Home Improvements

A lot has been going on this past week. Good news is that all the damage on the house has been officially repaired. The gutters are fixed and the window that was broken is now also fixed. A guy is coming tomorrow or Saturday to pressure wash the entire house and then I can re paint the front porch. Our house is going to look amazing! Now all the focus is on the front and back yard. We are on our 4th roll off dumpster($300 a piece!) for the yard debris. But our front yard is really starting to come together. Brandon's dad has been here almost every day when he gets off work and works until about 9pm. When Brandon is home, he also goes straight to work as well. To say they have been working hard is a huge understatement. I am so very grateful that Darryl has done as much as he has because he doesn't have to. He is seriously one pf the best people I know. 

While the guys have been busy improving the outside of our house, I've been busy improving the inside. On Saturday I started making the guest bath into Elyse's bathroom. She picked out the theme she wanted and then I painted it light purple(purple is her favorite color). The bathroom before was a light but bright blue, so covering it was not easy. I got the 2 in 1 paint and primer and had to really layer it on. I didn't get finished til after 11, so touch ups had to wait til Sunday. After I finally finished touch ups on Sunday, I hand scrubbed every inch of the bathroom. I'm talking on my hands and knees cleaning square by square on the floor kind of cleaning. Then I put in all of her new stuff and moved all of her bath stuff in. I had bought her all new towels and washcloths to match. Every thing looked great! I am so happy with the way it turned out. The best part was Miss E's face when she saw it the first time. She said "mommy, it's purple"! I said "this is your new big girl bathroom" and she said that she loved it. Now she wants to go in there numerous times a day to stand on her step stool and brush her teeth by herself and I happily oblige. 

Monday Darryl came over early and surprised me by telling me to go pick out new carpet for the bedroom! I can't even explain how happy that made me, our bedroom is in dire need of new carpet. He said we had enough insurance money from the tornado to put carpet in the bedroom. He had told Brandon that morning that he was going to surprise me with it. It almost brought tears to my eyes, this is something I've wanted to do since before Miss E was born, but we just couldn't afford it. We have a pretty big bedroom(it measured out to be 35.33 yards of carpet needed), so this is just awesome. He had already called the guy and told him that I was going to be coming and told me to pick out whatever I wanted. So yesterday Miss E and I went up there and picked out the type I wanted and brought the samples home so I could pick the color. I went back and ordered it this morning and it's going to be installed next Wed! Happy doesn't describe how I feel! It's enough to make me forget about what a crappy day I had Saturday.

So now I am on count down mode to Wednesday. After it gets installed, I'm going to pick out paint and finally paint our bedroom. We've lived here for 6 years and the walls are still bare and white and our bay windows still have no curtains. So I'm changing that and making it what I want it to be=) After I ge the bedroom how I want it, I'm going to start on the kitchen. I have plenty to keep me busy this summer with home improvements=) I'm excited because I love having projects though.

Tuesday we got our new roof. They came at 7:30 in the am and were up there banging all.day.long.I would have packed Miss E and I up and left for the day, but I was completely blocked in and I would have had to ask all of them to move their vehicles & the dump truck, so we just stayed in. It was a very long day to say the least, but our new roof looks amazing! We got an architectural roof and it looks so much nicer than the old one. And the best part is they finished it in one day!

The siding got finished this morning. They were here yesterday and had to come back and finish this am, but I am happy to say that is done too! We still have gutters to replace and some more minor things, but the big stuff on the house is done!

Miss E's room is still all messed up, all of her furniture is gathered in the middle of the room still, except for her twin bed, which is still in it's normal spot so she can sleep in there. I can't wait to get that room back to normal. Anyone who knows me knows about my OCD and I freak out a little every time I walk in the room. 

The kitchen window is still broken, but luckily we have double paned windows, so it's just broken on the outside.

Our insurance adjuster is AMAZING! Since Darryl is doing the tree removal himself(the insurance only pays for trees that caused damage to the house, truck, and Shyla's pen), it's looking like we should be completely covered and not have to come out of pocket for anything(well, we will have to be reimbursed for some of the things that have already been done). This is a huge blessing since we have about 100 trees down and it was going to cost about 10,000 to get them all taken care of. Our front and back yard is going to have to be completely redone( I can't even begin to explain what they look like at the moment) and sod is not cheap. So this is really a huge weight lifted. 

