Kitchen Phase 2

Phase 2 of our kitchen renovation: sink and counter.

Tim and I were chugging along through the demo and counter installation. We started cutting the hole for the sink and had some trouble. Then, we had some unexpected visitors!

My mom and Snoopy surprised us and came to help! Snoopy was quite the helper... well, at least he distracted Monkey anyway!

Here's us working on the sink. Trying to fix the stubborn leak with our garbage disposal.

Check out our amazing after photo! That beautiful new sink and counter. :)

Peek a boo! Who is that? Baby Monk getting into mischief...

In process photo of Tim getting ready to cut the counter.

There you have it. Stay turned for Phase 3- cabinet paint (still in process)!

Kitchen Phase 1

We did things a little bit backward and got new appliances first! The house came with appliances, but they were in bad shape. The oven was original to the house (1980s) and we had some problems with the fridge breaking down. We had a technician come out to look at the house, but he couldn't identify a problem.

Either way I am excited about our new stainless steel appalliances! They look fantastic and better yet- they work really well!

You'll notice the upper cabinets do not have doors. We're preparing to paint them in Phase 3. Stay tuned.

Up next, Phase 2: counter and sink.

Outdoor Projects

As you may have noticed, Tim and I aren't great at taking before pictures or posting to the blog, but we're trying to get better! This hook was on our house when we moved in, but it was old and rusted. We used the same spraypaint that we used to paint our mailbox. What an immediate facelift!


Despite our aluminum fence, Monkey continuously gets out of our yard and into the neighbors yard. She is desperate to visit with the Schnauzer next door, Maggie.



Here are a couple of photos of Tim installing our invisible fence to reign in the wild woman.

He installed the fence at a rapid pace. He finished digging the entire back yard in just one day after work! Now that we have both the aluminum and invisible fences, that manages to keep her in the back yard successfully. The front yard is another story...

Happy Halloween!

Better late than never... Back in October, we had a Halloween Housewarming Party. A lot of people had been asking to see our new house, so this was the perfect opportunity! Here are some photos of our costume party.

Tim, Chanelle, & Monkey- farmers and pig.

Camera & Shon- pimp and disco chic

Brooklynn- dead OSU cheerleader

Jordan- vampire.

Tiffany- candy corn witch.

As you can see, we did some decorating for Halloween. We have a Trick or Treat mat which still rests outsde our front door... whoops. Our cute tablecloth, pumpkin cake, and treat trap (photo above).

We also had some furry guests for the party. Bones dressed as Eminem and Sammy as Sammy Tressel! They had some of the best costumes at the party.

New Addition

The White family is expanding! Three weeks ago Tim and I welcomed a 6 year old Rat Terrier named Sullivan to our home. We purchased Sullivan from the Animal Friends Humane Society in Hamilton (we got Monkey from the Preble County Humane Society because we lived in Oxford at the time). We brought Monkey with us to the shelter so that she could meet a Jack Russell Terrier named Princess. Unfortunately, Princess wasn't a big fan of Monkey.

Then, we saw Sullivan. He was a cute, excited little guy. He's a little older than we were planning to get. He immediately greeted Tim at the kennel. We were hoping for a dog smaller than Monkey and the same age or a little older than Monkey (9 months).

Here's a rare moment- Monkey and Sully snuggling me:


Sully absolutely loves being held. He's only 12 pounds, which is a little under weight. He is constantly freezing in the winter weather, so we often put sweaters on him. He's definitely a lap dog.



Monk showing her true nature, a wild woman!

Monk and Sully really love playing together. He doesn't care for Monkey biting him so much, but he really enjoys playing chase in the house and the yard. Sullivan is growing less timid by the day. He's getting more spunky and dishing it out to Monk!

First 3 Projects

We finally have pictures of our first three house projects: the garage, the mailbox and the pool area. The most complicated of the three projects was the mailbox. It took 3 trips to Home Depot to complete! Enjoy!

