Thanks Peter!

Mike and I received a Christmas card from our friend Peter. Mike worked with Peter in LA. Peter included a gift, how thoughtful.

Ta-da! Oh you don't see it?

See there...the blue square. Let me get a little closer.Peter sent us a B for our collection. Good work Peter!

Happy Christmas!

Here are our Christmas decorations for our first Christmas in the new house. We didn't have much because last year we only decorated an apartment. Enjoy!

Snowflake on the front door

Our stockings and Sadie little stocking w/her catnip lobster

Our tree. My parents gave us this tree last year since they wanted a tree with clear lights. Oh and yes this tree is fake but have you seen the price of a real tree??? Also it is very green to have a fake tree so get with it! We also stuck all the Christmas cards we got in the tree too, turned out to be a good spot for them.
PS the big blue present on the right is mine...can't wait to see what it is!

I told Mike we wouldn't put lights on the outside of the house but I lied...sue me. Growing up my mom put together strands of lights with only red and green bulbs and I always loved them and knew I would put those on my house when I had one.
It took 4 people 2 days to find enough red and green bulbs to fill 3 strands but it looks awesome. It only took Mike 30 mins to get them up. He didn't complain...too much. I think our house is the best looking one on the block =]

My husband is so handy!

Seems like we haven't worked on the house is a while but that was not the case this weekend. Last weekend we out out Christmas tree up and put lights up outside, those pictures are coming soon. This weekend we went on a lighting rampage. Lighting is one of the less expensive ways to change the look of a room. We have no replaced all the lighting in the house to updated fixtures, yay us! I don't have before pictures, I know boo, but here is what we have been working on.

New hall lights. So much better than the old gold ones. We bought these in packs of 2 and put one in the laundry room and my walk in closet.

We replaced the entry way fixture a few weeks ago but I didn't get a picture until now. I love this light fixture. We put these ceiling fans in both the guest bedroom and craft room. I heart ceiling fans.We also hung some shelves. Mike hates these shelves. I must admit they are a pain in the butt to hang but they look awesome. We got them at Ikea when we lived in our apartment. Super cheap but nice looking at the same time. I need more dust collectors on the top shelve. I will find some soon I am sure.

My mom gave use this awesome candle/wall thingy. She feels it was meant to be on my fireplace instead of waiting for a place in her house. I love it so I gladly took it! I also got the cream colored B at TJ Maxx on clearance for $8, I love bargains. Those are our Christmas stockings and little Sadie's too.

Our house is famous!

Our local paper publishes recently sold houses on the front of Sunday's real estate section and they include one photo of a recently sold house. Well this past Sunday our house was in the list and also was the front page photo! I am so proud of our house. There are leaves all over the yard but I think it looks fally.



Here is the link (I hope it works):

http://www.bakersfield.com/hourly_news/story/623175.html



I have not had pictures of our recent improvements because we have lost oh I mean mis-placed our camera. I think our cat stole it and hid it somewhere. I will hopefully find it soon.



We put up Christmas lights yesterday. They look awesome.

A new Bailey

Meet Sadie Bailey. Mike has wanted a cat for as long as I can remember. He loves animals and they love him. He is the animal whisper, no joke. We went to the SPCA on Saturday morning and picked out this little lady. She is about 6 months old, we guess. Her tail was broken and her previous owner never took her to the vet to get it fixed so it is like a corkscrew. We love her extra for it. She is super playful and lovey. She enjoys watching TV. She also loves her cat nip lobster and hiding under the bed. She is rather photogenic too.

She enjoys napping on that shelf

Her tail :(

House Warming

We had a house warming party on Saturday. It was great to show off all our hard work. The entire house is painted. I thought it would never be done. Here are some pictures of the finished paint job in each room. Thanks to everyone that stopped by!

Living room:

Fire place, the "B" collection is getting bigger

Dining room. Window treatments from JC Penny and I love them!

Master bedroom. Our bed actually looks small in here. Window treatments from Wal-mart and I love them too.

Master bath. Doesn't look too different in here except the new towels.

Guest bathroom. Now that I look at it this is a terrible picture to showcase the paint.

Sewing/Craft/Office room. This is actually my favorite room. My mom got me the little wire dress form. LOVE it! Desk is from Kohl's. The white cabinet was in our bathroom at the apartment but wouldn't fit in either bathroom of the house so it will help me organize sewing supplies.