It's probably going to take all summer, but it's going to look amazing when it gets done=)

Big Picture

Darryl & Brandon started leveling our yard out today. Right now it looks like a huge muddy mess. But according to Brandon, you have to make a mess to clean up a mess. We have a huge roll off in our yard, a loader, piles of limbs, huge logs, etc. But I'm trying to look at the big picture. I'm finally getting the yard that I've wanted since we moved here. Since we are going to be stuck here for awhile, I'm glad we are able to make it into what we want. We are going to have a big front and back yard. Miss E is finally going to get a swing set in the front yard and have a place to play. I'm finally getting a backyard that I can put a vegetable garden in. 

So even though I want to cry every time I walk outside and see the huge mess, I'm trying to look at the big picture, and then I start smiling again.

Stormy weather

I'm about a week late on this, but I'm sure everyone has heard about the tornadoes that hit Paulding County last Friday. Well it hit our subdivision really hard, meaning that it basically destroyed our neighborhood. It's heartbreaking to drive around here. Everyone has tarps on their roofs, their windows are boarded up, yards are covered with fallen trees and limbs. Our usually quiet neighborhood is now busy with contractors, roofers, constant chainsawing, & hammering. As I type this, the Dish guy is here walking around trying to figure out where he is going to mount the satellite since our we haven't been re-roofed yet. We've had to put 'No Soliciting' signs up at the top of our driveway since they have been like vulchers. Saturday(the day after) cops had to close off our neighborhood bc apparently we were the big attraction of the day for everyone in Paulding County. I tried to leave around 2 and couldn't even get out of my driveway hardly. I had words with quite a few people that day. I just couldn't take it anymore. I felt like we were some kind of freak show that everyone wanted to come see. Sunday was no better. Elyse was with her Grammie and Brandon had gotten called to work at around 6 am so I was really wanting to sleep in, esp after not sleeping at all the night of the tornado. But no, contractors started ringing my doorbell at 8am. I was irate. So I put a sign on the door that basically said if you weren't here with a hammer or a shovel, then don't even think of ringing my doorbell. It worked too, so that afternoon I moved it up and put it on the mailbox so they wouldn't even come down the driveway. 

It these kind of times when you realize exactly who you can rely on. Darryl and Dennis(Brandon's dad & uncle) were here first thing Sat am and got to work. All day long, people were in and out bringing materials, and volunteering to help us. My friend Angela came over first thing that morning (my phone had been dead since we had no power) and helped me clean out the fridge & freezer and salvage anything we could & stored it at her house. Then brought us back breakfast. Misty came that evening and brought all dinner and hung out with me for awhile. It was great to have company to take my mind off of what was going on around me. The power finally came back on Saturday night after being off for 23 hours. A bunch of Brandon's family called or dropped by to check on us, but of course no one in mine did. Sometimes I forget that I really don't have any family, but it's times like me that I'm slapped in the face with the reminder. Heck, some of our friends didn't even check on us, but most did. I made a mental note of the people that didn't though, mark my word on that.

It's going to take months to get all the trees and everything cleared out, but once we do, we are going to have a nice big front and back yard for Miss E to play in. That's the upside in all of this I guess. We were just so incredibly blessed that none of us got hurt and that our house wasn't worse than what is was. 

On an unrelated topic, I put the twin bed up in Miss E's room and she absolutely loves it. On the other hand, it made me sad last night when she said she wanted to go night night in her big girl bed and went right to sleep in it. She has slept with me every night of her life(except when she spends the night with Grammie) and I'm not ready to let that go yet. Luckily Brandon could see that and moved her to our bed when I was ready to go to sleep. I guess I'm just not ready to have her grow up and be so independent. I love going to bed and laying down next to her and saying a prayer for her while she sleeps. I love snuggling in with her and the way she rolls into me as soon as I lie down. So we decided that she can decide where she wants to fall asleep, but one of us will just move her before we go to sleep.

I don't really have time to go into anything else since the Dish guy is coming up to the front door, but I will try to this weekend to update everything else.