Recap: Christmas

I recapped packing the U-Haul on Sunday Dec 23 ... which was a whirlwind ... now on to the Holidays!

First off, I hope everyone truly had a fabulous Christmas with family, friends, and whomever else!  Last week went way to fast!  I can't believe it is already NYE. 

Anywho, Christmas Eve we headed to work for a couple of hours.  (I still can't believe our company didn't have Christmas Eve off ... nonetheless).  Then it was off to my parents house to celebrate - Christmas Eve at my grandma's house with my dad's side of the family and then Christmas at my mom and dad's house with my mom's side of the family. 

I don't have many pics... I just soaked up the R&R.  It was fabulous though - good food, good times with the fam!

Here is a good pic from my cousin though - 4 dogs at Christmas (my parents 2 labs, our lab, and cousins hound mix).  The labs are attentively staring and waiting for the ball to be thrown, the hound on the other hand, just wants to run and smell things!

Aka 'Dog Park'

Recap: The Packing

A lot has happened in the past week!  It has all been so fun, exciting, and tiring. 

Lets rewind shall we.  Sunday, Dec 23rd, was official packing day.  Hubs set his alarm for 7:30 .. PM by accident which meant we woke up to Grouper requesting to head outside for a pee break at 8:15 AM!  We wanted to be at the U-Haul place by 9 AM (when they open) so that we could have everything packed up by 1:30 PM which was our last inspection. So between Grouper's break, a coffee run, and breakfast pick-up, we made it U-Haul in DC around 9:15.

And here are the next several hours in pictures!

Hubs getting ready to drive the 20' U-Haul

Living Room all clear

Few items left in Dining Room, Grouper wondering what is going on

Our blow-up for the night

Some bedding for the night

We finished packing the U-Haul up by 1:00-ish, abot 3 hours of moving furniture and boxes!  I was quite amazed and how quickly we finished up.  Did some minor cleaning (all those Grouper fur-balls) and were ready for inspection at 1:30 PM (to make sure everything still worked and everything remained that was required per contract).  All that was left Sunday night were a few items left to pick-up Wednesday morning, a blow-up mattress, and Grouper's bed. 

Success!

1 Week

Ladies and gents, we are 1 week away until we close on both places.  Yay jump up and down yay!

We haven't made any additional progress on packing, well, because, Hubs is SUPER sick... like the flu sick.  Wtf?!  He has been laid up in bed the past 2 days.  Honestly, I don't think I have ever seen him this sick since we started dating.  So, in the meantime, I am keeping my distance from him as much as possible in our 800 sf condo, taking lots of Vitamin C, and praying I don't come down with any sickness.  We have lots to do still over the next 4 days. 

Here is to hoping the both of us make it through the weekend, into Christmas, and land in our brand new house healthy!  Otherwise, this whole moving thing could be anything but fun.

Packing Fun

Sunday was part 2 of packing.  The Sunday prior we started boxing things up.  We tackled pretty much every room.

Packing Superlatives:
- Room most impacted = Kitchen (only some essentials remain to get us through the week)
- Room most changed = 2nd Bedroom (it is no longer Office, Grouper's Room, Hobby Room .. it is where 90% of the boxes live).
- Most Confused = Grouper (he was by our side the whole time, hoping for some explanation I believe)
- Most likely to get Sick = Hubs (arg, we just got over 2 colds this fall, and hoping he doesn't get sick this week and give it to me.  Looks like it is from work though - his whole team was sick last week, and now 2 people on my team are sick too, the odds aren't in our favor).

It is looking good though...

 

Grouper - 'Mom, what did you do to my room?'

 

Oh Christmas Tree!

Selling, buying, and moving all over Christmas comes with its challenges .. as in, minimal Christmas decorations!  I am a huge fan of REAL & BIG Christmas Trees, so I was kinda bummed when I realized we wouldn't be able to do our fair share of decorating this year.  I wasn't going to let that totally deter me from not having some type of Christmas Tree.

