DIY Ideas...oh Lord.

Since I have no journal to write in at the moment, I'm going to bend your ear on the nonsensical musings of a woman with a thousand DIY ideas in her head.

The main thing I'd love to renovate is the half bath that is downstairs.  It's the one our friends use, it gets seen by a lot of people....and I hate it.  I'm not exaggerating, I hate it.  I love the decorative pieces that I added, but thats's all I can say for the bathroom.

It's gold.  The fixtures are gold.  It looks gaudy. I have always been a silver kinda gal.  My wedding rings aren't gold.  I do not own any gold jewelry.  I don't know why, I've just never liked the look of it.  No judgement on anyone who does love gold stuff of course. Silver things just seem more relaxed to me, more elegant. Let's get down to business.

...to defeat...the huns.   (Sorry, I really like Disney movies.)


This is our half bath.

Pay attention to the TP holder. It's broken. Again.
And sorry Mother, I still haven't gotten
any hand towels to hang on the hooks!

Gold.  Gold everywhere. 

I should've also gotten a picture of the cabinets, they're a huge reason I'd like to renovate this space, but oh well.  They are old and generic, not at all what my family and I are like.  We're fun, Southern and traditional.  Not to mention we're young. So what if I have 10 months until I turn 30! I'M STILL YOUNG DAMNIT!  So, we've established there is too much gold and the cabinets are old. I can't forget to mention the toilet, I'd really just like a new seat, not a brand new toilet.  Although, if they were free...I'd get it.  Know what I'm sayin'?

Here's what I'd love to do to our cabinets:

Thanks Pinterest!

They basically look just like the before photo, just a tad bit older. I'd love to have that dark color with silver fixtures and a bigger mirror. It's always amazing to me how cabinets can either make or break a room, really make it pop you know?  Like I said, it's a half bath, so we're not working with a lot of space here, so I'd love to do something to make the room seem a bit bigger and really reflect our style. The website makes this seem so easy, but this is me we're talking about. I can barely draw stick figures and I have been known to make a mess of things from time to time.  I should also point out that my husband has no idea I'd like to do this, so surprise babe!  I looove youuuuu!!!

I like keeping our current cabinets, just painting them and updating them.  It also saves us money, so boom goes the dynamite.  We're all for saving money and yet still getting "new" stuff.  Of course buying new fixtures is what's going to cost us.  Painting = time consuming.  Fixtures = money.  This is especially true when you think of the cost of new lighting, but if we look at it as an investment in our home, it's a great thing.  Maybe in the near future you guys will see a new post talking about how awesome our "new" bathroom looks with pictures of what we did along the way.

Ew.

     As I'm writing this, my skin is still crawling.  In truth, it's more like my skin is running far, far away from my body instead of crawling.  My skin is in a marathon of grossness and it's trying its damnedest to get to the safety of the finish line unscathed.


     Since moving in here, we've really only seen ants inside the house, and that was only when it rained A LOT.  Ants are annoying, but I can deal with them fairly easily.  They don't make me sick to my stomach is what I'm trying to say.  Even spiders (AKA Spawns of Satan) are something I can deal with.  Sure, I go in to a panic and breathe like I have actually ran a marathon, but I deal with it.  A few months ago while shampooing my carpets, I saw a lizard in my living room.

Representation of the real culprit.

A lizard.  In my living room.  How did it get there?  How long had it been there?  Why do I feel like I need to pass out?  All normal questions one would have when they see something like this in their home.  Luckily I had two shoe boxes that I strategically placed on both ends of the couch where it was hiding, and once reinforcements arrived, we were able to shoo it into a box, which I promptly closed and ran out of the house with.  No lizards were harmed in the capture and he was released back in to the wild, right near a pond where I'm sure there was food galore for him to gorge himself on.  Yes, I walked away in triumphant victory, with my head held high.  I was only a tiny bit ashamed at how bad I was shaking, but a win is a win.

From that time on, I really hadn't seen anything in my house that didn't have permission to be here. Not even an ant really. And just when I think all is well with my little world...last night happened.  

No but seriously...picture it: My home, yesterday.  I was in my daughters room vacuuming, not a care in the world, when out of the corner of I eye, I see something moving.  I immediately go to investigate, praying it wasn't what I thought it was. I moved her toy box, shuffled things around a bit and saw nothing so I thought I was just seeing things and I went on about my business.  Fast forward to around 8:30 last night.  I'm in my bedroom getting ready for bed.  My box fan and TV were off so it was totally silent in my room.  It is a sound that I cherish because...kids.  Am I right, moms and dads?!  While reveling in the silence I heard paper rustling.  Knowing it wasn't me, nor my dog seeing as how he has no thumbs and certainly couldn't be catching up on his great American novel, I hone in on where the sound is coming from, while remembering what I thought I saw earlier in the day.  Behind our dresser was a piece of paper that must have fallen back there, I went and grabbed the broom and started pushing the paper.  Nothing.  I saw nothing. Then my loyal dog went on high alert, pointed straight at the dresser.  

