2 months later....

I have gotten so behind on posting on here, ooops!  A whole lot has happened around here since I got home in April, and I am going to try and fill you in!  I have a bunch of photos to post of our home reno projects, and a few random shots of us in Colorado.  May as well get on it.....

I left off with the before shots of the Purple Cave Office, and how it looked with the primer on the wall, so I may as well start there and show you how the office turned out!

Here's the first coat:

And after the second coat, before we got things organized and cute...:

And after we got everything organized and looking great!

That awesome retro chair used to be Luke's Grandma's - a very special addition to our house :)

Now onto the bathroom - in my last post on the bathroom I had started peeling up the floor, so we'll start from there....here is the progress of the bathroom floor....

This is the very small section I unearthed late at night when I was trying out different ways of getting the glue and many different layers of old tile off the floor - the lovely green is all stripped and clean!

We had a number of other projects in the bathroom other than the floor - the previous owners had done some serious patch work on the walls...they were absolutely terrible!  They needed to be sanded down a LOT and evened out a LOT!  Everything needed at least 2 coats of paint, including inside our huge but super dark closet.  The room never had proper baseboards, so we had to put those on as well.  Here's some of our progress....

Luke taking down the cool stainless steel fan cover that was super gross and dirty, but once I scrubbed it a TON, it was gleaming and shiny and new all over again :)

Luke taking care of the massive amounts of sanding!  He was a trooper! :)

The closet before - a TON of space, but dark and gloomy...

All painted and white and sooo much brighter!

I was planning on getting some light coloured sticky paper for the shelves, but never got there....oh well!  So much better even with a coat of paint :)

AFTER!

This is my antique glass towel bar I got at a local antique mall - LOVE it! :)

Here's just a few shots to describe just how much I love renos and home projects.....you'll understand ;)

This is my living room....there were about 2 or 3 projects going on at the same time....I HATE disorder like this!!!!  This is why I looked like this....

Our other major project was the foyer...we needed to pull up the disgusting old tile and lay new stuff, as well as add new trims, etc.
Here's the old:

Gross eh?!  UGH!  It was in dire need of being pulled up....even Bailey thought so ;)

This was actually a really neat project - we got a great deal on this nice looking slate vinyl tile, and we bought a special vinyl tile grout and put a 1/8" grout line around all the tiles.  In the foyer we did them in a subway type pattern, and in the bathroom we just did them straight, but also grouted.  It sure looked great afterwards - the grout matched perfectly, and it was very easy!  I would recommend it for sure - it looks like so much more than just peel and stick tile! :)

We had a few other projects on our schedule while I was there - one of which was going through our closets and dressers and dwindling down our clothes - we had too many :)  Of course, Luke had to take it to the extreme.... he was inspired by this amazing photo he saw online....

Luke decided to take this as a personal affront and challenge....he indeed can be 4 popped-collars cool!

And then we come to Luke's favourite outfit from high school....I dont' think the hat was a part of it originally, but it really makes it ;)

My other project was making Luke some freezer meals....and since I document everything, I thought I would document that as well ;)  Get ready for some real excitement!

Spaghetti sauce, Stroganoff sauce, lasagna, shepherd's pie and some chicken/pepper/onion stir fry....yummy stuff!

We went and visited Roman and Gianna before I had to go back home - Roman made a miraculous recovery and was like a completely different child when we saw him again!  It was truly amazing that he was the same little boy who had been in a bed with tubes coming out of his mouth, that we all had to gown up and wear masks when we visited him, who was so sedated and out of it....and now here he was just a week later running around having a water fight with Luke and Gianna :)

And of course, to end the Colorado portion of our little step through the past two months, here is a photo of my love and I :)

Now for the SUPER exciting news!!!!  I think all of you know by now, but Luke and I are expecting our first child in December!!!  Ahh, I know, it wasn't expected or anything, but we are over the shock now and super excited! :)  We know that it's not exactly the most ideal situation with Luke not here and everything, but we know that God will work things out.  We have faith that Luke will somehow manage to be here for all of the important moments - we appreciate any and all prayers!  Thanks everyone :)

Of course my family is super excited....my Mom and sister Ali got us our first baby present!!

So cute eh?!  I KNOW! :):):)  So sweet!

I think that's about it....a lot of information, I know!  A few other big things I should mention - we're renting out our house at the end of this month.  It's an amazing opportunity to wait out the housing market until this sad, depressed economy gets a little better and we can actually MAKE some money on our house!  The people who are renting our place are great - Luke's worked with the wife for years and has gotten to know her family.  The husband is a contractor and is going to be doing some projects on the house for us as well, so that is SUCH a great situation!  We're really excited about the opportunity.  We know God provided it for us, because we were really stressing about having to sell the house, and how much we would actually walk away with....the market is just so bad.  So this is just perfect - we're praying that it all works out as we're hoping, for everyone involved!  Luke got a great deal on a storage unit, so he's moved all of our stuff out of the house and he's going to be staying with his parents for awhile until he can move back up here.

We had to find homes for our two kitties, Bailey and Zoey.  We were very sad to have to give them away, but it would have been very unfair of us to move them to Luke's parents house, and then to Canada.  It just wouldn't have worked.  We found them absolutely perfect home for them, so we were extremely thankful for that.  Zoey is a very timid and shy kitty who is leery of people from time to time, and she went to this amazing couple that Luke used to work with - the husband had a stroke a number of years ago, and they both wanted a really sweet companion.  Zoey fit the bill perfectly, and from the updates that Luke's been getting, she is fitting into her new home absolutely great!  The story of how Bailey got adopted is a great one :)  Luke had our old treadmill on Craigslist, and this lady came with her daughter to buy it, and as they were loading it in the car Bailey was trying to catch this bird and was being a little hunter, and the lady said to her daughter, "That's the kind of cat you need!" and she explained that they live on a farm and always have mice and always have birds living in their hay, etc.  Her daughter's been wanting a cat for awhile now, and they apparently just loved Bailey!  So Luke told them the situation and that we were actually trying to find a home for her, and they took her home that night!!  Crazy eh?!  We were so thankful :)  Bailey loves going outside and spends so much time hunting and playing with bugs and things - she will do great on a farm!  So it really was the best situation we could imagine :)  We will miss them a lot, but we're very thankful that they've gone to homes that will appreciate them.

We have a trip to Vegas planned at the end of June, and we're hoping that Luke can come back up to Canada with me for July and August - it would be so great to have him here for so long! :)  I'm hoping that while he's here he can at least hear the baby's heartbeat, and even go for our 3D ultrasound to find out if we're having a boy or a girl!  It will just depend on how far along I am and if I can schedule it for while he's here.  I had my first Doctor's appointment on Wednesday, and actually heard the baby's heartbeat!!!  It was an amazing experience, and I wished so much that Luke had been there with me.  They think I'm between 9-10 weeks along, but they're not sure.  They're actually going to send me for an early assessment ultrasound next week to determine exactly, so that will be great.  I'm getting much more excited as this progresses ;)

Anyway, ladies and gents, that's our past two months!!  Pretty crazy - much excitement!  A few things thrown in that we didn't expect, but I guess that's life eh?  I will definitely try to keep up with the posts much better now that life has slowed down a little bit :)

Take care all!