I've Been Feeling Crafty!

Lately, I have been taking full advantage of my Michael's coupons for 40-50% off items. I have been making 1 trip a week, and each time getting another coupon for the next week! I love getting good deals :)

I made a wreath! It was a lot of time consuming, tedious cutting and gluing paper and cutting wire, but I am thrilled with the results!

I used a book that I already had with pages that were turning yellow with age. Bought some wire and glue and ribbon, etc.

I glued a piece of wire in between two pages, drew the leaf design and cut them out. Then I coiled them around another piece of wire I made into a large U or almost a full circle.

And this is the finished product! I am super happy with it, it's perfect for fall.

Here is the link to the website from Martha Stewart if you want this idea/pattern

Also, this week I cooked up some fish on the BBQ with Erin. He caught a LinCod in July when we went to Brookings, OR and we got to eat some of it last night!

The lemons, peppers, and tomatoes are right from Erin's dad's garden. That is so fun!

And this was our dessert: A rustic apple tart

Welcome Fall!

Fall is here! Except for the weather! Last week, Erin fixed our heater for us, although we haven't needed to use it yet :) Apparently there was a piece missing when we bought the house and pg&e couldn't fix it until we bought the right part, blah blah blah, and now it works!
We have really been kicking back around here as far as working on the house goes, and it has been NICE. However, it has really been a struggle to find a renter, until this weekend!!!! We got a renter! YEAH! Praise the Lord, woohooo!
Seriously, we spent months and so many hours and sweat and tears (only mine :)) and money and so much energy into fixing up this house, only to have it sit on craigslist for over 2 weeks with no one turning in applications to rent. Then this last weekend we had a woman and her daughter interested. And today they signed the rental agreement and started moving in! It is a daughter who will be living here, and her mom is a at home massage therapist, who will only be here during business hours seeing clients and then her daughter will live here full time (Her mom and dad live in their own home, and got this house for their daughter to live in). We are so excited to have it rented out.
I have been enjoying our house this fall. We have 7 pumpkins on our porch and i love it! I have fall scents going inside and have been making lots of food. Homemade breads, and desserts, and dinners. We have been getting our sewer worked on as well. There was root damage and a break in our main sewer line, so we had that repaired last week and it is fixed, but they still need to put the dirt back and pour new cement. One more problem that this old house had and we had to fix lol. But I am really starting to fall in love with our house.
We went to Santa Barbara at the beginning of this month so Erin could go lobster diving and I could work on my tan :) We had beautiful weather and got some good catches!

My husband is so handsome! He and his dive buddy saw a shark on this trip, and not just little ones, an 8 foot shark

, crazy!!!

We also dog sat for a co-worker of mine for a couple days and it was so fun! I want a dog so bad but seriously, a puppy would be just too much work for us right now. And Erin is also against indoor dogs...so we'll see.

September is flying by

This month has gone by really fast, but I am sad that it is still warm outside. When is the fall weather coming??? I love living in midtown in the fall, it's absolutely beautiful with all the trees turning colors and leaves everywhere. Plus, I want to be able to decorate my house with fall stuff and I just don't real right doing that when its 85 outside.

I'm enjoying our house and the fact that our side is done. I have been cooking more, last night I made lentil and beef stew, delish! If you want the recipe let me know. Also, stuff like lasagna, pastas, crockpot dishes, etc. I currently have a sourdough starter going and I can't wait to make my first sourdough bread from it! I have to wait 2 more days :)

This last week, we had our pastor and his family over for dinner. There were 9 of us total but we made it work in our long, narrow dining area :) It was a lot of fun and good to have people over. Erin led the Sunday school at our church this last Sunday and did a great job. We are going through "Living in God's Two Kingdoms" by David VanDrunen as a church. It's been a great book so far, challenging me to understand my purpose and involvement in the church and in everyday culture.

We have my good friend Kaitlin living with us and I have enjoyed just spending time with her while she stays with us during her start of grad school at Sac State. Her and I go way back and I have missed her over the last few years.

We have gotten our rental advertised and ready to go! They are doing last minute finishes as far as inspections and what not. It is available October 1!! So if you or anyone you know is looking for a place to live in midtown, let us know. Here is our  ad on craigslist.

Here are a few pictures too

This is bedroom #1, the biggest room in the whole house!

The new bedroom #1, technically bedroom #2. This was the kitchen of the unit we changed.

