Move In Ready

On Friday, I mentioned we moved in to the mountain house, as Ben calls it.  I think a moment like that deserves a celebration of pictures.  So, here’s the mountain house, filled with our crap, I mean furniture.

The entry isn’t huge, but we have a rug and storage bench for putting on shoes.

Our old sectional, which lived in the theater room at the first house, fits in the new living room with plenty of space.

We arranged the furniture to face the television about 2 1/2 feet from the window wall.  I have high hopes for bookshelves on either side of the window and a window seat between.

Small end tables and a bookshelf turned entertainment center work for now.

Ben built that bookshelf for V’s nursery and we’ve had it in the basement for the past few years.  It is the only piece of furniture that can serve this purpose until we get a chance to build a proper entertainment center.  This also means Ben’s kick butt surround sound system is tucked away for the too small shelf.  Once we finish the bathroom, we’ve got this on our to do list.

Okay, enough of my whining.  Here’s our empty dining room.  The stool and lantern are for the deck and the chairs are there as additional seating.

Some day we’ll buy or build a large table to go in here, but that’s not a priority.  Right around the corner is my office.  I’ve got my craft and shop supplies in the lower cabinets and lots of electronics on the desk top, but it’s totally functional.

Jack has deemed this her spot, so I tossed a few towels down to keep her cozy until I can make her a little dog bed.

Then there’s the kitchen.  Oh, the kitchen.  Even though this kitchen is at least twice the size of our other kitchen, we’re quickly learning the main cabinets are poorly laid out.  Not as much storage as it appears to have.

So we’ve been stashing most kitchen stuff in the giant pantries.

That pretty French door fridge above?  I hate it.  Ben packed up all the food from the fridge and freezer at the first house on Friday.  The fridge contents fit without a problem.  However, the two drawer freezer couldn’t hold an entire box of frozen foods.  As I tried to cram everything in, getting more and more frustrated while cursing the LG designer I started crying out of annoyance.  The stress from packing while watching two little boys and unpacking had gotten the best of me.  Luckily, we have space in the utility room for a chest freezer, so Ben bought one yesterday.  Rant over.  Check out the breakfast nook we’re using as the dining room.

That large window is a great place to watch the wild life in the back yard.

Friday night we had five deer visitors, right off the back patio.

It was chilly over the weekend, so Ben built a fire and we roasted marshmallows right in the family room.

Figuring out a layout for this room was tricky.  We have several traffic patterns; one from the stairs, another from the hall, and a third to the sliding door.  This works best, keeping everything centered on the fireplace and windows.  Too bad we don’t have close enough outlets to plug-in the lamps.

I’ve moved my books from the old office into the guest bedroom.  The pile on the bed is my sewing machine and 20 yards of fabric for curtains.

We’re still working on the main bathroom, so we’ll share pictures soon.  Floor tile has been delayed and should be here tomorrow.  The boys’ bedroom layout is very similar to their old room, just a few feet wider.  Here’s V’s side, complete with a dresser due to the lack of organization systems in this house.

E’s side is so bare right now, but he does have a faux Jack to keep him company.

The last bedroom, our bedroom.  We sold our bed to the buyer and we’re using the old guest bed for a while.  Ben hates the headboard covering the window.

I finished painting the closet over the weekend and put our clothes away.  Instead of a pile of clothes, we’ve got a stack of empty bins.  Wahoo!

Ugly master bathroom with an awesome steam shower.  Still ugly despite a few accessories.  I guess putting lipstick on a pig doesn’t make it pretty.

You want to see something that really isn’t pretty (and kind of stresses me out)?  The basement.

It’s funny because we’ve gained square footage over the last house, but we’re desperately lacking built-in storage.  Not to mention we’ve lost two bedrooms (hence the mattresses) and practically two bathrooms.  The main bath is under construction and the basement bath is just gross, leaving us with the master bath.  Eventually we’ll get there, but I think the basement will look like this for a while.

Ben and Handy Sammy hauled over the washer and dryer, too.  The plug for the dryer isn’t the same as the outlet though.

So that’s how we’re living in the new house.  I’ve off to pack up the few remaining things at the old house and then I’ve got some sewing to do.  Mama needs black out curtains in hopes of getting the boys to sleep past 6:30.

What did you do over the weekend?  Do you have a sewing project in your near future?  How about a move?

Gimme a Giveaway: Chris Loves Julia

This giveaway has ended.  See who won here.

It’s an exciting Friday for us.  Last night was our first night sleeping at the new house.  Most of our big furniture has been moved and we’re in the process of moving over our smaller stuff. Exciting for us, and this giveaway is exciting for you. It comes from Chris Loves Julia, a fantastic blog and Etsy shop. My gal Julia is one talented lady, creating beautiful chalkboard drawings as well as modern and abstract paintings.

My favorite chalk board drawing is this Kermit the Frog quote:

If you need art for your kitchen, how about this Cow Butcher Chart:

Or That’s Amore for any room in your house.

The Goods: Any chalkboard drawing from the Chris Loves Julia Etsy shop!

To Enter: We ask that you please subscribe to Our Humble A{Bowe}d.  If you don’t want to receive e-mail notifications, that’s fine.  Let us know if you follow us through Google Reader or another form and it will also count.  To subscribe, click the “Sign Me Up!” button under “Be the first to know.”  Once you’ve subscribed, leave a comment, which can (but doesn’t have to) include our Just for Fun question.

