SUYL- Pictures & Curtains

** SO SORRY!! I GOT THE WEEK'S TOPIC MIXED UP ( I HAVEN'T PARTICIPATED IN SUYL FOR  A FEW WEEKS) SO THE FIRST PART IS ON PICTURES AND THEN I ADDED CURTAINS AT THE BOTTOM!!!**

HEY! to all of you visiting from Kelly's Korner and Classy Clutter!!!

Just to give y'all a heads up, we just moved into our house a few weeks ago so I don't have much to share today.  What I do want to show is Natalyn & Elia Rose's 95% completed bathroom!!!

Get ready for several pics as I share my little project that I completed for their bathroom.

I started with 12x12 frames from Hobby Lobby. I got them 85% off a few months ago. (You know when Hobby Lobby has to clear 1/4 of the building to make room for Christmas decor in mid-May!)

 Not only were these frames super cheap, but look at the detail!!!

 I got these wooden letters with my 40% off coupon and yes, I am one of those people that will do separate transactions to get each on sale!!

 Got my spray paint at Wal-mart. Krylon high gloss in Watermelon.

 Then I spray-painted the frames.  At first it was a bit of a war between me and dead grass.  Grass, wet spray paint and a strong south wind don't mix well. I finally just found some empty cardboard boxes in the garage (I had previously had the frames on flat cardboard directly in the ground) and this helped a lot!!!

See how cute the frames are looking!

 Next step was painting 12x12 canvas. I know the paintings look a little weird, but once you see their shower curtain, you will understand.

 Natalyn, my little helper hard at work!!  She painted a canvas that will eventually go in the toy room.  She then moved onto painting cardboard boxes (we have a million few of them around here at this time!)

 After phase I of painting dried, I then traced their first initials on each canvas using the wooden letters.

 Finished product!!!

 I know the pics are hung a little too high on the wall, but I don't want little grubby hands pulling them off the wall (and when I say "little grubby hands," I mean Elerz!!)

 I know the trashcan doesn't match, that's a project for another day!!  (I already warned you that the bathroom was only 95% complete!)                        

** OK.  Why is it that when you need to take a few quick pics that your camera's battery

goes dead!  I charged that sucker for like 3 minutes to get enough power to take these pics.  They aren't very good, but you get the point!**

CURTAINS, CURTAINS, CURTAINS!!!!!

These are our new curtains for the Master Bedroom.  They are grey-blue tweedish fabric.  I am thinking about adding some fabric to the bottom once I finally decide on pillows and throws for the bed ( my original idea turned out awful!!)

 Ignore the mess around the night stands....

 These are Nat's curtains.  We had them in the old house and I am planning to re-do her room once she starts school, so they are staying right now.  They are black-out curtains from Target. ( If anyone out there has any ideas for a rainbow , pink leopard, ladybug, country music , fashion room----LET ME KNOW! (that has been Nat's request.

 I tied a knot in ribbon and cut the back loop and added velcro to use as cutain ties.

 These are Elia's new curtains.  I got them at Wal-mart for $10 each (they are black-out aswell!)

I am also planning to update her room, but plan to keep with the same color scheme she currently has.

 I love me some polka dots!!!!

THANKS FOR STOPPING BY!!!

My little Olympians

Have you been glued to the TV this week like me?  I am very proud of team USA, even though China is so kicking our can in gold metal standings so far......blah.blah......Anyway, my whole family (even the kiddos) stayed up and watched girl's gymnastics both Sunday and Tuesday night.  Elia Rose loves her some beach volley ball and any event that involves a pool.  She says it is "Papa's pool" and will point at the TV and say "there it is!"  Anyway, back to girl's gymnastics (my fav sport to watch) Elia has been really studying the TV and then will try to mimic what she sees.  Of course, she STOPS the second I pull out any type of recording device to capture the moment!!!!  One night she did what I would call a very beginner cartwheel thingy. I did the math and during the 2028 Olympics Elia will be 17 so that would be her one and only shot at the gold!!!! I think it would be awesome to be one of the crazy parents in the stands. ( I have really loved that the media has included the athlete's parents reactions in this Olympics!)  I think I will sign Elia up for a fit kidz class after the first of the year to see how she does.

