What a difference a week makes!

This is the post you all have been waiting for. UPDATE! Well, let me tell, this has been a BUSY week here at Elton Hills. We demolished the bathroom, framed almost everything and are looking forward to our sheetrock being delivered next weekend.

 Here's a picture of the bathroom old. I should have taken a better before photo but forgot. It had a cast iron sink and homemade cabinet. Initially we weren't going to demolish the bath, but we are SO glad we did! 

Do you see that venting in the picture on the right?? See the HUGE gap?? Yep, he was venting moisture into the ceiling. I think he was hoping the air would jump the gap and be vented out, because you know that piece costs an addition $5 and really is unnecessary. Thankfully, we didn't find mold from this (Phew!)

 This is what the bathroom looks like now. Open, bigger, and almost framed all out. It's going to be lovely when we're done. Did I mention what a wonderful job Greg and Allan are doing? They are doing this project well. No cutting corners and I love it!

These are bedrooms #1 & #2. Remember that party room with the bar? This is what it looks like now, framed out for two rooms. Don't worry, we'll make them "real rooms" with real egress windows when it's not -20 degrees. 

 
This is the door to the smaller of the two bedrooms or my future office!

It's coming along :) More updates once the rock is up! Hopefully next weekend.

DECLINED.

On Friday, I had a long morning break, so I headed to the cafeteria for some breakfast. I normally don't have time for this, but eggs and bacon sounded delicious and why not, I had time to relax and enjoy my breakfast. I got a coffee as well and  I was off to sit down, look at some pinterest and enjoy this break! I went through the checkout line and was DECLINED.

*I'm thinking to myself* What? You (the cashier) obviously must have slid my card wrong, it's obviously the cashier's fault, this NEVER has happened to me. 

So, she tries it again. DECLINED AGAIN! Oh my gosh. I could feel the red rushing to my face as the cashier sheepishly hands my card back to me and says, "Your card was declinced. Sorry." I was SO embarrassed. I put my breakfast at the side of the cashier, and told her "I'll figure something out." This all while I'm looking around to see if I know anyone. Thankfully, there were only two ladies behind me I didn't know which brought me some relief. 

Just as I'm about to leave, the lady behinds me says, "put her tab on mine." I look at her and ask if she's sure about this. Her response, "oh yes, I've got it." I thank her again and as I'm leaving the line she very loudly states, "No, NO, THANK YOU FOR LETTING ME BE A BLESSING TO SOMEONE ELSE."  What? Who does this? A simple "you're welcome" would have been sufficient. I went from ridiculously grateful/still embarrassed to a puzzled face and utter confusion as to why you would draw attention to yourself like this. What makes someone NEED to this? I'm not sure.

Anyway, what I took away from this situation is that I NEVER want to be that woman. Simple and mind you QUIET acts of kindness are the best. No need to draw attention to yourself. Let your blessing to someone be a blessing and move on. 

***side note: Our account is just fine. With all the remodel I lost track of one BIG bill and hadn't transferred $$ to cover it. Don't worry mom and dad, all is well here :)

The Trilogy is complete!

I know you've all been wondering about the final book in the trilogy so drum roll please...

Here it is folks!

 The Art of Love :)  

We found this last weekend during more demo. The series is complete now. One of our buddies who helped with the demo is reading the trilogy and will give me full book reviews when he's done (that was our deal).

 We also found a HUGE bag, maybe 300 or so of these beer tabs! Sweet find for my sister-in-law to make creative things out of them!

Our neighbor was good friends with the man that used to live here. He's a sweet old man, 80, widowed, just lost his cat. The first day I met him, he had me over and gave me a bunch of keys to our house! (dad was right when he said the first thing we needed to do was change the locks!!) Anyway... I told him we had found some treasures in the basement. His first guess was beer bottles. NOPE! But, we sure have his beer tabs! 

Sad to say, I think our treasure finding days are over.

Nym is One!

I meant to post this ON her birthday but the whole house thing got in the way. Oh well, she is a puppy, but a puppy we absolutely love.

She was such a cutie and oh so tiny!!

