the craziest weeks, well, probably ever. Let's just say blogging hasn't been at the top of my priority list, it's been filming and working on our new humble abode.

When first touring our home it was pretty much love at first sight. It's got great curb appeal and we're totally diggin' the mid century modern vibe. From the moment we walked in we both felt like this was THE house. We looked at dozens of homes with 2 different realtors. We put an offer on one about 2 months before we found this one. The other didn't feel right so when the homeowner countered, we didn't counter back. But this home there was no question in either of our minds. We had two other homes to check out that night with our Realtor Julia, I told Julia to hurry and show us the others so we can put an offer on this home.

Of course, no home is perfect, but it was perfect enough for us. One of the things at the top of my list when buying a home was a formal dining room. Well, this home obviously doesn't have that, and it doesn't even have room for a table. This home is rad except for the fact that it doesn't have a dining room. So to make it ours we have just a small list of things we want to do before we move in. These past couple weeks we've been working on that list and I've finally found a moment to post about it so here's a rundown via instagram.

Thursday-Monday, November 10th-14th:
Started filming for House Hunters (found out my Papa passed away in the middle of filming Day 1). This was the hardest $500 we've ever had to work for and were exhausted at the end of every night. Though we've seen the show millions of times, this experience was totally different than anything we could've expected and a lot harder than you might think. But it was one of the raddest things we've ever got to do and I'm so glad Eric and I got to do it together. I'm stoked that we get a DVD of the show for a keepsake...now we'll always remember the process of buying our first home (generally, it was only staged a little). I'll post a more detailed log of filming days 1-5...soon hopefully.

Me, Eric, our Realtor Julia, and the producer Susan. 

That's our camera guy, Bruce. Really cool guy.

Friday, November 11th:
My wonderful Mom arrived to help watch Leila while filming. She knew we needed the help and when I was chatting with her about who was going to watch Leila (needed to find someone for a full 2 days, 3 days were already covered), she hopped on the internet and started looking for flights. I was stressing out about what to do with our child and started looking into several daycare places but there aren't a ton that accept walk-ins. It was kind of a headache. Needless to say, my mom saved us and I can't thank her enough (and my dad for sharing her). Isn't she the best?! I couldn't believe she would do that for me (well, I could but you know what I mean). She's the type of mother that would do anything for her kids.

Leila had a ball with Abuela and they got to spend a full 4 days together. My mom worked really hard to help Leila walk. Before she was taking about 10 steps, by the time my mom left she was taking 30ish and was walking all around the kitchen/living room. My mom worked her magic with her.

My wonderful mother isn't the only one who stepped it up, Greg and Shasta were incredible during this time and helped with Leila a tone, and of course, my in-laws always offer a much needed helping hand and can always count on them.


Monday, November 14th:
Started demo on our house! We filmed me taking the first hit to the wall we want to tear down to make room for a dining table. Eric and Greg finished up the job of tearing down that small wall (enough for film anyway) but demo will need to be resumed later because we still have a house to pack up.

The list of "to do's" was much shorter before we moved in, but now that we've started demo, it's this long and growing:

• remove the popcorn ceiling in the living room
• tear down the drop down ceiling in the kitchen
• tear down the rest of the wall
• mesh both ceilings so they match
• paint every room in the house
• add can lighting in kitchen/living room
• raise and paint kitchen cabinets white
• change layout in the kitchen (appliances)
• install new hardwood floors in the kitchen to mesh with the living now that the wall is gone
• sand/stain old hardwood floors to make it look seamless

As of today I think that's it (for the big stuff anyway).

Tuesday, November 15th:
This was my second to last day at work and we started packing up our house/put everything in boxes. Wasn't planning on packing up the bed until later but Eric got ambitious and started taking down the furniture and putting our necessities (like bathroom stuff) in boxes so we slept at my in-laws that night. We're moving in for the next couple weeks until our house is in order. So kind of them to allow us to crash their pad and glad they have the room for us. They should run a hotel out of their house because everyone always seems to stay there. We hope to be out of there soon but as you know, renovations (especially do it yourself reno's) take longer than planned.

