The Joys of Homeownership

We have been in our home for a little over a month now and have already learned how wonderful it is to own your own house. The weekend we moved in, the water dispenser on our refrigerator did not work. No water came out, and no ice was being made. We messed with the waterline a little bit and only made the problem worse. Rather than no water, we got way too much water and it leaked down in to the basement. Good thing we have an unfinished basement! We called the home builder and they promptly came out and fixed the problem for me.

Then the Monday after Thanksgiving our dishwasher leaked all over the floor. Again, we called the home builder and they sent their plumbers out the next morning. The plumbers checked all their water lines and found out that we had just been given a faulty dishwasher. Yes, we were the ones of all the hundreds of these dishwashers that the home builder installs to have the faulty one. That Thursday RC Willey sent out an appliance guy to check out the dishwasher (since the dishwasher was purchased from RC Willey). The guy seemed a bit incompetent to me and David and told us that he taped the hose in but that it was just a poor design of a dishwasher. Thank you appliance guy. That makes me feel 100% better. RC Willey was not happy to hear about that. They immediately apologized to me over the phone and promised that they will have someone come out and check the dishwasher again and replace the kitchen floor, which is now warped and lifting up, and replace the baseboard on the wall that is now ruined. They have yet to come out and do that, but I am not too worried. It will happen soon enough. In the mean time, looks like that tape is holding up - no leaks yet!

While it has been a bit annoying to have to deal with these things, there are 3 little words that always make me happy at the end of the day: home builder's warranty. Thank goodness for that! Let's hope the next 11 months are a lot less eventful!

Moving In

I must say - moving is exhausting! Wow what a tiring weekend we had when we moved in. We moved in to our new house the second weekend in November! After staying up late packing all week long, I took Friday off work so that I could stay at the house while our washer/dryer, tv, satellite, and internet were delivered/set up. My sister, Angela, and my nephew, Bradley, were SO nice to come spend the day with me so that I was not all alone. The night before David and I had bought a bunch of furniture from Ikea, meaning we needed to put it all together. David told me he didn't think I could put together the TV stand together so of course I had to put that together while he was at work - just to prove him wrong. With the help of Angela, three hours later and a few mistakes - we had it all put together!

Then around 4 pm, we headed back to my apartment. David met us there with a U-Haul truck so we could load everything up. Man did I underestimate how much stuff we had. I was so sure it would all fit in a 14 foot truck. We had to fill the U-Haul plus a truck we borrowed from my co-worker, plus the pontiac, and then come back one more time for our bed and dressers. A HUGE thank you to Angela, Scott, Bradley, Paul, Lauri, Dina, Cari, Seth, Mike, and Mike's brother for helping us! That was possibly one of the most exhausting, tiring weekends of my life. It doesn't help that I am OCD and have to have everything unpacked and put together immediately.

We are in and definitely loving it! We still don't feel like we are living in our house - maybe we will after we make that first mortgage payment. We haven't put up much decorations but here are some pictures of the house. (Sorry they are in random order - I was too lazy to reorganize them):

A shot of our study/guest room #2

Living Room with David's early Christmas present - his new TV

Our wonderfully, gigantic pantry - I love it - and I don't come even close to filling it up

Our kitchen

This is what you see when you walk in the front door - the stairs go to the unfinished basement

A shot of the living/dining/kitchen - and our piano on loan from Angela

The laundry room - love love love the washer/dryer!

Master bedroom - doors to the master bathroom and master closet

Guest room #1

Another view of the study/guest room #2 - the sofa has a pull out bed

And that is it! I LOVE playing host so anyone is welcome anytime!!

Design Success

Thank you to everyone for your input on the chairs!! I made my choice last Wednesday and was able to cover all the chairs before Thanksgiving! Thanksgiving was great - we had David's grandparents, cousins, aunts, uncles, and family over to eat all the yummy pies (and one cheesecake for me) that David's mom made.

Before:

After:

I thought they turned out super cute! Lately, I have been obsessed with the show "Sarah's House" on HGTV - the one where she redoes the farm house. I have been trying to decorate more how she would - lots of super cute patterns and colors - so I thought the blue striped would work well. Thanks again everyone!

Help Needed! Fast!

David and I are all moved in and we have signed the loan documents! We are officially homeloaners! (That is what David called it). I will post pictures and more details later but first I need design help ASAP!

We purchased this dining set from Ikea - (HUGE thank you to Scott and Angela for putting basically the whole thing together for us!!) I want to cover the seats with fabric so that I have more color in the kitchen area.

For the living room, Angela helped me make these pillows! Yes, you heard right. I actually sewed something! I LOVE them! My color scheme is green and varying shades of brown/tan/white. Here are the pillows we made:

I need help on choosing a fabric to cover the dining chairs with. I want to have this done by Thanksgiving. We are doing all the desserts and games at our house that night. Here are the three fabrics I found at Joann's that I like:

Please give me your opinions! Should I use one of those three or should I reuse one of the pillow fabrics. I only made one small pillow with the green/white circles so I have some left over of that.

I like the striped fabric with blue but I don't know if I should introduce another color in to the scheme or not. Don't they usually only pick about three colors on HGTV? I already have green, white and brown. HELP!

Thank you in advance for all your wonderful opinions!

Finished!