Our puppy turned 1 February 2nd. We think. We adopted her around April 16th and she was 10 weeks old, so we made her birthday up :) She was born in a saw mill in Louisiana with 10 other puppies. Her mom and siblings were taken to "kill" shelter in Louisiana and then sent to Minnesota to a "no-kill" shelter. We went to an adoption event and found her! We actually went for a different puppy we found online (the story of my life... I seem to get/find all the wonderful things in my life online), but when we watched the puppies interact, Nym was chill in the corner while the others tackled each other. I'm pretty sure she was just tuckered out from a full day of people and puppies playing with her, but that was the reason we picked her. And, we are so glad we did. She is such a wonderful puppy and has brought so much joy, frustration, love, you name it, to our lives.  The first night we had her, my hubby slept with his fingers in her kennel because she was wimpering. It was so sweet. He was also determined that she would be HIS dog. And... she is HIS dog. If I can't get her to come in, I yell for him and immediately she responds to him. She'll walk off leash at his side. With mom... it's a different story. It's a work in progress for us :)

We *think* she's a german shorthair pointer mixed with doberman pinscher. She definitely has the personality of a german shorthair pointer, but the coloring of a pinscher. But really, who knows. She was born in a saw mill and I refuse to spend $100 on a "DNA" test. I highly doubt the accuracy of those tests.

Over the past year we've spent A LOT of time training her. A LOT. She's with us constantly, outside, inside, everywhere. She knows all the "normal" commands: sit, stay, come. Our favorite commands are unusual: back-up, place, nose (she hits her nose against our nose) and "do your business." Do your business = pee/poop on command, I grew up with this command for our dogs and it's SO helpful.

This is her "place" command. When we want her to lay on her mat (ie when we eat or she needs to calm down) we tell her to place and this is what she does. She also will give you a high-five, play dead, heel, and peek through your legs. 

Here's a video of us at the park yesterday. It was adorable, she bounced to get her frisbee because the snow was so deep. She loves this game!

Happy birthday puppy! 

Progress

We're making progress!! Last weekend we were busy with family and friends, so needless to say, we didn't get much done around the house. This weekend we were home and we got so. much. done! 

This is all the garbage from our ceiling demolition that my brother cleaned up. The boys told me I couldn't move it 'cause "it's too heavy." Well, I moved all of it! Thank you crossfit for functional movements! Each bag was full of sheetrock so the bags ranged from probably 60 lbs to 100lbs each. Moving them up a flight of stairs was a chore, but I got my workout in for the day!

This is what the new bedroom (or 2) downstairs initially looked like. I call this the party room because it had a bar, a speaker in the ceiling, and tile floors. I can only imagine the fun that was had here. We demolished this today and now it looks like this.

 We're not sure what that thing on the left was. It could have been a stage, storage, a bench for people to sit on. Well whatever it was, it is no longer.

Bye bye bar!

 

The basement is cinder block walls, so we're insulating with 2" styrofoam. This was super easy to put up and reminded me of my days of buiding basments with my dad and siblings.

 All the foam is up in the "party room." 

  Look at out our framing (I checked to make sure it's level and it is spot. on.)! This is our good friend teaching us (really my hubby) how to frame, use the nail gun, make sure everything is level and square. This man is a perfectionist and we're beyond grateful to have him help us with this project!

Full weekend here in Elton Hills. It's exciting to plan, make decisions, and see progress being made. It's beginning to take shape. I know I already did a post dedicated to my brother, but today I did most of the clean up in the basement from more demolition. I was super thankful for his help last week, but I'm even MORE grateful having spent the last two days cleaning/moving/organizing the basement. Thanks again little bro!!

Rafter treasures

We recently had an electrician come in to ground our upstairs outlets. ***Learn from us*** Even though there were 3-hole outlets in the house, none of the upstairs outlets were ground! We didn't know when purchasing an older home to check this out (this would not have changed our decision to buy the house), BUT it has made for an expense we weren't planning on (or at least I wasn't planning on). 

While running wire, our electrician found these two treasures... hidden away... probably years ago... so no one could find them. But we did! :)

 I'm assuming it was the previous husband who hid these books because he put so many weird things in our rafters. Why not add to the random assortment of items future owners will find?

When we have time, we'll give you all a solid book review on these two gems! I'm sure they'll find their way to a bookshelf so you can enjoy these gems as well when you visit!

