New Countertops

This blog was apparently feeling neglected, which must be the reason for us already having to replace our kitchen countertops. Seriously though, I haven't been happy with the countertops since the day that we moved in. So here's a little history behind the madness......

We chose Corian because we had seen a countertop color that we loved actually on a set of cabinets that are the same color as ours. They looked great in person in the showroom. Also, when we were choosing our cabinets, the sales woman insisted that we go with Corian because it is SOOOOO wonderful and it was in our budget. We asked a few times about Granite, but were told that we didn't want Granite because it was porous, couldn't be sanded, and it was out of our budget. Fine! We went with our Corian.

I still loved the color of the countertops in our house when it was put in and figured that maybe I was just too anal and thought that everything should be perfect. Richard decided to have the cabinet/countertop people come out and take a look. Again, they said, "This is the way that Corian is." They sanded a few spots, this time leaving swirl marks all over the countertops. They came back a second time and resanded, which removed the swirl marks, but they still looked awful in my opinion.

Finally, Richard demanded that the manager or owner of the store contact us. After much discussion and back and forth negotiation, they finally agreed to give us our money back. YIKES!! We got what we wanted, but now what were we going to replace them with? Remember, granite was OUT OF OUR BUDGET!!! Come to find out, that cabinet/countertop shop didn't even sale granite countertops which is why she would never entertain us with granite quotes. Richard called a place that sales only granite and surprise, surprise, we could have granite for the same price.

Our dilemmas continued because now we had to choose a color. We both LOVE the darker colors, but decided that all of the natural light that comes in through our windows was causing us to see all of the swirls, marks, etc. on the countertops. We knew we had to go with a light color. Granite is just so busy, it was so difficult to decided. Finally, we decided after much indecision. Here are the results. It is going to take me a while to get used to it, but I do like it. I think it looks much classier. Poor, Kamdyn, will just have to get used to it. After all of this, we are stuck with these countertops for a LONG while! The End!

Updates

Today I had the entire day to run around town searching for items to make our house look more complete. Kamdyn was at the Mall and swimming with Georgia and Jacob. My Mom mentioned that she wished that she was here so she could shop with me. Since you couldn't be here, Mom, here are the results of my shopping day. I still need area rugs, a few more throw pillows for the sofas, playroom storage shelves/benches, and an entryway bench. We also need to have the back deck painted/stained. But, we are making some strides. Patience is not really my best virtue.

I LOVED this front door welcome mat that I found today as well as the polka dot flag. I couldn't resist them. I have seen the flags a few times in our old neighborhood and I found them today in a boutique here in Augusta. (You know, those boutiques/shops that you wouldn't dare take a toddler into for fear that she will touch and possibly break everything in the store.) Our front porch got the two new rocking chairs as well as the urns with ferns. Our house is slowing, but surely, starting to look like a home.







By the way, tonight Richard and I were sitting on the boat after Kamdyn went to bed. The sun was setting to our right and the HUGE full moon was rising to our left. It was beautiful! As we were coming up from the dock a fox was in our backyard headed in the same direction as us. We all froze. I was too startled to take a picture! Luckily, he turned around and went the other way. Richard assured me that the fox was more afraid of us than we were of him. I'm not too sure about that!!! This wildlife is causing my heart to skip more than a few beats much often than I would like.

Hardwood Floors

UGH! All of my friends who already have hardwood floors chose to keep it a secret from me as to how hard it is to keep them clean!!! They do look beautiful and I have always wanted them in my house, but I spend everyday looking at the mess on them. We had them in the house we rented in Columbia while I was getting my Masters, but that house was OLD and in much need of repair. Richard and I also had them in the apartment that we lived in while we were in NY. I never remember them being this difficult. Maybe I just didn't care about those places as much.

I think part of our problem is that we don't have area rugs yet. With this open floor plan and all of the light that comes in you see every mark, footprint, dirt, etc. What to do? I feel like I need to sweep and mop every single day, but it takes so long with the amount of hardwoods we have.

I have a special mop with removable dusting pads that you can throw in the wash and reuse. I use a special spray made for hardwood floors with this mop. (Thanks, Holly, for this mop and spray!) I already had a Swiffer mop, but bought the cleaning pads today to try on these floors. I feel like I am just pushing the dust/dirt around from one area to the next. Any other suggestions?

I realize that part of my problem, well MOST of my problem, is that I want everything to be perfect and neat and I want it to stay that way. I try to let it go, but it sometimes gets the best of me! HELP!!!

Front Porch

We are making some strides on our house. It is taking us a while, but eventually everything will be just as we want. On Friday night we picked up a new mattress and box springs for our guest bedroom. We also decided to buy stain and white paint for our front porch. I decided that we could stain the actual porch and the tops of the stairs, but I wanted the front of the steps that face the road to be painted white! Little did I know how much work that would be!!! I even volunteered to paint the fronts of the steps white. Richard worked on staining for part of the day. When Kamdyn went down for her nap, I began the laborious process of painting the fronts of the steps. Anyone who knows me well, knows how meticulous I am about most things. It was taking me forever to paint the steps white. I didn't want any brush marks to show. I wanted each milimeter covered with paint and heaven forbid I drop any on the already stained part. Needless to say, it took a LONG time for me to paint even one step! After Kamdyn's nap, Richard played with her inside while I worked away. Finally after about 4 hours of painting he came outside to see that I still had 3 steps in front to paint and I still had the ENTIRE right side to paint. He took over because he couldn't stand it any longer. Oh well! I can't help that I'm a neat freak!!! It is done now with a little bit of touch ups left to do on the sides.

