Relocate, Reaclimate, Renovate

MCAS Yuma Air Show

2009-12-11T23:05:00.000-08:00

Twilight in Forks

2009-12-11T22:45:00.000-08:00

Snuggies!!!

2009-11-27T10:31:00.000-08:00

It doesn't get much sillier than some one wearing a snuggie. We bought these in preparation of this weekend's house guest and good friend Rosie. Not only do these snuggly blankets keep you warm and allow you the use of your arms they are an instant mood booster because you cannot help but laugh when you put one on. If you come to visit our house be prepared to get your photo taken in a snuggie. It's a new silly tradition.

Happy Thanksgiving!

2009-11-26T11:21:00.000-08:00

To celebrate our first Thanksgiving in our home we hosted an Orphan Thanksgiving for all of our friends who were also unable to be with their families over the holiday. This year we are Thankful for our new home, the ability to host a Thanksgiving, our newly formed extended Marine/Navy family here in Yuma, good food and great wine!

We had 14 people around our table this year, each brought a delectable addition to the Thanksgiving feast. We ended the evening outside around a fire and an intense game of baggo.

USMC Ball 09

2009-11-20T11:51:00.000-08:00

This is our third Marine Corps Birthday Ball and our first Marine Corps Ball here in Yuma. Our H&HS (Headquarters) ball was hosted at the newly built Quechan Casino & Resort. We were the last to leave the dance floor that evening and then headed to the Quechan's Sidewinder bar and closed that down with our group of friends. It was a a great way to kick off the holiday season!

Sedona!

2009-11-15T11:55:00.000-08:00

Carmen & Dave flew into Yuma on a Thursday, the four of us piled into the Element and drove to Sedona on a Friday, celebrated Baby Kendall & Dylan's dedication on a Saturday, celebrated Kendall's first birthday on a Sunday, drove back to Yuma and visited the Dunes before the sun went down, grabbed breakfast and put Dave & Carmen back on the plane on a Monday. It was a wonderful whirlwind weekend with the family. Here are a few photos from the weekend.

Gainfully Employed

2009-07-27T19:59:00.000-07:00

Just as Jen was resigning to the idea of being unemployed for our entire duration in Yuma... Just when she gave up waiting for a job and started making plans.... just as we booked a 20 day vacation back to Washington.... she got a job! And not just any job, but a great job! Jen is the new Assistant Marketing Director and Commercial Sponsorhip Coordinator for Marine Corps Community Services. In this position she wears many hats, one as a manager of a graphic design team, one as an event planner, one as a sponsor coordinator for those events, and one as an advertising sales representative for all advertising on the MCAS base. Better yet Jen's new office is just three blocks away from Levi's and our hours are nearly identical! Our new routine has been to carpool to and from work, cool off in the pool while talking about our work days, grill out for dinner and head to bed early - it has become quite the domestic bliss.

Back in Action!

2009-07-22T19:01:00.000-07:00

After 7 1/2 years of employment at the same company Jen has been officially unemployed for one year and four months, during this time she has been thouroughly entertained by various adventures. One month exploring Thailand's white beaches, clear waters and rich culture, followed by a cross country trip to the East Coast for a 6 month love affair with the city of Washington, D.C. a whirlwind and chilly seaside experience on the island of Newport, Rhode Island, yet another cross country trip to Yuma, Arizona for a solo house hunting venture, Christmas with the fam in Washington and then back to Yuma the ultimate adventure of home ownership and remodel projects.

We've been in Yuma for 7 months and while the home remodel project has been rewarding and enjoyable the project it is no longer sufficing as Jen's sole hobby. The demise of our last camera paired with Jen's growing anxiousness for variety, spawned her new plan of learning photography. Levi bought Jen her new Canon Rebel XSI DLSR for thier anniversary and her birthday. Jen has grand plans to take photography classes, and get good enough to volunteer with a local photographer, take free portraits for friends and maybe one day start shooting photos for a nominal fee using the military network to target families, deployed spouses and all of those quickie marriages. We'll see where this takes us, worst case scenario Jen will have a speedy camera and knowledge to capture great shots of our current adventures and future family.

Still without a camera

2009-07-19T23:11:00.000-07:00

We have had a lot going on these last couple of weeks but without a camera to document it all there is little incentive to blog about it. Jen is excited about the opportunity to buy our new camera, we are taking the plunge and buying a more advanced digital SLR. Jen is planning on enrolling in a photography class to better understand the SLR and all of it's bells and wistles. After four years of dental work/braces/and a retainer Levi will see his oral surgeon for the last time be sporting a new movie star smile.

We are gearing up for a big 2 and a half week trip home. During this short time we have 5 weddings, 2 rehearsal dinners, a bridal shower and a bachelorette party. Also coming up is our three year wedding anniversary and Levi's 28th birthday.

The home improvements are coming along slow and steady. We are still working on our baseboard installation, caulking and painting, while also working on other small projects. We are in the details stage of our main living areas, still we need to hang pendant lighting over our island, hang curtains, mount our TV, and purchase/hang wall art.

Sweltering Heat

2009-07-03T16:50:00.000-07:00

Today it is 110 degrees with 30% humidity. From what we hear the temps and humidity will continue to intensify through the end of August. We are spending our days inside and our evenings in the pool which has already reached 92 degrees. The cats are having a tough time adjusting to the high temps as well - they are avoiding the outdoors entirely and are more lethargic and sleepy than ever.

Our camera is malfunctioning so it may be a while before our current house projects are debuted here.

Summer Fun

2009-06-24T13:22:00.000-07:00

This last week both our social and remodeling schedules kept us busy. Our friend Chris visiting Yuma on his cross-country road trip from New York to California. We attended the Raddison Wine Bar's wine tasting and tapas night with friends Nicole, Monica and Sean - This might be our new favorite event in Yuma! Levi and our friend John discovered an inexpensive 9-hole golf course behind our community and have made a weekly plan to work on their game. Levi bought a set of clubs and is awfully excited about his new hobby. Jen made an overnight trip to Phoenix to go shopping with SIL Kristen and watch baby Kendall during her second swim lesson. On the remodelling front Jen fixed our irrigation system and Levi cleared our garage making a place for our Element to be parked. It's been a delightful and productive week!

The tree is gone!

2009-06-24T12:46:00.000-07:00

Oh how we hate this tree! Let us count the ways- 1) The tree paired with Yuma's wild wind has been ripping off our shingles on the roof. 2) Our attempt at pruning resulted in not only an unsightly chop job but also a ridiculous growth spurt of branches forcing us and all of our guests to duck before entering our home 3) During Spring the tree blossomed thousands of lime green puff balls attracting thousands of bees who took up residence in our tree for a month. 4) Half of the puff ball blossoms dropped into our yard and rock bed making it look as if we littered our yard with thousands of tiny green marshmallows. 5) The other half of the puff ball blossoms attached to the tree sprouted a pea pod type appendage which are now also falling into our yard. 6) Come winter the green leaves will also litter our yard. It's too much! The tree had to come down! When a landscaper knocked on our door offering his tree pruning services Jen arranged for the tree to come down all together and the rock in the front to be removed. To some this is a huge travesty but the tree and all of it's issues have begun to affect Jen's daily sanity - it had to come down.

We have every intention of replanting something in it's place and landscaping the rock bed with drought tollerant plants but in the mean time the house is looking a little bare. So bare in fact Levi who was drove right pass our house on his way home from work.

Renovating again!

2009-06-08T23:05:00.001-07:00

Alright it's time to get this blog back on track! At the brink of utter home renovation burnout paired with our newly connected cable we unofficially and unplanned took a hiatus from the whole thing! Now we're back! We're starting out steady and small. Levi's first project was to add the base molding to the island in the kitchen/family room as a test run for our big house wide base molding project. What do you think of the two toned molding? We're thinking it blends well with the island butcher block - thoughts? We're totally joking. The molding came primed but the corners were just raw wood, there will be a more cohesive look to follow :)

Jen's project was a photo project she had planned for the formal living room. We have some pretty amazing photos that we have collected over the years and we've been waiting for a showcase opportunity just like this! The photo project is still in progress, we have to buy a few more frames and then choose the photos to fill them. Also the couch that is there now will be exchanged for a corner sofa. To the right of the sofa we're planning to place a side table and a large (and unidentified) canvas painting above it.