The Garage

Before


After


The Pool Area

Before



After


The Mailbox

After


All three projects went pretty well! Next up for me is painting the shutters. :)

House Tour

Okay, we know this post is long overdue. Enough of the previews, now it's time for the feature film...

The White House
(pun intended, thanks Jacob Shannon)

Our house is a tri-level or split-level. We'll start with the downstairs. The first pictures are our living room.

We actually got all of those boxes unpacked, so the pictures are a bit outdated. As you can see, we have our two love seats instead of a love seat and couch (read more about our couch mishap in one of our previous posts).

Here's our downstairs bathroom and laundry room. When you walk down the half set of stairs, you will see a doorway that leads to both of these spaces. Immediately to your left from the half set of stairs, you see the living room.

Now onto our main living area including the kitchen and dining room. Thanks for the fan Dad and Tammy, it was a hot one!

Monkey was our home inspector. She's very thorough!

When you enter the front door, you are in the dining room. If you walk through the dining room you'll reach the kitchen.

Thanks Mom and Steve for the gorgeous flowers! Thank you Don and Susie for the festive fall wreath on our door!

Now on to the upstairs. There's a half set of stairs leading to the three bedrooms and bathroom. This is our upstairs bathroom. It has a nice linen closet.

Monk leading the way upstairs!

Here are some photos of our master bedroom. Thankfully, we had most of this furniture in storage. They belonged to Tim's grandma and we're able to use them in our new home.

Now onto our guest bedroom. Monkey thinks this is her bed and loves perching in front of the window to get a good view. She's the newest addition to the neighborhood watch committee. She'll bark to alert you of any suspicious activity including squirrels, other dogs, or menacing trees.

This is the third bedroom or our sitting room. We're mostly using this space for storage.

Thanks for touring our new home! We can't wait for you to visit in person. We're sure enjoying our new place!

Move-In Day!

You know that house we added at the last minute? We're definitely thankful we did, because that's the one we purchased!

That's us on move-in day trying to get the little rascal, Monkey, to cooperate for a family photo. As you can tell in the photo, we purchased a split or tri-level home. The house includes a two car garage to the right and a fenced-in yard for Miss Monk to enjoy (and boy, has she).

Tim and I actually got the keys and stayed in the completely bare house on Thursday night. Here's Tim enjoying his first meal in the new house. We like to keep it classy with some Mickey-Donalds as Brooklynn would say.

We are so thankful for our wonderful family for helping us on move-in weekend. It was not totally dissimilar to previous move-in days. Unlike previous moves, we hope to not move annually and this move wasn't into a residence hall!

Don & Susie came down Friday night and helped us empty our storage unit. The trailer Don rented came in handy for our multiple furniture pick-ups on Saturday! My dad & Tammy brought mattresses for our room and the guest bedroom with them. Visitors, thank them for having something to sleep on haha. I should've gotten a picture of the mattresses strapped to the top of the van! My mom & Steve brought our kitchen table/chairs and patio furniture with them. Then, the furniture maddness began. Everyone was cleaning and assembling for most of the day Saturday. Here's some pictures of the madness:

This was probably my least organized move of all. Tim and I are expert movers by this point. I think at one point I counted 11 moves in 5 years? We label each box with the room that it goes in and the contents of the box. We organize things by where they need to go and have jobs planned out for everyone. I give us a C for this move because we had multiple pick up locations for furniture, stuff, daily use items, and more furniture. Did I mention we had almost no furniture before we moved in?

Speaking of... we also spend the day trying to fit couches that were too large for our doorway. Whoops. Tim and I ordered our couch and love seat from Big Lots. We honestly didn't think to measure it because the previous owners had a very large couch in the downstairs. Apparently, theirs must come apart. After spending 30 minutes trying to fit this 7'4" wide couch into a 7'0" tall doorway, we gave up and bought another love seat instead. Much to your surprise, I'm incredibly impatient. As you can surmise, I was instantly annoyed with this couch situation. We just say that we like people to share the love and be cozy in our house- or something like that.