finally, the before and after

we moved in this house in july.

J U L Y

but we still had a few things left to complete

before i wanted to do "before and after" photos. 

well, it's november and VERY close to being 

december, and we still don't have a master shower.

so what the hell. 

here's our photos, minus a master shower. 

and it's also void of decorating. 

this is my house right after i took down fall decor and 

before i put up christmas. 

but you get the idea. 

we kept the vault in the entry even though

ronnie and jason tried to talk me out of it.

i had cale trim it out and put up a new light.

i love it.

new floors, we wood planked the walls,

added wood to the tray ceiling and centered the fireplace.

ronnie then put up a new mantle and stoned the fire place. 

you can see better below.

 

a huge deal breaker with this house was the wall that 

separated the kitchen from the living room.

i told ronnie, if we couldn't open it up, then we couldn't buy the house.

cale added a huge beam in the attic to support taking out the wall

and it was so worth it. 

you can tell from this angle that we removed the door into the front bedroom.

we relocated it to the hallway instead of the entry way.

it ended up being brette's room and i'm so glad her bedroom door isn't right

by the front door. that would have made me nervous.

we relocated the oven and the microwave and had paco

build us new cabinets and cabinet fronts. 

we added hats to all the doors and again,

had paco build us new cabinet doors so we didn't have

to replace this side of the kitchen. 

another angle of the wall we removed.

i freaking love it. 

white makes a big difference.

you can't tell from the picture, but the kitchen floors were tile

but we added wood.

this is a better shot of where we closed off the door

to brette's bedroom from the entry way.

there used to be a laundry closet in the hallway,

but since we built on a mud room we now

use that space as brette's closet and closed off

the doors from the hallway.

brette's room.

we still have nothing hung on the walls, but 

our goal is to have it done before christmas.

another angle of brette's room. 

i am now standing where her door is located.

this is the best angle to show how we turned her closet into 

extra space in the hallway, made the laundry space into 

her bedroom closet and closed off the door to the entry. 

reid's room.

nothing crazy done except for new paint and carpet.

you can tell the hallway was long and narrow.

i love how removing brette's closet allowed us to open it up.

this was jason's brilliant idea and a huge game changer.  

we even had enough room to add a little broom closet.

this bathroom was gutted. 

everything felt very USED.

 gross. 

new floors, new tub, new toilet, paco built us a cabinets,

we put granite in for a countertop,

added wainscoting and paint.

mostly this was just new carpet and paint in the master, but i 

did have them add wood to the tray ceiling again.

its a little thing i picked up from working at summit homes 

and i just love what it does to a room.

there used to be a little fireplace in the master, 

but we removed it to have extra space in our closet. 

plus, i couldn't figure out a good layout with the fireplace taking up 

one of the only free walls. 

again, we gutted this bathroom.

we removed the tub and this is where our new 

walk-in shower will eventually be.

paco built us new cabinets and i love the big

stacked linen shelf. its not crazy organized right now,

but the space is amazing. 

you can see here that the tub is now the shower and 

the shower is now ronnie's closet. 

 here's our incomplete shower.

it's only been sitting like this since july. :(

 and the new closet that used to be the shower. 

the old closet is still my closet. perfect size.

we added all custom built-in's instead of the wire rack, but 

i don't have a picture of that.

and we used the extra space from where the fireplace used to be

for a huge wall of shoes. 

wahoooo!

this used to be the door to the garage and the

door to the basement. 

we used a part of the garage to add a mud room/laundry room

and opened up the basement stairs. 

 here's a better shot where you can see going out to the garage,

which is now our mud room.

and the closed up basement step that felt like a dungeon.

we removed the wall at the bottom of the steps as well,

to try to open up the space better and again, try to avoid the

dungeon feeling. 

we didn't do a whole lot to the basement.

new carpet, new paint, new back door and new tile by the door.

before

after

before

after

before

after

the basement bedrooms are a really good size and

our plan is to move the girls downstairs when they're older.

you can tell the wallpaper was a specific taste.

this room is massive and is connected to a full bathroom.

we turned it into the girls playroom for now and will

most likely be one of their bedrooms when they're older.

however, for now,

i refer to it as my "monica closet" (a Friends reference).

it's a damn mess and it is one of my goals to get organized, but

my three year old is a tornado and i don't have the motivation.

i close the door and pretend it doesn't exist. 

#reallife

this basement bathroom need gutted and to be reconfigured.

that's a project for another day. 

so for now, we just added a fresh coat of paint. 

and there you have it.

this little remodel ended up taking over half of the year and

almost killed poor ronnie.

he spent most nights and evening working on it, to the point where

i would drive out around 1:00am and make him come home.

for anyone that has been to our house, you know that this

has ronnie written all over it and i'm so proud of what he did.

it's not completely done and i always have a list of "to-do's" but, 

but we love being back home in the burg and i'm excited 

to raise our girls here, be around family and have amazing friends so close.  

stay tuned!

after the master shower, we take on the exterior.

new siding, new paint, new deck!

t e n y e a r s

holy shit. 

a whole decade. 

sometimes i hate him and sometimes i feel like we

are running in circles.

but i never stop loving our life together. 

we had always planned to be in hawaii for our 10 year, but 

instead we took our kids to brian's for a sleepover 

with madeline and eden.

