I’m not used to winning many things in life. Once in high school, I talked a friend of mine who worked at a gas station into giving me the code to get a free car wash. After getting my ’91 Chevy all shined up, I went back inside and bought a lotto ticket. Scratched it off, and sure enough, I won $5. So I gave it to him as a “thank-you.” Technically, I should have given it to the owners for stealing a car wash, but what can you expect from a 16 year old?

Anyways, on Monday, Liz over at A Constructed Life in conjunction with csnrugs held a contest for a free rug. Normally I don’t enter these, but I decided to live life on the wild side and put in a comment for the rug. Sipping my Sobe this morning, checking out a few of the blogs I normally visit, I saw that we won the rug! I’ve been a little out of it this morning and had to re-read it to make sure I wasn’t losing my mind.  I might read it again later to make sure, but as of now, it looks like we won. Wahoo!

Thanks Liz and csnrugs!

I feel like I just got my house some what in order after having it pulled apart for 5 months  and now the mess starts again! Our basement is unfinished except for the bathroom down there.  It’s been in our “house to do list” to eventually finish it. The plan is to make an office/bedroom, storage, furnace area, and family room. Shane decided last week to pick up the sub-floor while we had a vehicle to do so. This last weekend and week he has been staying busy putting the floor in and framing the bedroom/office. He’s almost done except for framing the last wall. We apparently have two old knob and tubes there that Shane thinks goes to the upstairs bedrooms. The problem is they are too far down the wall so we will have to move them. Shane’s Dad is an electrician so the plan is to have him come and help and possibly rewire.

Once the last wall is framed in we will have the room foam insulated like we did the bathroom when it was demoed out. I am very excited to have this room done. My goal is to see it done by August as that is when our son’s birthday is. Brendan turns 2 and my grandparents are planning on making the trip for his party! Of course, it’s not me doing the work, it’s Shane! I’ll let him add the finer details of what all he’s doing in the basement at the moment. I will say this though. I hope he hurries, because the basement is trashed and I can’t even stand to look down there!

On an update with the rest of the house, its trashed! I love to have an organized and clean house and ours is any thing but that. Every room has unfinished woodwork that needs to be completed and windows that need to be cleaned. When my mother-in-law was here she confided that just looking at all the work we had left made her head spin or something to that effect!  (I can’t remember exactly what she said) Basically it’s overwhelming. My game plan is to pick a room and finish that room before moving on the next. I came up with this about two weeks ago and have yet to start! Shane and I have both super busy with work and Brendan. I also think it’s harder to want to work on it when the weather is gorgeous.

As for outside I have never really talked about the outside of our house. The actual house needs to be repainted We were planning on doing this next Summer, however, we will be building a new garage (hopefully). I also find it overwhelming when thinking about having to paint the entire house all at once. I am trying to convince Shane we should start now on one side and see how much we can get done this Summer, without feeling rushed. The yard itself isn’t too bad. We’ve planted some peonies and other plans around the house’s foundation. I’ve also taken out 3 trees that were planted in odd spots. I’d like to take out one more in the front, but I have yet to do it. I’ll try and get some pictures of the yard taken and posted!

Now that I’ve written this my head is spinning and I’m overwhelmed with how much we have to do! Of course we could stop starting new projects and finish the other ones first! But who wants to be inside when it’s Summer and nice out?! Well that’s it for now.  I hope every one has a great weekend!

Today I’ve managed to keep myself busy ripping apart the upstairs kitchen. I don’t remember off hand if we posted any thing on this room.  It’s a small room upstairs that was converted into a small kitchen. Shane and I used this when we lived in the upstairs during college. This was way before we bought the house! Here’s a before picture.

Last week we sold the cabinets and counter tops so Shane took all of them down last night.Last night Shane took down all of the cabinets. It looks so empty not having any thing in there any more.

This morning I decided to be destructive  *cough cough* I mean productive and continue taking apart the room. It took me approximately half an hour to rip down all of the wainscoting. When I was done I had a huge mess on the floor.

I was dreading having to carry it all down the stairs and then outside. Before I could start I was given the idea of throwing it out the window and from there loading it into the truck! I was a little nervous at first, but once I got into the swing of things I was chucking boards super fast out the window. I did manage to get a small board stuck in the gutter. Sorry honey!

The top window that is open is the window I used to throw out my mess.

My mess!