Again, back to gymnastics (oh how I veer off), here is small video of the girls working a routine, it looks a little bit of a combination of the floor & beam routine.  ENJOY!!!!

I've been "pinned!"

I haven't had time to post anything this week or even check my computer for that matter.  I currently have 300+ emails waiting for me!!  But hey-I have all the kitchen and clothes boxes cleaned out.  It felt so good yesterday to see empty boxes that I happily threw out in the garage. The swing set has been put back together, so happy that project is OVER!!!  Last night, Scott and I tackled the toy room and 2.5 hours later it was a livable space. So to congratulate myself this morning, I thought I would get out on my blog and see what was going on.  Well, I  noticed that I have been "pinned" (not sure if that is the right word to use or not...) on pin interest that is.  Appears someone out there in cyber world liked my old mantle decor and a grouping of pics that were in Natalyn's room.  Funny!!

That's all I got for today!!!



All under ONE roof!!!

OK. We have been busting it to get out of the old house and into the new one.  I haven't checked my blog or posted anything in like...ummmm.5 days -ish?  I feel like I am a little out of the loop!  So...we handed over the keys to the old house this morning and we are done....DONE!!! Now I just have to focus on one mess (a huge mess might I add) but at least we are dealing with one house, not two!!  I hope to get the kitchen all set up by the end of today, but we'll see. I keep thinking I am close to being finished and then find another box.  When I started packing the old house, I carefully labeled each box with the contents, etc.... But by this weekend, I was just ready to get moved (plus it was like 103-ish outside)so I resorted to a very sophisticated way of packing called "grab it and stuff it in a box or anywhere!!!"  I am seriously thinking that a garage sale is in my near future.  We have too much junk!!!!  And I DARE the girls to tell me they have nothing to play with!! I think we had three truck loads of toys only!! 

I would share with you the disaster condition the house is in currently, but I can't find the cord to down-load the pics, so that will  have to wait for another time.  I will add a pic of the front of the house though.

Oh- and our new neighbors greeted us with cookies this morning! You gotta love that!!!!

NEW HOUSE

OLD HOUSE

I just had to add a pic of the girls.  I know I mentioned the loads of toys we hauled to the new house and look what they want to play with.......a box!!!!



NEVER BUY A HOUSE FROM.........

OK. The moment you have all been waiting for.......I hope I can meet your expectations as I am tired (I am running on large amounts of Dr.Pepper!) and my sentences may/may not be complete or even make sense for that matter.  Bottom line ----we closed on the house yesterday so now I feel comfortable to "spill the beans!"

For those of you that have been following our building journey, you are well aware that it has been a bit of a struggle.  We knew when we decided to build that it would be stressful, but this was just ridiculous!!!!

 It started with the frame work and plumbing not being correct.  At that point we met with the builder, his foreman, his assist and and our realtor on site to discuss.  Our builder claims that he was blind sighted with all the issues, even though we had sent several emails explaining such to his realtor/brother, whom we had been under the impression that he was the actual builder until 45 days into the build!!!!  The "discussion" got a  little heated shall we say!  The conversation ended with the builder agreeing to reduce the house price  (we were told a % and verbally agreed to such on site.)  We immediately went home and recapped the conversation with our numbers and requested the credit amounts via email so we could get an addendum to the contract.  No response..........The builder just seemed irritated with us the entire build as we made him adhere to an addendum of house changes that he signed with the original contract. Let me note that we literally picked out everything for the house BEFORE the foundation was poured and DID NOT change anything!!!  I practically emailed his assistant everyday with things that were wrong and needed changing.  Example: brick mason's ran out of brick so another pallet was delivered.  I went out to inspect the brick, the invoice said the brick was correct, but the label on the pallet was a different brick. It visually was a different brick. I emailed to not put this brick on the house and it went up anyway!! I am talking about 1/3 of the house was bricked in the wrong brick!!!! It took who knows how many people to look at the brick before it was decided that it needed to come down.  Bottom line- it should not have went on the house to begin with!!!!-OK..let me get back to the point!!!  Basically, he just doesn't seem to think that he has to communicate with his customers and this was a custom build!!!