2009-06-08T22:28:00.000-07:00

More on the Washington trip! Jen was able to pack a lot into the additional week she stayed in Washington. She mostly spent a bulk of her time with her family with some great one on one time with baby Adrian. Jen, her sister Darlene, and Adrian spent a half day at one of Kalaloch's Ruby Beach playing in the waves and the tide pools. With not a cloud in the sky the temps were high and it was absolutely a beautiful day in the Pacific Northwest!

Levi's youngest sister Annie and her fiance Dave just bought their first house and to much of Levi's envy, Jen was able to tour their new place (pre-renovations) and attend their first BBQ with the family and also visit their August wedding venue (see the big beautiful oak tree and behind that is a view of the snow capped Olympics) Congrats Annie and Dave on your new home we can't wait to see the renovations you have planned come to fruitition!

Before flying out Jen was able to reconnect with one of her best friends of 11 years and spend some quality time with the Bothell Larsons, her sister in law Kristen and baby Kendall. Some of the last photos are of Kristen and Jen's day trip to a waterpark with neices Emma, Avery and baby Kendall.

Beekeeping with Jen's Dad

2009-06-04T18:15:00.000-07:00

This Spring Jen's dad, Don, took on the new hobby of beekeeping, he set up four hives on their property for a total of 160,000 bees! Levi's dad, Dave also adopted one hive this season and our two dads have bee working and learning together on how to properly raising their hives. On Jen's trip home she was able to tag along with her dad and his many bee adventures. Jen was there to watch Dave and Don catch their first wild swarm - it was quite the operation! The swarm was 25 feet up a tree, Dave hoisted Don up on pallete on a fork lift where he sedated the bees and then shook the cluster straight into an empty bee super. Amazing stuff!

Jen also had the opportunity to put the bee suit on and handle the bees herself. The photos here are of Jen at her dad's hive. Also there's a short video of a hive ready to swarm - it was a cloud of 60,000 bees flying in a vehicle sized cluster. The cute little voice in the background is Jen's two year old nephew, Adrian.

Memorial Weekend in Washington State

2009-06-04T17:21:00.000-07:00

It's rare that all five of the Larson siblings, their spouses, their children and the parents are in the same place at the same time, it's even more rare for our entire gang of 17 immediate family members can visit Sumas and the extended Larson family and grandparents at the same time - this very rarity happened over Memorial weekend and to boot the sun was out and not a drop of rain fell! Although the sun was pleasant enough, we had quite the hankering for rain, not just any rain but big heavy Seattle rain.

In addition to our Larson family gathering Levi and I met some of our friends for an 11 inning Mariner game, spent a rare 80 degree day swimming at Lake Roseigner with our nieces, Levi and Luke climbed Mt. Si, Levi played a bit of frisbee with his old team Huckin' Easy and then we gathered for an evening bbq with some more of our friends from home. Despite not living in Seattle for a year it felt as if we had never left, our second home in Bothell never felt more cozy and our incredible group of friends haven't yet given up on us despite our lengthy absence. Levi boarded a plane back to Yuma on Tuesday and Jen remained in Washington for another week to visit her family and celebrate our nephew's 2nd birthday.

Finally a table!

2009-05-21T23:13:00.000-07:00

This damn table. It's journey to our dining room began more than 2 months ago as Jen tried her hardest to make it fit in the back of their Ford Focus if it were just an inch smaller it would've fit! We returned the table and as we were driving home we realized it might have fit if we had remove it out of it's box. So during Jen's next visit to Phoenix she bought the same table for the second time put it into SIL Kristen's suv with a plan to remove it from it's box and then fit it into the focus, alas even without the box it did not fit. So the table has been hanging out in their garage until we purchased our shiny new bigger vehicle and brought it home. It extends to accommodate more people but for now it makes the perfect location for a cozy romantic dinner for two.

Jen is still reconsidering the blinds - we might change them out for white blinds instead. Thoughts?

2009-05-21T00:00:00.000-07:00

Here's a gratuitous photo of our new 50" Samsung 1080 pixel flat screen. For the last 8 years during college, Levi's grad school and military training we have lived very economically. This included watching television on the TV Levi bought for himself in High School 10 years ago. While our friends and family purchased their shiny new plasmas and LCDs Levi quitely salivated over them but remained financially disciplined. When we purchased the house Jen had pages and pages of design ideas and sketches. Levi only had two things on his list: 1) A work out nook in the backyard - check! 2) A shiny new flat screen in place of his 10 year old high school television - check!

Beating the heat

2009-05-20T22:23:00.000-07:00

This week the temperatures have reached as high as 110 degrees. Our new favorite way to beat the heat is to visit Lake Martinez and the Colorado river. Luke, Kristen and baby Kendall came to visit us in Yuma and we spent Sunday cruising Lake Martinez and swimming off of a sand bar in the Colorado river. We are so very tempted to buy a jet ski or boat. More to come on this later!

Flat Stanley's Wild West Adventure

2009-05-14T21:40:00.000-07:00

We received Flat Stanley from our 8 year-old niece Emma with instructions to take him on an adventure and take pictures with him. Flat Stan learned a lot of fun facts about Yuma, saw the lettuce fields, visited the Sonoran Desert took photos with Saguaro cacti, and got bit by Digger the desert turtle and tussled around by our cat cloudy. On our drive out to the desert we saw a group of guys parachuting from a plane into the desert, afterward Jen asked them to take a picture with flat Stan and they happily obliged. In fact Jen and Flat Stanley were interviewed on camera for the Jump School's graduation video montage.

We also visited San Diego where Stan wrote his name in the sand, got knocked over by a wave and took a ride on the beachside rollercoaster. We also brought Stanley along to the crawfish feed at Luke and Kristen's where he met their Flat Stanley. The two Stanley's were floated on a boat into the pool crafted from picnicware - to say the least we thuroughly enjoyed this project!

Crawfish party in Phoenix

2009-05-14T21:05:00.000-07:00

Luke and Kristen paired with their friend Jeff through a crawfish party last weekend in Phoenix. It was great fun. We ate, drank, swam, mingled - the boys were up to their usual shanagins - wrestling, a game of chicken, jumping from the roof to the pool - all of the things that make Jen wince and hope Levi doesn't break his neck.

New vehicle!

2009-05-10T20:42:00.000-07:00

With the temps consistently above 100 degrees it was time for a new vehicle with air conditioning. Our goal was to find a small SUV with decent gas mileage, strong A/C, something with lots of room to accommodate our new home remodel life style. We were looking at Toyota RAV4s and Honda Elements - we found this 2007 Honda Element with 10k miles in San Diego and could not pass it up! The Element feels brand new, the tint is dark to help reduce the heat, the seats fold into a plethora of positions even completely flat to pair with the flat front seats to form a bed while camping. You can also buy all sorts of smart accessories - for example you can buy table legs to screw into the tire cover to create a camping or tail-gaiting table! The gas mileage is good for a SUV, but best of all the A/C is strong and very cold. Driving has become an enjoyable experience again!

Levi hates moving but seems to always volunteer to help other people move. It was less than a week of ownership before he found someone to help move something which he took a huge delight in.

Dos de Mayo

2009-05-03T13:29:00.001-07:00

Jen's sofa project isn't quite finished but it was done enough for it's first test drive. We had a small Dos de Mayo party yesterday inviting over a group of new friends to share Mexican beer, margaritas and enchiladas.

The couch is still in progress, the stain came out a strange color so we're painting it instead. Then we're adding arms to the sides of the couch. Next outdoor project is to paint the patio brown, hang outdoor curtains and build a coffee table and remove the fence.