Just for Fun: Tell us if you’ve ever won an award, and maybe what it was for.

For additional entries:

1.  Add Chris Loves Julia to your Etsy favs, come back and leave a comment telling us what your favorite item is.

2.  Like Chris Loves Julia on Facebook, come back and leave another comment.

Contest Closes: Thursday, May 3rd at 11:59 pm, central time.

Number of Winners: One!

Ships: Anywhere in the United States

Other Info: We will select the winner using random.org and announce on Friday, May 4th.  Good luck!!

And, Julia was kind enough to offer a 10% discount on chalk board drawings using the code HUMBLE10.  So get some shopping in and save a little cash.

P.S.  This blog post is coming to you, live from our new house.  Literally, I just got my computer moved over and set up.

Tub Thumping

Before we can officially move into the new house, I’ve required a working bath tub.

See, we pulled out the claw foot tub and we’ve replaced it with a five foot jetted tub and shower combo.

Which also required removing the small half wall and building a new floor to ceiling wall.

The plumbing runs through the new wall, and a Hardie Backer surround, tub to ceiling.  Ben taped and filled the seams and we’re waiting for it to dry.

We also gained a little bit of space for the toilet.  A claw foot tub plus a wide half wall in an eight foot square room is a tight fit.  Now a five foot tub with a standard wall gives the cramped toilet space a few more valuable inches.

In other bathroom news, we picked up our shower tile and a remnant for our vanity counter today.  Hopefully Ben can start (and finish) the shower surround tomorrow.  But here’s the counter:

The counter is a 45 inch by 25 inch piece of white quartz.  I love that it is light and will allow me to paint the vanity any color I want.  Ben got it for 60 bucks, which is about $400 cheaper than the quote we got from the other granite supplier in town.  Score!

Even better, this granite place has piles of damaged materials.  Ben saw a few pieces of Carrera marble in the heap, so he asked about it.  The company is trying to get rid of these and the employee said Ben could take anything he wanted, free.

Those babies are sitting in the garage, waiting for Ben to cut them down to fit our end tables.  He sure knows the way to my heart.

In other new house news, I hung a few pictures.  Mostly because I don’t want to look at the epileptic seizure inducing wall paper.  And because I have about 10 boxes of art at my disposal.

We were able to sell the old bathroom vanity on Craigslist, and now we’re trying to pawn this enormous wooden pergola on someone.  No clue of its original purpose, but it’s in our yard and we want it out of there.

We met another neighbor yesterday; Rocky, the rock chuck.

That’s the latest progress.  Bring on the bath tub so we can move our beds over!  Tell me, what kind of counters do you have in your bathroom?  Have you scored any free things lately?

Dragonfly is the New Peacock?

It’s starting.  The era of bold, saturated color.  I fell for Benjamin Moore’s Dragonfly as soon as I saw it.  In an effort to step out of my comfort zone and go with my instincts, I decided to buy a gallon of Dragonfly, color matched in Glidden paint.  Where is this going?  I decided to test the water, um, paint in the master closet.  Boring cream walls and shelving are a perfect starting point.

I started by painting the shelf supports with Wal Mart’s bright white exterior paint.  Why?  Three reasons.  1.  It’s bright white, no need for color matching.  2.  We already had it on hand from a few mailbox touch ups.  3.  I hope exterior holds up to wear and tear better.  Back to the fun paint.  After slapping a coat of white up, I started with Dragonfly.

And I’m even more in love with it on the walls.  It’s bold, but not too bright.  Saturated, but not overwhelmingly dark.  It’s blue, it’s green, and it’s lovely.  Now I have to find time between packing and cleaning to finish what I started.  I feel confident using this on the walls of the master bedroom, too.  Happy camper, right here.

What do you think?  Is Dragonfly the new peacock?  I think we should start a trend.  Ha.

No Shortage of Yardage

Weather here in Montana was b.e.a.utiful this weekend.  On Saturday, we made had a bathroom shopping spree at Home Depot, spurred by a 10% off coupon and a great need for a tub.

That was Saturday morning.  Saturday afternoon we went up to the new house.  Ben wan’t in the mood to work on the bathroom, so he and Handy Sammy capitalized on the sunny day, working on cleaning up the yard.  Year(s) of neglect made the landscaping a hot mess.

Cleaning up loads of weeds and several dead plants.  And oodles of pine needles.

I know they hauled at least two pick up truck fulls of pine needles and such from the side yard, right here off the deck.

This little area was also a house plant graveyard.  Anything that died got tossed out here, sometimes in the planters, sometimes not.  A helpless duck planter (shown above) was an innocent victim of plant and planter tossing.

While we were over there, I asked Ben to cut down a scraggly tree and old stump.

He easily cut down the little Russian Olive tree.  The stump was rotten, so a several strong kicks and it fell apart.

After that, we called it a day and headed to the other house for dinner and a shower.  On Sunday, Ben started bathroom work while Handy Sammy got friendly with our weed whacker.  He asked what he could do, so we asked him to cut down the weed covered hillside.

Left-Yard-Last-Year

Now we can see the yard.  And all the things we’ll have to do to get it looking nice.

Right-Yard-Last-Year

We’re certainly no where near a nicely landscaped yard, but it’s one small step in the right direction.  Also, we met several of our new neighbors this weekend.  I think they were all very happy to see we’re cleaning it up, lessening the eye sore the previous owner left behind.