It's Official... We've Moved!!!

We are SO excited to be in our new home. It's been great living here for the past 5 days!!!

Here's a break down of what we have been doing in the last couple of weeks:

We had our new recessed lights installed in our Kitchen by Genius at Quaweay Electric. They definitely change the look of the Kitchen. I have to say that Genius did an excellent job (especially for not hiring a professional lighting specialist)! Please note that we are still waiting for our drywall guy to finish out the Kitchen so that we can paint it. So don’t mind all of the framing in the ceiling. Here is a picture of the before and after:

Before

After

We tore down all of the existing wall paper in the Master Bedroom and Master Bathroom. We also removed all of the wood paneling in the Master Bedroom. We were lucky because the wall paper just peeled right off of the walls. The wood paneling on the other hand was a pain to remove. Will had to bust out his “demo skills"… and worked his hammer! I was impressed. After we removed everything – we patched all of the walls and painted them. Here is a picture of the before and after Master Bedroom! I think all the HGTV watching paid off... what do you guys think?

Before

After

We also had the ceilings professionally scrapped of their popcorn – and we personally primed and put two layers of paint on them. Painting the ceiling is the hardest and most frustrating thing. Talk about having neck problems after the fact. Oh yes, and we can’t forget our faces full of white splattered dots!!! I guess this is the joy of painting upside down.

Unfortunately, we still have the two bedrooms to paint. Painting goes a lot slower than anticipated – I think prepping the walls takes the most time! The ceilings are finished – but we just need to paint the walls. It shouldn’t be too bad – and we might be able to get one room finished this weekend! Keep your fingers crossed.

We have also been in the process of changing out every single plug and light switch in the house. I was given the honors of removing the plates – and Will is wiring all of the electrical work. You would think it is a simple task… but it takes time! I think we have about 40 plugs/switches to redo! We are still in the process of changing them!

We had our carpets steam cleaned by Hank at Diablo View Cleaning. He did an amazing job – all of the stains in our carpet came up. It was my first time watching carpets being professionally cleaned. It is definitely fascinating. I could have watched him clean the carpets all day! Luckily, it was so warm that the carpets were dry within 12 hours!!!

We also hired Ivan’s Landscaping to remove the juniper bushes in the front yard of our house and remove a lot of the weeds and overgrown bushes in our backyard. He and his crew did a great job. The house looks completely different in the front – and I’m sure that we are making our neighbors happy in the meantime! Check out the before and after pictures of our front yard:

Before

After

Last Thursday we were given a great opportunity to use Will’s old company’s moving van for FREE. When I say for free – I mean it. It was such a lifesaver. With all of our recent expenses in purchasing our new home… it was nice to have something come about us for free. We went down to Mountain View Thursday morning to pick up the van, and dropped it back off on Monday afternoon. We couldn’t have asked for anything better. It came with one bungee cord (would have been nice to have more, but we we’re happy) and a heavy duty dolly.

Later on in the afternoon we went and purchased our new refrigerator from Friedman’s Appliances in Pleasant Hill. At first I wasn’t too impressed with this store. There we’re tons of salesmen standing around – and not one of them said, “May I help you?”, when we first walked in. I almost told Will that we should leave… until a lady named Veena approached us. She was incredibly nice and very helpful. She led us to our favorite fridge... an Electrolux. Ultimately, we ended up purchasing it there. It is a beauty. The price was definitely on the higher end – but it is the most amazing fridge I have ever seen. Keeping with our stainless steel Kitchen theme – we we’re able to get a matching stainless steel fridge! We love it and want to thank my in-laws for the gift! Here is a picture of it right when it was delivered!

So this leads us to our moving day, July 4, 2009! On Saturday we had the great help of our old neighbor from our apartment complex, Jordan, in helping us move. Of course, I set the moving start time for 6am. For those of you who know me… I don’t waste any time! Plus, with the way the weather had been recently and the past weekend (107 degrees at our house to be exact) – I didn’t want to take the risk of moving later in the afternoon. Luckily after three total truck loads of stuff – we were finally finished.

We are very grateful to have such a great old neighbor to help us out. We couldn’t have done it without him. I think Will and I we’re basically shot (sore and tired) after the day was over… but Jordan still managed to have some energy in him! I don’t know how he did it! We are going to miss our awesome neighbors… and hope that our new neighbors are just as nice!

The rest of the weekend (we took Thursday-Monday off from work) was spent unpacking. We still have tons of boxes lying around… but for the most part we have the big things set-up. We finally got internet/phone/cable hooked up yesterday. Thank goodness for our iPhones!

After moving in, we managed to install our new dining room chandelier put up. When Will and I first found this chandelier at Home Depot – we knew it was for us! It is very modern – just like our taste in home furniture! Check it out:



Will also demo'd all of the existing shelving in the Garage. I had the opportunity to use our shop vac to suck up all of the dead spiders, cobwebs and dirt! In the process, Will broke the head off of his hammer. We couldn’t believe it! I guess that hammer wasn't made out of 50 ksi steel (for all you EngiNerds!). But anyhow, our Garage looks brand new!!!!

This weekend we are hoping to find a new garage door and garage door opener. Our current garage door is broken – so we aren’t parking any cars inside of it. I can’t wait to actually have a garage again. I can’t wait to wash and wax my car myself!!!! It’s been parked under the trees with sap for way too long…

Well we can’t wait for everyone to come and visit us at our new house! Please let us know if you are ever in the area. Our doors are always open for guests!