Movin' on up to the east side...

Well, more east of where we were (west chicagoland and closer to the big city), at least.

So this is obviously a late post about our move since we actually made the big move almost 2 weeks ago, now (the weekend of my birthday -- a good gift, I would say).  We've made a lot of changes to the house even before the move, but as much as I would like to blog about all remodeling/renovation projects in the house in chronological order, at this point in time with all the hustle and bustle going on, I only have a somewhat organized chaos thought process going on in my brain as everything is all happening at once.

I think posting about the big move is a good way to start to get me out of my blogging rut.  (And I'm only in a rut because there's so much to post about, I don't even know where to start.)  So let's take the first step and start here.

WE'VE MOVED!! Yahoo!

Almost exactly 2 months after our closing date, we moved out of our cozy starter home and made the move to the new house.  After over a year of living out of boxes (we packed a little prematurely), we were soooo ready to go.  I was a little skeptical about fitting everything A) in the 26 ft. truck  and B) in the new house, but we somehow managed it.

I'm sure you all have moved at one point in your life, but you truly never realize how much stuff you accumulate over the years (over 6 years, in our case) until you pack 'em up and stack 'em up in your living room (and garage).  I was very overwhelmed by it all.  At this point, I made a solemn oath to never, ever hoard  collect junk and always make sure to pare down as needed.  NEVER AGAIN!!

Our poor pup, Erin, was so confused by it all, she literally jumped on every couch, bed, and laps shaking and wouldn't leave our side for a second for 2 days.  I think she was literally thinking that she would be left behind.  Poor girl, we made sure to comfort her and tell her that we were not going to do that and that she is coming with us to the new house.  A little love from mom, dad, and Olive, and I think she was feeling much better..

So on to the movers..

This time around we wised up and hired movers.  Unlike our last move from our old apartment to our first house, we have waaay more junk to haul and also, I would be moving for two (14 weeks preggers 2 weeks ago).  So hired muscle was definitely in our cards.  And I am never ever going back to manual labor ever again!! (spoiled doesn't even cover it).

halfway full

We went with a company called Professionals Moving Specialists, a company based out of Chicago per the recommendation of our good friends Jen and Dusty who recently made the move from Chicago to Bartlett (and still a better price than the local Allied and 2 men and a truck).  Not only did they arrive early, but they brought with them four scrappy dudes and a huge 26 foot truck.  They moved so quick, I barely got out of bed before half of our stuff was already in their truck!


It truly was surreal to see your whole life in boxes.  In the year that we lived out of them, I pretty much convinced myself that the task of moving would be impossible.  Little did I know that they would be able to pack and unpack our whole existence in 4 hours including travel time.

I was pretty impressed with how fast these guys were (total pros), and they were pretty good with packaging our valuables in saran wrap, blankets, tapes.  They also strategically tetris'd our stuff in their truck, so we only needed one, thank god.  It was close, but we made it fit and it was packed to the nuts!

It's hard to believe how empty our old house was.  I was exhausted from packing and moving, but I still had time to shed a small tear.  Even as I'm writing this, the feeling is overwhelming (could be the pregnancy hormones), but this was our first real home.  Where we had our first kid.  Where we had dinner parties, and barbecues, and holidays. Oh boy, here comes the tears..waaaahhhh.  I love you old house, you'll always be in our hearts.. 

But moving on (no pun intended).

As if emotions weren't on high enough already, we come home to this chaos in the new house.  Pangs of anxiety and panic almost knocked me out into a deep sleep (this is my natural reaction to stress), but we carried on and literally carried every box to where they belonged (not all in one day, of course).

We did manage to direct our speedy movers to move the upstairs boxes to a holding room upstairs (large 2nd bedroom) and downstairs boxes into the front room (spilling out into the dining room) and even managed to have them move the massive mancave couch and entertainment center into the basement (where it belongs).

We even had time to celebrate my big 33rd (gasp!) birthday with some frozen yogurt from Ninang Lisa (Olive's godmom).  Yum!  Thanks Lisa <3

All in all, it was a crazy day, but the fact that we did it with barely any casualties, I was more relieved than anything.  Everything is falling into place, and we are just in a happier place period.

Now to throw half of this crap out... ;)

OK, before wrapping it up.. First, this post is dedicated to my friend Jane, who is my blog motivator and keeps me going in life (ha, also I will always listen to all of her advice from now on.. Rugs USA.. ARRRGGHH)..  Second, in the days ahead I am going to trudge on and post about our new floors (the catalyst and final project before we made the big move),  rugs, wallpaper removal (fun, fun), kitchen cabinets, and overall room transformations.  Stay tuned..

