Before & After Shots

Here is the living room before we moved in, before we painted, and after we painted.

The bathroom at the bottom of the stairs used to be white...it's now green and I painted the cabinet white.




















Upstairs we painted the hallway a lighter shade of the sand color.




































The Loft has one wall that is a Sand Color and 2 walls that are Olive Green.

The upstairs bathroom was boring white and is the same green as the bathroom downstairs.










































The Master Bathroom is now a slate blue color to match the blue in our bedroom.























































Finally the Master Bedroom turned from white to a light taupe (called Oatbran).

Painting

Alex and I spent all of last week (it took us Monday - Saturday) painting the inside of our home, minus the kitchen/dining room and 2 bedrooms upstairs. I put tape on the walls and paper/plastic on the floor and edged. Alex did all of the rolling! We made a great team and here are some pictures!

We had to rent scaffolding to reach this wall in our living room. Thank you to our wonderful neighbor who helped Alex set it up and take it down.

Alex is edging the high wall and down below shows progress after he rolled paint on!

Here I am on the ladder edging (not my prettiest picture...but I'm hard at work) :) Then below I am edging the corner, since the living room is Sand and Olive Green.

We had to buy this cool ladder so we could paint the wall by the stairs. It will come in handy for other home projects and tasks too.

Here is the living room so far...

Here is the other side of the living room, the stairs!

2 Year Anniversary

Wednesday, August 5 was our 2nd Anniversary! It's amazing how fast time flies when you are having fun! What a blessing Alex is and what a wonderful husband God has blessed me with. To celebrate we went to Disneyland for the day (and we get to go 2 more times!). Lines were not bad and we got to go on all of the big rides...some even twice! On Thursday morning we drove up to Santa Barbara and stayed there for two nights and came home on Saturday. Our hotel was across the street from the beach, so we spent two days on the beach. Dinners were AMAZING! We are now getting ready to paint the inside of our house (I already finished the 3 bathrooms). We are going to paint our bedroom, loft, hallway, stairs, and living room. We still have to decide on the color for the kitchen/dining room...and the 2 bedrooms upstairs will remain unpainted until we have babies :o)

Cool Air

Even though we live in Laguna Niguel, cooler than Mission Viejo, it still gets pretty hot upstairs. We noticed there was wiring for a fan in our master bedroom, so we found a fan at Costco (actually we bought two...one for Alex's loft office). Our Sunday afternoon was spent putting it together...I directed and Alex did the work, since it was too high for me to reach, and too heavy. What a way to make a marriage strong...work on a home put-it-together-project. We did have fun and slept great under the quiet new fan! Here are some pictures!

Griffith Observatory

On Sunday we went with our friends, Bryan and Tussany to L.A. for lunch at the Farmer's Market at the Grove and to go to the Griffith Observatory. The drive up and back was awesome...hardly any traffic, compared with last weekend. I had never been to the Famer's Market...what a cool outside pick of any cuisine! I was most amazed by the Observatory...the views, the displays of cameras, telescopes, planets, stars, etc. We watch this show on a dome ceiling showing stars and great discoverers. I can't wait to use this in my lessons at school...very math related! Here are some pictures!

Thai Town & Transformers

This past weekend we went with 3 other couples from our church to Hollywood. We ate a delicious lunch at a Thai restaurant...my new favorite type of food. We went to ArcLight Theater to see Transformers...pretty cool on a HUGE curved screen and SURROUND sound! Fun night with special friends!!!

Our New Years Weekend Projects

Alex and I spent our New Years Eve sick with colds...cuddled up on the couch ringing in the New Year. On New Years Day we watched the Rose Parade (my favorite part of the day) and just RELAXED! What a blessing it is to spend a day not being busy with the day-to-day challenges of life and just enjoy each other's company!

Friday was spent at Lowe's and Home Depot (we ended up getting more help at Home Depot for our purchases, though). Saturday was our project day...The timer for our porch light "died", so I installed a light switch instead.

The "Door Viewer" (peep hole) needed to replaced, so with a little drilling to make the hole bigger, we now have one we can actually see through.

I replaced the old Thermostat with a Digital/Programable Thermostat.

The timer in the garage that turns on the lights outside above the garage also "died", so I replaced it with a new timer.

Finally, I have been trying to figure out why our sprinkers won't turn on anymore with our timer (the timer works, I replaced the caps to the wires and the solenoids) but I'm stuck on this one...

Together, Alex and I unscrewed the three bottom built-in cabinets from each other, the counter, and wall in our loft. We thought this would be simple, but we encountered a few problems. A few of the screws were in so tight we couldn't get them out, the counter top was heavy, and the cabinets were even heavier! We did manage to get them out and they are now in the garage!