Nail Pops

I tried to take pictures of the nail pops, but with the walls being white it was really hard to get a decent shot.  For those of you who wanted to know what it looks like, I got this image online:

Ours aren't quite that bad yet.  The drywall hasn't cracked at all.  It just looks like a little raised circle.  If we weren't looking for them, I dont' know how many we'd actually see.  We're still on the fence about when to paint.  I really want to do it now, but part of me thinks we should wait.  We'll see.

It SNOWED in Pittsburgh today.  Crazy!  I'm feeling like I'll NEVER get a real driveway - it's never warm enough for them to put it in!

30 Day Inspection Oops & Smoke Detector

I cannot believe it was already time for our 30 day inspection.  What happened?  We've been living here for a month already.  That's craziness!
Our PM came by today for our inspection.  As you'll see from the pictures below, my husband and I went a little blue tape crazy.  It looked like my house had chicken pox...

You get the idea.  Blue tape everywhere - mostly for nail pops and other wall/paint issues.  What I didn't realize is that that they don't fix the nail pops or most other drywall issues until the 10 month inspection.  Oops.  All of that taping for nothing.  It makes sense that they wait, I guess I just missed it before.

They are fixing some issues later this week:

• new counter top for island and breakfast bar (there are several bumps/bubbles in them)
• new kitchen/garage door
• repairing uneven floors in a bedroom and a really noticeable one in the master bedroom.  I'm not quite sure how they go about doing that.
• fixing doors from sticking
• repairing a crack in the vinyl floor
• steam cleaning the carpet in several locations where there is dried paint
• fixing screens that are popping out
• repairing a few cracks in drywall
• making the carpet on a couple of steps a bit tighter
• adding dimmer switches for recessed lights (we paid for them, but they weren't installed)
• some down spout repairs

That's all I remember right now.  Our ten month will be right around Christmas.  A fixed house for Christmas?  I'll take it!

Good news!  Our smoke detectors work.  My husband cooked for the first time tonight and well, he set them off.  Hmm...I've done all the cooking for the past month - no alarm.  He cooks one night and off they go.  I'm just sayin'.

The Office and Finalized Blinds

Since two of our bedrooms don't have any furniture yet, there's no need to show you those pictures.  That just leaves the office.  For now, until we finish the basement, this is also my husband's spot to display his sports stuff.  I'm eager to get this room painted.  I actually have a lot to hang up in here.
 

I'm thinking about getting another bookshelf for that back corner.



In other news, I finally decided on blinds.  After A LOT of thought and changing my mind a million times, I decided just to get the white faux wood.  I went into Lowes today with the intention to get the faux wood downstairs and the fabric cellular shades upstairs.  When I added the room darkening panel, my color choices were limited and I didn't really like any of them.  So, I took it as a sign and went with my original plan.  Plus they're $40 cheaper per blind so that helped.

Good thing we're going for the cheaper blinds because now we have to buy a new TV.  Our bedroom TV, which was a big old tube TV, bit the dust last night.  We decided that we'll move our current living room TV upstairs and get a bigger one to fill up the space in the wall unit.  So, that's this weekend's purchase.  We were supposed to look at furniture, but I'll only be able to pull my husband away from March Madness for a little bit.  Furniture will have to wait another week :(

Entertaining

This house is great for entertaining.  We've had a few small gatherings and the house has been great. Today I had about 15 people and it really showed that the floorplan is great for having people over.  Sometimes I wish our house was bigger or that we had an extra room on the first floor, but for entertaining purposes everyone gathers in the kitchen/morning room/living room area.  Of course the morning room was the biggest hit.  Here's how I set it up:

 Some decorations.  Shh don't tell my husband I used tape on the fresh paint!

Finally my fireplace was dressed up a bit.

This has nothing to do with my house, but while I'm uploading pictures I thought I'd show this.  Writing this  blog has become a hobby, here's my other one.  It isn't perfect, but I'm learning.

Over 50!

I juust wanted to say thanks for reading eveyone.  It was cool to see today that I now have 51 followers! Woo Hoo!  Who knew that that many people would be interested in what I had to write?  As I've told you in the past my husband makes fun of my blog and laughs at me even more when I mention my readers or "followers."  I think he's jealous because as far as I know he has ZERO followers.  I'm the rock star of this house - although my dog may argue that one! :)
I'm getting ready to host my first big party at the house.  Tomorrow I'm having a baby shower luncheon for a friend from work.  I've spent A LOT of time getting acquainted with my kitchen these last two days.  Wish me luck!

2 Items Off the List!

Remember how I said I was super indecisive?  It took me a good month to decide on a rug for the entry way.  I looked at several stores with no luck but for some reason I didn't think of looking at Target.  Low and behold I found one I loved!  I liked it so much a got a smaller one for shoes.  Check one item off the list of about 500!

I promise I will not take pictures of everything I buy and post them, but I was just so relieved to finally settle on this.

I was able to order the extra piece for our wall unit today.  Take off the two end pieces and that will be how it looks.

I'm glad that will be another item off the list.  I also saw some furniture I liked.  Now I have to drag my husband to the furniture store.  Wish me luck.

Totally off the subject but did you see Dancing With the Stars tonight?  Wasn't Hines Ward amazing?  You should log on to abc.com and vote for him :)

A Little Progress

Wow!  Has it been a busy week.  We painted, had furniture delivered, managed to get things hung up on the walls, and even do some decorating.  There's still more to do, but here's where we are now:

Dining Room

Master Bedroom

Family Room

Upstairs Bathroom

Laundry Room

I have one more week off.  I think I can finish the rest of the house! 

Okay, so I kid.  A girl can dream, right?  Those are pictures of a model I visited  this week.  Here are some pictures of where my house currently stands.

