out of storage in salt lake

You know the nerves you get right before you're going to give a major presentation or speak in church? Yeah, that's how nervous I felt when we were getting ready to watch OUR show premier on HGTV. We had my in-laws, Greg, Shasta and their new baby watch the show with us. Our house is in shambles right now with the renovation of our kitchen, so we'll have an HGTV/house warming party next month when we have the ability to throw a real party.

Greg showed up ready with his camera and tripod to film us watching our show, I guess he wanted to get our reactions on film. I'm really glad he did and I stole still shots from the video he recorded. Thank you Greg, smart thinking!

my reaction is: oh no, it's starting!

don't know why we're clapping.

don't remember what eric and i are talking about here.

 

looking so serious, and paying close attention.

Overall, we were really happy with how the show turned out. I don't know what I was expecting, but it was better than what I'd imagined in my head (in most cases). I'm bummed that they showed me almost falling off the lift, of the hundreds of hours of film they shot, they had to show that clip. Ugh! It was my first day back of the season, so give me a break :). There were some other things I would change watching the show, like my choice of words (in house #2 I used "clean" when I really meant stale, stagnant, boring) and I don't feel like I seemed too excited about the house we chose, but I really was. I feel like they kinda cut that part out. I remember saying that house #3 was a perfect mix of house #1 and house #2.

Our home is far from perfect but it's full of love and beauty. We saw it's potential and the location was just right. Central to everything, tree lined streets, quaint neighborhood where everyone seems to take pride in their home, and only 9 minutes from Eric's work. We'd looked at a lot of dumpy homes with Julia in our price range and this home was the best we'd seen in months and it was in great condition compared to many other homes (we didn't want new or newer construction). We're in love with our home and we love being in it. It's been nice to put our roots down and make it ours. A dream come true for sure!

Overall it was really fun and weird to watch ourselves on TV. An unreal experience for sure! Leila was pointing and saying, "mommy, daddy!". She loved watching herself on TV. We filmed for days and I feel like it was the shortest show ever. It was interesting to see what they decided to air and what they left out. I mean we only have 22 minutes! Thank you to those friends and family members who supported us and watched along.

finalizations

After finalizing the design of our kitchen, it was time to pay for it. Since everything "kitchen" is 20% off, we picked up a few other things to organize the drawers and buckets for garbage, recycling, and compost (our house came with a huge compost bin that's nicely hidden in our backyard so we thought we better get a bucket specifically for compost otherwise we'll never use it). You only get one 20% off coupon so we took advantage.

Eric and Katshia are comparing the list from Artisan to IKEA's, making sure everything matches and is correct. I'm so glad we had Artisan design and install our kitchen, with IKEA you can only customize things to a certain extent. But Artisan knows how work with IKEA's product and customized things to fit specifically for our kitchen. I didn't think we'd need any customization's in our kitchen and didn't want anything custom because that usually means more money. But we have a funky area by the door that needed a custom cabinet and we also wanted custom open shelf boxes. Surprisingly, neither of these custom built items cost us very much at all. Artisan knows that we chose IKEA because of the quality and price. So they that into consideration with all of their customers and made things work with our budget. They were a dream to work with. 

Before we paid, there was one last thing we needed to take care of....the countertops. We were still unsure of the color we wanted for the countertop. 

 

From the beginning, we knew the exact cabinets and handles we wanted. We didn't create a design board for our kitchen but we looked at hundreds of pictures on Pinterest and Houzz so the design board was in our head. Eric and I have almost the exact same taste so between our mental design board, the selection that IKEA offers, and Artisan, designing the kitchen was a breeze.

Choosing the color for the countertop was the hardest part of this whole process. We've always dreamed of having quartz countertops (with little or no speckles or pattern) so we just needed to narrow it down to color. It's especially hard to decide when: 

1. you have a vision of the color you want but they don't have it 

2. when you have a budget you want to keep and the countertops you want aren't in that budget. 

At first, we didn't love the colors of the selection at IKEA so we picked a different one from the showroom at Aspen Countertops (the same place that supplies IKEA with their countertops) but at the last minute (before we paid) we decided it wasn't the right color. So we decided to choose IKEA's selection instead.

I'd love an all white kitchen with white or marble looking countertops. White walls/kitchens are really in right now and I'm seeing it everywhere on Pinterest. But since the layout in our home is so open with the living, dining and kitchen all in one room, I don't want the space to feel lopsided with all white on one side and color on the other. I think that having a crisp, all-white space on one side of the room will make the living space feel more dirty/cluttered. The kitchen needs contrast so we narrowed it down to two colors: sterling on the left and pewter on the right.

I loved pewter because it's gray and not too dark or heavy. But it has a brown undertone and when put next to the color of our walls, it looked brown. But when put next to something else it looked gray. I didn't know what a whole slab would look like and I didn't want to take the chance of it looking brown. We don't want an ounce of brown (except for wood) in our kitchen so we went with sterling on the left. At first I thought it was a little dark, but now I love, love the color and think it'll mesh nicely with our furniture and wall color.