Here I am doing my check of the facility. So glad I won't have to be picking up bottles of urine anymore. Yup, that's a water bottle full of urine. These kind of things don't shock me anymore, find this crap all the time. Did I ever mention that people who rent storage are some of the classiest people in the world? Probably wouldn't have guessed it, huh? So not going miss that part of my job. Oh, but I will miss the stories my coworkers and I share about tenants...people yelling and swearing at us, telling us their whole life story, etc...yeah, I've met some of the most interesting people working in the storage business.

Of course nice, normal people rent units too, just not as often or for as long. One thing that makes me laugh is for some reason a lot of tenants try to guess my ethnicity, just in the last 2 months I've gotten told I look Armenian, Persian, Italian, sometimes I'll get Hispanic but more often than not I'll get something else. These are all compliments but I just think I look half White and half Mexican. Random, but don't want to forget that tidbit so now it's on the blog for safe keeping.

Wednesday, November 16th:
Finished packing up the house. Day 1 was easy, packed the big stuff and emptied the cupboards in boxes. Day 2 was hard because all the random crap is left that you have no idea what to do with. 1. Toss it 2. keep it 3. put it in a box and deal with it later. We mostly did #3. Greg and Eric unloaded the Swap van from round 1 earlier and loaded it again for round 2. We left it ready to be cleaned the next day. Ah, it felt so good to lock up for the night knowing all we needed to do was to clean.

Thursday, November 17th:
Cleaned every inch of that house and left it spotless (as spotless as an old house can look). And I worked my very last shift at Alpine Storage! Wahoo!! This was a very happy day. Goodbye Alpine Storage. It's been a long 3 years, had some great memories but I won't miss working there one bit (ok, just my awesome neighbors). I can taste the FREEDOM!!

Greg and Shasta watched Leila (for the millionth time) so we can clean faster. We all know everything takes 2x as long with a toddler around so I owe them big time.

Friday, November 18th:
Left for Arizona for my Papa's funeral at 4am. Passed through Las Vegas and got to see my bestie Erin. I told her I would come visit her in Vegas for her birthday but since we just bought a house it kinda put a hold on things. I'm so glad I unintentionally kept that promise. I. Love. That. Woman.

She We made a delish banana pancake breakfast and James took a break from work to join us, we were only there for about an hour but it was such a special treat to see her and a perfect break for Leila...she loves playing with Jadie. She came to Orem a few weeks ago and I hosted a grand breakfast for she and Cristina. I was so spoiled to see her 2x last month that now I'm going through withdrawals. Love you Erin.

We got back on the road and Leila was such a champ. I was scared it would be the longest 11 hours of our life but I was impressed at how well she did. If she keeps this up I think we'll be taking road trips more often.

Made it to Arizona at 5:00pm just in time for dinner with the whole Stevens family.

Saturday, November 19th:
My papa's funeral. This was a day full of emotions. Sad, of course, because we lost a very wonderful man who was loved by so many people. He was my very favorite grandfather. I've never lived close to either of my grandparents but he was the one I saw most often. I have great memories of riding on his scooter in the hot Arizona weather, he was always happy guy and so eager to play with his grandchildren. But this was also a happy day because after 16 years he will be reunited with my Grammy and will no longer suffer from Alzheimer's disease. It was my Papa's time but I will miss him so much.

Families always get together for funerals, it's unfortunate we don't get together while everyone is alive but sadly it makes for great family reunions. We saw many family members I haven't seen in years and years. These are all the pics I took with my iPhone, more pics to come.

Sunday, November 20th:
Back to Utah we go. We got on the road at 11:00am and made it home at 10:30pm. It was so hard to say goodbye to my parents and my siblings Jimmy and Ana (Billy lives in Utah). I miss them so much and love them to death. It was nice to get the whole immediate family together, even for a couple days. It's just what I needed...and Leila too.

Leila did really well during on the way back, except for the last 3 hours. She was over tired and couldn't sleep. Not even a movie on the laptop helped.

I took a picture of this man cleaning up gas because he was cleaning up OUR MESS! Eric went inside the gas station while the gas was pumping to get drinks for the road. Let's just say the automatic shut off didn't work and at least 5 gallons of gas went everywhere! 

