We have a new addition to the family!!

In the beginning of December we got a new puppy!! His name is Beau which means handsome in French. He's a Schipperke which i'm finding out from everyone is a little known breed. They are notoriously stubborn and lately he's surely been living up to this reputation. He is going to be 11 weeks old this Thursday! He's a little under 5 lbs, healthy and full of energy. Over the next few months we will be blogging about our trials and tribulations raising and training this little guy. Here's a few pictures of Beau man...

Beau when we first got him! He's been attached to his squeaky duck toy ever since! He was 2.69 lbs! Just a little guy!

Beau at 9 weeks...

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Sorry about being MIA lately...

We've been super busy working on the house lately…we just wanted to take a minute to update you all on our progress.

Family Room (Before)

 Family Room (Now)

Family Room (Before)

Family Room (Now)

We still have a lot to do but it's getting there. Here's our checklist for the family room:

-Remove vertical blinds

-Paint walls Trout Gray by Benjamin Moore

-Paint trim Wedding Veil by Benjamin Moore

-Hang new curtains and curtain rods

-Remove shelves

-Buy a new sectional sofa

-Buy an area rug

-Buy and install new floors

-Install new baseboard and quarter round

-Install a new closet door

-Mount tv over the fireplace

-Re-do fireplace

-Install 2 lower cabinets in nook

-Install upper cabinets
-Buy a beverage fridge for nook
-Install butcherblock

-Install backsplash

-Cabinet lighting

-Hide/ disguise cords and tv components 

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Exterior Transformation Final Reveal

Finally after a week of posts detailing our summer projects…here is the exterior final reveal! 

Before 

(Sorry I couldn't find a good shot before painting the garage doors)

After

There you have it! Our summer exterior transformation! Granted we still have plenty of things to do and here's our to-do list:

• Replace the gutters and fascia
• Paint the trim
•  Paint/replace the vinyl siding
• Paint/replace the shutters 
• Paint main window
• Install house numbers
• Remove eyebrow over the garage
• Paint the garage doors
•  Replace the front door
• Install an outdoor light to the left of the front door
• Make a pergola for over the garage
•  Fix the retaining wall next to the driveway
• Update the landscaping
• Fix the concrete walkway and front steps
• Install window boxes

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Exterior Transformation Part 4

The final part of our summer exterior transformation was adding black vinyl shutters to the windows….

Yes, those dirty mustard colored shutters had to go...

We installed vinyl shutters from Lowes...

We were concerned that we wouldn't be able to fit a shutter on the right side of this window but we wound up super lucky, it just fit!

This window looks so much bigger now that it's been framed by these shutters! 

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Exterior Transformation Part 3

Oh how much I love retaining walls! NOT! They can be very pretty and functional but over time if they aren't built properly they can shift and start to fall apart. That was our issue and as you can see it was on borrowed time. We finally decided that enough was enough we had to rebuild it. Ultimately we would like to do something more permanent later but for now we will suffice for a rebuild. 

This was the wall before we rebuilt it….

…and after…much better!

-We took all the stones down and placed them on a tarp
-We dug the dirt back and then started rebuilding the wall one stone at a time…(this took forever)!!

All in all, the wall is holding up and we think it looks great!

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Exterior Transformation Part 2

After painting the garage doors our next logical step was to paint the huge front window the same color. This window needed a little more work because there was old caulk, chipped wood and it was quite dirty. 

We first clean all the windows and frames...

 Then sanded the wood frame and caulked all the gaps…

Then we painted all the frames the same Valspar (Dark Kettle Black) that we painted the garage doors.

Before the window was not making the right statement and now this black really frames and highlights the windows! It's perfect!

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Exterior Transformation Part 1

Over the summer we were hard at work on the exterior of the house. I am constantly finding myself with a never-ending to-do list that is always getting added to. We focused last year on the inside of the house and just got around to the outside. We had this vision for what we wanted it to look like and Jared used "Paintbrush" and added some black to the trim and the garage doors as well as a different color for the siding. While the siding will be something we do in the future the trim and garage door colors were something we were able to change much easier. 

We started with the garage doors. They are original to the house and are wood. The paint just wasn't doing much for the house and we wanted to add a little drama. Black was the answer for us!

We chose the Valspar's Dark Kettle Black..

After three coats this was our result! We love it!

That is just the beginning of the dramatic change! Wait until you see the rest of what we did this summer :) 

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