Into the Woods & Jen's sofa project

2009-04-29T20:30:00.000-07:00

Three years ago we attended one of the most spectacular musical productions we've seen thus far! It was Guys and Dolls and it wasn't on Broadway, nor was it in Seattle, it was at Nooksack Valley High School. Since then we've been regular supporters of local high school musicals. We recently attended the "Into the Woods" musical put on by Cibola High School just 5 blocks from our home. High School musicals are often hit or miss but with just a $5 admission the risk is worth it.

Jen has been consumed with her outdoor sofa project. This project idea was born even before we purchased our home. Here are a few photos of the sofa in progress. Jen still needs to add hinges to the two top lids, make the back and arms for the sofa, paint it a medium wood brown color, then add the cushions to the sofa. More photos to come soon.

Law Center Carb Party

2009-04-21T10:17:00.000-07:00

Levi's office had physical fitness test coming up so invited the entire office and their families over to stuff themselves with carbolicious spaghetti and bread. It was great to show off our work we've completed so far. It was a steamy 103 degrees this day, the 7 kids we had here played around and in the pool while the adults hung out in the shade and hydrated for their big run the next day.

Summer has arrived!

2009-04-20T16:28:00.000-07:00

This weekend we Levi and Luke ran the Pat Tillman race together ending while Kristen, Kendall and me waited at the finish line and had a picnic on the 50 yard line of the ASU football field. We coincidentally received four free Nascar tickets for the same date we had planned to be in Phoenix. Nascar was such a fun experience! The people watching scene here cannot be beat and the wind generated by the looping vehicles litterally blew our hats off. We're planning on making this an annual event while here in Arizona.

Our new favorite Yuma destination

2009-04-10T23:20:00.000-07:00

The Old Town Wine Cellar has become our favorite destination for a night out. For just $5 we get a tasting of several wines and a lively environment located in the only walkable part of Yuma. With another week or more of work our backyard has the potential to become our favorite Yuma hang out. We've decided to remove 1/3 of our backyard grass and replace it with a patio made of pavers. The table and chairs here will be moved to the patio once it's created and an outdoor sofa set will replace it. We have plans to remove the barred fence in the background and landscape the perimeter of the pool.

The Kitchen before and in between photos

2009-04-10T22:25:00.000-07:00

It's been 2 1/2 months and we've been working diligently on our house. We've made the most progress on our kitchen and while it isn't quite finished, we've decided it's far enough a long to show a dramatic difference from the before and after.

The current "after" kitchen photos

2009-04-10T22:03:00.000-07:00

This "after" photo is not our final after photo but it's close. We still have 2 cabinet drawers to paint and attach, finish the under cabinet lighting, add base trim to the island, reinstall the trim around the dishwasher, tuck stools beneath the island overhang, hang pendant lighting over the island, replace the window shade above the sink, and finish updating the fixtures.

Floors complete!

2009-04-09T11:33:00.000-07:00

Originally we budgeted two days to install our dark wood colored floors in three rooms and through the hallway. This two day project has taken us nearly two months to complete. Our first order of flooring ended up being three boxes shy. Two weeks later our three boxes arrived but two boxes were damaged and unusable, two additional weeks later our third shipment of flooring arrived undamaged and today Levi finished the installation! It was a challenging task and while Jen put together the media center in the living room there were an abundance of colorful curse words and slamming sounds coming from the hallway, but alas the last patch of exposed concrete in our house was covered!

We made yet another trip to IKEA and purchased an outdoor bench, table, chairs, a media center for our living room and stools for our kitchen island. It's always a disappointment to spend hours putting together furniture to find that it doesn't work in the space at all. The stools need to be returned for something less bulky and the media center photographed above will be shortened a bit in length. Then we'll replace our tv with a mounted LCD that Levi has been coveting for some time. It's such a great feeling to have most of the laborous work behind us and to be able to focus on the details.

The light

2009-04-06T15:23:00.000-07:00

It's amazing how one small detail can completely change the feel of a room. Jen installed most of the glass/stone/metal mosaic backsplash strips in our kitchen and it really makes the place feel complete. We feel like we've finally turned a corner and can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Jen also installed a new chandelier in our dining space, it's still a work in progress but like the back splash it's one of those details that signals we're near completion. Hooray! The wood blinds in the background came with the house, we were considering changing them out for white blinds. The current blinds blend with the chandelier and dining space and also with the backsplash tile but we're undecided on how we feel about how it looks with the very dark color on the cabinets.

We've been spending most of our time working on the backyard. We're about half way done on the landscape and are excited to share photos soon.

Porch Idea

2009-04-06T14:27:00.000-07:00

The first photo is our porch roof, the other photos are of another porch found online. We're considering replicating the roof of this photoed porch. Which would mean painting the braces in our roof brown, or perhaps painting all parts of the roof brown, and then installing these more permanent low voltage lights along the roof instead of our sloppy strung lights. Opinions would be greatly appreciated.

2009-04-04T00:36:00.000-07:00

Jen broke up her week by making a quick overnight trip to stay with the Phoenix Larsons and to do a little shopping.

Baby Kendall is now four months old with a slew of adorable new tricks including the pictured shoe snacking to the left. We made yet another trip to IKEA and filled Kristen's SUV to the brim with boxes and bags.

Jen's Phoenix trip happily coincided with Luke's hometown hero billboard featured in the Tempe Marketplace. Congrats Luke, this is very exciting!

Adios blue painters tape!

2009-04-04T00:00:00.000-07:00

Jen is winding down a week on her own at the house while Levi was away for training in Virginia. This uneventful week was the perfect opportunity to tackle our long list of renovation projects.

Jen finally finally finished painting the two largest rooms in the house. She also tiled the backsplash in the kitchen, wired and hung the chandelier, finished grouting the kitchen floor, installed most of the under cabinet lighting, built raised beds, planted birds of paradise, wandering purple hearts, kangaroo paws, aloe, agave, midnight lilies, bougainvillea, queen palms, an ornamental fig, a mexican palm fan, and potted a few succulents. Phew, it's been a busy week.

Included here is an "after" photo of the pool. No more algae blooms, no more green gunk. We're saving the kitchen photos for when it's completed for a good before and after shot, same goes for the backyard, right now it's sparse and incomplete. Pictures to come soon.

2009-03-29T23:24:00.000-07:00

Our blogging pace is fairly indicative of our current renovation pace. Lately we have wrapped up a few small projects, none of which have been photo worthy and without photos what is the point of blogging?

Yesterday we spent the entire first half of the day in our front lawn picking weeds which resulted in a large garbage bag full of weeds and significant sunburns. Levi called our weed picking community building, the neighbors driving by where noticeably rubbernecking to check out the new neighbors, we gave lots of waves, two neighbors came to give plants to us, two neighbors offered their trashcan space to us, and another neighbor brought us over tools that would assist us in better removing our weeds. We love our neighborhood!

Recently we discovered Yuma's only wine cellar, a tiny space with an electric welcoming environment. Every Thursday and Friday they have a rotating wine tasting, we enjoyed ourselves so much we plan to make this a once or twice a month occurrence. We also found a fantastic bar with regular live music and $2 anything drinks and a place that offers cigar tastings every Friday. These sort of gems in Yuma are difficult to find but the discovery process has been quite enjoyable!

Radioactive Pool

2009-03-23T11:54:00.000-07:00

Our first few months we have had interior remodel tunnel vision, before we knew it the weeds grew waist high, our grass was well not grass at all, and we did the bare minimum to keep our pool sound during this winter non-swimming season. Last week we had many consecutive warm days in the mid nineties and overnight our apparently unbalanced pool went from swim ready to toxic! We clearly do not know what we're doing. We've enlisted the services of a local pool company that drained and cleaned our pool and will be maintaining it from now on. While to pool was empty Levi tried out his hand repair skills and patched a chip in the step, he did such a great job you can't even see the patch in the photo.

