Long Awaited Reveal!!

It has been almost three months since The Hubster woke one Saturday morning and had the bright idea that Yes, we could redo our floors ourselves. I having have wanted to change out our floors before we even purchased our home said sure why not. Doing it ourselves was a brilliant idea.

Reno of the floors ended up involving the reno of our fireplace surround as well. We ripped out all the carpet in our living room and laid the new wood flooring down not once but three times!! First we floated it with underlayment. Decided after a few weeks we did not like the hallow sound of the flooring. Thought maybe it was because we did not level the floor before hand so up it all came and we leveled. Still hallow and so up it came up once again and decided to glue the flooring down. Soooo much better! We were thankful that we had purchased flooring that gave us three differ options of installation. I do not recommend gluing your flooring down unless it states that you can do so. Just thought I would throw that in there as a side note.

Well for the past few months I have been going on and on about our journey and how it was taking us FOREVER. Last weekend after tearing out the old glued down flooring ourselves we waved the flag of surrender. We were tired and I was wanting my house back so we called in the pros! 

Without much further ado here are the Before & After pics of our floor reno! 

Since the floors were finished today we have yet to move all the furniture back in. Makes for some more great Before & After posts!;) As you can see we decided to lay them horizontally. See those stairs believe it or not we are actually talking abt trying to tackle those ourselves! Yes, we are a glutton for punishment. I may make a video for the stairs and enter the True Value contest for $2500 I read abt on Miss Mustardseeds. 

Here is the office. The before pics are from when we first moved in and before I painted. This room looks sooo different!

View from office to foyer and then the before & after of the dining room. I was wanting to do some type of wainscotting in the dining room before we move everything back in but it is just not in the budget right now so I have decided to just be happy with my new floors and chandy! The Hubster hopefully will be installing the chandy for me tomorrow! I am really excited and can not wait! 

Though the floors are done I still have this to tackle! Something to do this upcoming week when I feel like being a night owl!;)

This was the BIGGEST reno that we had ever attempted by ourselves or with help and in the end we think it turned out pretty awesome. Total quote for project with materials was around $10,000. Total actual cost was a little less than $5,000 for supplies and all The Hubsters new toys/tools. That total even includes hiring out the tail end. Not too shabby!

Thanx for coming along on our journey! 

 Linking up to the following linky parties:

SAT Nite Special

Sunday Showcase Party

Metamorphosis Monday

Show Off Your Cottage Monday

Wow Us Wednesdays

Transformation Thursday

Inspiration Friday

Feather Your Nest Friday

Show & Tell Friday

Home Sweet Home Friday

Defeat

  Today I am watching paint dry, sorda. See last Saturday after renting our umpteenth tool to clean up the sub floor we decided to wave the flag of defeat! Yep we had had enough. We were thru. Actually beyond thru with it all. We fought a good fight and honestly could have finished but we were tired. I was tired. We are going on three months now having our home in disarray and there seemed to be no end in site. We called in the big guns.

They came this morning and thus me and the boys are sitting around waiting for the new leveling to dry.

It is already looking more fabulous! Now here is hoping that the cats who are upstairs do not figure out again how to open the door. I was not thrilled the last time when Max ran thru the thin set we did in the living room. I had to chase him thru the house and try to get it off his paws. No that was not a fun evening!

Speaking of stairs the flooring guys were nice enough to leave us a path to upstairs though the boys know NOT to even go near there. I can just picture one of them falling in it. EEK!

So yes, we feel defeated but at the same time we feel major relief! Trust me this was suppose to be a total DIY project and that was the only way it was gonna work but thankfully we got a hook up from a pal. He gave us the number of the guy he used and that person lays floors for a living for the builders. We just could not pass up his quote to not only level the floors for us but to actually finish the gluing of the floors for us! Tomorrow morning they will be back to start glueing and trust me when I say it will be well worth all the hot dogs and PB&J sand whiches we will be eating in the next few months!

Hope your week has been a grand one!

Weigh In Wednesdays #8- Desserts

Welcome to Weigh IN Wednesdays #8! Wow, I can't believe it has been two months since I started this series. Time sure does fly! This week I am focusing on healthy delicious dessert options. Everybody loves dessert and we are no exception over here at our house. So here are a few calorie friendly desserts we enjoy having. 

LOVE LOVE LOVE these not only for dessert but really anytime of day. They are super yummy and super easy to make. The boys bought me a Magic Bullet one year for Mothers Day and so clean up is even quick! Yoplait  has new flavors out that I can not wait to try! We usually buy just the Triple Berry in the economy size at Costco.

Another super yummy treat that even The Hubster requests from time to time is  frozen yogurt pie! Here is the recipe for the regular version but it is easily adaptable. Just buy low fat yogurt in any flavor you like, as well as the low cal cool whip which is just as yummy and then the low cal graham cracker crust and you are good to go!

Another fave among the boys and I is Hungry Girl's Peanut Butter Fudge! You can click here to get the recipe!

For deserts you can just get out of the freezer and not have to worry abt cleaning up from we like Blue Bells No Sugar Added Crunch Bars and also Dreyers Frozen Fruit Bars which come in several differ flavors.