Starting to look like a home

I can breathe again! We finally had time to really start organizing and BOY does it feel good. We have a living room again! This past week we would organize one area, but then brought more stuff from the apartment and it looked/felt like nothing was accomplished. Today though, we can actually relax in this space.

The furniture will eventually go downstairs when we finish that area and the curtains will be replaced, but for now, it actually feels like our home and not a mess. 

My brother was a HUGE help this week!

He worked his tail off moving stuff from our apartment to the house while we were at work, cleaned up our ceiling demolition in the basement, helped us organize our mess at home, and took care of Nym. I truly have the best brothers.  He even butters my bread when I ask him to to at dinner :) 

It's starting to come together! Slowly but surely we'll get there :)

Demo Part 1

How do I say this nicely... our basement has a lot of "potential." When we first looked at the home, I envisioned this basement as a 1970s party basement. It has a sweet bar, a speaker in the ceiling, and really funky ceiling tiles. This is what it looked like.

And this is what we (I really did nothing) my bro, hubby, and friend did this...

I'm SO glad we did this tonight. Look at what we found in our ceiling!

This is worse than the carpet! (It's just dead bugs, but the spider webs are awful!) We have a buddy who's a pest guy. He will be coming over ASAP.

We also found a couple lamps, trim, and gutters in the ceiling. You know, just the usual things you hide in a ceiling (who does this???)

Let the demo begin!!

Move in day

Prior to moving to Rochester, Greg was a crossfitter in Mankato. "The aim of CrossFit is to forge a broad, general and inclusive fitness." Basically we do functional movements for everyday life. Think about getting on a plane with luggage. You have to squat down, pick up your bag, lift it above your head, and shove it into the overhead compartment. This is what we do in crossfit, LOTS of body weight movements, squats, push-ups, pull-ups, rowing, running, and jumping.

It. Is. Awesome. We absolutely love it, and we love the people we do it with. This is where we've found community. These are the people we spend the most time with and would do anything for. These are also the people that helped us move in! Crossfitters love lifting heavy things and our moving day was a workout! We moved (almost) all our stuff in 3 hours. In the dead of winter. And snow. Even my dad was impressed! :) (if you don't know my father, that's a big deal)

This is where we left off Saturday

You can't see the work my mom did in these pictures, but kudos to her for scrubbing my sinks, refrigerator, and bathroom on Saturday. It felt so good to move in and have my kitchen and bathroom clean. Moms are the best! Love ya mom!

BTW, if anyone wants my sweet drapes or lace curtains, let me know. They're all yours!

Sunday was filled with organizing and we accomplished something! Our guest bedroom is mostly put together. This is the one place in our home I can breathe. This is by far my favorite room right now. *SIGH* If you're looking for a little retreat, come to Rochester! OR, if you need to come to Mayo, stay with us! When we lived in the apartment, I always offered a room, but no one took us up on it. Check this room out! It's ready and my little bro is breaking it in for the next week.

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Closed.

Yesterday we closed on our first home! YAY for being homeowners!! One of the first things we did was sit in a room and listen. And listen. And listen. We heard NOTHING! No pounding or endless rearranging of furniture above us, no slamming of doors around us, NO SHARING LAUNDRY ANYMORE!!! Oh, the things we are going to appreciate!

Here's a picture of the beauty

It was built in 1960 and has one owner. She moved into a nursing home and the house was only on the market for 4 days before we snatched it up! It's in a great neighborhood called Elton Hills... hence the name of the blog. Dad came and looked at homes with us and I'm so grateful he did! Even though we likely would have ended up with this one, I learned so much in going through homes with him. He's so knowledgeable. It's comforting to us that he thought this home was as good as we thought it was.

As you walk in this was our living room

Nasty! Gross! Yuck! BUT... underneath this disgusting 40 year old carpet (think of all the dead skin cells in that thing... my brother brought that up and I cannot get that thought out of my head!) there was a thing of beauty. We spent 6 hours last night cleaning, pulling up carpet, pulling of staples, and tack strips to find this

Aren't these gorgeous? We love them. This is why we bought this home. Though it needs updating, it has excellent bones and it was an excellent price. Since we dont' have to sand and stain our floors, we're doing a majority of our moving TODAY! I'll keep you updated along the way so you all can enjoy this process as much as we are, but you won't be sore and tired like us! :)