Jen's grand plans for landscaping the backyard were foiled by the consequences of last nights poor decision making. A wild wind storm hit Yuma yesterday, the chilly winds were a welcome escape from the previous sweltering heat so Jen opened all the screened windows to let the cool air in. This morning when we woke up there was a thick layer of sand over everything in our main living area, it took two sweep jobs and again twice over with the swiffer wet jet to get us back to clean.

Happy Belated St. Patty's Day

2009-03-21T19:47:00.000-07:00

Our previous St Patty's Day was spent in Thailand drinking coronas of all drinks, and Levi's St. Patty's day before that was spent in Hong Kong with our good friend Kirt. We were tempted to keep the international celebration a tradition by grabbing a drink across the border but Levi as a Marine isn't aloud to cross into Mexico without first going through a bunch of red tape. Alas we drank giant green beers in our festive green shirts then grabbed some minty green icecream - aren't we cute.

The guests and festivities have gone and remodel has resumed but at a much slower pace. We currently are struggling with a case of remodel ADD, working just a little bit on each project. Jen's big focus has been getting our yard and pool in shape, we are already experiencing 90 degree weather so our window for outdoor labor is narrowing.

Stay tuned for our completed kitchen photos and our backyard landscape in progress.

Yuma Air Show

2009-03-21T19:36:00.000-07:00

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The Air Show and the county fair tie for Yuma's most exciting events or so we hear. The Air Show was a lazy day of sitting in our camp chairs reading our books in between shows of dazzling air tricks done by civilian planes in the air. We watched 5 guys parachute from an airplane high in the sky and land right in the middle of the crowd, we saw a small plane fly up into the air, cut the engine and tumble artfully back toward the ground before turning on the engine and flying again, we saw a harrier plane (think about the end scene of True Lies when Arnold Schwarzenegger steals the harrier to save his daughter dangling on a crane in NY City) hover 50 feet about the crowd and do a full 360 turn. The big finale was a 10 minute reenactment of the Pearl Harbor bombing followed by a 2 mile long wall of fire. It was the largest display of testosterone I've ever seen!

Mexico, margaritas & yard work

2009-03-21T19:10:00.000-07:00

Mexico is just a short 15 minute jaunt from our door to it's border crossing. Aunt Ann, Mom and me crossed, shopped mexican handicrafts, ate an authentic dinner, drank way too strong margaritas, bought super super cheap liquor to stock our bar at home and came back home. During Mom and Aunt Ann's visit we did a lot of just relaxing by the pool and hanging out. Mom also picked all of our weeds all around our house and Levi removed our rose bushes, it's a start!

Yuma Camel Farm

2009-03-21T18:01:00.000-07:00

This was actually much better than we expected! It was clean, inexpensive, lots of animals including a ZEE-DONK (its exactly what it sounds like)! AND you could feed the animals for just one dollar - fun! This was intended to be a good clean family outing for the one overlapping day of my sisters and my mom's visit however two camels decided to do some noisy procreating for our ENTIRE visit. When this sort of thing is spotted there is usually some immature comments, chuckles and then you move on but in this case the chewbaca sounding noises coming from the female camel was so loud and non-stop it was unescapable in all parts of the park, I have graciously added a photo to complete this visual.

More....

2009-03-21T17:47:00.001-07:00

More photos from our Lake Martinez outing

Catching Up!

2009-03-21T14:58:00.000-07:00

I broke down and just bought a new camera cord to keep the blog alive. Now we have photos and a whole month to catch up on. Below are photos of our new rug in the living room (need wall art advice), Adrian, Darlene and Rosellie got into the pool on their first evening here, it was freezing but that didn't stop Adrian from enjoying himself. We drove out to Lake Martinez for an afternoon of boating, along the way we spotted wild donkeys in the desert.

2009-03-11T08:37:00.000-07:00

We have had a whirlwind couple of weeks! Jen's family came to visit. Our first set of visitors were her sister Darlene, brother in law Jose, nephew Adrian and Jose's sister Roselie, they drove down from L.A. after visiting Jose's family. Our second set of visitors were Jen's mom Shari and aunt Ann who incorporated Yuma as a stop in their sister's road trip adventure which also included Vegas, Sedona, and Scottsdale.

Our days included a trip to Yuma's very own camel farm, boating on Lake Martinez and out into the Colorado river, a day trip across the border into Mexico for handicrafts and potent margaritas, sun bathing and even a few dips in our freezing pool! I have so many great photos to share but once again our camera cord has gone missing. In our down time Jen's mom insisted on picking our weeds and over the course of her visit she picked ALL of our weeds, and when I say ALL I mean about 4 garbage bags full! Thanks mom!

Our guests have been gone for 2 days now but after our 2 week break from remodel it's been difficult to pick it up again. Our goals for the immediate future are to wrap up the kitchen, buy a kitchen table, install the chandelier, finish painting the house and take measures to ensure all of mom's weeds don't come back.

Photos to come soon (hopefully).

Ahhh - Chairs!

2009-03-02T10:24:00.000-08:00

So far this is Jen's favorite purchase. We LOOOOVE these chairs! Most of our shopping hours are allotted for hardware stores, however Jen just happened to stop into Marshall's where she found these fantastic dining chairs for half their retail price. They had just these four, only in this fabric which happens to be a perfect match for our color scheme and are comfortable enough to double as additional guest seating when we have people over. We're thinking these would look sharp around a deep espresso brown table with our capiz chandlier just above.

Plumber Jen

2009-03-01T09:54:00.000-08:00

Considering our home was a foreclosure it was in great shape however the previous owners took everything they could possibly detach from the home, like shower heads, kitchen sink pipes, disposal, sink drains, etc. This left us either with a plumbing/electrical project to tackle or a big plumbers bill to swallow.

Typically Jen is of the mind set that no remodel project is too large, however this one was quite intimidating. We needed to install the sink drain on one side of the sink, mount the disposal on the other side, wire the disposal, connect the dishwasher to the discharge on the disposal, connect the faucet and recreate the entire plumb drain system beneath the sink. We have before, during and photos posted here in that order.

Jen is quite proud of herself, Levi is equally impressed, but only because the project seems intimidating, not because it is overly difficult. With the help of Joe & Salina's 123 home improvement book, instructions and a bit of online research we were able to get through this project with out incident. You too can do your own plumbing and add these fun new words to your vocabulary - flange, tailpipe, P Trap and channel lock :)

The disgrace of the neighborhood

2009-02-28T09:35:00.000-08:00

In our front yard we have waist high weeds and unfortunately we can't blame this on the previous owners, this is all our own doing. When the inspector came to assist Jen with the irrigation system he noted "hmm I don't remember there being weeds like this a month ago". We've also been handed a couple of landscaper cards and our neighbor mentioned how he took the liberty of knocking down some of the weeds in our yard with his lawn mower one day. It's time to take care of these guys. This is just one of our many projects we're going to tackle today, we've had 3 days off from renovations we're expecting it'll be difficult to get back into the swing of things.

Taking the evening off

2009-02-27T09:17:00.000-08:00

Yesterday (on Levi's mom's birthday) Levi's Dad, Dave, experienced a severe heart attack while at home. Levi's older sister lives nearby and was able to get him to the hospital where Levi's younger sister and nurse identified the heart attack, they were able to stabilize him and then flew him via helicopter to Bremerton regional hospital where they put a stint in his artery. Living up to true form Dave is proving to be just as tough as every little kid imagines their dad to be and has moved out of the ICU and into a normal recovery room. The Washington Larsons are banded together in Bremerton for each other and their dad, every part of us wishes we could be there too. Right now every mile we are away from Washington state and our family is palpable.

This afternoon baby Tanner and Nicole left. Still reeling from last night's events Levi and Jen decided to take the evening off. We sat in our backyard, drank mexican beer, watched the sun go down and talked about last night's big scare, our feelings, all the scary what ifs, and how grateful we are to have such an amazing family.

