Diamond in the Rough

To understand the title of this blog post you must first understand the back story….Keeping in the tradition of the Perkins family, my first computer was named Sapphire (my birthstone) and my network is Gemsnet. The fun part about that is the computer was my laptop and it actually had a blue case on it. I still have that laptop, and since then have my desktop (Diamond) and my mini laptop (Ruby – she is red too!).

So back to Diamond – well, she’s up and running again! Yay!! And so is our office, mostly. It’s little disorganized, and the daybed…well, is still missing a piece so you can’t even sit on it…but it’s a work in progress. But the important part is we both have desks and we both can use the computer at the same time again – without burning our legs as the laptop keeps overheating.

What did we do about our desk problem you may be wondering? Well, we put together the new one we bought – and then realized that we could still fit one of the corner desks in the closet/wall area. So picking my desk, since it was in the best shape, we took down the closet doors, set up the desk and poof! We have a working office! And when I say “we” I mean Jeremy :) Good job honey!!

So while he was hard at work on the office, I was painting and installing shelf paper to our vanity. The previous owners had painted it dark brown, over the old wood color it had previously been, and it looked a lot better but it is missing the front middle door and the inside looked disgusting. Not to mention its just old and needed a facelift. So I gave it one...

Before pictures:

After pictures:


Much better huh? :)

Desk overload!

I’m feeling a little overwhelmed with desks at the moment…how does 2 people need 4 desks! Well…we don’t. In fact out of the 4, only 1 is useful! Now isn’t that a quandary – I’m still in need of another desk! Lol

And how did our little family end up with 4 desks…well…here we go….

We started out with our two desks, L shaped desks. They worked great in Snoqualmie, we managed in Bellevue but after two moves Jeremy’s is practically falling apart. And although mine is still in great shape we want to put both our desks plus a daybed in our 2nd bedroom….and two L shaped desks plus a daybed just doesn’t work. So we started our search for regular desks. I found this GREAT oak desk on craigslist for free – yep, FREE! And we went and picked it up, it was beautiful. I originally planned to sand it down and stain it to match our other furniture…but when we got it home we realized it won’t fit downstairs! Really? Our doors are only 29” wide down there. So we debated it for a while and realized trudging that up to the 2nd bedroom, re-staining it, etc etc was just way to much effort for a short period of time…cause once we don’t have a renter it will need to go downstairs, and this desk, won’t do that.

We did mention we were going to have a renter right? Side note – our house has 3 bedrooms upstairs, and 1.5 bedrooms down – basically it’s a bedroom and a den, or a bedroom and a very small living area. So we made a deal with our friend Travis and he’s going to be moving in come January. Works for us, we don’t need that space yet, and a little extra money while Jeremy is in school could really come in handy when it comes to fixing up and furnishing our beloved home….

But back to the desks – so now we have our two L shaped desks in the garage and this gigantic but beautiful oak desk. And after measuring downstairs (where both our desks will end up in a year+ time) our requirements for desks just got bigger. After perusing craigslist, both free and used, there just wasn’t one desk that met our requirements…but, I found the perfect desk for Jeremy on sale on officedepot.com, and after getting a coupon off retailmenot.com and saving another $15 after tax it was only $93!! SOLD! So, picked it up after work today and now…we have at least one desk that will actually work! Yippee!

Jeremy plans to put it together today and maybe after two weeks of being here, we will finally have an actual computer to use rather than our crappy laptop that’s been getting us through the day. And I can finally start putting that part of the office together! I am so excited. I’ll post pictures once we have everything set up.

Our Moving Week in Review

So after a very busy week we are officially all moved in! Here’s a breakdown for you of what has been going on since I last posted.

Friday, Nov 19th – The house closed.

Saturday, Nov 20th we spent all day packing, oh what fun! Here was a quick pic I took of our office – and that was only half packed! Eeks!!

Sunday, Nov 21st – We got the keys! It wasn’t until 6pm but it allowed us time to go in, measure and make a Lowes trip before the day was over!