So what guilt free desserts do you enjoy? If you have made a post to participate in WIW please let me know so I can add ya to the list!

Party Goers:
1. 

Fragile

Look what came in the mail today marked FRAGILE! Can you guess what it is?

Yep, that's right! It was my $45 Ebay chandy. I was thrilled and I couldn't wait to get it out of the box to see if it was really going to meet all my expectations.

I have to say I have never had to put a chandy together piece by piece. Added bling yes but nothing like this.

Directions say Quick & Easy. Let's give it a shot.

It's 7:39 p.m. let the clock begin.

Yep, I would say that was pretty easy.

I would say that it was pretty quick as well! Took all of 7 minutes.

Now straight out to the garage. We have a date with ORB and Hammered Brown.

Let's not forget the new medallion I picked up at Lowes over the weekend.

Two and half hours later and this chandy has a new identity! Reveal coming soon!:)

Linking up to Wow Us Wednesdays!

For The Nana-Palladian Windows

I LOVE Palladian Windows! Here is where I will insert some useless info about Palladian Windows that y'all may or may not have known. Palladian Windows are derived from Palladian Architecture which is a European Architecture derived from designs of the Venetian architect Andrea Palladio. Palladio's work was strongly based on symmetry, perspective, and values of the formal classical temple architecture of the Ancient Greeks and Romans. His work quickly became known as Palladianism. Now that I feel like I just finished a paper for  my college Lit class I must give credit to Wikipedia for this vault of knowledge!

With all that aside I just love how Palladian Windows add so much charm to a home! You may be wondering why I chose to focus on Palladian Windows and well The Nana and The Papa (the in laws) are in the process of purchasing a new home! We are so very excited for them!! Problem arises in the fact that sadly enough we live half way across the country from them and so I am unable to be there to help The Nana out when she comes upon stumbling blocks such as what on earth to do about her window treatments. No this is NOT the new house though I do wish it was mine!;) 

They have not one but two sets of Palladian windows in the new home. I would show ya the front of the house so you could get a better idea of what they look like but I am not sure they would like me sharing the front  of the home so I am playing it safe here. All I have are these pics and this is their dining room. I am sure you can imagine what the windows in here pretty much look like. The ceilings are very tall. 

This is the other set in one of the bedrooms which I think would make a perfect sewing room for The Nana! The Nana is stumped on what to do with these windows because it seems their casings are too thin for blinds to be added to the inside of the windows. The Nana sent me on a mission of sorts in hopes of finding some ideas on what she should do with these windows. 

I will say that it appears most people leave their Palladian windows uncovered for the most part but I know that will not fly. This would have been an option but again it seems blinds/shutters will not fit inside the window frame. 

I found this idea but one I think it is too froufrou for The Nana and secondly does not really help the fact that the actual window would not be covered yet again because of the depth factor.
 

This idea is a great one as well but again no actual covering of the said windows. The Nana likes her windows covered!

The Nana mentioned just adding a rod across the middle of the windows and honestly that is exactly what we did in our first home in our dining room with our Palladian window but her ceilings are much much higher than ours were and I think that if she goes with that option it will drag the room down too much. 

Here is an example of the rod being hung higher. This option will allow her to not only be able to pull the drapes closed at the end of the day but she will also be able to ...choke choke....add blinds on the outside of the windows and nobody would even notice. 

Even without blinds hung I think that this is the best option. For the bedroom I think that hanging the rod right under the arch would be fine since the windows in there seem very tall but the ceiling shorter. Keep in mind though that the center of the rod may drag after awhile because there does not seem to be any room for a center support. We had that issue.

So I hope that this helps ya out a lil' bit Nana!:) I wish I could be there but I know you are in wonderful hands with Shell and Tina. (Shell is my sister in law and Tina is The Nana's niece. Both these ladies have a great sense of style and know how to deck out a home!:))

Do you have Palladian Windows in your home? If so how did ya dress um??

Weigh In??

We all have our fave lil' boutique shops we like to visit. One of mine is The Old Oak Cottage. 

We all love shops that have tons of eye candy!

The kind of eye candy that keeps you wanting more! The kind of eye candy that makes ya wanna go home an rearrange your entire house!

So here is what I need ya to weigh in on and no do not worry I am not asking y'all to hop on the dreaded scale and share! Heavans no and doubt I would have any takers on that anyways! Ha! Here is my question -What makes ya keep going back to your fave gift boutiques?

What are your fave items that they carry?

What items do you wish they would carry and they do not? What makes them so special?

Just trying to do a lil' research for a friend of mine!:) I know we all are a bunch of shopping ladies  so I figured there was nobody better to ask than y'all!! So please share your thoughts and let me know what ya like, what ya don't like, what ya are tired of seeing, or what ya wish you were seeing!! It will be very much so appreciated!

This all has to do with a very exciting opportunity coming up for me which I will share with ya soon!;) 

Linking up to Metamorphosis Mondays!

 Hope y'all are enjoying a wonderful 4th of July! 

Thank you to all of those who give so bravely to protect our great country! 
God Bless The USA!!