Sunburns, tacos and the picturesque stove in the yard

2009-02-26T08:50:00.000-08:00

Tanner isn't quite old enough to wear sunscreen and Jen hasn't quite learned what there is to do in Yuma so Nicole's visit was pretty low key, a lot of hanging out around the pool and talking which resulted in a rosy cheeked Nicole and a pretty significant sunglass tan line for Jen. We also had lunch at Jen's favorite Taco place, eating these tacos are a two handed job so sleeping baby Tanner was passed between us like a hot potato, you eat one taco and I'll hold tanner, back and forth 6 times over :) We made a fairly anti-climatic trip to a fruit stand and watched the movie Doubt (two thumbs down).

The only appliance left in the house when we moved in was this stove below, it used to be cream but we have sprayed it black with appliance enamel in hopes of refurbishing it. The next step if we choose to proceed would be new knobs, and a two pieces of stainless steel, one for the door and one for the top panel. Right now it's been chillin in the yard making the pool view less than picturesque.

Hide your daughters,Tanner Zobrist is coming to visit!

2009-02-25T08:34:00.000-08:00

Look at this little flirt, before learning to sit or crawl this little guy has learned how to woo the ladies with a wink and big smile! Meet baby Tanner Zobrist, son of bffs Nicole and Caleb, unrelated by blood but apart of our family none-the-less. Nicole and Tanner are our first official overnight guests. Levi was proud to show off our hard work, drilling Nicole for her opinions and nearly every big decision we made on our remodel thus far.

Nicole and Tanner are staying for 2 nights and three days. We're looking forward to taking a break from our renovations and hanging out with our guests.

Christmas in February!

2009-02-24T08:21:00.000-08:00

Today the military delivered and unpacked our storage unit that has been packed away since October. We were unpacking things we had completely forgotten we had, it was Christmas all over again. We have not slept in our own bed for 4 months and Levi hasn't slept in our bed for more than 3 consecutive days in the last YEAR! Jen spent the day installing our bedroom floors, attempting to organize the delivered items, and putting together furniture. We now have a couch, a chair and our bed set up! We had planned to go without furniture and our bed until we finished painting but with our guests coming we realized that is not possible. Painting will resume when everyone's gone and it's probably for the best as we were pretty burned out on the paint cans, brushes and roller gig.

Color correction Floors & Pull ups!

2009-02-23T23:59:00.000-08:00

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Some days we spend any where from 12 - 16 hours working on the house, look around and have a tough time seeing the fruits of our labor, but today our projects served up a scrumptious plate of instant gratification. Our floors are down in the formal living room, the family room and the hall and they have transformed our house! The floors have somehow made our space feel larger, warmer and more welcoming. We love them!

Jen painted the non cabinet sides of the island to match the cabinets which is the worst decision we've made yet. The butcher block and near black paint combo is reminiscent of Halloween, we'll be repainting this soon to match the colors of our walls and tone down the new goth vibe we've got going in our kitchen.

There is a 10 x15 slab of cement sandwiched between the side of our house and the fence, we imagine this was once the location of a shed but now it's Levi's work out station. We have put down an interlocking gym pad and Levi built his pull up bar station. Every morning he heads out there for a quick morning work out and is quite excited about it. Later we'll add a mirror and some additional work out components.

Dining alfresco!

2009-02-22T07:29:00.000-08:00

When it comes to remodeling weekends are the best, we accomplish so much and get to do it together! This weekend we finished installing the kitchen floors, and began installing the floors for the main living areas. So far we both LOVE our new floors, they are our favorite part of the house. Jen wrapped up the cabinet project, befriended an employee at Lucy's vet location, dabbled with her oven project. We made a trip to the yuma nursery and bought the initial items we need to tend to our lawn. We're killing the weeds, fertilizing our lawn and prepping the side of the house for a couple of citrus trees.

We also enjoyed our first meal in our home. We grilled chicken, steak, veggies and fresh pineapple kabobs with some Parmesan fingerling potatoes - yum! We ate on paper plates, had water in plastic cups, sat in outdoors in our only chairs (the ugly ducklings featured earlier in the blog) and ate on our microwave box on our back porch. It was your classic first meal in your first home set up- we loved it!

photos - just an fyi that red paint you see is just the primer coat, it really won't be this obnoxious of a red when we're done.

The painting that never ends...

2009-02-21T07:13:00.000-08:00

We were looking forward to tackling the cabinet project but now it seems never ending. You don't really have a reason to count your drawers and cabinet doors until you need to remove them each from their hinges, sand each one, prime each one and then apply two coats of paint with a light sanding between each coat to each drawer and cabinet door. We have 26 - that's 78 coats of paint and 78 sanding sessions not including the cabinet base. We're almost done! We have to wait 24 hours between coats and on the doors we can only paint one side at a time, it's coming along slowly but surely. The second coat on the base is developing really nicely, the chocolate color we wanted is there, the grain is showing through, etc. The photo here depicts a shiny finish but that's just our camera, the finish is called low luster and is between a flat and a semi gloss.

The next morning Jen woke up and decided if she had to pick up a paint brush that day she might just find herself swerving into oncoming traffic later that afternoon. So instead she trouble shot the irrigation system with the help of our inspector and then later awesome landscaper. Hit up a few yard sales, met some new neighbors and learned about a string of brazen robberies in the our neighborhood :( She also bought and had the guest mattresses delivered (which we are now sleeping on, big improvement from the floor!), had our pool GFCI and pop-up cleaning system fixed, tested our pool water and learned so much about maintaining these foreign systems of our home. It was so refreshing to be outdoors today in the 77 degree sunny weather - ahhh, maybe Yuma isn't so bad.

Delivery Day

2009-02-20T22:27:00.000-08:00

We are doing our part to support the economy! You know how they say people just aren't spending their money, well that's not us. We shop all three hardware stores in Yuma. Lowes has higher prices but better product selection with a 10% military discount, home depot has great prices plus a 5% military discount and True Value is slow enough to talk to a person in depth about your project and they have tool rentals, but primarily we shop at home depot and they have been great up until today.

Our mass delivery of appliances, back splash tiles, and flooring were to arrive today, we were assured multiple times and then reassured 4 days ago when we went in to clarify that our appliances would be installed if they were replacements - meaning the water pipes were already positioned behind the fridge, etc. When our delivery arrives it is lacking the back splash tiles, and the guy says he only connects refrigerators but he can't even do that because we didn't buy the necessary tube for it that no one at HD informed us we needed!

We gave HD a good ear chewing, I can't imagine how many other angry people like ourselves that (are already stressed out from remodel, that are sleeping on the floor and do not have an operating kitchen) they have to deal with, anyhow needless to say they had someone out two days later to do the installs but those people do not connect refrigerators and we still do not have our tube for the icemaker and water dispenser on the fridge so we're not quite done yet.

Here are some photos of our disaster of a space garage, the new fridge, etc.

Kitty Update

2009-02-19T11:17:00.000-08:00

Several of you have asked how the kitties are adjusting. Both Lucy and Cloudy have lived in 7 different households over the last 12 months including a month stay with Carmen & Dave, 2 months at a cat sitter and 3 kitties in Rhode Island and 2 weeks with a set of weirdo cat sitters in Las Vegas. This doesn't include the 2 one week cross country trips they spent in the car and the 9 different hotel rooms we carted them in and out of.

Now they have a new climate to adapt to and a new household lacking all of their usual squishy comforts (couches, chairs, beds, etc). Since we have a fully 6 foot fenced backyard we have decided to allow them to be outside while we are home. It's amazing to watch these 7 year old kitties experience a whole new world for the first time. They were very suspicious of the grass for about a week, they would only walk on the cemented portions of the backyard, now they trot through it carefully with exageratted high steps as if it were cold snow. We've seen Cloudy move at speeds we were not aware she could reach, often while working in the house they will bolt into the house like a bat out of hell and bury themselves beneath their stuffed elephant (see photo of Lucy) or the blankets of our makeshift bed. We're sure they're spooked something truley scary like a gust of wind, a barking dog or our neighbor's loud diesel truck :)

While the empty house serves up various discomforts it also has proved to be an endless playground, the cats are jumping in and out of the cabinets, often sleep inside the rolls of the carpet out in the garage and find random things to snuggle with like this grouting sponge or a roll of paper towels.

