So we couldn't be happier to be home owners. We love the idea of having our own space and doing with that space what we want to. We bought a wonderful home with mounds of potential but a very short window in which to accomplish a lot of the needed revamping. We decided we wanted all of the big repairs done before we moved in so we resolved to take on the task of ripping out all of the carpet ourselves and most of the linoleum. We planned to replace all of the floors with a mixture of new carpet and hard flooring (more about the hard flooring to come). We also decided to replace all of the baseboards downstairs and put up something special in the living room. Oh, did I fail to mention painting 95% of all 3,000 square feet? Yeah well, that too.

Even though we had about ten days to finish all of this work we aren't going to toss it all in your lap at once. We're going to take our time and spoon feed you with it. I know, you are starving and you want to down it all at once but we don't want you to choke on it. We'll start with the house as it looked on day one. (The clutter is from the previous owners. They had not yet completely moved when these photos were taken.)

Living room. Notice the berber carpet and linoleum in the entry. Excruciating isn't it? Disclaimer: The lighting is quite bad throughout the whole house and needs some major improvements so keep that in mind.

Kitchen and pantry. Both great spaces. Love our BIG pantry.

Looking out from the kitchen into the open dining/family rooms. Fireplace included. Thumbs up.

Looking into the kitchen from the family room. I'm sure you notice the blinds and the dirt caked on them. That was kind of the theme of the house.

Back hallway from the family room to the mud room, half bathroom and garage.

Half bath. Exciting I know.

Mud room; typically the laundry room in this home layout. The previous owners moved the laundry into a closet upstairs, which we love. Most of the time it's hard to tell how bad things are by looking at a picture. That's even true here where it looks pretty bad. The damage and filth caused in this room was due to multiple great danes. The berber carpet throughout the house was incredibly soiled and torn up because of the dogs and the lack of maintenance. That's why it had to go, not just because berber is our least favorite type of carpet.

Headed upstairs. Keep that big tall wall in the stairway in mind. It will most definitely be popping up later in it's own special post. We've got great plans for it!

Second family room/loft. We love this space but it's going to take some time to fill. It'll be good for posting in the future.

Jack's room and closet. Plenty of room for a 9 month old. Don't you think? We've got some great ideas for our little boy's room that we can't wait to show!

Next to Jack's room is the laundry closet. It would be nice in the room downstairs with more space but it's even nicer upstairs with all the bedrooms and especially next to Jack's room.

Guest bath.

Guest room and closet. Finally, we have a guest room! If you visit us, you'll have somewhere to sleep. We've got some great ideas for this room as well.

We saved the best for last.

Our spacious master bedroom. So excited for this room!

The most wasted space in the house; the master bathroom. Not sure what we'll do with this space but we'll think of something.

One of our favorite "rooms", the master closet. Again, not a very good use of all that space.

Now here is a video tour of the house the day we got the key.



Let us know what you guys think. We would love comments, etc.  And we will be posting updates on all of our projects that we have done, so keep checking back or subscribe so you can see all the changes!!

I put off cutting Jack's hair for a while this time. I really wanted to see how it would look all "grown out."  Well let's just say his hair doesn't like to grow evenly around his head. He started to have a frontal mullet. Sound weird? Yeah well it looked weird.  So I had to cut it again.  This was the hardest cut I have done. He is SOOO active these days that I couldn't get him to sit still.  So needless to say, it wasn't my finest job. But it worked.  Oh and he also doesn't like to pose for pictures, so these are kind of weird pics from my phone.  Enjoy!

6th Haircut at 9 1/2 months old.

Tuesday was the anniversary of my brother's car accident. It's crazy, but it's been 9 years.  I say this every year, but I can't believe it has been 9 years. That seems like so long, but yet, every image burns in my mind of that tragic night.  No matter how long it has been, it doesn't make it easier.  It still hurts knowing that he is gone. 

(In short, Brian was one of three killed in the accident when a young driver was going 75 mph in a 35 mph zone.)

 So to help with that, my family has tried to make the anniversary more about a celebration for the time we have had with him, instead of focusing on the fact that he is gone.  I hate being away from my home town during this time, especially since I am home all day with plenty of time to just think.  So I decided to make the day here in Utah a happy one.

My brother Brian loved BYU.  So in memory of Brian, Jack decided to wear his BYU shirt!  And wow he is cute in it!

 

Jack also wore his uncle's wristband with his basketball number and initials on it. Very sweet of him:)

  

I headed to the aquarium to hang out with Jack for the day, and Brandon ended up leaving work early and came with us!

Jack LOVES the aquarium. He gets so excited. Here are some pictures for your enjoyment.

He pet a snake!

This is a dark picture, but look how happy he is!

He loved the water.

We then went to dinner with my younger sister Brittney. And then we came back to our house and released balloons in Brian's honor. (I wore Brian's Hollister hoodie!)

