Weekend in Grand Rapids

We were in Grand Rapids this past weekend for our niece's baptism and for a birthday party.  It was a really fun weekend and we were excited to see our family and friends in the area.  

Jenna's baptism 

After the baptism sunday we headed over to Steve and Kate's (Alec's sister) house.  With 30 people there for the celebration it was quite the gathering!  We had so much fun though.  

Alec and little Jenna

hanging out with Claire and Colin

singing happy birthday to Sarah

Uncle Alec with the kids 

painting = chaos

Well I was hoping to have more to update and show everyone.......but painting is kind of a slow process!  We have been working hard on it though and are getting there slowly.  We are painting the 3 upstairs bedrooms and hall way, which means the entire upstairs is absolute chaos right now!

This is going to be our office/scrapbooking room.  But currently it is the collect all room since we are painting this one last.......can't even walk through the room

Bedroom #2, this is going to be the guest room.  Needs another coat of paint, then the trim is getting painted white.  

Master bedroom, just need to finish up the trim.  

Our closet, at least this is kind of organized.....

Things are coming together slowly, but we are excited about the progress we have made so far.  It is fun, hard work, and very rewarding!  I will continue to post pictures!

The projects begin

The house is beginning to feel more and more like it is ours and it is our new home!  We have already owned it now for a week, and have done constant work on it.......even though you might not be able to tell.  

Here is a snap shot of how things have been going thus far:

* Still working on all the outside trim of the house, scrapping and painting it

* Working on actually unpacking our stuff, but since we plan to do ALOT of interior painting we have been holding off on decorations and picture frames going up.

* The collapsed pool in the backyard has been a source of struggle, the tarp thing weighed like 250lbs since it was all wet, and smelled like sewer!  So that is now gone!!!!!

* Cleaned out the backyard shed (for those who saw it knows that was no easy job!)  Some poor squirrel lost a lot of hard work.......there was just a HUGE pile of shredded leaves and news paper.  And not to mention there were tons of old pool chemicals, float toys, and TONS of other junk. 

* Have begin painting the super dark red bedroom  (in pictures: this is just the first coat of primer.......who in the world paints the ceiling dark red!?)  

It is going really well though, we keep having to tell ourselves that you can't do everything at once and it will all come together eventually!  We will be sure to post before and after pictures once some of the rooms start coming together.  You realize how little furniture you have when you move from a two bedroom apartment to a 1800 sq ft house!

Our Backyard Fun.............

We are in the house

Moving day went great!  The guys from church came over to help around 10:30am and they had the truck loaded in an hour and a half!  They took it over to the new house, ate some lunch and unloaded in only an hour!  So it was great to have the power team to get the job done :)  

Here are a few moving pics:

Front and back:

(There are more pics on facebook)

We are Homeowners!!!

Well after all that we went through our prayers were truly answered and we were able to close on the house yesterday afternoon.  We were just so excited, but a little bit in shock and disbelief!  Our closing was at 3pm, then after that we drove right to the house to begin cleaning it.  

Packing in the apartment

I had a feeling the previous owners were not going to leave the house very clean so we anticipated on having to scrub.  Wow were we ever right though, the place was completely FILTHY!!!  You can just tell they never cleaned the house while they lived there.  Alec was in charge of vacuuming and had to empty the canister 5 different times, it was SO bad!  We got a lot of cleaning done last night, and even started putting some of our stuff in there! 

Entering the house (from garage) for the first time as owners!

They left so much random stuff there, most of which will end up in the trash.  So of it though was worth keeping.  There are so many projects for us to be working on in the house, we are very excited to get started.  We can't wait to make the place our own!  Tomorrow is moving day, so I will post again after that and keep everyone posted.

Of course Alec would want to check out the laundry

Expert Vacuum-er

The huge pile of junk that was there waiting for us......

Scrubbing the upstairs bathroom