We found a sizable growth on Lucy's leg the other day and need to bring her into the vet to have it lopped off. Hopefully it isn't cancerous, this poor diabetic kitty has already had a tough life. Keep your fingers crossed!

A kitchen update

2009-02-19T10:55:00.000-08:00

Since our Phoenix trip our main effort has been applied to getting our kitchen ready for it's appliance delivery today - our fridge, dishwasher, microwave, grill, floors and kitchen accent back splash are arriving within hours! What about a stove you may ask? More on that later! In order to accommodate these items we needed to get the floors at least completed in the areas of installation and prime and paint our kitchen cabinets.

We have the kitchen floor mostly complete, the doors and drawers are primed but need their first and second coat of paint. The kitchen base and wall cabinets have been primed and painted with their first coat of paint. We're hoping the 2nd coat of paint on the cabinets makes the cabinets look more chocolately and less of an eggplant black color. We're hoping the eggplant purple is just the primer showing through the first coat.

Here is a good island before picture. Levi is chomping at the bit to set the butchar block on top just to see what it looks like, with each development concerning the island he has wanted break the huge and heavy butchar block out of it's box and carry it from the garage to the kitchen. Now we're only one day from being able to do just that and screw it on.

We're near completion of the kitchen, we still need to do the final coats of paint, add the butchar block, finish the floors, put the doors and drawers back in place, maybe add hardware, install the faucet, install the sink disposer, and do all the plumbing that all of that requires, tile the backsplash, add undercabinet lighting, and rewire the track light to position pendant lights over the island, install our chandelier and buy a table, chair and island stools. For now we're just looking forward to our first dinner in our house tonight, having ice come out of our fridge!

Phoenix in 24 hours

2009-02-17T12:43:00.001-08:00

Our quick 24 hour trip to Phoenix was built around a set of clear goals. Jen made a neat and pretty plan with directions from place to place, contact numbers and an estimated time frame, she even called all of the merchants to confirm hours of operation and availability of our sought product - even with this much planning none of our goals were easily accomplished.

Our goals were these: 1) Buy our very specific Benjamin Moore Oil based Satin Impervo Bittersweet chocolate paint and primer for our cabinets (a paint not available within 100 miles of Yuma but recommended for cabinet painting on all of the home improvement forums) 2) Hit both the Sunday and Monday one day one item sales at Ikea paired with a yummy free Monday Ikea breakfast 3) Stop at the pool store to buy the Kool decking patch (also not sold anywhere near Yuma) 4) Rent a one way SUV (cheaper than a Uhaul) to haul one of the few remaining Kelsey couches from Costco home. 5) Give baby Kendall a big enough snuggle from her auntie and uncle to last until our next visit.

Our first stop was Ikea, we waded through the President Day Sale crowd to the center of the store to find the Sunday one item sale was no longer available, however we load up on all toys bizzare and unique for baby Kendall, including this rat she is so lovingly chewing on in the photo. Our next stop was the paint store where we were told that all oil based paints above a quart sized have been outlawed in Maricopa county (no other counties nearby) due to environmental reasons and that many companies choose not to carry the quart size due to the minimal sales. We were given the run around for paint alternatives, visited 5 different paint stores before we found our paint, however this took half of a day, we missed our second IKEA special sale and the free breakfast but managed to get most on our list - 3 carts full! Our next stop was the pool store which we discovered was no longer in business. When we attempted to rent our reserved vehicle we were rejected by 3 rental companies because both of our licenses lack a expiration dates, which is a funny little thing WA state does for active military. After a couple of hours and some harsh words along the lines of "military discrimination" we were able to get our vehicle and be on our way.

Our snuggle Kendall and costco goals were each a sucess. Check out the photos of Levi strapping our new precariously balanced couch into the back of the SUV. The focus and the rented Ford Escape made the 3 1/2 hour trip back to Yuma but not before it rained on our exposed portion of our couch - yes, Yuma, that little city that gets between 3 - 5 inches of rain per year decided to dump on us during our midnight trip home, at this point we had to laugh, how could we expect anything less than rain in the desert after the day we had?

Visitors - yay!

2009-02-15T08:38:00.000-08:00

We are 16 days into our remodel and 9 days away from our 1st set of visitors Nicole and baby Tanner, then just 4 or 5 days later we may be getting a visit from Fred, then just days afterward Jen's mom, aunt, sister, brother-in-law and nephew Adrian will be arriving! Everyone has been forewarned about our current living conditions but we are determined to wrap up the basics of phase 1 and provide at least a safe environment for baby Tanner and Adrian. In the near future we are also expecting Luke, Kristen and baby Kendall, Jen's dad and our Seattle friends Drew and Laura with a few other tentatively planned guests. We couldn't be more thrilled! Not only does this light a fire beneath us to accomplish our goals in a timely manner but also were convinced our guest log would be very minimal over the 3 years we were here. In part we owe a big thanks to Washington State's nasty winter :)

Happy Valentine's Day

2009-02-14T08:48:00.000-08:00

After 8 years together and nearly 3 years of marriage it's only fitting that such a practical arrangement was made - Jen asked Levi for just a long days worth of backbreaking renovation labor for her Valentine's day gift and in return she'd give him the same. And a long day it was! We spent a 14 hour day and accomplished so much. Jen primed the family room and the office and Levi finished off the island and installed a good portion of the kitchen floors each project was painstakingly tedious for different reasons.

Coincidentally the last room that needed to be primed was the formal room and the color going on the wall that day was red. As Jen was applying the red to the walls she thought back to her and Levi's first Valentine's Day, she was 18 and Levi was 19, Jen wore a dress and they had their hot date out at the mall chain restaurant Rainforest Cafe thinking it was one of the nicest restaurants they had ever eaten in yet. We bought each other big gifts with price tags we would still consider today to be too extravagant for Valentine's day. Levi says this was one of the first time's he thought he was falling in love with Jen.

With this memory at 10pm Jen decided they were too young to already not celebrate Valentine's day so we wrapped our projects up, attempted to wash most of the paint off our faces and arms and ventured out for a nice dinner, maybe at Chow Bella or Yuma's good steak house but each were closed, so the story comes full circle as we enjoyed our 8th Valentine's dinner together in a less than romantic mall established restaurant of Chili's :)

Knocking down a tier

2009-02-13T22:39:00.000-08:00

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Our once two tiered island is on it's way to become one flat even counter space . We're getting rid of these laminate counter tops and replacing it with a clean lined butcher block top. This is the biggest project Levi has tackled yet. Jen previously thought she was the more handy out of the two but tonight Levi proved her wrong.

Check out those clean painting lines where the ceiling meets the walls! Be sure to compliment Jen on these lines when you come to visit as she risked life and limb achieving them. She was standing too high up on the ladder and was over reaching when we fell off the ladder hitting this very island on her way down - luckily it was only her pride that was injured in the incident.

A kitchen in progress

2009-02-13T22:35:00.000-08:00

It's difficult to see the vision this early on but here's a glimpse at our new counter tops. They aren't much to look at now but we feel their light color will be a great contrast to the espresso color we're putting on the cabinets and that their unobtrusive quartz pattern will be calming against the more glitzy glass tile and stone tile back splash.

Our favorite room in the house

2009-02-13T22:31:00.000-08:00

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We often find ourselves overwhelmed with our big empty house and all the projects we are tackling but then we go into our smallest room that is near complete and feel a sense of accomplishment and renewed optimism that it is all manageable. We still have grand plans for this room - definitely some paint on the walls, lift the washer and dryer up on a platform and hang some cabinets above the washer and dryer.

Clean, straight, beautiful paint lines!

2009-02-13T22:14:00.000-08:00

The few times Jen has painted before she has experienced that forever frustration of paint tape bleeding paint and blemishing those intended crisp clean paint lines. Dan the painter at HD was most helpful with this dilemma, he passed along a painting tip that we have tried several times now and it works like a charm! We're so very excited about it and wanted to share it with our friends and family.