(Thanks Red Robin for the balloons!)

 

In Colorado, my mom and dad and older sister decorated Brian's grave.

 

And as a tradition, they put luminaries up and down the street where the accident happened.  This is a very memorable experience. We have done this every year.  My mom was thinking of not doing it but had so many people call and ask if she was doing it that she decided it had to be done.

 

Several people still gathered at the site and helped them put up the luminaries. What a wonderful community my parents have. They have so much love and support there.

  

I love and miss Brian so much.  But I am so grateful to have had 15 years with him. I see bits of Brian in Jack and I saw so much of my brother on the anniversary. And for that, I am eternally grateful.

(Side note: For those of you who might not know, Jack's middle name is Brian. He is named after his uncle... as I am sure Jack was the last one of us to see Brian!)

Our sister-in-law Kasey is letting us borrow her dinosaur walker thing until her baby needs it. So we tested it out today and Jack loves it! He even surprised us (if you couldn't tell I was surprised by my reaction)by standing for a brief second!  I'm not sure if I'm ready for a walking baby....

We closed on our house yesterday! Everything went really smoothly with our loan and we had no delays. So we closed a few days early and got to sign a mile-high stack of papers.. and even got to take a copy of all of them home!  We get the keys today and we couldn't be more anxious.  We feel like REAL adults now.  We are parents. We have a house that we will be paying a mortgage on. THIS IS CRAZY!!

We have TONS of work to do on this house before we can move in.  Let me include you on a little taste of our upcoming week:
-Rip out all carpet and nails and staples.
-Check for any urine stains (yep the joy of dogs...) and if any, cover in Kilz primer.
-Remove all baseboards on the main level (carefully as we plan on putting them back on)
-Remove the sub floor in the kitchen and front entry way.
-Paint as many walls as possible in the entire house.
-Install hard wood flooring in the entry way, hallway, living room, kitchen, pantry, dining area, garage hallway, half bath, and laundry room.
-Reinstall baseboards.
-Get carpets ordered, shipped and installed.
-Clean the entire house.
-Get the vents and air ducts cleaned out of remaining dog hair and dander.
-Pick up a new furniture set from RC Willey that we purchased a month and a half ago.
-Pick up stuff we have been storing at Cam and Kasey's house in Lehi.
-Move ALL of our stuff to the new house hopefully on Saturday February 4th.

Sound like fun to anyone?!


We have a lot of work to do... and if any of you are willing to help, we will take whatever you will offer. We will be at the house in Spanish Fork every night from 5 to 11.  I will also be there during the day some times. So any day or night that you are free- come on down! We will always have a job for you to do.

After this move, we will be tired, sore, and broke, but SOO happy to be in our own home!

We're one step closer to being homeowners. We received our approval letter from the bank. Now we have three weeks to close. WOW! That's quick. But we've been told it can and will be done. We couldn't be more excited!

Our home. (As long as the process runs smoothly.)

We've posted about this house previously but to brush up, it's a house in Spanish Fork in a little neighborhood near the highway called Spanish Fields. We've looked at a number of houses in this area of Spanish Fork. The neighborhood is a little cookie cutter and the houses a little boxy but the prices are amazing. We really love the home though. The layout is so logical; nothing strange going on and it has plenty of room to grow. Built in 2006 it's newer so there isn't a lot of big projects. Except one. All new floors throughout.

The day we saw the house we were greeted with what seemed like burying our faces in 6 feet of wet dog fur. Obviously this was a concern right away. As we walked through the house we didn't see any major issues except the carpet. It was as if it had been found in a dumpster behind an old skating rink. There is even a gaping burned hole where it looks like a fire was built to keeps the wolves at bay. However, we pushed forward. The rooms were spacious and the closets in correct proportion with the room sizes. The master is just the right layout to put our king bed on the appropriate wall; it didn't leave us wondering where we would put the bed as some homes do, even with a big master. A major plus is the master bath and closet. Finally, my wife can have room to move around and enough space to hang the jammed contents of her current closet. Ok, my closet is equally jammed.

Looking out from the kitchen over the dining and family rooms. Not much separation so we're carpeting the family room and putting hard floors in the dining room, kitchen, pantry, entry and living room.

A logically thought out floor plan puts 2,921 sq ft on two floors without a basement. Walk in the front door and you enter a good sized living room. It leads down a short entry into a great kitchen connected to which is a huge pantry (YES!). Looking out from the kitchen is a good sized dining room and a family room, all open and spacious. Off the dining room is a sliding door that leads into the backyard where, luckily and unfortunately, the dogs (at least two great danes) took care of business. Not huge but enough for playing and a small garden. Needs a little work but with some seeding and fence finishing it will be great. Off the family room is the entry from the garage. In the entry is what would usually be the laundry room and opposite that, a half bath; something we decided was a must-have.