Monday, November 22nd – This was remodel day, but it didn’t go quite as planned…not only did we wake up to snow on the ground which of course made every trip to and from the hardware store take twice as long, but the house just didn’t want to cooperate with us.

We originally planned on putting lighting in the upstairs bedroom, but to our sadness the wiring done in the house was not quite normal – something about a hot and a neutral being in the plug in part rather than the switch, and sharing them too….I don’t know, way to technical for me, I just know that it would require a whole rewire to make it work! Way to much work for now – lamps it is!

Then we wanted to install these awesome door handles and deadbolt on the front door, but the drill didn’t work and I had to go buy a new bit, then another part didn’t work and we had to go again…and with the snow it got to the point that we had to put it off for the next day – and do you know what that meant? We had no lock on the front door for a day! We added one of those latch things that keeps it from opening more than a few inches – and that’s what secured our door for the night…oh well, no robbers/vandalists are out in the snow anyway right?
But we were able to install our new garage man door leading to the backyard and its locks no problem. Isn’t it beautiful?

And the old door…..

Have to say thank you to my dad, Howard for all his hard work - without him our door would probably still be unlocked and we'd have that ugly door sitting in our garage still on the wall - yuck!!!

Tuesday, Nov 23rd – Still snowing, we had to of course go back to finish locking up and moving a few things over at a time. Since Jeremy didn’t have school we went together, did a little patch work on the master wall, waited for carpet cleaners and then went home to keep packing and let the rugs dry.

Wednesday, Nov 22nd – Woke up bright and early this day for our day of insulation! My brother Kevin was awesome and helped us out a whole bunch, and even though Jeremy and him got a late start cause they couldn’t get the machine to work right away we finally got it done by 9pm that night….I should have taken more pictures, my poor brother was out in the snow feeding this machine, Jeremy was up in the attic blowing out the insulation – and when I came back from my trip to get boxes they looked like chimney sweepers covered in soot! See my one picture of Jeremy here:

Once the sun went down I became flashlight girl and sat out in the cold with Kevin while he kept feeding the machine…it was miserable. But…its done! and we now have a whole attic of insulation :) yay!

Thursday, Nov 25th – Thanksgiving and our day off! We did have a wonderful time at my parents house, my mom cooked up so much food we could have fed at least 3x the amount of people that were actually there, but that meant lots of leftovers and we took home 3, oh yes I said THREE, pies to our new house! 6 pies, 5 people – what was she thinking! ;)

Friday, Nov 26th – 1st day of moving, our friends were great! Kevin and I returned all the unused insulation we bought that morning, and the machine. Then with Anthony’s help moved over our first load of the day. After that we did two more loads with our late riser friends and were able to move over all the packed boxes, tv and all our electronic equipment….with all of that out of the way, Jeremy and I were then able to see all of the stuff we still had to pack – and we were up till 1am doing so.

Saturday, Nov 27th – Movers came bright and early at 8am, wow was I tired. Moved everything in 3.5 hours and what is left at the apartment….well, I’d like to say nothing, but there was still a few things – one carload to be exact….only one! we did much better this time then last :)

And that basically brings us to the end of the week – a few more trips to the apartment to clean up, make sure it was all good and turn in our keys…and here we are, December 1st, no apartment and in a house….full of boxes mind you, but a house either way!

For fun – here are some pic’s of our really messy house and all the boxes we have to unpack and organize….

What I like to call the furniture graveyard:

And our very full garage....ugh....

One year and we're HOME!

It’s been one year since we sold our condo in Snoqualmie and now we are buying a house!! One year living in a tiny apartment in Bellevue, but it’s been worth it! See picture of our soon to be abode:

We are very excited. Our new house comes with 4 bedrooms + den and a great room with a remodeled kitchen. It has a generous 2 car garage and a big, now treeless, back yard. Here’s a shot I took half way through the process of taking down the tree’s:

So although the inside is fairly updated, the backyard landscaping is going to be a big project for us. We will also have the gigantic task of furnishing our new home and painting! Because our new home also comes with a bright purple, and I mean husky purple, wall in the master & a turquoise wall in the living room.