You'll need to be geared with your trusty painters tape, a caulking gun and a tube of clear caulk.

Start by taping off your line, we've tried this both on closets and on ceilings. Just before you're ready to paint your taped off line apply the clear caulking along the line with you finger, rub it hard into the line where the tape meets the wall.

Immediately apply paint to your line and as soon as you're satisfied with your coverage remove your painters tape. Do not wait too long to do this no more than a minute or two. If it dries it will take the paint up with the tape.

Paint

2009-02-13T21:47:00.000-08:00

We had the good fortune of meeting an paint expert at home depot who was kind enough to spend an hour with us teaching us how to paint a room properly. We are in no way experts so take the advice we're about to pass on for what it is: 3rd party relayed information, much of it will only be valuable to novices like ourselves.

Dan the painter confirmed what our Home Improvement 1 2 3 book (thanks Salina & Joe!) had already told us - do not skimp on the quality of paint and especially your painting tools. Prior to this information we had purchased the $2.35 cent value tray and roller at home depot to do our ceiling primer. When you're buying top of the line painting supplies it's really the difference of $5 in price but a world of difference in performance! The more expensive $7 wooley nap gave us better coverage and is virtually splatter free, and so ridiculously easy to clean out, the slightly more expensive roller actually holds onto the nap so it doesn't inch off the roller every other dip in the paint but the best buy yet was the grid and paint bucket that served as a replacement for the pour, dip, roll out tray method. Instead of pouring paint into the tray so often just pour your paint into a buck and slide the grate into it, genius!

Above is a sneak peak at the colors that will soon cover our walls. We love all of them with the exception of the green, after the sample sat on our master bedroom wall we decided to tint it lighter until we find a shade we can live with.

Quick update

2009-02-12T10:52:00.000-08:00

Our camera battery is dead and the charger is buried some where in our mess here so photos will have to come later. In the mean time here are a few quick updates.

It seems there are two speeds in home remodel either things are happening so fast you can barely keep up or so mind-numbingly slow some days you feel like the project will never end.

Our washer and dryer were delivered, our mud room is now our favorite room in the house! Primarily because it is the smallest and the most manageable in the way of completion.

Our beautiful blanco city Silestone counter tops, stainless steel undermount sink and new faucet are being installed as I type!!! This happened sooner than we expected and with the camera battery dead we were unable to get a "before" shot, hopefully I have a decent one in our archives.

With the ceilings complete the painting has begun, it's going so much slower than we expected. Prepping is oh so time consuming but we want to try and achieve the closest to professional results possible. We've primed the larger spare bedroom, the hallway and most of the family/kitchen/dining area with more than half the house left, before we can add the finish coats. We spent an hour with a contractor at home depot and learned a hand-dandy trick that gives you perfect straight edges when painting. We'll share this trick when we have the photos to go along with it.

Also our floors, fridge, dishwasher, microhood and backsplash order from home depot has all arrived at our local store, however we haven't refinished our cabinets yet and need to stall delivery until then. We're shooting for Thursday of next week.

This weekend we're making a Phoenix run to take advantage of the Pres. Day sales and purchase some of our basic furniture. Also to visit our sweet and newest niece baby Kendall.

Stay tuned for a big photo dump once we find the charger.

Nightly bubble baths required

2009-02-09T06:48:00.001-08:00

After the more challenging days of remodel the evenings are usually ended with a steaming hot bubble bath and a glass of wine, after the grueling weekend we just had both were greatly earned.

As reported earlier all the ceilings are popcorn-free and upon recommendation of a clueless home depot employee we also primed all of the ceilings for texture. The first of our disappointments on Saturday was when we learned we did NOT need to prime the ceilings before the texture but AFTER, that was a full day and a half days work lost :(

We spent the entire first half of Saturday buying paint, primers, texture and renting the necessary machines to administer each. Our next hurdle came in the way of a faulty texture machine and a lack luster texture that was not worth the effort it took to apply it. We returned the machine and accompanying supplies and attempted Plan B - texture via expensive aerosol cans which also produced unsatisfactory results. We had spent a full day, spent more money that day than we care to share and had nothing to show for it. It was one of those soul crushing days.

Third try is a charm - Sunday we found a texture that works for us and our skill level and successfully applied it to all of the ceilings. We're happy to report the ceiling project is fully complete!

Dear previous owner, you are a moron.

2009-02-09T06:09:00.000-08:00

In addition to these lovely special ordered light covers in the master bedroom and bathroom the previous owner decided to hot glue about 40 - 50 real starfish to our walls! Some are broken off giving us a nice shot of their post mortum anatomy. Neither of us have ever had a strong opinion on dried starfish before but as we try to pry them off my wall and their limbs are scattered around our makeshift bed we are finding them absolutely revolting.

Home owner tip - do not hot glue ANYTHING to your walls. It took one of us 4 hours to scrape off the starfish. After numerous failed attempts we had to heat up the glue to remove it from the wall which also removed several layers of paint so in addition to removing the glue we had to sand the newly created holes, spackle them, wait for it to dry, and then sand the spackle spots.

Ugly Ducklings

2009-02-06T07:27:00.001-08:00

I intend to reupholster these ugly ducklings and transform them into swans for a corner of our formal living room. I'm thinking of staining or painting the wood portions a deep espresso color and reupholstering them with a rich cream textured fabric or possibly a small patterned fabric.

These pea soup green chairs happen to be the only seating we currently have at our house, this is where we eat our take out dinner and this is where we take our breaks from remodel. Even if our reupholstering job fails miserably we feel these chairs have already been well worth the $25 we paid for them.

Days 6, 7 and 8 - more of the same.

2009-02-06T07:18:00.000-08:00

Jen has declared Wednesday as her day off from renovating so day 6 was spent doing errands for the remodel instead :)

Days 7 and 8 were much more productive! We are officially popcorn ceiling free! All the rooms have been scraped, primed and are awaiting their new less offensive texture this weekend. The scraping was such a sloppy and laborious job, we often thought to ourselves, are popcorn ceilings really that bad? are they worth all of this? Last night we had to sleep on the floor in the family room, we were looking up at our new smooth and modern ceilings and have decided YES! It was worth it, they look great! We feel like we just took 10 years off the house's age.

This weekend we hope to complete the application of the new texture and possibly begin painting the main living areas. The washer and dryer arrive on Monday, our new counter tops will be installed next week as well, hopefully our fridge, dishwasher, microwave and flooring will arrive shortly afterward then we can begin living a civilized life in our new home!

Paint Indecision

2009-02-04T13:03:00.000-08:00

Feel free to weigh in on the paint selection, a few posts back there is a photo of our kitchen backsplash and a description of the intended color scheme. The family room is one large open concept room that includes the kitchen, dining area and family living room so the one paint color needs to suit all three rooms.

The colors in the photo aren't appearing exactly as they are but it's close. I'm leaning toward the grayish beige on the far middle left. Levi likes the grayish green on the far right corner. When it's all done the popcorn on the floor will be replaced with a dark wood colored floors encased with a white base board trim. Opinions welcome.

Day Four & Five

2009-02-03T12:42:00.000-08:00

It's the beginning of the work week and Levi has gone back to work. Jen is remodeling solo and thinks it's pretty empowering.

Accomplishments - Prepped and primed the formal living room, family room, kitchen and dining room ceilings. Painstakingly scraped the old crusty adhesive off of the cement in the kitchen and dining room concrete. Completed second round patch job on the concrete in dining area and completed patch job for the newly discovered crack in the kitchen concrete floor. Prepped and removed popcorn ceiling from office and hallway.

Demo!

2009-02-01T23:52:00.000-08:00

On HGTV demo always looks like the funnest part of remodel - wrong! At this point, it's our least favorite.