Living room.

The garage, ah the garage. Oh how long have I yearned for your trusting embrace and available space. It's not huge by any means but it doesn't really matter. It's a place to hang my tools and upgrade my man card. I'm as excited about the garage as I am about anything else.

Off the short entry into the kitchen/dining are the stairs that take you up into a huge loft or upstairs family room. What a great place for kids and informality.

Pretty stoked about the kitchen.

From there you enter the master. And it is a great master. Opposite the master is a hallway with the remaining 2 rooms, closets and bathroom. The first is Jack's room. He's going to absolutely love it when he's old enough to care. It's big and has plenty of room to store all of his possessions that he cares about equally as little as having a room. Except for an empty water bottle and a plastic package with a nursing cover in it which together make up his favorite toys.

Next to Jack's room is the laundry closet. We could move it downstairs into the empty room that should be the laundry room but we love the idea of laundry right next to Jack's room and on the same floor as the master.

Then the guest bath. It's a guest bath. Sink, tub, toilet.

One of the two closets across from the bathroom is for linens etc. and the other houses the 50 gallon water heater, awesome, and one of the two furnaces. One for upstairs and one for downstairs. Awesome as well. Something we didn't know about until our inspection. Also there is an AC unit for both up and down too. Can't beat that.

So that's our house. We close on the 27th and order new carpet. Then we will paint everything and rip out the old carpet the next week. We'll put in the new carpet and hard floors when they get there and move in hopefully the first half of February. We can't wait!

Oh, about the dog smell. We were worried but the inspector showed up and comforted us by saying it wasn't even that bad relatively speaking. It's not urine so replacing the carpet will take care of it. That was a weight off of our shoulders.

We'll post pictures and updates about how it's all going.

Not many people know this about me (Brandon). And why should they? It's not something that pops up in normal conversation very often. But I'm telling the world now. Well, at least the 5 of you reading this.

It started when I was 14 and my younger brother and I were playing a common, not seemingly dangerous game of throw the object at each others' faces. Haven't heard of it? Well it was a common occurrence in our shared basement family room turned bedroom, (lots of space for launching said objects). The object of choice for this particular round was our niece Alyssa's soft, furry Elmo doll. What could possibly go wrong? As Chris and I hurl Elmo back and forth I decide I'm going to dodge the next assault by diving between our bunk beds. As I take flight my head instinctively turns to see my nemesis fail and BAM! One of Elmo's rock solid eyes in the midst of all that plush finds my mouth and I'm left with half a front tooth and lots of self confidence missing.

I thought my life was finished. Come to find out, the tooth could be fixed with relative ease. So I went on with life, braces and all. Until two weeks before I left on my mission. Another fun-filled game this time with a friend from college. We were taking turns holding a half-sized punching bag for each other. Obviously in a girl filled apartment, because we were so extremely tough and very impressive by our own standards. With one uppercut from my colleague one of the two straps that support the bag when hanging bounced toward my face and the metal ring secured on the end of it found my mouth as quickly and covertly as Elmo's stealthy eyeball. I stood there as unimpressive as I could possibly be with the same half of the one tooth absent and the bottom fourth of the other deciding to follow suit. I snatched what I could find of my teeth from the ground thinking the shards must be worth saving and made myself absent.

I went the next two years without incident. I returned home and my dentist told me veneers were the way to go in fixing them for good. Not knowing any better I went with it. After grinding my poor teeth down to nubs the veneers were attached. And with almost nothing for the veneers to glue onto they eventually started breaking off if I bit down on something hard.

Today I have no choice but to avoid any contact between food and my two front teeth. And I mean food in general, not just the hard stuff. It's a terrible way to live your life; trying to bite everything with the side of your mouth. Jamming everything in the corner so you can get a good rip. Try it out, it's extremely unpleasant and borderline savage. In restaurants I'm 93% positive people are asking themselves, "Who's the caveman that can't bite his food like a civilized human being?"

My current dentist knows how poorly the veneers were done and suggested fixing them for good. However, our insurance wasn't going to cover any of it and fixing my teeth became a want instead of a need. I didn't give fixing them a second thought until this Christmas.

My loving, caring and amazing wife decided to surprise me a bit. My final gift this year was a little box, light in weight but heavy in compassion. As my wife played the song "All I want for Christmas..." on her iPod I opened the gift to find a ring box inside. I knew what it contained. My older brother Aaron's two wisdom teeth that we pass around my family as a gag. I laughed and thought, "My wife is funny." Then it started to hit me. There is more to this than I thought. Steph started to explain and my tears started to flow. She knew exactly what I really wanted and needed. A normal life! So within the next month I will be going through the process of getting my teeth back. What an amazing, sensitive and understanding gift! I love my wife and she's made it obvious that she loves me.

Aaron's wisdom teeth representing my new two front teeth.