So, here ya have it.. our 2012 Christmas Tree

The intent was to add some christmas lights to our $8.00 Home Depot tree (pre-decorated), but we haven't made it down into the storage unit to dig those up in the mist of packin.  Luckily, our goal is to tackle some of the storage unit packing this weekend and I hope I can pull some lights out to adorn our itty bitty tree :)

Home Tour Page Added!

As we get ready to say goodbye to our very first, made it our own, home, it is never too late to capture our DIY home improvement journey in the Home Tour Page (see above).  It is fun (and funny) to see where we started and ended with our place! 

Like the following pictures.  Our master bedroom when we first bought the place was dark purple with some pretty 'used' beige carpets.  It ended up with new hardwood floors, crown molding, blue-gray walls, and some decorating!

Before

After

The 2 Week Craze

We close in exactly 2 weeks on both properties.  I have a feeling of both calm and anxiousness - meaning I don't feel like I have much to do yet I also feel like I have so much to do.  Say what!?

Things we have Accomplished:
-  All loan items are complete .. at least from what I know. 
-  All inspections and appraisals are done done done!  That was our last hurdle, especially on oure current place.  But, the appraisal came back at the sale price and therefore all our 2 bedroom neighbors should be sending us cookies for helping them out on their home value (per hubs, haha)
-  All utilities have been transferred / set up (well, Dominion Power is 90% there, Hubs has to do that since the utility was in his name at our current place).  I am still up in the air on our internet and cable situation and whether to stick with FIOS or get cable and a hotspot... ugh.  Something to worry and think about.
-  UHAUL has been scheduled.
-  Lastly, SKI VACATION is scheduled!  Not house related, but oh so important.

Things left To Do:
-  Packing has started, but is far from done.  Oy vey .. I want to get it done like, now, but we also have to live in it for 2 weeks
-  Cancel storage unit rental.
-  Christmas Shopping.  Not house related, but house stuff has totally screwed up anything Christmas related. 

So, that list is probably more for my benefit.  At least I can stop dreaming about it all and just reference my list!

Star Struck by YHL

It has been a little over a week since I went to the Young House Love Book Signing on Dec 1st!  The book signing was held at Living Social in DC.  I must say I was quite star struck - I didn't think I would be so nervous, but it was kinda sureal to a-c-t-u-a-l-l-y see them vs seeing them on their blog.  I even was repeating what I would say to them in my mind for most of the line for fear that I may say something stupid. haha.

 

But really, Sherry and John couldn't be any more friendlier, happy, and just down right down-to-earth.  They can strike a conversation up with anyone!  I immediately dug into their book and can't wait to try out some of the ideas in our new home.

Kitchen Inspiration

Our new home's kitchen is quite 'builder basic-oakey cabinets-... just quite blah'.  So of course a girl is to search high and low for kitchen inspiration! 

What we are working with:
- Light Oak Cabinets
- White Appliances
- White/Gray Ceramic tiles

I love the look of white kitchen cabinets, but after thinking about it and knowing a kitchen transformation will take some time, white cabinets + white appliances + white floors = overwhelmingly white hospital look.. eek.

So, with that thought, I headed back out onto the interwebs and blogosphere for gray cabinet inspiration and white + black kitchen cabinet inspiration.  I had seen some gray cabinets (mostly on islands with main cabinets in white) and figured it would be the middle-ground I was looking for.  I also love the split white upper and black lower cabinet look, like House Tweaking's new kitchen. 

Now lets just get right to it... pics that make we wanna 'jump jump'...or something like that ;)  Sources are via my pinterest page, uon

House Tweaking's New Kitchen

Sally Wheat's Kitchen

August Field's Kitchen

After pondering and obsessing for days, oh yes, I realized gray was the answer.  That opened up a whole new can of worms, as in, I had to find the absolutely perfect gray for our kitchen.  I googled for what seemed an eternity every benjamin moore gray color that has ever existed - I really liked rockport gray, chelsea gray, and secret.  And then lighting struck and I landed on a picture of sally wheat's kitchen and cabinets in Fieldstone Gray.

That my friends, was like being punched in the stomach, gasping for air as I oogled her kitchen.  Which led me to August Field's kitchen as well.  I am super pumped to start the kitchen cabinet painting!!