I really started messing around back there and there it was....a freaking mouse.  A teeny tiny, little brown ball of disease.  IN MY HOUSE. 

And cue high pitched screaming.  I drop the load of towels I had just folded on to the floor, went and grabbed my other dog since the first one just stared at it.  Once my other dog saw it, he was like, "Master brought me another playmate!  THANKS, MASTER!!!" They were zero help. God forbid  our doorbell ring, but they'll allow vermin to be inside, no problem! 

I'm screaming, the dogs are barking happily, the kids are banging on my door wanting to know what was going on, it was chaos. The thing finally ran out and hid under a towel that I had dropped and without thinking, I went to town.  I beat the ever loving shit out of that towel, and essentially, the mouse, with my broom.  I screamed like a wild banshee, literally the whole time. It would've been funny had it not been happening to me. Upon realizing the mouse was dead, more panic set in because I knew I was the only one there to get it outside.  I lost a good towel in the process, and I was in full on panic mode while getting it to the garbage can outside, but I did it.  In my mind I was thinking, "This thing isn't dead, it's playing me.  It's going to pop out of the towel and run up my arm and into my hair, and I'll die."  Seriously, I was thinking this while flying down my stairs to get outside. I'm a runner, I workout regularly, but I probably burned more calories from sheer panic last night than I did the entire week. 

I don't think the thing suffered, I hit the towel the first time and I didn't see any movement, but I wanted to be sure...so yeah.  I felt bad about it for like, 2 seconds once I knew I was safe from it's little reign of terror, but ultimately, I had to defend my home.  This morning, all the closets were gutted and cleaned. Under the kids beds were cleaned again.  I was petrified I'd see another one scurrying around but I didn't.  I'm thinking this one might have come in from the garage 2 days ago when I was going through boxes.  Silly me left the door to the house open, so I might have scared him and he ran inside.  That's the story I'm choosing to go with. I've cleaned everything I know of and can clean, and nothing.  No droppings anywhere, no nests or chewed up places.  Please let that be the only one!  I don't keep a dirty house, I clean daily and hard clean problem areas twice a month. We're a clean, nice people!  

So that's my drama for now.  A while ago, I could've picked up the phone and called maintenance to come take care of this problem for me.  But now?  Now I am Homeowner! Here me ROAR! 

Deep Thoughts with Haley Homeowner

In an effort to stay more up-to-date with the blog, I'm writing, probably about nothing of any importance, again! Sometimes when I write with nothing in mind, I get a really good post out of it. Other times it's a jumbled mess of words that make no sense so I'll do my best to keep that from happening. I make no promises though.

Being a homeowner is fun, it really is.  I recommend it to everyone who can afford it and make it happen, it's a great investment for a family. What's not fun is being responsible for anything that breaks, but that's mainly because I don't like spending money on broken stuff.  I'd rather spend money on fun things, things we WANT to do instead of things we HAVE to do.  Make sense?

RUN LITTLE HALEY JOEL OSMENT!!! RUN!!!  

What probably sucks the most is that all of what we (I say we, it's really more of a 'me' thing) want to do comes with a hefty price tag.

- Windows, I'd like them replaced with more energy efficient windows.
- The carpet, I thought I'd like berber carpet, but you know, we have dogs so I don't like it anymore. Snags - snags everywhere.  I'd love to update the carpet throughout the house.
- Our back door is pretty old, I'd love to take it out and put in French doors.  We also have a screen that pulls across the doorway so we can keep the back door open in nice weather - broken.  It's broken.
- Our front door and the screen door.  The door is just old looking and the screen door is shot.
- Blinds.  The majority of the house has excellent blinds, venetian blinds, I love them.  Our kitchen however has black blinds that just...don't belong. I'd love to update those to venetian blinds to keep them the same as the rest of the house. The fan in our kitchen is also black, it doesn't match anything...
- The ceiling in our dining room. It's got to go.  There was a previous leak and then we had our own mishap a while back, it just needs to be replaced.
- Landscaping in our front yard.  We got a quote from a lawn care service to fix our irrigation issues and then to take care of our yard and do some landscaping out front.  Yeah, that's not cheap.
- Our oven.  There's nothing wrong with it, I just WANT a new one because I'm weird. We also want to take out the cabinets over the oven (for a short girl like me, they're the devil,) and add in the microwave/vent thing.  We have no space in our kitchen for the microwave at the moment.  It's sitting on the floor in our dining room.
- The kids bathroom.  All of it.
- Our bathroom.  I'd love to update the Jacuzzi tub.
- Caulking.  We have some caulking to do.
- Our fireplace.


