Organization is key....

We had a productive weekend this weekend. The heat finally broke a little, so we decided that we needed to clean and organize the garage.

This is our soon to be storage area under our stairs. Since our attic isn't very easy to get into, this will do instead. Mike brought home a door, and once he frames it out, it will be instant storage for whatever is needed.

Here is what the garage looked like when we started. As you can tell everything that wasn't needed right away was just piled in the garage. It was quit difficult to find anything, let along walk through it.

The half way point..

All finished....It's not quite ready for us to park our cars in it, but at least now we can work in the garage, so that we can finish working on our house. It's been along time coming, but it felt good to finally get something done on our house again.

Happy Birthday Mama Rose!!

Last weekend Mike and I decided to make a trip to Fort Wayne to see my mom for her birthday. The kicker is that she didn't know that we were coming. So it was a surprise weekend filled with family time and lots of laughs.

One of my mom's favorite games to play when every one is home us UNO. More times than not, things can get a little personal while playing up here. Even still, we still had to break for cake and ice cream, yet another surprise for mom.

Mike wanted to help get the cake ready for mom...

Here is his handy work....at least it made everyone laugh a little.

Happy birthday mom!! We enjoyed spending your special day with you, and we look forward to spending many more with you!!

Happy 4th!!

Happy 4th!! Hopefully everyone enjoyed the long holiday weekend. Down here, we had a very busy weekend. We celebrated the 4th on two occasions, one on Sunday evening, and then again on Monday afternoon. Sunday evening we went over to the Henderson's and set off fireworks, a tradition that we have done for many years. This year I decided to take some pictures of the fun we had.

Here is the stash before the party started. For the first time Kentucky legalized the good fireworks, so this year we didn't have to travel out of state to get them. So that meant that we could use the money that would have been used for gas for more fireworks!!

Here are the boys getting ready to start blowing things up.... It's the one time of year that I see so many grown mean act like little kids.

This is one of the first things that were fired off....the night was just beginning...

Hopefully everyone had a safe and happy 4th. I know we did, and we sure had alot of fun that night as well.

Home Update

OK, for those of you, and you know who you are, here is an update on how things are at the Gressler house. After either one of us being pretty sick, or just too busy to know any different, we are finally well, and taken some time to focus on our house. Never mind that we are having a party on Monday, that didn't motivate us at all. =) So after spending most of the day out running errands, this is the progress we have made.

This is what the hall looked like when we left this morning. Pretty bare and not very homey if you ask me. Don't get me wrong, the floors are lovely, but they don't look like someone lives here.

It's amazing what a few rugs can do. We went to Garden Ridge to find an anniversary present, more on that later, and not only did we find those, but we also found a few other things, and these rugs were some of them. They fit the colors of the house perfectly. So not only do they look nice, but they will help protect the floors form everyday wear and tear.

Now these little rugs aren't the only things that we added to the house, we also decided to do something to the family room. Here is what it looked like before hand...

Here is what looks like after going to Garden Ridge this afternoon....

I have decided that I LOVE Garden Ridge. I have never heard of it, until I moved to Kentucky, and hadn't spent much time there, since we always seem to forget about But after this weekend, I won't forget about it now!!! LOVE IT!!

Now for the main reason that we ventured out to Garden Ridge today. For our anniversary present from Mike's parents, they told us we could buy something for the house, and they would pick up the tab, with in reason of course. So we headed out to see what we could find for the house.

We found us some bar stools for our kitchen. We had talked about getting some for the bar area, and since we are having a party on Monday, we figured that this would be just as good as any to get them. So there they are. I was concerned with how they space thing would work, but they seem to fit very nicely under the counter, so everyone can still get to the back door.

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Even though the kitchen is pretty messy, I do believe that the stools make a nice touch to the kitchen. That way, we will have a place to sit and grab a quick meal, if we are on the go, or we just don't feel like sitting at the table. It's amazing how just a few simple things can make a house seem and feel more like a home.

Thank you Papa and Grammy for the stools, we love them, and they make a lovely addition to the kitchen!!

Much needed update

Ok, I know it's been way to long since I've updated pictures for everyone, so now that we have the seemingly never ending issues with our internet and computer worked out, I will post the last few pics that I took when we moved in.

Here is what the kitchen looked like on moving day. Luckily, we moved most of the kitchen stuff a couple of days before, so this was just the last bit of it. Notice that the fridge is right next to the table, it didnt' get moved until after we moved in. I guess it's all about priorities.

Here is the start of the family room. Got the TV all hooked up even before we moved in...it's all about priorities.

Those are all the picture from moving in, as we continue working on the house, I will post the progress. As of now, we are settled, but there is still plenty of work to be done. Ahh the joys of home ownership.

Just a little side note.....Happy Father's day to my father-in-law...consider this update your father's day present from us!! Love you!! =)

I'm finally up and running!!

Hello to all those who have missed me!! After terrible time of trying to get our internet hooked up and running, and the our computer taking a dump on us, we are back and running on the internet. So hang with me a little bit longer, I will get some much needed pictures uploaded this weekend. Just wanted to check and and say hi, and to let you know that I am back and ready to post some pictures. =)

Update on our home

I know that it's been two weeks since my last update, but last week was so busy that I couldn't seem to find the time to post the pictures that I took last weekend. So here they are. Last weekend we prepped the floors for the stain, stained them and got ready to start to coat them with poly urethane. Sounds easier than it was trust me. Here is what we had to show for it.

All prepped and ready for stain.

All stained and just waiting for the poly.

Mike after staining most of the house. Notice how his hand looks like it belongs to a Mexican?? Got to love what staining does to your body when it's left on too long.

Floor is FINALLY finished. It was a VERY long process, but looking at it now, it was really worth it. The floors look amazing!!

This is what Mike spent most of today on....trim. Our hope is to start trimming the house out this weekend, and finish it Friday, so maybe, just maybe we can start to move stuff in next weekend. But there is still another bundle of trim that needs to be painted, and the crown molding needs to painted as well, so we will see.

This funny looking things are the corner pieces for the crown molding that will go in the kitchen. They needed a coat of primer before they got painted, that way we won't have to paint them too much.

This is the final thing we did today. Mike changed out the kitchen light for this one that we found on clearance, which makes it that much better. It was totally amazing how just changing a simple thing, such as a light totally changes the profile of the room. It's finally starting to look like a home.