Monday, November 21st:
Since Eric took a week off to film the show, then 2 bereavement days for the funeral, he needed to jump right back into the swing of things at work so we hired Greg - because he's really good at this kind of stuff - to do the demo and get his hands dirty. He really knows what he's doing and I'd rather pay him than anyone else. Since we're newbies when it comes to renovations, it's been great to have Greg there because he's given us some great insight and ideas.

Greg started the demo on our house while we were in Arizona. When we got back he had the popcorn ceiling down in the living room and tore down the rest of the wall the divides the living room from the kitchen. The place looked totally different, Greg did an awesome job and now we have room for my beloved dining table.

Homeowners left a ton of stuff behind. we found that drawer on the floor full of stuff. After living there 20 years I bet they looked at the drawer and said, "ah, screw it".

Tuesday-Wednesday, November 22nd-23rd:
Kimberly and Audrey came to town for Thanksgiving. Kimberly loves to paint and was all about helping us paint the new house. So Grandma watched the kiddos so we could go straight to work. We started painting the ceiling in the basement, sanded the wood paneling in the 3rd bedroom to prep for paint, and took off the hideous wallpaper in the 2 bedrooms upstairs.



Taking down wallpaper was more of a challenge than we thought...ok it pretty much SUCKED! Kimberly bought Dif (supposed to remove wallpaper) but it didn't work for jack. Tiny pieces of paper would come off and it took us 2 hours to get the wallpaper off one tiny wall. What a headache. I was tempted to call the homeowners and tell them to come tear down their stupid wallpaper. Ok, not really that's how frustrated we were.

So the next day we googled how to take wallpaper off and found that all you need is a little fabric softner and hot water. Worked like a champ! Big pieces of wallpaper were coming down. Made our lives so much easier.

On Wednesday I went back and forth to Sherwin Williams 3x to get our paint tinted. We put samples on the wall but they were all too dark so I went back to get 2 more samples. One was still too dark and the other was too blue. We want the perfect mix of a light blue/gray. So I went back a 3rd time and got 50% of the color gray that was too dark and it's just what we wanted. So happy with the color.

Thursday, November 24th:
On Thanksgiving morning I woke up at 5am with the urge to barf and go to the bathroom (not the good kind). Eric checked up on me to see if I needed anything and to get me some water and a cold towel. The next thing you know he's in the other bathroom hurling too. It must have been dinner, food poisoning? Then, coming from Eileen's bedroom I hear someone faintly hurling too. Goodness me what is going on in this house?

Turns out 3 out of 5 adults under one roof got the stomach flu. It's a good thing Mike, Kimberly, and the girls didn't get sick because that would have been a nightmare. Kimberly was such a good nurse (it's also what she does for a living) and got us drugs and nursed us back to health. 5 episodes of vomiting and 7 episodes of diarrhea makes for one awful Thanksgiving. At least everyone had it off.

One of the many things I was grateful for on that day was that there are 3 bathrooms so everyone had their own. Could you imagine if we had to take turns? It would be like another episode of the movie Bridesmaids.

Greg and Shasta came to our rescue and took Leila off our hands. There's no way we could have met her needs when Eileen, Eric, and myself could hardly move. They ended up keeping her that night because she was such a perfect little girl for them so Leila had her very first slumber party away from mommy and daddy. I missed her so much but was so glad they had her. Luckily, they are already prepped with a crib and changing table for baby Sperry (due in February) so it worked out perfect. We owe them so many babysitting hours! It's a good thing they love Leila and she loves them. If Greg's around all Leila wants to do is play with Greg. He's a kid magnet and the coolest uncle.

Friday, November 25th:
Black Friday. Eric was feeling better but not back to normal so he went to Best Buy for a few hours. There's no way he could not show his face on the biggest shopping day of the year. Normally he's there for the craziness when the store first opens but for the first time in history he took it easy. Unheard of for my husband.

He said the store was dead, well, I can't imagine why. The store opened at midnight and had been open for a whole 8 hours already...goodness me. We have lost sight of what the holiday season is about, its about family. Not shopping. It's turned into Black Thursday and I'm not happy about it.

