July 25th: The day our family grew.

We closed on our house a couple of weeks ago and learned a lot, apparently the little rose bush in the back is original to the home. A 61 year old rose bush? Who would've thought? The backyard is also full of raspberry bushes and grape vines! It's a new adventure every time we're outside.

The day we closed we immediately went over to the house prepared to start cleaning. We were greeted by my family who made it there first. :)

I had mentioned to my sister awhile ago that Id love some "new home" pictures. I haven't seen very many people do it but of course my dear friend Pinterest introduced me to the idea.

My talented sister was more than willing to capture a few wonderful moments for us. I'll just let the photos speak for themselves :)

We absolutely love our new home and our pictures! I know many are itching to see the inside, don't worry friends i'll show you soon. We have been keeping super busy with tons of projects, I plan on keeping everyone posted on our progress with our humble abode through the blogosphere! :D

xo Breia

If you want to see more amazing photos check out Alyssa Rei Photography, riiiight.... here

The Washboard Story

Once upon a time, there was a very sad looking washboard that was abandoned by it's owners who moved to Colorado. No one else wanted this old, dirty washboard, so he was placed in the "to be thrown" pile. The poor guy felt dejected sitting there in my mother-in-law's garage. I'm sure he was once loved. Little did he know that when I found him, he'd be loved again and oh boy do I love him!

 

 

When I found him in the garage he was so dirty I didn't realize there were any words!

I gave him a bath before I took a picture. You may just have to trust me when I say, it was dirty.

"Bonafide Brass"
 

After giving it a bath I took it apart and started sanding it. , I don't have any pictures of that. Its not the fun part to see anyways. When I was done sanding it I knew I wanted to restore it to its former glory and staining it would be the best option.

Since I got it for free I didn't exactly want to spend a whole lot on it. Frugal, I am. I searched my Dad's garage and found some Polyshades, (as you can tell by the rust, its been around for awhile). I'll let you know right away this stuff is sticky and isn't like a normal stain. It has polyurthane in it which also gives it a little bit of shine.You can find it here at home depot, they have all sorts of colors. 

 

Early on I knew I wanted the washboard to be useful and had decided that it would make the perfect shelf! My Dad and I once again went out and perused the garage, we found some spare wood and he helped me fashion a shelf.  

 

I'm sure it's a known fact that every project has a few bumps along the way, this one did not disppoint. The wood we used for the shelf, though wonderfully repurposed was a different kind and the stain color was way off. Before we set off to the store Mike and my Dad thought using different oils would darken it up. Haha trust me when I say, it didn't work. Valiant effort though boys. We caved and bought some MinWax Dark Walnut for the shelf. Before we stained it we used my Great Grandpa's old school wood plainer to rough it up a little.

 

 

 

The metal sheet of the washboard proved to be a problem when we were trying to put it back in. It was too big. Originally it was assembled in a way that the wood pieces were built around the metal piece. 

 

 

 Mike ended up using a dremel to cut it down. Each bit by bit we cut we checked to see how it was fitting. After a few cuts it slid in with minimal effort. Hooray!

  

 

After the staining the words were hardly visible. I hand painted the words using regular acrylic paint and a very tiny detailing brush. (The words were my favorite part from the beginning)

Tada!



 

I'll be using this shelf in the guest bedroom in our new house and much preferred a silver over the gold. Good ol' spray paint made it happen. I left one side gold in case one day I get a little crazy and change my mind ;)

 

 

The End

xo Breia

 

**Stay tuned to see where Mr. Washboard will live. We aren't starting on the guest room for awhile. The living room is our first project.

 

 

Sea-Foam and Scallops

I've had the opportunity a few times this past week to drive by this beautiful house to show it off to various excited family members. I've been fairly discreet concerning this sweet bungalow. But, I can't even...hold it in any more, i'm so thrilled.
When we were walking (ahem.. running) away from the poisonous emitting mushroom house our dear friend Joan (one of our realtors) told us that once we find "the" house, "our" house, we will wonder why we were so adamant about the other one. She's seen it multiple times, and i'll be the first to admit that she was right.

When I saw this cute sea-foam green bungalow (note the white picket fence!), my heart did two things, melted and then started building a shiny new barrier around it. I didn't want to fall completely in love with it and not get it. At one point Mike told our agent we would have to think about it because it was at the top of our price range, I immediately gave him "the look" and quickly voiced my opposite opinion before it was too late.

The next day we put in an offer and not too long after that we got word from our agent saying the seller was getting another offer and wanted to look at them side by side, so we opted to increase our offer.

I go into work the next day (I work at the real estate office our agents work at) and our other dear friend Dave (Joan's husband, our other agent) tells me they have a third offer and 3 more showings that day but that the seller loves the idea of us, a young couple making her home their first, so we yet again had the opportunity to change our offer. We knew she would get well beyond asking price with all of the interest in the home. Our agent made it very clear to the sellers agent that if Mike and I decided to go in all the way, this back and forth, waiting for the most offers would have to stop, the showings would need to be cancelled and the already existing offers would need to be denied. We gave the verbal go ahead Dave got the other agent on the phone and right then while I was sitting at my desk across the room from him, I get two thumbs up. After a few days filled with lots of back and forth and "Oh wait we have another offer." They finally chose our offer!

A little Woodward house search background: Each house we went and looked at throughout our search ended up having a nickname which helped us distinguish which house was which. There were so many in such a short period of time they got jumbled together sometimes. There was the bird house, the green house, the yuck house, the now popular mushroom house formerly known as the stucco house and the....

Scalloped house!  

Why scallops you ask?

Look at the cute detailing on the garage!

Them right there... are scallops!

And I LOVE them!

Let me illustrate some of the different feelings I'm having this time around. While preparing to purchase the mushroom house I had concocted multiple lists of things that needed to be done to it, if you don't remember the mushroom/stucco house it was freshly flipped, all shiny like, you can get a visual right here if you''d like. When I created a master list it was roughly two pages long. I felt like I HAD to do these things but felt BAD for wanting to since it was all new and shiny. There were some things needed to get done, like broken glass in the windows, wrongly wired thermostat, wire the cable to living spaces, ect. Not to mention the wrong roof. *eye roll* It was overwhelming and the whole experience was certainly rushed. As for this house, I haven't written any honey-do lists, and I feel more than content to live in the home for awhile before doing anything drastic. Granted i'd love to paint almost immediately. I also feel like we could live in the house for a longer period of time compared to my feelings with the other home. Maybe that has something to do with the other one being vacant and this one being sold by it's previous owner of 20 yrs. I picture life more easily in the scalloped house. :)

Well there you have it folks... round two!

ox Breia

p.s. It passed inspection with flying colors!
Let the waiting game commence.