we went to dinner, out for drinks, saw "a star is born" 

and then went back to the intercontinental on the plaza for the night.

it was fun.

i drank way too much, but we celebrated like we were 25 again. 

all hallow's eve

in warrensburg they do a big halloween downtown 

so that's what i thought we'd do for the night.

especially since we don't live in a neighborhood and 

my parent's neighborhood is full of older adults that no longer

do trick-or-treating. 

shannon and lindsay have the same problem i do (no neighborhood).

lindsay said downtown wasn't that fun - just a bunch of 

standing in lines at storefronts. 

shannon offered up her parent's house and neighborhood because

it's full of kids and they do halloween right. 

lindsay opted out to hang with her parent's. 

my parents and drew's parents all met us and the kids

at shannon's parents house for a chili dinner and group trick-or-treating.

it was the best idea ever. 

the kids had an amazing time.

brette and graham ran around the neighborhood like crazy people. 

reid, paige and haddie did their best to keep up and it was adorable. 

we've decided to make it an annual tradition. 

i can't wait until next year already.

(ps- brette was jojo siwa and brette was a cheerleader)

fall fun

we've been having a lot of fun over here.

we took a trip to the pumpkin patch,

except instead of traveling to the city, we went to the local 

one in warrensburg and it was wonderful.

a lot cheaper and a lot closer to home. 

the girls had fun and made us ride the hayride twice

just so we could stay on a bit longer. 

we bought pumpkins, kettle corn and found

our way through the corn maze. 

it was a good day.

we followed that up with a visit from margie

and her three kids.

we met her for dinner at shan's and kass came down too.

nights like these are my favorite. 

sometimes its nice to do nothing with your favorite people. 

the next day everyone came to my house and we let the kids run wild.

it was a short trip, but i love having marge in town, 

so even if it's just for 24 hours, i'll take it. 

and then last, our annual family fall day.

we didn't make applebutter this year, so it was a chill

day with a shit ton of food, some outdoor games and 

a sunset hayride.

the four girls got to spend the afternoon together so they

of course think its the best day ever. 

i personally like family fall day without the applebutter -

everyone's more relaxed and there's not a lot involved. 

i'm already looking forward to next year.

next up?

wearing gearing up for halloween, our 

TEN YEAR anniversary, a wedding and 

then thanksgiving. 

it's going fast. 

nothing exciting over here

so i think about blogging all the time but

right now i'm working a lot from home. 

my manager quit in june and for the last four

months, i've been a one person team.

since i only work in the office from 

9:00 to 3:00, i come home and 

do more during the evenings. 

add that on top of making dinner and 

taking care of two kids - - i don't have

much to blog about.

i definitely feel like work, dinner, bath and repeat. 

also, apparently its monsoon season so

we haven't even gotten to go to the 

apple orchard or pumpkin patch this year.

i'm crossing my fingers this weekend is nicer

so we can go do something fun as a family.

we have family photos scheduled in two weeks

and i'm super excited for that.

we're going back to the lady who did our newborn pics

and she always does an amazing job.

(now i just have to come up with what we will all wear, 

which stresses me out.)

i should also note, that ronnie completed the fireplace.

say whaaaa!

i'm very excited. 

it looks SO FREAKING GOOD and this

means we are only one project away 

(tile master shower) from being done with the house...

for this year.

keep in mind we still have to build a new deck and

get new siding.

so basically, we still have the exterior to do, 

but all in good time.

i'm just excited to have our living room done. 

feels like home.

i'll post before and after shots next.

we're all getting older

this is one of my favorite posts every year. 

i just love going back to look a little baby brette

and then seeing reid added.

i love seeing how much they've changed and grown - - 

and how long their hair has gotten. 

i can stare at the pictures forever.

take a look back with me.

so good, right?!

my big girls - 5 and 3.

i'm already looking forward to our 2019 edition.

school daze

monday will be our second full week of school.

so far, brette says she likes kindergarten better

than pre-school and she thinks her teacher, 

mrs. munterman, is nice. 

we don't get much else out of her. 

i try to ask her about her day but she's not

telling me a whole lot. 

i'm so excited for everything she'll learn this year.

i'm especially interested to see her begin to read. 

i hope she loves it as much as i do.

i look forward to the days when we can both sit down

with a good book before bed and read together. 

#bookwormdreams

ronnie or i have been making her lunch everyday and

i get to take her and pick her up from school.

there was a small mishap on the second day when they 

put her on a bus to go to an after-school program and then

there i am waiting forever in the car rider line, just

to have them tell me she wasn't there.

it freaked me out a little and it freaked brette out a lot.

she told me she cried on the bus because she 

thought i would never find her again.

poor thing. 

don't worry. 

i made sure both the school and the after-school program

knew that she was a car rider ONLY kid.

meanwhile, reid started at her new preschool in warrensburg too.

i was more nervous for this than for brette.

i obviously trust the school district and know 

brette is in a good safe place.

there's little unease about a new preschool because until you've 

been going there for awhile, you're can't be certain what goes on.

the best thing?

reid has not cried once.

when brette started school at three there were lots of tears. 

i was shocked when reid was like - peace out, mom and 

went off with complete strangers. 

and she seems to like it. 

she never complains about going or cries during drop off.

it makes leaving her somewhere new a little easier. 

i think both the girls have good starts to the year. 

i'll keep you posted. 

can you spot reid in her new class?