I found a before picture!

I thought I had taken pictures of the bathroom when we had painted it back when we first moved in, but I couldn't find it when I was looking earlier. Then tonight when I was looking for before pictures of the basement, I found this one - woohoo!

So before...And after...

Daddy's little helper

We finally finished the master bath renovation about 2 weeks ago and we are so thrilled to have our fully functioning space with 2 sinks!! While David was installing the sink, he had a cute little helper anxious to be a part of the action, as well as one observer. Somehow I didn't get a picture of Marty sitting at the door watching, but here you can see Scotty "helping" daddy out.

Somehow I didn't get a before picture of the bathroom either - doh! (I have got to remember to start doing that!) So you know what we changed, it had the full size mirror that stretched across the entire wall and 2 can lights above the mirror. There was only one sink and a completely useless vanity space (ya'll know I don't do my hair or makeup) that was open underneath. The only thing we still want to do is have a built in piece go between the 2 vanities with drawers and shelves for our storage. In the interim we're using these plastic drawers which function just fine until we can save up the money for that. We're definitely going to hire a contractor for that portion of the renovation since it's so custom and we want it to match.

Here's the finished (for now) product

More renovation pictures to come soon! We have been busy, busy in the Bilbo house getting everything done and ready for baby!!

Floral Beauty

David and I worked really hard getting our flower beds beautiful last year. Since we did all the work during the summer, most things we planted died as soon as we got them in the ground. I kept all the receipts, but have been thrilled that everything has come up and the flowers are gorgeous. I love driving down our street and pulling up to our house to see all the pretty flowers in the beds. Here are a few shots of the various types of flowers we have out in full bloom this summer. I'm seriously considering selling some of my nature photography. Nearly all the art in our home is art we have created and we have alot of our nature shots blown up and displayed throughout the house. There are lots of logistics to figure out, but I may give it a chance, we'll see. ;) For now, I hope you enjoy the pictures of the lovely floral beauty from our yard.

Whew!

Well, all the family has now come and gone and while we'll be traveling in the next few weeks, we'll be solo at home for a while.

First a recap. Dad & Linda left on the 30th after their 3 week stint in GA & FL. The boys, Scotty in particular has been going through withdrawal without his buddy Casper to play with. I have to say things are a little more calm without them running around all the time though. Thursday night Mom flew in for the Kitchen/Bath Industry Show and to hang out with us a bit. Friday Mom & I went into downtown for the show and walked around for a few hours checking out the new stuff. Saturday we went to Joann's and had the slowest lunch at Subway EVER. They literally made 5 sandwiches for mom & I to get them right. Ridiculous! At least I had told mom that I'd never been there before. I don't predict a return visit anytime soon.

Sunday, we headed back to the KBIS show, this time with David. We walked around for another few hours, then headed all the way up to Cumming for lunch at Red Robin. It's Mom & Mike's favorite place, so we had to take a few pictures for Mike since he couldn't be with us. Rumor from the server is they are thinking about opening a location at the Dallas Avenues - which is way closer than the 50ish miles to get to the one in Cumming from our house. ;)Monday morning I dropped mom off at the airport and since then I've been playing catch up with my to do list. Back in March David started on a partial renovation of our master bath. We put it on hold after he got the lighting working before Dad & Linda came into town. This week I've put the floor down and David put the new molding in. We still need to paint and caulk, but then everything should come together relatively smoothly. We'll just have to install the new bath fixtures, the toilet and vanities. I'll post pics when it's done.

Other than that, this week has been hot. It's the first week that we've had solid high temps for a while and the upstairs isn't cooling. Wednesday night David diagnosed that the ceiling fan is broken. I think this is the missing link (I hope anyway). We're headed to Lowe's in search of a replacement last night and with our new fan installed, hopefully we'll be in for a cooler bedroom from now on. At least we slept better last night.

So, that's about it for now. We're heading to Dayton for Mae's 3rd Birthday this afternoon and we'll get to see Lacey & the kids Sat afternoon on our way home since they'll be in Chattanooga for the weekend. We're looking forward to visiting with people that we love! ;)

Catching up...

Sometimes I wonder how it was possible for me to work a 40 (well 70 if we're being realistic!) hour work week and get anything else done! One thing I know for sure it I'm sleeping more. At least 8 hours a night, so that accounts for about 2 hours, but still...where does the time go?!?

This week has been kinda crazy. My dad & stepmom are driving down today for a visit and we have been undergoing construction of our master bathroom. So this week was supposed to be super productive, right?

Well it didn't start out too great. Monday my washing machine decided to conk out on me, mid load. Now if you've stayed at our house, you may think this is a blessing...(for those of you who haven't had the pleasure - it sounds like a helicopter is landing on our roof during the spin cycle!). Well the timing money wise sucks, but I must say that I am thrilled with my new washer...and thank God for Best Buy's 18 months no interest financing and the wonderful sales guy who cut us a good deal. ;0) Unfortunately delivery & installation wasn't as smooth, but we got those bumps worked out too and it's all up and running. And after 3 days that leaves me just enough time to do the 8 loads of laundry that have piled up!

This new washer is so much quieter...I can't believe I spent the last 4 years with that old piece of crap. Well, I guess I should clarify. If our set was on a slab it wouldn't have been an issue, but those original front loaders weren't designed to not shake the heck out of a house if they weren't on a concrete slab. Anywho - I'm just thrilled with the new set we have and am hoping to get a friend to diagnose the problem so we can sell them on craigslist.

Moving on to the bathroom. There is still so much to do. We had thought we'd be alot further along by now, but the flooring has been a real pain to get up and it wasn't until last night that David finally finished that portion of the job. We are thinking we'll just take some time off while Dad & Linda are here to enjoy time with them and start working again later. We can all share a bathroom, and the shower works in ours, so we'll see when it gets done. At least I was able to organize all the chaos to a minimum so it looks and feels a little more clean in our bedroom.

On a final note - I was sad to see Scott go on Idol last night. I think he sang so much better last night than he did on Tuesday, much more on pitch and just quality vocals. So here's to Danny, my other fav...lets see if he sticks around!

Master Closet Renovation

So over the last few weeks I have been working on our Master Bedroom closet. David has helped me take down the closet maid system that existed previously and install the new stuff we created. I painted, put everything together and loaded everything in. So, since I forgot to take a "before" picture, I included a picture of what it looked like when we bought the house. We only took down the peg board and had clothes along the back wall.

We still have to put up the new light fixture, but other than that it's done and we love it! I'm amazed by how much extra space we have. We're planning no buying mirror doors for each of the shelving units, but they weren't on sale so we didn't get them. For now it looks very tidy to have our pants folded on them so we're totally ok with it.

Before pictures (previous owners stuff)
Closet - holes are patched, before the paintWith the new silver-grey paintEverything moved back in - love it!