Anyway-as the closing date came closer, we needed to finalize everything!! We even gave a punch list 2 weeks ago to help get this house closed last Friday!!  Technically, per the contract we did not have to give a punch list until 5 business days after the C of O was received (which wasn't until last Thurs-the day before the original closing date!) the builder then would have 5 business days to comply with the punch list items.   We felt this put our builder in default of the contract.  Then we finally got our final credit amounts last Thursday, so on Friday our plan was to have an extension of the closing date signed (to allow for the bank and title comp time to prepare the closing doc) and my husband is welcomed with a Friday the 13th surprise!!!!!  He is told via phone and email from our builder's assistant that they cannot reduce the sell price because they don't have authorization to do so.  The options that were given to us were we can pay the full amount or terminate the contract, either way they will not reimburse us any monies that we have already paid.  TALK ABOUT A MAJOR BLOW!!!! When Scott called me, I thought at first he was kidding, just trying to get me worked up!!! I called the assistant and explained that is not what was verbally (with witnesses) agreed upon and that we have 3 inches of emails pertaining to this house (we made sure everything had a paper trail) so if they want to stick to this story that's fine!  My husband then sent an email that we take this as their termination of the contract.  15 minutes later Scott get a call from the builder- he is yelling and throwing a fit- calling my husband heartless and such.  Apparently, the builder's 8 yr old son was dx with cancer 2 weeks ago and is in LR at Children's undergoing chemo ( let's stop there for a sec---please pray for healing for his son-- this situation has nothing to do with our house)  Now back to my story-------Scott was a little shocked and said he was sorry about that - he didn't know about his son, in fact this is only the 2nd time he has ever talked our builder, regardless we have been asking for his credits to get a new contract written up for 10 weeks.  The builder then said he would take "X" amount off the house ( I guess he suddenly had authorization again!)- we can take it or leave it--- either way we will have to sue him for our money if we don't buy the house.   Do we feel our builder is totally a liar??? OH YEA!! ( we feel he most likely offered this to save himself any future litigation). We went home and discussed the situation and felt that we were backed into a corner.  If we start over, Nat loses her spot at her new school and such.  There were some other factors that I am not going to get int  that made us feel like we needed to go ahead and proceed with the purchase.  We could have sued and probably recovered our loss, but since we were not sure if we could recover our attorney's fees, it could end up a total wash. ( OK- my fingers are aching here!!) So ....Saturday, we signed an extension of closing and the builder waited until Monday afternoon to sign as well.....

So we closed FINALLY yesterday at 2:30 and are now working our tails off trying to get into the house.
If you are in the NWA area- buyer beware-----our builder is RIGGINS CONSTRUCTION.  The nicest thing I can say about this company is that if you buy a spec house you might be fine, as you don't have to deal with the builder AT ALL!!!!!
A co-worker of Scott's found a rating on yellowpages.com on Riggins-it was a story similar to ours. Apparently he is also building in Joplin, MO, due to the tornado damage from May 2011 and gave the run around with that customer too.
Ya know word of mouth advertising can be your best friend or your worst enemy!!!
So........like I said we are currently getting moved into the house and plan to make the best of it and "move" on with our lives!!! Ya live and ya learn, huh?

 I hope to start showing decorated rooms  next week!!!!

House craziness!!!

I have no weekend update nor any cute photos of the girls to share with you today.

What I will express is that we had a "bomb" dropped in our laps in regards to the new house on Friday.  All I will say at this time is that we have not closed on the house.  I will have a post explaining all the details that have transpired by Wednesday.  So get ready.......you may want to find a comfty seat, bring a snack.........because you'll be reading quite a lengthy post when I spill my guts!!!!



Just say NO!!

Just say  NO TO CRACK that is.........

When I saw Elerz in this situation I couldn't resist!!!!