I’m finding the planning of this to be fun…and have discovered a few websites that I am now officially addicted to. My favorite being: http://www.younghouselove.com/ I am looking forward to using their do-it-yourself (DIY) tips to painting my own furniture and finding deals on craigslist and at thrift stores….since we know we’re not going to have the money for new furnishings right off. But we do need to change some stuff, not all will fit in our new place and we’re in dire need of some new stuff – since after all, most of our furniture are hand-me-downs….we need some stuff of our own, picked out to fit our design idea’s….so for now the turquoise wall will stay (ugh), till I figure out what we want to do in the living room…I can’t wait to see what our ugly green couch looks like in a room of turquoise! Lol…but I have no idea what to do in that room and I’d hate to go to the effort of painting it twice…but trust me, it will be one of our TOP priorities! :)

We officially close this week and we should get the keys on Sunday or Monday. Jeremy will be working hard that week to install new insulation in the attack and paint over the purple in the master…we will be going RED! Oh yes, you heard me…RED! J I’m kinda excited to see it, already picked out our color too we will be officially “Posh Red” lol…so sophisticated :P

So for this week its packing, trying to sell the furniture we don’t need – anyone in need of a glass dining room or cabinet? And getting ready for next week. While jeremy is hard at work I will be working hard to move as much as I can and put together the kitchen and other area’s before the movers come to move the furniture and remaining items on the 27th. As of the end of this month – we will be in a new place! Our own home….I really couldn’t be more excited – in fact, if I was any more excited I think Jeremy’s head might explode…it is the only topic around our tiny box filled apartment right now, I think he will be happy when it moves in a different (not so obsessed) direction.

Oh – and I almost forgot to mention, we bought a daybed! Yes oh yes – we now have a daybed in the dining room, in pieces mind you, but I couldn’t pass the deal up…$240 on craigslist for THE bed that I wanted at Ikea that runs for $700 with the mattresses! Score!! Now we will have a place for people to stay when they come to visit….so take note all you Coos Bay friends & family – you now have no excuses!!! See you soon in 2011….

I’ll keep you posted on more news going forward!
Steph

Driving

We are currently driving down to coos bay for memorial weekend and I figured in my boredom i could create a blog post.  At least I'm trying right?  This week was pretty hectic but we managed to leave town around 1, unfortunately the weather and traffic were against us, its currently 9 and we still have 2 hours to go.  but things are looking brighter, the rain stopped at least :)

So its been a  month at T-mobile and so far i am loving my job. Every day is something new and its always challenging and fun. Its also very flexible and I love the overall culture there. 

Its also been 7 months in our apartment and although we're not really happy there I think we will end up staying there another year or so.  You can't beat the location and the savings is pretty good too. That and we really don't want to move again.  This will allow us to save for a new house and even hopefully a baby as well.

Alrighty, back to keeping jeremy company, will write again soon.

Steph

Time Fly's!

Wow, its been a long time since I've posted here, that is just crazy! Its been a pretty busy last couple of months. Lets recap:

November: We moved back to Bellevue after the Condo finally closed.

December: We took a week vacation and went to St. Maarten in the Caribbean.

January: Jeremy started school at Bellevue College. He is going back to get an AA in Game Design and is really enjoying it.

March: I went to New Orleans with my parents for my Cousin Corrie's wedding. I accepted a new job at T-Mobile and resigned my position at Murray Franklyn.

April: After my job ended Jeremy and I took a trip to New York to visit our friends Jason & Masha. I started at T-Mobile when we got back.

And now its May….

I'm going to try to keep this up to date a little more, they may be short texts or longer blogs, we will see how this works. We plan on going to Coos Bay here next week for Memorial Day weekend. Kristina is 8 months pregnant now so it will be great to see her before she has the baby!

More to come later J