The kitchen staff at IKEA is very knowledgeable, and they always say anyone can help you with your kitchen, it doesn't have to be the same salesperson. But you get attached to the person who helped you the first time and understands your situation so luckily Katshia was always there when we went and helped us with every step of the way. Overall, a great experience. And I feel like the customer service at IKEA and Artisan was much better than Lowes. 

Before we left IKEA, we needed to stop by the delivery section to drop off our paperwork and tell them Artisan was going to pick up our order. She pointed to a stack of boxes and said it was already picked out and ready to be picked up for tomorrow. All those boxes (minus the chairs which aren't ours) is our kitchen. Wow, they work fast. Those are a lot of boxes and again, so glad we don't have to sort it all and having missing or extra pieces. Believe us, we've heard stories of it takes weeks to a month for someone to install their own IKEA kitchen. Artisan even comes out and has to re-do or finish kitchens that people have already started. The extra cost of installation will be worth every penny.

air date rescheduled

1. Our air date has been rescheduled for Friday, March 16 at 10pm e/p (8pm Utah time) instead of tonight. I think they rescheduled it for Friday because maybe, just maybe they love our episode so much they want more people to watch? Kidding. 

2. I think HGTV read my blog because they changed the title of our episode. So much better.

kitchen

After months of living in a half finished kitchen, we're finally doing something about it. Initially, we planned on keeping the existing cabinets and sprucing them up a bit by painting them white. I slaved over several days sanding, primering, and painting those cabinets. I didn't love the end result but we were going to live with it anyway. We figured that with new hardware and new countertops, you wouldn't notice the imperfections in the cabinets.

Once we tore down the wall dividing the kitchen from the living, we needed to rearrange the kitchen layout so we cut off part of the countertop to make room for the massive fridge. The tiny 1.5'x2.5' chunk of countertop we cut off weighed about 40 pounds because it was a layer of plywood, chicken wire, concrete, then the tile.

We decided that with such a heavy countertop, there's no way we'd be able to save the lower cabinets without completely destroying them. I was fine living with the older cabinets, but there's no way we were going to live with those hideous tile countertops, especially after we'd already cut a piece off. It was time to make a firm decision on what were were going to do. We decided it was time to look at new cabinetry.

Getting a new kitchen is definitely bittersweet because we didn't think we'd end up renovating the whole house and it's expensive, but we're so happy because we're be able to design our dream kitchen. Everything will be new, clean, and it will be gorgeous.

We wanted to be cheap, but not IKEA cheap. Come on, we all know that after putting together an IKEA piece of furniture a couple times, it falls apart. Several pieces in our house are from IKEA and we're trying to get away from that. We don't want to look like we live in an IKEA catalogue.

To make a very long story short, back in February we met with Lowes and they came out and measured for new cabinetry and countertops. We had our eye on our the modern flat panel board but it was considerably more expensive than a less modern looking one. But it wasn't in the budget so we went with the transitional style. When the saleslady showed us a 3D design of our kitchen, I loved it at first because it was better than what we had. But I wasn't in love with it or the price tag. It was at our max budget, not including the hardware or any appliances. The order was ready to be placed, all that needed to do be done was hit the place order button and we'd have a new kitchen. But it didn't feel right to me, I kinda got a panic attack because it was a lot of money for something I didn't love. I couldn't place the order and neither could Eric.

So we headed over to IKEA just for the fun of it because Eric was really reluctant about the quality of IKEA's cabinets after the lady at Lowes bashed on them right and left. I mean, we only have one thing to compare what the quality of our kitchen would be like...our current IKEA furniture. We've taken our Malm bed apart so many times, I think this is the last straw before its done for. We've passed the kitchen section millions of times, but you see it in a different light when you're actually shopping for it.

We actually liked the cabinets because they had a more modern feel but didn't want to spend bucco bucks on a kitchen if it's going to fall apart a couple years down the road. I chatted with the saleslady, Katshia, and she spent a good hour with us answering each and every one of our questions/concerns about their product. She demoed everything for us and showed us how well they hold up. I was 100% sold, ready to forget our bid from Lowes and go with IKEA (we looked at Home Depot too but we found that it's even more expensive than Lowes). Toward the end of our conversation with Katshia, she said on March 2nd they are offering 20% off your entire kitchen. What? Um, sign me up. I was 120% sold. It was the beginning of February, I guess we could wait a month. Lowes can't touch IKEA's prices.

This definitely sweetened the deal for Eric but he still wasn't sold, and was skeptical during our whole conversation with Katshia. So we came home that night and hopped on the computer to read reviews, that's how we buy everything, based on reviews online. It didn't take us long to read tons of reviews, blogs, etc, about people in our same situation...debating between a kitchen from Lowes or Home Depot v. IKEA. Every single person that we read about online went with an IKEA kitchen and they explained why.

Now here's the kicker, IKEA's cabinet lines came in 3rd (third!) overall in Consumer Reports, behind the top two premium brands. We were shocked. That sold it for us because we base many of our decisions based on Consumer Reports. They made it easy for us. Glad that hard decision was over. Now we can worry about actually planning our kitchen, starting on countertops, cabinets, handles, etc., all over again. At Lowes I felt too rushed, but at IKEA we had all the time in the world since we needed to wait around for a month for the special.