This weekend we each logged about 20 hours of demolition. Levi began removing the popcorn ceilings in the dining area and kitchen area while Jen removed the carpet from the family room, formal living room, hallways and office. Jen took over for Levi and removed the popcorn ceilings from the formal living room and family room while Levi removed the parquet and under layer of linoleum from the kitchen and dining area. We also did a first round patch job on a chunk of cement that came up with the linoleum.

Favorite part so far - removing the popcorn ceiling, it's messy but full of instant gratification!

Least favorite part so far - climbing to the top step of the 15ft ladder to do anything on the vaulted portions of the ceilings.

Here are some pictures of all of our hard work.

2009-02-01T23:20:00.000-08:00

We're In!

2009-01-31T11:16:00.000-08:00

Late this evening our agent handed us the keys to our home. We are 3 days over our closing date and are so very ready to get started on our projects!

Levi immediately took the crow bar to the parquet floor and discovered a nasty linoleum and old adhesive beneath it. This will add a few days to our floor removal project. Jen blemished every wall in the house with at least one paint sample before heading to bed. We are elated to finally be home owners and novice renovators! Today is a great day.

Photos: Jen in our family room with the welcome basket of wine, wafers, crackers and cheese from our agent & a photo from the front porch of our home.

2009-01-30T23:14:00.000-08:00

Kitchen vision:

Espresso brown cabinets, light latte Silestone counter tops, and the backsplash shown here. The backsplash is my favorite, it's mixed tile of both glass and stone a few metalic light gold accents. I think our cabinent and countertop choices will mesh beautifully with the backsplash but I'm having a difficult time choosing wall colors for our open concept kitchen, dining and living room. Originally I planned a pale gray-ish teal for the wall color but with my samples up on the wall I'm not so sure. More on the color dilemma later.

Family Room/Dining Area

2009-01-29T22:35:00.000-08:00

I'm loving this chandelier. It's different than most and will work well with the pale teal, dark brown, light gold color scheme I'm going for.

Master Bedroom

2009-01-29T10:45:00.000-08:00

****Update, I found this quilted bed spread spread. I'm hoping my plan to make everything fairly neutral with clean lines and accents of green will look modern, relaxing and not too boring. We will see.

The color scheme in the photo above (minus the pillows) paired with our wedding photos below are our inspiration for our master bedroom.

We've been waiting nearly 3 years to have a place to properly display our wedding photos. We plan to chose just three and have them nicely framed above our bed's headboard.

Color scheme - brownish gray, cream, dark brown furniture with accents of our yellow green from our wedding.

Master bath

2009-01-28T23:56:00.000-08:00

There is not a door between the master bath and the master bedroom therefore the bathroom has to complement the master bedroom. The floor is staying, its exactly like the main bathroom. I'm thinking about doing an antique cream color on the walls, dark vanity, double sinks (possibly the same wading pools as the main bath) two dark individual mirrors. I love the modern/rustic shower curtain below.

Meet Yuma

2009-01-27T20:18:00.000-08:00

Skipping ahead

2009-01-25T21:39:00.000-08:00

To Levi's distress I've skipped into phase 2 for just a brief moment this evening. Pottery barn has the most exquisite outdoor furniture collections with a price large enough to choke on, I've found a way to achieve the same look for a fraction of the price.

Pottery Barn online is have a big sale on it's patio cushions. The ottoman cushion is the same size as the sofa cushions but for less and even less on sale! I've purchased a few of these in the natural stone color and intend on building a bench with a slightly angled back to complete the look. I have grand plans to make the top of the bench hinged to double as throw blanket and pool toy storage. I'm also hoping to make my own throw pillows and outdoor curtains. We are trying to decide between reds and oranges for our accent colors or greens and blues for our accent colors.

Cushions are ordered but we'll have to wait a good month before we can proceed with Phase 2 - outdoor furniture and landscaping.

Score!

2009-01-25T01:12:00.000-08:00

Today we ventured out for appliance shopping, estimates on new counters, new floors and popcorn scraping supplies. We spent hours in home depot wheeling and dealing with much success! Here's what we learned!

Pay attention to the details! We stumbled upon, not one, not two but THREE mis-marked price tags, and when we pressed the issue awkwardly the manager on three different occasions signed off on the lower price tag - yay! Our largest discount was over $100 off on our undermount stainless sink!

Price check items and then compare to their online sales! On our stainless fridge we saved $400.

Milk the military discount for all it's worth. 5% off all our home depot sales!

Ask about future promos - which is how we learned about how to buy our kenmore washer and dryer at 20% off.

It was a grueling day pounding the aisles of HD, Lowes, and Sears but somehow it didn't wear down the high of buying our first sink - yay!

Quartz Silestone counters - check!
Allure flooring - check!
Undermount sink - check!
Supplies for popcorn ceiling removal - check!
Fridge, Dishwasher, Microhood, Washer, Dryer - check!
Back Splash - check!
Showerheads - check!

Next on the agenda - paints, demolition supplies, cabinet refinishing supplies, pulls, wine insert project, kitchen floors, tract replacements, pendant lighting, island stools, blind paint, buy the clearance rug, bathroom vanities, bathroom mirrors, faucets, lumber for mantle/fireplace project, shelves, shower curtains, bathroom lighting, and crown.

2009-01-24T10:40:00.000-08:00

Main Bathroom

2009-01-24T10:32:00.001-08:00

Current bathroom - everything goes but the floor, toilet and bath.

Bathroom inspiration - gray walls, dark wood vanity, accent of burnt orange to incorporate the floors. Clean white shower curtain and towels.

I'm in love with the Kohler Demi Lav Wading Pool Sink - so beautiful. However I do not love the faucet shown here.

Formal Living room/Entry

2009-01-24T09:57:00.000-08:00

The room above is my inspiration for our formal living room, which is also the first room you enter into through our front door. When I was trying to decide from a narrowed list of color schemes Levi saw this one and said - go bold or go home - so bold it is!

Below is a couch we've selected and a possible rug selection. The colors on the rug fit the room but I'm not certain about the style of the pattern.

Larger Spare Bedroom

2009-01-23T22:08:00.000-08:00

The larger spare bedroom will be light teal blues, white and possibly othere colors. I'm drawn to dark brown wood so it's likely I will use a dark brown platform bed, and other dark brown furniture. I'm most challenged by this room. We have a nice duvet that looks similar to the photo to the right (however the leaves are more leafy and less bulbous) that we hope to use here. This room is a challenge because I believe monochromatic is the only way to go. I'm cautious about mixing paterns or other colors.

Any suggestions?

2009-01-23T22:00:00.000-08:00

Addressing the larger room color scheme challenge I have listed a few teal wallpaper choices. Pattern is difficult, not sure if many of these work. I'm considering painting the walls a darker shade of teal than the duvet or perhaps something in the grey palette.

I welcome input, see the questions below for the smaller bedroom for wallpaper.

Smallest Spare Bedroom

2009-01-23T15:19:00.000-08:00

In just 4 short days we begin our big remodel project! The big decisions have been made but still I need to decide on a few color schemes for all of the bedrooms and the hallway as it is going to be the 2nd thing we do after removing the popcorn ceilings.

I have purchased a solid red quilted coverlet for the smallest spare bedroom which has since dictated the partial color scheme of this room - red. The backside of the quilt is a deep burnt rust color which I have the option of displaying or not. The dressed bed will be sitting upon a very dark brown clean lined platform bed.

I'm nutty about wallpaper these days and have strong intentions to use it in all 3 bedrooms and possibly the office. Feel free to weigh in on the prints below. If it's a large bold print I will simply do one accent wall plus the interior of the closet. If it's monochromatic and mostly textured I may do the entire room. I like the idea of having gold accents in the room but it's not necessary.

Here are the questions I'm trying to decide:
1) Which one to choose?
2) What accent color should I pair it with?
3) Full wall or accent wall?
4) If only one wall what complementing color would you suggest?
5) What style does the selected wallpaper indicate for the room - modern, whimsy, subtle asian, etc.

See wallpaper options in the post below:

2009-01-23T14:00:00.000-08:00