Here are the before and after pictures. I definitely think that it looks much better!

Contract

Well, we "think" we finally have a contract on our old house that we will actually close on. We have had extremely bad luck with selling our house. Four different sets of people have looked at our house. We have had 3 contracts out of the 4. That sounds great, right? Well, not so much! The first couple assured us that they were already completely preaproved for their loan. All was great! We were closing on that contract on April 2nd which was perfect timing. We moved in to our house the weekend before. We should have know that was too good to be true. Their financing fell through!

Then, about a week after the first contract fell through a man came to our house one afternoon telling us that he was getting divorced. He said he had been married for 2 1/2 years and it was the worst 2 1/2 years of his life. He was coming back in a day or so to sign the contract. On the day he was supposed to sign, he called to tell us that he was going to give his wife 2 weeks to try to reconcile things. UGH!!! Are you kidding me???? Surprise, surprise, after about 3 weeks he emailed Richard to see if the house was still available. Ha! I'm still not kidding! Unfortunately, the interest rate had gone up and he could no longer afford our house.

Currently, we are under contract with a couple moving here from Texas. The husband is coming to MCG to do his residency. They have assured us that their financing will go through! Hmmm? Have we heard that before? We will close on June 11th, if all goes well. They will be pulling the UHaul to move on that day, too.

Please pray that this works out for us!

I'm Behind!

Well, I know I've been delinquent in keeping up with this blog. But, with all that has been going on, this was the first thing to go! Here are a few pictures of the house on the outside. The weekend before we moved in, Richard and I planted over 30 plants in the front yard. We are saving the back yard for another day. My backside hasn't ached liked that in a LONG time and I even Jazzercise religiously. Oh well!! Here is a picture of our hard work. We just put the pine needles down last night! The plants look much better with the pine needles around them. They are a little dwarfed with the height of the house, but they will grow! (I hope!) We still need to stain the porch/stairs. We need rocking chairs, something on the door, and the list goes on and on. I'm so impatient! I know I can't have everything right now, but I SURE do want it!!! We have to sale our old house first, so everyone please pray that we will do so VERY soon!




Here is a picture of the dock, too! I'm sure Richard will be disappointed because I didn't take one with his boat attached to the dock, but it wasn't in the water last night. Oh well!

Getting Closer

We have carpet both upstairs and downstairs.
Upstairs, it is berber carpet.


Downstairs, it is a soft, low-pile shag. LOVE IT!!!


The bannister looks great with the stain and spindles.


They still have to fix our pendant light, but we do have appliances.

Lights, Fans, Countertops

They have installed all of our "can" lights. The fans are up in all rooms except for the great room. The pendants are FINALLY over the bar. Even after the bar was moved, the pendants still had to be moved in order for them to be over the bar correctly. One of the globes is cracked and will have to be replaced. They will also have to repaint the ceiling where they patched up the previous pendant holes.


Kamdyn's Room


Master Bedroom


The countertops are in all bathroooms and the countertops are in the kitchen as well. They have them covered while they paint. I tried to get one picture of the kitchen countertop, but it is still VERY dirty. I am very pleased with the seamless sink in the kitchen (I'll get pics of this later).


Kamdyn's bathroom


Master Bath


Upstairs Bath


The have started putting the spindles on the upstairs bannister. I guess they ran out???

Moving Right Along

They are moving rather quickly on our house. There was a good bit to see today when we stopped by.

• The kitchen cabinet has been cut down; however, the island has not been moved.

• The tile was finished in the Master bathroom.

• The wall color is in all of the rooms now. We are so pleased with our paint choices. They still have to put a 2nd coat of paint in all rooms. This is a pic of the paint in the Master Bedroom with Trey ceiling.
  

• The handrails are up on all of the stairways.
• The bannister is up overlooking the balcony minus the spindles and stain.

• They have started painting the trim upstairs. They have also built our window seats/benches in front of our dormer windows.
  

• The concrete has been poured.

Just some pictures of the back of the house!

We have TILE!

This weekend we went by the house to check out the tile and to see what else had been done. They have completed the tile in Kamdyn's bathroom, the upstairs bathroom, and in the laundry room. While we were there, the guy was finishing up our Master bathroom. I am extremely pleased with the tile that we chose for each bathroom. It's refreshing to see that our choices actually look nice when in place with cabinets, paint color, etc. I didn't get a pic of the Master bath because he was still working. I'll get one this weekend!

Kamdyn's Bath/Guest Bath


Kamdyn who wouldn't move out of the way! :)


Laundry Room


Upstairs Bathroom

Cabinets

We've had cabinets for about a week now. We are completely satisfied with the "look" of our cabinets; however, the island is completely in the wrong place. They made one cabinet too large and the island/bar is way too far to the right or left, depending on which way you look at it. In fact, it's in the dining room and the holes for the pendants are over the kitchen floor. UGH! Needless to say, this will HAVE to be fixed.

As of now, they have painted the 3 bedrooms, not the Master. I LOVE the new paint color! They are currently putting up the molding, the doors, the railings, etc. I'm really getting excited!!!






Master Bath Vanity