See?  I don't want to do much in our house!

My parents, and anyone who has ever owned a home, say that you never stop building your house. I can see how that would be true because of all the things we'd like to do and change in ours. It will take time and unfortunately, money to do it but that's the beauty of it.  We have the time, maybe we're not rolling in the dough, but eventually...as soon as we rob that bank.  When my husband retires from the military, we don't HAVE to leave like we would in government housing. We can stay here until the kids graduate high school if we wanted.  We can sell the house and move to Timbuktu if we wanted to.  It's ours, we'll do what we want.  To pay respect to the late, great, Stuart Scott - BOOYA!

I really do love being a homeowner.  It's easy to get down on things and complain when something breaks, but let's face it, no one likes when something doesn't work properly.  I've had a more positive outlook on things since I posted about Murphy's Law back in November.  It's a great thing to own a home, it's a massive responsibility but it's one I'm excited to have.  Plus I have a pretty good partner in this home owning adventure, so that helps.  I've really been thinking about it lately, the responsibility of it, the highs, the lows.  It's a normal thing that everyone experiences multiple times in their homes, I'm not alone. Truth be told, I wish we could've bought a house years ago. We're older and wiser at this point in our lives though so it's probably good that we took this long.

Now, in closing, since I titled this post "Deep Thoughts," I'll leave you with my favorite quote from Deep Thoughts, with Jack Handey:

It has nothing to do with owning a home...

I'm a terrible blogger.

The title speaks for itself.  We haven't done anything major in the house since the roof, so I haven't thought to update anything.  We did have a lot of "firsts" though, so that's something right?


For my husbands birthday we put in a fire pit in the backyard, which has been awesome.  The whole 3 times we've used it.  In our defense, it's like, done nothing but rain here lately and our backyard looks like a swamp.  It's fun to sit around the fire with good friends and good beer though.  The kids also get some enjoyment out of it by roasting marshmallows and hot dogs.

We got a bird! Well, one of my kids got a bird but I've kinda commandeered her because she's the coolest bird that ever freaking lived. Her name is Tango because she's a dancing queen!  My other child got a fish, a little Betta named Scooby-2, but like Perry the Platypus, he doesn't do much.  There's a little something for the parents out there.   And please, lets all have a moment of silence for Scooby-1, who tragically lost his life after I cleaned his tank incorrectly.  Fortunately for Scooby-2, I now know how to do it the right way.  We're 3 cleaning's in and he's still going strong! 

We had our first Christmas in OUR HOUSE!  Not a military home.  Not someone else's home.  OUR HOME.  I had the house decorated all cute and the husband hung our lights outside. We even bought a ladder and did it the "safe way" this year, so I guess you can say we're pretty adult now. 

We bought a new dishwasher!  Out with the old, in with the new!  The old one was probably in the house since '93, it had mold problems and didn't clean or dry our dishes very well at all.  We lucked out and found a display dishwasher crazy discounted at Lowe's, and now she's ours.  I think I'll name her Alice.  Anyone get the reference?!  Alice?  From the Brady Bunch....because she cleaned...

Oh well, I thought it was funny.  Alice was installed today actually and for the first time ever in my life, I am looking forward to doing the dishes tonight. Someone might want to get some holy water and come make sure I'm actually ME and some crazed, dishwashing-loving demon/alien thing.  

I may or may not watch a lot of Supernatural...

Our next purchase that we'll be doing is a new AC/heat unit.  Lowe's has already been out and given us a quote (YIKES) and shortly after we get our taxes back we'll be moving ahead with that install.  We have forced air heating at the moment, and while it's done it's job (ish) it's not the most efficient source of heating.  Since it uses the water from our water heater to heat the house, anytime we use the hot water, the temp in the house drops, which also means we don't have a lot of hot water for showers and such.  So we'll be paying a little bit extra to have the heat coming from the central AC unit, to me it's well worth it if it means we'll have enough hot water. 

So that's basically it.  Nothing else has really been done, unless you count us cleaning out our garage. Once our new budget plan starts to reflect itself in our bank accounts, we're hoping to do more updating and changing around here.