We decided that we wouldn't install the kitchen ourselves, for many reasons (Eric is handy but it still took him a couple hours just to put our dresser together), and called the company that IKEA outsources. They were so pleasant to work with, I knew this was the right move. Two weeks after I called, the owner of Artisan Installations came out and designed our kitchen. I drilled him with more questions about IKEA just to make sure we were going with the right company, his answers assured us ten fold. He said there is a 25 year warranty and since this IKEA has been opened, all he has been doing is installing IKEA kitchens. He deals with the warranty issues and the only problems people have are small things, and no one has ever returned an entire kitchen (like the Lowes saleslady said). He spent more time with us than the Lowes saleslady and gave us a better design layout too. You could tell he was more experienced because he thought about things the other lady didn't. Overall, he really wanted to give us a rad kitchen.

Oh, and with all of the savings combined, we were able to upgrade all of our appliances for about the same price Lowes quoted us for cabinets and countertops alone. If you're gonna do it, may as well do it big. Do it right.

A week after he came to our house we met with him and came up with a very similar design. After about 5 revisions, this is what our kitchen will look like:

The installation started this week. We are so excited to actually have a full functioning kitchen.

house hunters air date scheduled

Two nights ago we decided to clean out our DVR and powered through the 5 episodes we had of House Hunters saved in there (our DVR saves 5 episodes at most). We watched 2 full episodes and fast forwarded through the others, feeling awkward for the people in them. The more and more we watch it, the more anxious we feel for our un-aired episode; probably because we know the behind-the-scenes workings of it and it brings up memories of all the takes and retakes and retakes filmed at each spot. And we can see this in the episodes we watch. Who knows how we are going to come across and to be honest, I don't even really remember what I said or what I talked about!

I definitely am apprehensive about the way I may come across regarding one of the neighborhoods, hope we don't make too many enemies. On top of all that, it's going to be funny to see the way my personality got flip-flopped with Eric's in the production of our episode. Hey, they wanted conflict, we gave them conflict. Didn't know the conflict was going to be so staged and we sort of walked into a pretend conflict on day 2 of filming that sorta just stuck. Meh, whatever. We'll roll with it!

Before filming, Eric and I watched House Hunters religiously. Lately, it feels like we aren't so interested. Could be the fact that we are not looking for a home anymore, so the fun of putting ourselves in their shoes has kind of come and gone. It could also be because we remember how awkward we felt sometimes during filming, and watching others go through it is just plain painful sometimes! It's not like we are professionals or anything, and getting used to a camera in your face is crazy hard. We finally became comfortable with the camera on day 3, each day got easier and easier. But by then we'd already filmed 2 days so I'm nervous to see how the begining of the show looks. When we used to talk with our friends about how the show was filmed (after we were accepted and before we began filming) they used to tell us how the "surprise" is ruined now. I wouldn't say that knowing how the show is filmed has necessarily ruined it for us. I mean, c'mon, what couple honestly looks at 3 homes and then roshambos for "the one" in the end? It's actually kind of fun to watch for the forced discomfort some of the Hunters feel for the home they end up choosing in the end. We actually watch most reality TV a bit different now! Depending on the show, it's become easier to tell where the producer is inserting their own agenda into the mouths of the players...Call me naive but I used to think that there was at least some level of realness in reality TV. Understanding now that even shows as real as House Hunters are somewhat scripted, has opened my eyes.

We got an email from House Hunters this week and it looks like our episode is scheduled to air next week: Wednesday, March 14 at 10pm, 8pm Mountain.

As if my nerves weren't already on edge, the title alone might lead some to believe we moved up from a transient lifestyle:

This is one of those times where the difference between "in" and "at" is paramount.

We really are excited for our episode to air, it was an experience of a lifetime and one of the coolest things we've ever got to do. Documenting the process of buying our first home on national television and on our favorite TV network is pretty cool, but we'll be watching with one eye open, one eye closed I'm sure.

I never got around to blogging about the days of filming. So in honor of our episode airing, I'll get my but in gear and post days 1-5.

birthday bash: 5/5

ok. this is the last day celebration. 

but i think every family throws a special birthday sunday dinner for the birthday person. 

or at least we do in my family and in eric's. this was eric's special dinner (minus photos of the actual delicious meal my mother-in-law worked so hard to make). 

birthday bash 4/5

tucanos.
we only indulge in this place with a birthday coupon.
eric's birthday is on the 24th and cristina's is on the 25th so we went together to celebrate the birthday people.

without a doubt, the chicken hearts always come by our table. everyone at the table usually declines. this time the server put it on my plate and had me try it. i was scared, it didn't look appetizing and i could only imagine how rubbery it would taste. i cut it in half and dared eric to try it with me. it wasn't so bad...probably because i doused it with lime.

a visit to the riverwoods isn't complete without a stop at the coolest toy store around...blickenstaffs.

i think we had more fun than the girls. those little scooter things are so much fun. we want one so bad.