I normally ditch out on all the Black Friday deals but we did go to one store: Lowe's. We used our 10% off coupon that came in the mail with a change of address form and bought a whole shopping cart full of stuff. You can't tell in the picture but the shopping cart is full of:

• 10 can lights and everything that goes with it
• 8 cans of stain for our hardwood floors
• 2 cans of primer
• paint brushes, etc.
• the new HGTV magazine but I took that out before we paid

Needless to say it was one spendy bill.

I was still feeling queezy and might have pushed it a little bit but later that night we took the girls to see the lights at Temple Square. Everyone else had the same idea because you could hardly move with how many people there were. It was still worth it because the lights at Temple Square are so magical and the Christmas spirit really sets in when we go to Temple Square. Nothing beats these holiday lights.

Saturday, November 26th:
Shasta and I went to Bijou market while Eric, Greg, and Kimberly worked on the house. I met up with them later thanks to Shasta who played with Leila so I could paint.

That night we took Audrey and Leila to see Santa at Southtown mall. Leila sat on Santa's lap for the very first time and just stared at him, she didn't cry or fuss but wasn't all smiles either. The picture came out cute so I'm not complaining.

Progress so far: family room downstairs is completely painted (minus trim and adding baseboards since it had ugly brown rubber for baseboards), popcorn ceiling off the 3rd bedroom, wallpaper is off in the 2 upstairs bedrooms, and both rooms are primered.

Sunday, November 27th:
Everyone (except Mike who got sick a day after we did - poor guy) was feeling back to normal so we were finally able to have Thanksgiving dinner. Sweet! Eric made the turkey...so proud of him. We all took this day off and just spent time together as a family, very low key. Eric and Greg wrestled with the girls and we played a fine card game of Wizards.

Monday-Tuesday, November 28th-29th:
We hired a contractor, Jim, for the finish work - drywalling the gap in the ceiling where the wall was, finishing the walls with drywall, texturing the ceiling in the living room to match the one in the kitchen, and lots of electrical work.

The wall we tore down wasn't load bearing, but since the ceiling was already sagging from before, the contractor said if a heavy snow came the ceiling might come crashing down so he added extra support beams in the attic which lifted the sagging roof. Now the ceilings are on the same level and we can even have a dance party in our attic and it would be as sturdy as ever.

On Monday I stopped by the house to pick up a few things and and he was working on patching the walls/ceiling. When Eric, Greg, and I stopped in on Tuesday he had installed the 4 can lights in the living room and cut out the holes for the 6 can lights in the kitchen. The living room looked awesome and the can lights update it so much! I can't get over how rad it looks.

Tuesday was the first time I'd seen something close to a finished product. I knew the renovation was going to be a messy job but I didn't think it would be this dusty or hectic. We have jobs going on in every room and nothing is quite finished, which is annoying with my personality since I like everything clean and in its place. I'm itching to dust and clean so bad. So it was good to see things actually coming together. I'm so excited for this renovation. We just want to move in already, I'm just thankful we're not living there because living in a construction zone would suck.

Thursday, December 1st:
Grandma and Grandpa put Leila down so Eric and I could work on the house. Greg met us there and we were in awe of how great the kitchen looked. Jim had installed the 6 can lights and it looked so bright. Love love love it!

Eric and Greg tore down the upper cabinets so we can get them ready for paint then raise them. I've got some strong men in the family. We then caulked the ceiling in the 3rd bedroom and chatted about the transformation that's already taken place. We wonder what it would appraise at now?

It looks so good without the cabinets I almost don't want to put them back up. Open shelving maybe?

Oh, and check this out. We found an old newspaper in the kitchen from 1965. Eric came up with the idea of framing it so we have a piece of history from the house on our wall. Genius. Greg found the perfect page to frame. So stoked about it.

The 1.5 inch wood for the kitchen arrives today (we had to special order it since it's not a common size anymore). It needs to acclimate for 3-5 days in our house and it gets installed next Friday. Then we sand the old floor, stain both the old and the new, clean up and MOVE IN! Woo hoo! Thinking we'll be in by December 15th. Just in time to put up some Christmas decorations.

Tomorrow we hope to paint the 3 bedrooms and start working on the cabinets. It's coming along.
We seriously could not have done it without the help from of all our family members. I don't think they could ever know how much we love and appreciate them and all they've done to help us out.