Where to start?

Oh boy, it has been since January that I last posted.  I have been inspired by my September 2012 wives group friends to maybe keep an updated blog.  If I can manage to do so I will try and recall the past few months that we have been through and give you the day to day stuff.  I will tell you now, this is not an exciting life I lead. 

"The move"

When Bill and I started dating he lived in a 2 bedroom, 1 bathroom house.  The kitchen was small enough that if my arms were extended I could touch cabinet to cabinet.  It had an amazing backyard for our fur babies to play.  Then in May 2011 I moved in and this already small house became even smaller.  I brought myself, my 100 pound dog and a whole bunch of stuff, I slowly made his house into our house.  Fast forward to Jan 2013 almost 2 years later and we are busting at the seems with too much stuff and no room for when it comes time to expand our family.  So, we went on the house hunt, looking for something that met all our criteria; large yard, large kitchen, garage, at least 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms would be nice and in a nice neighborhood, under $1,200 and allows pets.  Sounds pretty easy, until you are on the searching end of this hunt, we would find the perfect place in pictures, then we read the description "no pets" or the description would read "pets ok" but be out of our budget.  We searched high and low for the perfect place that met all our criteria, it does not exist.   While on Facebook one of Bill's friends posted that he had a house for rent in Coal City.

Bill asked for details, the guy said "just go look at the outside and see if it is something you guys want".  So we did, as we are driving to go look at the outside of this house I get the "we are only looking at the outside, we are not going in there are tenants still living there so do not ask".  Okay baby, I got it.  We pull up to this awesome bungalow or at least I believe it is a bungalow.  It is so BIG looking on the outside, but there is no fenced in yard.  My mind starts going a mile a minute "I could walk dogs, I would not mind that, they would like that I could daily exercise, we could make not having a fence work".  We are sitting in the car discussing the outside, when it happened the current tenant stepped out onto the back deck and asked if she could help us "ladies".  Then I did it, I asked if she would mind showing us the inside.  She agreed and gave us a great tour.  I fell in instant love with this 4 bedroom, 2bathroom, living room, dining room, mud room, all original wood work house.  It had hardwood floors all throughout, nice size bedrooms and enough space for that expanding family we are wishing for and it was below our max budget of $1,200!!

We decide we were going to take it, this was on March 26th he said okay move in is either the 1st or the 5th.  We chose the 5th, we needed time to pack and get a game plan.   We moved in on Wednesday April 3rd which was also our first night in the new place.  I had great help from my friend Trisha, she came and helped me clean and organize things.   We have officially been in the new place one week.  I LOVE IT!!  It has been a lot of work trying to move, unpack and decorate.  It is a work in progress and I know there are quite a few people waiting to see pictures.  Walking the dogs is awesome, they love it and so do I, it jump starts my day when they each go for 15-20 min walks every morning.

I have put some before pictures up and as the rooms get decorated I will post the afters.  These are just the first floor rooms.  My/our office will be upstairs as well as the nursery for when that time comes.  


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The out side of the house.

Walking in from the front porch, into the living room. "Before"

A view of the living room at a different angle. "Before"

The dining room "Before"

One view of the kitchen, there's Trisha cleaning cabinets. "Before"

This goes into the hallway off the dining room. Straight will bring you into the bathroom, left into the guest bedroom and right into our bedroom. 

Going right from the hall brings you to our bedroom. "before"

Going right from the hall brings you to our bedroom, with a different view "before"

Going left from the hall brings you to what will be the guest bedroom/playroom for the nieces and nephews. The previous tenants used this as a walk in closet.  I will be removing the closet rods and shelving.  "before"

Going left from the hall brings you to what will be the guest bedroom/playroom for the nieces and nephews. The previous tenants used this as a walk in closet.  I will be removing the closet rods and shelving, another view.  "before"

This seems to be a pretty long post, so I will say so long for now.  Thanks for visiting.