The home is finished! We did a walk through with the project manager on Friday and put up blue tape on Saturday of all the places we want paint touched up. Now all we have to wait for is the painters to do the touch ups and the cleaners to do a final cleaning! Yay! We are also waiting as the mortgage company does an appraisal of the house and does the underwriting process. One more week and then we will be good to close on the loan and will officially be homeowners! (well mortgage payers - many, many, many more years until we actually own the home)

We are super excited and are starting to pack up the apartment. We already picked out our washer/dryer and those will be delivered the day we move in. I LOVE the washer/dryer we picked. I couldn't sleep the night we purchased them - I felt like a kid trying to sleep on Christmas Eve. And best of all we got a sweet deal on them. RC Willey was having a sale plus we got an extra 20% off the washer/dryer, plus 20% off the pedestals, plus buy one get one free on the pedestals, plus a giant bucket of HE detergent, and I talked them in to free delivery! What can I say - I love a good bargain!

I also went with Angela and ordered special fancy fabric to make pillows out of for the living room. I am going to do this living room in a totally different color scheme compared to our apartment. Even though our couches are not a modern style, I am trying to go for a more modern, contemporary look. And hopefully one day can replace our couches with modern, contemporary ones. We shall see. I can't wait! Here are some pics of the finished house. Hopefully, the next post I do of the house will be with all our furniture inside!

(It is already too cold in Utah so the yard will have to wait until Spring to be put in.)

(After installing the wrong appliances last week (black ones - yuck!), they finally got the correct ones installed.)

(We have a pretty sweet view of the mountains behind our house!)

"It broke off baby!"

If you claim to be a Seinfeld fan, you should know what episode that is from. And if my car had a needle for the gas gauge, it probably would have broken off, too.

Here is the car with a full tank of gas:

And here is the car as David and I drove to dinner:

Needless to say, we quickly stopped for some gas.

Interior Shots of the House

Week 6, 7, & 8 Exterior

Week Six - they primed the stucco:

Week Seven - they painted the stucco and the trim and installed the garage door:

Week Eight - nothing much changed:

Week Eight - back shot of the house:

Healthy Eating

So as you know I love to post yummy recipes I come across. I made my sister Lori's Salmon with Mustard Glaze and Pasta Salad a few weeks ago. You can click here to go to the recipe. The recipe was SO good! David and I love salmon but I have never been able to find great recipes online for what to cook with the salmon. We usually just eat it with some garlic and a few random spices and a side of instant mashed potatoes. Nothing that great. My sister posted this recipe and I knew I HAD to try it. Not only was the salmon yummy, but I am pretty sure that was the most vegetables I have ever cooked/eaten in my entire life - and they actually tasted really good! I highly recommend this for a yummy, healthy dinner. Below is my pic of the salmon before we put it in the oven. There are no pictures of the dish after we cooked it - we literally devoured the whole thing in about 5 minutes!

Five Weeks Down - Five Weeks To Go!

Our house is halfway done! I am so ready to move in and buy new furniture and decorate! So far it looks like we should be in before Thanksgiving! I can't wait to spend the holidays in our first home! Here are just a few shots of the progress so far. We go out each Saturday to see what they have done.

Week One - they excavated and poured the footings:

Week Two - they poured the foundation walls:

Week Three - they framed the house:

Week Four - they finished framing and installed the insulation:

Week Five - they hung the drywall and sprayed on the stucco:

Labor Day Cooking

It was so great to have some time off from work on Labor Day. Both David and I had the day off and for whatever reason we were both in cooking moods that day. We starting the morning off with a delicious breakfast of pancakes, eggs, and orange juice. The pancakes were from my new Pioneer Woman Cookbook - her secret ingredient is sour cream. I had never made pancakes before so I don't even know what you normally put in pancakes but either way they were delicious! Perfect consistency - and I didn't even burn any of them! (I couldn't find the recipe on her website; I guess it is only in her book so if you really want to try her pancakes, just let me know and I'll send it to you.) David made the eggs with loads of cheese - just like we like it - and some orange juice.

We didn't really have specific plans for the rest of the day, which was really nice. Sometimes it is nice to have nothing to do when you usually work all the time. We did go to the mall and buy me a birthday gift. :) Then we went to the Quarry in Provo since we had a coupon for it. The Quarry is an indoor rock climbing place. The last time we went was three years ago when we were dating. Wow are we out of shape compared to when we went three years ago! It was a ton of fun but our arms killed when we finished! What a work out!

(This picture is from when we went in 2007 - we forgot to take pictures this time)

After that we went home and started cooking dinner. My sister Lori recently posted her version of my brother-in-law Matt's homemade mac-n-cheese on her blog - thecluelesschef.blogspot.com - and I really wanted to try it. So David and I worked together and made this delicious meal! I used Lori's altered version and put diced red peppers and finely chopped spinach in the mac-n-cheese, too. (Oh and I couldn't find flax seed or wheat germ so we just crushed up some Ritz crackers and put them on top) It was so good! And it was nice to be eating some vegetables for once! Thank you to both Matt and Lori! And as Lori says on her blog - the recipe makes a ton - I made half the recipe and we still were able to eat it for three nights.

The best part was when you got a bite that had one of the big cheese cubes in it.

Then we ended the day with an exciting football game - Boise St. vs Virginia Tech. Sadly, it was back to work the next day. Hope everyone else had a great Labor Day!

Current Obsessions

Currently I am obsessed with these two items:

Number 1:

In fact, I could barely put this down long enough to write this post. I started it yesterday and am already on page 250. I must finish it today. Otherwise, there is NO WAY I will be able to make it through the work day!!

And number 2:

In case you don't know what kind of dog this is, it is a puggle!! David and I went to a pet store last Monday night for fun. Since we will soon have a house with a yard, a dog could be in our somewhat near future (probably not for a year or so but it was still fun to look). At the pet store, David fell in love with a little puppy beagle. I fell in love with a little pug they had running around the pet store. Then I found this online the next day - a puggle - half pug/half beagle! We can both get half of the dog we want!! Too bad they are quite expensive - but so adorable! I can't get over it!