My Dining Room
You can see we're not making much progress in this room.

The Real Master Bedroom
Pretty blah.  This was my husband's furniture before we got married.  Unforunately this room is #4 on our list of rooms to furnish.

My Actual Laundry Room
I doubt this will change much.  We decided that we won't paint this room until we need to get a new washer and dryer.

This isn't exciting, just the upstairs hallway.  It happens to be one of my dog's favorite spots.

Below are the rooms that I've actually done something to.  The powder room and upstairs bathrooms.  They are far from done, but at least they've been spruced up a bit.

I bought the leaf candle holders at a candle party years ago (I hate going to those things!) and finally found a good spot for them.  They match the shower curtain perfectly!

So, that's it for now. I've still got some other pictures to share, but I think this is enough to bore you for one day. My shopping adventures this week haven't been as productive as I'd like. I'm just not finding things I love, and I don't want to by stuff just to buy stuff. I keep telling myself it will all get done in time.

Blind Help!!!

I've been living here for 3 weeks now and still don't have blinds.  Mostly because of my indecisiveness.  I know it would have been cheaper to do the blinds ourselves, but my husband didn't really want to install them, I and I certainly didn't want to mess them up.  So, we're going through Lowes.  They came to measure and will do the installation for $118 which I thought was pretty good.  So I ordered swatches and met with the lady at Lowes today and now have the final decision to make.  All along I wanted white wood/faux wood blinds.  My husband likes the fabric cellular shades.  After reading Natalie's blog, I do think that cellular might be better for at least the upstairs because I can add a room darkening panel which would be good for when we eventually have kids in the rooms and for the master closet.  But since we have 4 windows that face the front of the house upstairs and 2 downstairs I think they should all be the same from the outside, so I was leaning towards the wooden blinds throughout the house.  Then today the Lowes lady told me that the blinds don't have to be the same, but the color does.  So...I could have wooden blinds downstairs and cellular upstairs and that would look fine.   Do you agree?  My husband wouldn't mind having the cellular blinds throughout the entire house, but I'm not sure about it.  Help!  What did you/are you planning on doing?

Tight Squeeze

I have other pictures to share but they're on a different computer, so you're stuck with these unexciting pics.  I love, love, love having a garage!  What I'm not loving so much is that it's a tight squeeze.  Not that there's anything that we could have done about this since the garage size is a fixed component of the house.  It's not so bad for my car, but my husband parks his VERY close to the wall.  I think his dreams of the garage turning into another man space are fading.  Not enough room. 

The Police and Some Pictures

Well it only took me two weeks but I managed to get pulled over for speeding in our plan!!!  I'm that horrible neighbor who everyone is going to hate for driving too fast.  I didn't even realize I was speeding. I can't believe I did that.  Luckily I got a warning instead of a ticket.  Welcome to the neighborhood KM!

Speaking of I met a neighbor this weekend and had nice long conversation.  She's lived hear for a year and a half and hasn't had any big issues, so that was reassuring.

Anyway, I can't believe we've lived here for two weeks already.  All in all, we're settled in and now the real work begins.  I can't say I'm proud of how the house looks right now, but thought I'd better get some pcitures posted.  The house does look kind of blah because of our furniture and our lack of furniture.  It won't stay this way for long, but at least you'll get the before shots before we fix it up :)  I'll start with some downstairs rooms today.

I'm off work for the next two weeks, so I'm hoping to get moving on decorating.  We're going to start looking at living room furniture this week and blinds are on my agenda,too.  I'll  also start accessorizing.  The plan is that as we get furniture for each room we'll paint.  I'm feeling very intimidated by painting and by the decorating in general.  There are just way too many choices to make and since making decisions is not my strength, I'm feeling some anxiety.  So I think it's better that we take it slow.  So, here's where some things stand now:





I still need to spruce up the kitchen.  The stool is temporary, but I love sitting there!



I LOVE the refrigerator!

One of my favorite places (NOT my favorite furniture, however!)

My Living Room - The Hodgepodge of Furniture :)
The fireplace is on my agenda for this week, too.

We bought that wall unit over a year ago, but we were afraid to buy the bridge piece in case we couldn't keep the whole unit together.  I'm going to order the bridge this week so at least one thing can be completed.

I have some ideas for new furniture for this room and how to arrange it, BUT I have no clue what to do with this spot!

In other news, they FINALLY fixed our driveway.  It was really bad last week after all of the rain.  I was so happy to be able to park in the garage before we got hit with a bit of snow the other night.  For the first time in a very long time, I didn't have to clean off my car and just got to enjoy the beautiful snow!

Looking out the office window.

View from our bedroom.

I love all the trees.

So Pretty!

More pictures to come in the next few days.  It'll give me something to look forward to :)

Island Outlet

I can't take it any more!  I have to post something.  I've been waiting to 1. get some pictures uploaded and 2. get through my parent parent-teacher conferences and report card writing before I posted again, but I can't help myself.  I miss blogging.  So I thought I'd write a little something before I get back to the grind of proofreading my report cards.

As we've settled in, the kitchen island has become my work spot.  I've been here with my computer just about every night.  I like that I'm connected to the family room where my husband is basking in the glory of March madness but I can still focus and concentrate since I'm out of the action.  Since this has become my mini office and I sit here for hours each night, I'm so grateful that we decided to have an extra outlet installed in the island so that we have one at each end.  It's a very small detail, but I've been liking that I can plug my computer in without having to run a cord across the floor.  So, if you're still doing your electrical additions, I'd recommend this one.

On a side note, it was great meeting India from TheRyan HomesExperience this weekend!  Also, congrats to Lispis who closed yesterday and Jen and Megan who close tomorrow!