Guest bedroom. Another one of my favorite room. The crown molding in here is awesome.

What a difference a weekend makes!

Here are some pictures from our first weekend as homeowners. We were super productive and we are so happy with the way things are looking. Our goal was to get the master bedroom, master bathroom, living room, kitchen and dinning room all painted before we moved in. All these rooms are painted! YAY US!

Master bedroom before:

Master bedroom after:

My parents came by with a new ceiling fan for our master bedroom. They are the best! My dad was even nice enough to put it up so Mike could keep painting. My dad is awesome!

Living room before:

Living room after:

Mike and I put the ceiling fan up in here. It looks awesome.

Dining room before:

Dining room after:

Homeownership: Day 1

I am tired.

Mike and I got our keys this morning at 9 am. Being alone in the house with no real estate agent was strange. Knowing it was ours was strange. But the strange feels soon turned to joy when we got to do some demo work. FUN!

We ran into 2 small issues today.
1. there were 2 holes in the fire place under that facade thingy
2. the floor tile in the master bathroom was not complete but hidden by a bath mat.
No biggie on either. The previous owners left us a few boxes of tiles so we can fix the floor no problem. Mike is confident that he can fix the fireplace up too.

We primed SO much today. We have 2 spots left to prime. Mike is an AMAZING painter. I never knew. Our bedroom is 90% complete, once it is all the way done I will take pictures. PS on the bedroom: dark brown stripes suck to cover up.

So I would rate our first day as homeowners a complete success. It is a great feeling having completed the biggest purchase a person makes in life. We are so happy!

FINALLY

We just heard that our loan was funded and will be recorded tomorrow morning. The escrow agent also told me there will be a check at the title office for us since out closing costs were less than predicted, YAY!

We are meeting out real estate agent at the house at 9 am to get out keys then the real fun begins. We are SO excited and I honestly felt like this day would never get here. YAY!

Still waiting...

Well we have 4 days to go till we get our keys and we are unbelievably excited. We took a trip to Lowe's on Sunday and made our first, of many, purchases. We bought paint and all the supplies to paint. We both took Friday off to get a jump start on painting. We plan to paint all weekend. I called today to put all the utlities in our name starting Friday. I also made an appointment to have the house re-keyed. We are itching to do something, anything to the house!

T-minus 4 days!

Signing

We are signing our escrow papers at 4:15 today. After that our part is done and we wait to get keys on the 16th. I can't believe we are going to be homeowners. We are both so excited! Can't wait!

**update** signing went off without a hitch. We did our final walk through last night too. Now we just wait for our agent to call with or keys. YAY

Escrow a go go

Our escrow is going so well our mortgage broker thinks we can close early. We will close on the 16th or the 17th if everything works out just right. Our mortgage broker is really good. She had us get all the documents during our pre-qualification so that once we got a house it was easy pesy.

So 16 days and counting!

For your protection get a home inspection

The home inspection was today and went well. A few things here and there but nothing major. Well maybe one major thing in my opinion...the dishwasher is not working right! That means we can get it fixed, buy a new one or hand wash dishes. Since it is the OG dishwasher we don't want to repair because it is 13 years old. I have never been without a dishwasher so it sounds like we will be buying a new one...YAY!

We also found out today that we will be closing on Oct 20th and maybe sooner.

We are stoked!

Appraisal

YAY the appraisal is done and it is good. So the only thing left is the inspection on Monday. We also locked our interest rate today at a pretty good rate. With the rates changing as much as they are we decided to do it to be safe rather than sorry.

The waiting is the hardest part!

Pest Inspection

Courtney, our realtor, received our pest inspection yesterday and all is good except some dry rot. Luckily the bank is going to be paying for the repairs to be done early next week. So one step closer.

Finally!

After 5 months of looking and 8 bids we finally had an offer accepted on one of the houses we really wanted. It is an awesome first house and we are SO excited about it. We plan to update everyone here with our projects so check back!
Here are some pictures.
The Bailey House

The house has a front porch. Those French doors are off the kitchen.

Entry way
hate the light fixture but love the screen door


living room
the red will be gone for sure

Dining room
red will be painted over here too

Kitchen
love love love the kitchen


Lots of cabinets and I love the French doors to the patio


Master bedroom
needs some paint but love the 2 closets


Master bathroom
we love the granite and all the upgrades in here

2 additional bedrooms
we will make one a guest room (YAY) and one will be my craft/sewing room!

Guest bathroom