If you guys want to read the rest of this *exciting* remodeling series, CLICK HERE!

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Happy Valentine's Day!

I just can't get enough of classic V-day puns.. Especially when they're unintentionally high-larious..

On a house note, we haven't abandoned it yet although the lack of posts would seem otherwise. it's been a little crazy hectic at work, and now we are getting that much closer to moving in on top of it all! Stay tuned, I promise the updates will come in time.

In the meantime, enjoy this incredibly appropriate and strangely inappropriate Valentine from our house to yours!

Hope everyone has a "pun-tastic" Valentine's! 💘

If you guys want to read more about our 1st remodel,  CLICK HERE! 

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Friday Flashback: Carpe(t) Diem

So technically, this is the third post of its kind since I first started talking about our current home a few posts ago and then followed up with a post about Olive's nursery, but this will be the first one under the Friday Flashback heading. Exciting, I know!

Ok, enough chatter.  Let's talk carpets. Aside from the granite countertops we've installed in our kitchen, this was probably the other biggest change we've made to the interior of our turnkey, do-nothing-but-move-in, and at the time, only 4 year old house.  It's about as exciting as it gets here.

And like any good homeowner, we lived with the previous carpeting  for awhile until we just couldn't squeeze any more life out of it.  So to say goodbye, we decided to throw it a farewell party.  Actually, it was a huge ugly sweater party/fundraiser for Steve's rugby team.  We're talking lots of foot traffic, spilled beverages, and who knows what else. Squeeze we wanted, and squeeze we did.

Here are some candid party shots to the right.  Don't we look innocent in our darling sweaters next to the tree.  Apparently, the drinks that warmed our bellies also made us forget about how gross and stain-ridden, the icky berber carpeting was.

Here's another shot of the wild and crazy kids later on that night.  The cold winter winds forced all of our guests inside (we did have the closed garage, complete with space saving heaters, for extended mingling locations, but everyone wanted to snuggle up inside instead).  I swear if there was a low hanging chandelier, someone would have been hanging off of it, by the looks of this shot.  OH, and I almost forgot about the infamous red Jello incident spilling gloriously onto the carpet, as Jello usually does.  Party on!

So here is the nasty aftermath, right before the switch.

 

 

We also debated getting hardwood flooring (in hindsight, we wished we had- for resale value, but the thought of trying to match our hardwood in the kitchen and foyer just gave us both a headache).  We settled on berber carpeting again with the intention of getting a darker shade as to not show every stain and discoloration through regular wear and tear.  We stayed in the beige/tan family as to not alienate our existing furniture. I leaned towards a lighter shade to keep the room bright and Steve was lured by the dark side.  Upon remembering those ugly stains in our old carpet, we decided to go with the dark shade (2nd to the right).  We also went with Beaulieu which featured some carpet technology that I never realized carpet could possibly possess such as:

• Magic Fresh® odor reducing treatment works to reduce common odors in your home.
• Silver Release® antimicrobial carpet treatment inhibits the growth of odor- and stain-causing bacteria, as well as mold and mildew.
• PermaShield® advanced stain protection defends your carpet from life’s occasional accidents.

After shopping around, we decided to go with the same place we got our granite from, Best Buy Carpeting and Granite, and they managed to beat out all the other popular carpet  places (Luna, Empire, etc.).  Although, Luna, with their best price guarantee initially balked at the great price we were quoted at the other place, they did come up $50 less after much hesitation. In the end, we remained loyal to our original local shop, and they actually gave us a loyal customer discount.  So it came out to be the same, and they were glad to have us back!

When the day came, we, somehow, were able to fit the contents of our large family room and office/loft into the kitchen and the 2nd bedroom.  It was very messy and gave me lots of anxiety.

 

And here are some gratuitous striptease shots of our floors down to its naked subflooring.. Grrowll..

And the padding...



And AFTER with new carpeting.. Ta Da!

Such a small change, but it made a world of difference breathing in clean carpeting and not having to look at those ugly stains.  And the new padding makes us feel like we're walking on clouds (slight exaggeration).   All in all, the experience didn't take as long as I imagined it would and the installers were very courteous and wore booties to protect our new floors.  Not bad for a quick half day project. 

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Baby Talk

Since my last post left on a nursery note, I thought it appropriate to have the next post about how we transformed our guest room into a striped jungle paradise for our wee little Olive.

mocha. yum.

Unfortunately, I could not find any before photos of the 2nd bedroom.  I'll just have to do my best describing what once was a serene and cozy chambers for our guests.  Its walls were painted a nice mocha color, with crisp white cabinets and a matching glossy white dresser and bedroom chest.  And artwork, oh the artwork. We had a queen bed complete with a baby blue and deep brown bedding.  It was nice and inviting.  We had a bit of a beach house theme, I even had a lovely starfish that I brought back home from our Hawaii trip in 2009. sigh.



