Painting the bathroom is fun to do.....

Now that I finally have the pictures downloaded I can share our bathroom project.... but sorry about the craziness of the picture placement, I am still trying to figure out the way this blog stuff works.

My parents came over to help me paint last Friday, my dad helped paint and my mom helped distract Mr. Bumbles. Here are some before pictures.

Before they came over I preped the mudd room and bathroom by taking everything off the walls, down to the outlet covers and including the dirt on the foot mouldings. And unloaded the decor on my kitchen counter island. (where it ended up staying for a week!)

After my parents arrived my dad quickly taped off the various mouldings, threw down the canvas tarps and we were off priming the walls. The only hard part was painting under the mud room bench, my arms lost feeling after about 1 minute. Painting only took about 4 hours and then it had to dry about 4 hours. Which was ok because Mr. Sweetie and I didn't get to start painting the first coat of suede until about 10pm that night and finished at 2am the next morning. We didn't recover from lack of sleep for a few days later. Holy cow, how we were able to stay up late when we were dating is really a mystery to me.

The first coat of suede worried us a little because we could see after it dried completely where part of the wall dried before we got to the next section and the line where each section met were clearly visible. As you can see in one of the pictures. I started painting the first coat while Mr. Sweetie, taped the ceiling, and it was super hard for one person to do it alone. It really took two people side by side painting different sections right after another, so they blend together. We got the hang of it by the time we started the bathroom, though.

The second coat made it all better. It was definately more forgiving than the roller brush coat. All we did was paint different size X's overlapping each other to make the suede look. It really wasn't as bad as I had heard it would be. Although, I don't know I would ever paint a whole room in suede paint again. Maybe an accent wall, but not a whole room!

After the painting was done, we decided to pull out the sink and use it to replace the cracked sink in our master bathroom (because it matched the other master bathroom sink). So the 'mud room' bathroom got a new sink and fixtures. After a week or so of living with half of our kitchen counter space covered in bathroom decor, our new bathroom and mud room were done! yeah!!!

We are excited to now have our new bathroom and mud room fully functional and pleasing to the eyes. Mr. Sweetie now calls it the 'Sanctuary'.

A whole 'Lot' of fun

This week has just flown by. Mr. Sweetie and I let the land counter offer deadline pass without any further negotiation. We found out that no one will give loans on land anymore, and those who did offer lot loans offer them at a pretty high percentage rate, like 8.5% or 8.6%, or we would have to take out a home equity loan to pay for it!? Borrow money against the house we would need to eventually sell so we could build a house? That doesn't make sense? Plus we were starting to feel uncomfortable with the debt we would have. Our church leaders are really counseling us to pay off our debt and with the economy so unstable we didn't want to put ourselves in a position to loose what we have. And there were also so many unknowns, like how much our house would sell for, how much the wear and tear repairs would cost on this house (and there are some significant ones) The lot was really nice, and in a really nice neighborhood, but we are willing to wait for the right price for our budget and the right neighborhood. I just hope (and pray) they come to gether at the right time!

And for an update on the lot we made an offer on, it went under contract the next day and is not even listed for sale any more. But I am still hopeful for another lot to come down in price in that neighborhood! :) At any rate, we are looking at other options, like a nice foreclosed home, for a price you couldn't build it for. A day or so ago, we found out from our realtor that our home won't sell for what we were hoping it would. So we are looking at possibly, sitting on our nice modest home and use our money to finish the basement and enjoy it for a couple more years. I know what ever happens is what should be.

After looking back on the feeling we had to make an offer on the lot, I think it really helped us put into perspective what is important to us, how much we are willing to go into debt for, it has opened many more options we are willing to look at, and realisticly look at what it will take to get our house to the point to sell it.

Our life is so busy right now, I feel something may be telling us to slow down anyway.

This week is going to be a busy one with Visiting Teaching appointment on Monday, play group on Tuesday and makeup class on Wednesday, because we were sick, and Wedndesday night we have Ward Temple night, Mr. Sweetie's nephew Jason is getting married in Manti on Thursday, my dad and mom are coming over on Friday to help watch Mr. Bumbles and help me finally paint the bathroom, and later that day, I have Activity Day at my house with the 8 -11 year old girls in my ward. And I have made a resolution to de-crap my house in between everything, just in case we decide to sell the house, and because it is just a good thing to do, so I don't go nuts worrying about it. For me there is nothing like a clutter/crap-free house to live in. But I'll let you know how THAT goes. :)

Life is crazy!

Well, this past week has been really challenging. Poor Mr. Bumbles has been sick. Yesterday and today he has had a really bad productive cough, to the point where he sometimes chokes when he coughs, and we can hear him through his monitor coughing throughout the night. I feel so bad for him, he looks and acts like he is so miserable, but he does his best to keep up beat and play with his toys. It started with the ear infection discovery on Wednesday. I was giving him a bath and washing his ear, when he grabbed his ear, like he was saying, "Stop, touching that! It hurts!" and sure enough he has a really bad ear infection.

Most of our friends and family don't know this, but Mr. Sweetie and I have been casually looking at a possible home that we could pick out together, in a neighborhood (and ward) with more kids, and a little farther away from such a major road, since about last September/Octoberish. It started out more like a hobby, it was excititing to think about a new home and where we would like to live. We started looking in Bluffdale (close to the point of the mountain, for those who are a little familiar with the Salt Lake Valley), but houses just weren't in the right locations for us, and Bluffdale is really quite far from our parents, so we moved on to the city of Riverton, there were a few homes of interest, but then Mr. Sweetie found some homes in the "country" in Herriman, less noise is very appealing to both of us. There was a certain neighborhood with such beautiful houses we thought we found something in our price range that would be a really good deal and ideal for our requirements. We drove out there several times to check the noise barrier. And it was heavenly quiet. Then Mr. Sweetie found a development just in the beginning stages, across the street called Lafayette. While talking to the realtor in the model home we realized that we could definately afford to buy a lot and build a home, then unfortunately in that same conversation we found out a major road outlet would be built right next to this housing development.

So we went back to Riverton and some possible neighborhoods, but we had also been driving to a specific neighborhood in South Jordan and other neighborhoods in this same area. We started researching lots in these neighborhoods, since we had a ball park of how much it would be to build a house, and found this could possibly work for us.

We hadn't really been serious about actually making an offer on anything, until last Sunday when looking at a house way out of our price range (where the realtor happened to be there showing it to someone else), both of us felt we should make an offer on the lot of land we had been eyeing in this same neighborhood. Well, to make a long story a little shorter, we finally had the chance to go over the finances and build a spredsheet of all the numbers (which kept us into the wee hours of the morning), we decided on an offer and told the realtor we wanted to meet with him. (We had contacted him a few weeks before to give us more information on this lot, when we weren't too serious about it)

So, we made an offer on Friday and unfortunately another couple put an offer in on Thursday night before we were to meet with the realtor, but they let the seller know we were in the process to make an offer so they waited for ours. The seller did not give a counter offer, but came back to both of us and said for each of us to give them our biggest and best offer by 10 am Monday. How stressful is that? Our realtor is also the same person representing the property and can't give us any advice or tips on what to do. He did give us information on recent offers that didn't go through and what the seller countered, it has helped, but not that much.

So this is where we are at, when Mr. Sweetie gets back from his Sunday meetings we will call our realtor and give him the counter offer. We have prayed so much about this, that we know what happens will be what needs to happen and we will go from there. Our realtor is in contract with us for 6 months, so he will help us find something if this doesn't work out. We are really impressed with this guy, he is straight forward, tells us like it is, but is very personable too. I am nervous, but still hopeful!