And new bedroom #2, and bedroom #3 of this unit. There is a closet to the left of the fan, it's sort of a weird angle.

The living room has built in shelves and a little hutch, which I love. That is the door to bedroom #1.

This is the other side of the living room, with the front door/entry to the left and the bathroom #1 on the right.

Here is the kitchen. It has the tiles from the 40's still! It's pretty cute but cozy :) We added a microwave and cabinets above the microwave and fridge, as well as the pantry on the right.

Here is the new bathroom. It's pretty much where the back unit's living room was before the remodel.

And this is the house after they painted the steps and porches. It used to be red, which was cute, but the gray is better :)

 

We are hoping to landscape in the spring and since my sister in law is a landscape architect, it should look pretty good!

Finally an update

First off, Erin and I celebrated our 1 year anniversary on August 28!! And we survived while fixing up a house, amazing. hahaha. We ended up staying here in Sacramento and went out to a nice dinner in Old Sac and relaxed mostly.

The rental unit is coming along. We have gotten a lot of work done over the last 2 weeks. I am just putting in a slide show to show you.

The floors are a new cherry wood but they are just dirty in this picture :)

m

 

So we rented a paint sprayer from Home Depot last weekend and painted the entire rental unit in 1 day! 3 bedrooms, the living room, the hallway, dining area, kitchen, entry, etc. We did not have a good start. We noticed at first that there was some pink paint coming out, and we were using white so we could tell, but it looked like we got it out and Erin painted the first room. His goggles were a little foggy and speckled from paint. We looked at the room and it was pink. PINK! I was not happy. I looked in the paint and also saw this, and went a little crazy.

 

Our paint was contaminated by a sealant that they put in the gun and you only need 1 drop. Some guy put the freakin whole bottle in it or something and it was constantly dripping into our paint, making the room look like this :)

 

We had to stop what we were doing, haul this sprayed back to HD covered in paint and tell them what was up. Luckily we didnt have to get all crazy, haha because I was ready to (now we lost $100 worth of paint, and we had to re-paint that room now and lost a few hours of our already crazy long day). But they gave us a brand new 5-gallon paint and set us up with a new sprayer and gave us another 24hours of rental time. But, at the end of the day and 15gallons of paint later, we were done :)

The bathrooms just need the plumbing hooked up, we have new toilets, vanities and sinks, new floors, new carpet, new doors, new ceiling fans and lights. Should be ready to rent out in October!! Anyone looking for a 3bdrm/2bath in midtown? Spread the word.

And last but not least, our side is ready for visitors:)

 Here is a sweet view of our attic! Erin has been installing fan boxes in the ceilings for the new fans we are putting in, so I snagged a picture. It's nice and big up there!

Going going going

I have a few seconds to blog really quick. Lately, We have been doing nothing but tiling. We tiled our whole kitchen and entry way and still need to grout the kitchen, which I am going to start as soon as I finish this. Mind you, Erin and I are both working everyday and still trying to manage our marriage, social life and basic necessities like bathing and sleeping hahah. Our life is crazy. Currently, the doors to my kitchen, pantry, and cleaning closet are leaning against odd places around our living room. The fridge is in front of our entertainment center, also in the living room and the stove/oven is chilling on our back porch.

Which leaves my kitchen looking like this. It is however all done being painted, I just need to eventually strip the doors and paint them, but I'm thinking that won't be for a few months :) And then baseboards when we are done grouting.

We have really come a long way, our kitchen looked like this on the day we bought it.

Big improvement :) I can't wait to put back our kitchen table, put my cute new bookshelf for my cook books, my appliances, and my potato bin. Think big picture!

Our entry way has new tile down! It just needs some quarter round trim to go over the bottom of the baseboards and then I need to paint the front door, it was literally peeling off in huge strips, so I decided to strip it and will paint it eventually.

 The other side of the house is getting done! They put up drywall and are finishing the rooms soon!

 We are seriously living in a construction zone, no joke.

This was them priming and painting our house.

And finally, they are 90% done painting our house! They were supposed to do it while we were on vacation, ha! 3 weeks later.... They did everything except the porch because we still have a lot of foot traffic going on and work being done, so they didn't want it to get stained and I agree! They will come back and paint it grey later.

It started off looking like this,

And it's so much better now! You just have to come and visit us to see it in real life!