Monday, April 28, 2014

Long over due post, it's been almost a year since we closed!

How time flies!  Sorry I haven't posted, but I really haven't had anything "post worthy" however, that will soon change.  We are finally at the point where we can start on projects, and buying new furniture.  We are doing 1 room per month, and next month is the kitchen!!!  I'm soooo excited, we are putting in an 8 ft. island quartz or granite counters (haven't decided yet) new pendents over the island, new zero radius sink, back splash... phew!  I didn't like RH's granite or the shape of the island, so the one we are putting in is just a big straight rectangle that will fit 4 LARGE counter height chairs and will become out main eating/gathering place in the kitchen.  Our total budget for the kitchen is $7,500.00, which i think is great considering how much the RH's island and granite and back splash would have been, not to mention I would have been settling for something that I wasn't totally in love with.  I was also happy to find that 84 Lumber sells Timberlake cabinets so I was able to match my Scottsdale Maple Espresso exactly!

Here is a pic of what I want the counters to look like, it's a quartz that looks like marble, but i'm not 100% sold on the grey, I feel it may limit me to only use cooler colors, so I'm still on the fence!



We have also completed a small project, repainting/re-covering my husband's granny's dining room chairs.  These will initially be for the morning room.  We are going to get a custom made farm house table from the Amish furniture place by us and these will serve as the chairs until we can afford to purchase new ones, then they will migrate into the formal dining room and I will get a white table to go with them.  It took sooo much longer that I though, about 12 hours total to do 6 chairs.  I used chalk paint from Home Depot (not chalk board, but CHALK paint!) and it's great, it really gives that vintage cottage feel and NO SANDING NEEDED!  These chairs were a paint though with all the little nooks and creases!  I'm happy though how they turned out, all in all, it was about 65 bucks to repaint and re-do the chair covers, not a bad deal!

Here is the before...

Here is the after!


In other news, we have our 10 month (more like 11 month) scheduled for May 5th, so I will report back on how that goes!  Mostly just little fixes, and our dishwasher NEVER DRIES! UGH!  Anyone else have the problem?  GE is coming out that day too to take a look, hopefully we can get a new one, I hear that model has numerous complaints online about not drying the dishes.  Our yard sucks too, it's HORRIBLE, so many sunken in spots, giant tree roots, rocks... there is a huge "bowl" in the back yard, nothing will grow there and it's a swamp!  Our side yard barely has grass, it's just rocks and dirt pretty much!

9 comments:

  1. Those chairs look awesome! And I can't wait to see your new island. I don't like the RH island shapes either so we plan to do our own down the road.

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  2. Hey Stranger!! Nice to see you :)! Cant wait to see all your projects. Loving the chairs, very nicely done. Oh the YARD, oh my the YARD. It is the root of my evil. LOL. They planted it last June and we fought it to grow all summer, had numerous patch works done to it. a 10 month overhaul and its still complete shit after so much time and money! I think all of our bases are just so bad, nothing but weeds want to grow, soooooooooooo many ppl in our neighborhood are fighting this battle, they just need torn out and re done correctly. I bug the crap out of my SM and PM to get better grass, they keep doing patchwork, but nothing works. It needs torn out. I dont know what else do to!!!

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  3. Love the new look of the chairs!

    Our dishwasher doesn't do a great job of drying either, but with a couple of changes it does better than it did initially. I have to make sure it has jet dry in it or it won't even attempt to dry anything... and I have to keep it on the boost or sanitize setting. Even with those changes I find any bowls with an edge stay a little wet... and all of my lids stay wet. I've been known to open the dishwasher and pull the racks out a bit to let things air dry.

    Don't even get me started on the yard... ugh! I spent DAYS picking up rocks last spring just so we could attempt to grow grass. Now that it's finally stopped snowing and it's warming up I've found that we somehow grew rocks over the winter. I give up at this point. They regraded around our house... added new dirt, put down grass seed, and covered it with straw in late fall... now we have a 4-5 foot dirt strip all the way around the house and down both sides of the driveway where almost NONE of the grass grew. We are definitely not winning any "best lawn" awards anytime soon.

    Good luck with your 10 month!

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    1. We do the same thing with our dishwasher now, i put it on the boost with steam dry and let it air dry too, it just seems that we shouldn't have to do that! My mom's GE she got when she built their RH is the basic SS model and hers never leaves a wet dish, so I think it must be this model? Either way, I'm going to complain my heart out until there is a resolution! We also can't use the packets because they NEVER dissolve, granted, it's cheaper to just use the bottle stuff but again, it shouldn't be happening

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  4. M, what is it in Pittsburgh and growing grass?? Why don't they do it correctly here? I think its because of the crap kind of dirt we got full of rocks, they back fill our lots with the crap they dug our houses with. I agree, not matter how much gravel you pick up, it keeps floating back up to the top, making growing anything impossible!! What else do we do besides tearing it up and laying down REAL DIRT?

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    1. It's definitely a Pittsburgh thing... I have more rocks than I did last year the dirt is crap I'm going to just have to hire a professional to fix it I'm sure... They don't give you top soil, it's just back fill and cow shit

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    2. I think it's everywhere to be honest since I'm not in PA. I think the issue is definitely coming from them using the same dirt that they dig up when laying the foundation... and of course they don't sift it or anything to remove the rocks. That left me with crappy clay soil and rocks for a yard, neither of which are ideal for growing anything. It would be so much nicer if they'd just haul in some good, rock free dirt, but I'm sure that would cut into their profit margin.

      RH told us that they'd give us a one time delivery of dirt if we want it... and judging by the pile of dirt in my neighbor's yard it's an improvement on the clay. That might be something worth looking into for you all as well. I believe they also said they'd throw in a bag of grass seed, but it's probably going to be the 60% rye mix they used to jump start all of the yards in my area.

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    3. We have purchased truck loads of dirt ourselves and tried to solve the problem and YET no frickin grass, its a true mystery. I dont get it at all. True Green has been here to weed and feed and still no growth. I think our grounds are so hard and full of rock the seed has nothing to attach to, and them comes the hard rains, washes away all our hard work, it a vicious cycle. This is such a common complaint with RH I dont know how it goes ignored.

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  5. Awesome job on the chairs. I'm also a DIY-er. You did great!! I love chalk paint too.

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