The Plan: Whimsical but classic
stripes and muted beige.



Ok, moving on..  Fast forward to May of 2010, fresh from our trip to the motherland in the Philippines, we find out we have ourselves a little vacation baby!  Long story short, our beachy guestroom is now our nursery.

I've unarchived the photos below, see it from conception (har, har baby puns) to its present day decor, slowly fulfilling its baby room destiny.

We started on the room early on, I wanted to start painting before I was literally as big as our house, so neutral yellows and greens came to mind right away.  (Looking back, I kind of wish I had thought of a pastel yellow and light grey combo, so chic.)  We also wanted to keep the baby's gender a surprise, so this fell right into our neutral plan.  We also added some chair rails painted white and carried the stripes only half way down and a solid beige below the chair rails for a wainscoting effect.

Being well versed in the art of Photoshop, I came up with a plan (if you look at the mirror's reflection, you get a glimpse of what once was the guest room-- in all of its mocha and baby blue glory)



 

The plan soon evolved to turn nursery into part-time guest room. This daybed with trundle from Craigslist matched our crib perfectly.  Linens with simple circle patterns from Ikea and fleece Euro shams, sewn with love, by yours truly, make it seem cozy and inviting.  The sad-eyed puppy was my loot from a local carnival made the daybed its home for a short while.

 

 Ladder bookcase from thrift store painted a glossy white housed baby's first iPod dock, complete with my very first iPod (3rd generation. Which is a brick in comparison to current versions, and also a fortune back in the day!)  and a few other cute baby accessories, including my karaoke Jollibee mascot, a nod to my heritage and the Philippines' answer to McDonalds.  We eventually went with a classic rocking chair in lieu of the yoga ball. The fun and colorful rug is from Target, I liked how the beige in the carpet tied in with the rooms neutrality, and the bolder colors picked up the colors from her toys (Jollibee in particular)


the whole shebang.

  I wish this picture did this room more justice, but I guess you'll just have to trust us, this room was sweet enough to eat.  And yes, we had a girl! :)



Baby au Lait, please..



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Status Quo

*WARNING*  This post will be heavy with pictures.

Since we are all in this short sale buying biz for the long haul, I thought I'd pass the time and spin some yarn about our current home and what we've done to her since we moved in in 2006.  Yep, the peak of the market.

Our current house was just a little 4 year old pup when we bought her, and suffice it to say, didn't need a lot of updating so there really won't be many posts to speak of about her.  That's not to say that she has not served us well, we love our current home for sure,  we just wish we had more of her to love (And in a better location).  Ol' New-ey is a 1,552 square foot Colonial style home with  2 bedrooms and  2.5 baths on a humble quarter acre of land.

We listed our house in December 2011 and received an offer, but alas with this horrid housing market, we just did not appraise to the sale price and had to bow out and move on.  We are going to rent it out instead, and luckily, rentals in this here area go faster than pancakes at IHOP.  Below is the colorful description she listed with:

Wonderful home with upgrades galore. Beautiful Kitchen w/granite counters, Maple Cabinets, hardwood floors, & Stainless Steel appliances and oversized Eating Area. Fenced in Back Yard w/paver expanded paver brick patio. Warm and inviting colors throughout. Comfortable Dining/Family Room & 2-story Living Room. Master Suite w/private bath. Awesome 3rd Bed/Loft provides flexible space. Easy access.

And since we are in the mood for sharing, here are listing photos of her cute little mug.  She's such a ham..

full frontal

foyer/living/family room

family/living room

family room -- steve's ginormo leather man cave couch
(the bane of my existence)

Our dwarfed Christmas Tree due to the 20 ft. ceilings! Gasp!

Dining Room

Kitchen View No. 1

Kitchen View No. 2

Half bath..  the only room with bold burgundy paint

Pavered Backyard.. There once was a cute little koi pond
where our firepit table currently reside. 

Our catch-all office/guest with pullout couch/hangout loft. 
She's a hot mess.

Elegant 2nd full guest bath turned kid's woodland splash pad..

Guest Room/2nd BR turned whimsical jungle nursery

Master Blah-room (never did get around to making her pretty)

Last but not the least, our Master Bath. 
I shall miss you the most!

Since we purchased 6 years ago, there were some changes, considering we also had some major life events while living here.  Namely, the birth of our bouncing baby girl, Olive.  But I'll save those for another post since we'll be here awhile.  Hope everyone had a great weekend.

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