We Are Home Owners!

We are officially owners of a 1980's waterfront home......let the ripping out and DIY-ing begin.  Nothing like buying a home and then destroying parts of it in the same week.  :)

Seriously though, one of the reasons we love the house is because they have not done much to it since it was built.  Only 2 appliances updated but not recently, no landscaping, no boathouse or deck, no new nice flooring.  To me I see a clean slate to work with and I don't mind tearing out the old stuff to transform the house into our home.

For those of you who have asked where it is, the house is in Bayou Vista, TX.  Its off of I-45 South of Houston, before you cross the bridge to Galveston.

The neighborhood is small and quiet and I think it is exactly what we want.  Brian drives into Houston for work but it is about the same drive he was doing when we lived in New Orleans so he doesn't mind.

I will start posting before and after photos soon and posting about some specific DIY projects we have done as well as what products we have decided to use in our home.  I can't wait to get started!  Our first night in the house is tonight and my first new appliance gets delivered today!  I still can't believe all this has happened so fast and so smoothly.  We are extremely blessed and grateful.  Thank you to my parents for letting the dogs and me stay at your house the past 2 weeks while we were homeless and thank you to Brian's college friend for letting Brian stay at your house during the week.  Thanks to all the friends and family for the suggestions and advice.  A special thanks to our friend Jason for help making this happen.  And a BIG THANK YOU to Candy Baggett, our Realtor, for making me go look at this house after I took it off my list and for doing all the extras for us.  Buying a house from 6 hours away is not easy and having a great Realtor is the only reason the deal happened.  And lastly, thank you to my husband for buying me a house on the water and letting me put a new kitchen in it....best anniversary present to date.  BLittle, you have really set the bar high for yourself ;)

I'll be posting pictures in a few days so check back!

Our Last Day

Today is our last day in New Orleans.  I am in denial that the day is already here.  The past 2 weeks have been fast and furious and have flown by!  We have been to Texas and back twice in the past 3 weeks and we will be making the last trip over tomorrow.  We have filled an 8x8x16 POD plus an 8x12 U-Haul plus tomorrow we will be have 2 trucks with the beds full and each of us will be pulling a boat.  I am tired just thinking about that sentence...that's a lot of stuff.  You don't realize how much you have until you pack...YIKES.  Thank goodness I don't have hoarding tendencies!!!!

While packing, getting ready for the move, and finishing everything up with our jobs here,  we have also been in the process of purchasing a home.  I mentioned before we secretly went house shopping and luckily we really liked the second home we saw.  Crazy!  Then only after a few negotiations, an offer was accepted.  We went to see the house again last weekend during the inspection. Thankfully, we still liked the house and the inspection only turned up minor issues.  We are so blessed things are falling into place so quickly!  We are officially under contract and closing is set for the 24th.  I am very thankful I am self-employed so I can focus on what needs to be done and make the what feels like a gazillion calls a day to get things to happen.  If closing stays on schedule we will only be displaced for 2 weeks!  Again, so grateful!  We were thinking it would be a few months before finding a house and trying to find short term rentals is not easy.........especially when you live with these two.

Aren't they cute?! They are great dogs but I completely understand that people don't want two 80 pound, indoor labs in their rental.   My parents love their grand dogs so we have a place to stay for the next few weeks. :)

I have had several questions about the house and I have been keeping details to myself mostly because it is not a done deal and I am still in denial that it is happening.  Having said that, I have been pinning like crazy on my secret Pinterest board that is for our new house.  :)  The home was built in the 80's and still looks like it belongs in the 80's....EEK.  Luckily I can see past the time warp and new blue carpet that extends into the master bath (no, I am not kidding) and see the potential in the home.  I am so ready to get the keys so we can start making it ours and transforming it into a beauty.  Our first projects will be updating the kitchen, new floors, painting the walls & trim,  and building a fence.  If anybody wants to come to our painting and fence building party, I will feed you for your work :)  I will be posting updates, before & afters and probably a few DIY tutorials over the next few months.  Please pray that closing stays on schedule and the next few months aren't too stressful for us. 

And to close today's post,  I would like to thank all of my customers, clients, and supporters in the NOLA area.  I have been so blessed to find a job that I love and doesn't feel like work.  Even on hot summer days when I am working all day outside, covered in paint and sanding dust, and suffer from mild heat exhaustion....somehow it still doesn't feel like work.  I am a little scared about getting started in the Houston/Galveston area but I have faith that things will be successful there too.  

Exciting News!

Those of you who know me personally might have heard/read the news yesterday, but for those of you who haven't heard....

WE ARE MOVING!!!!!!!!


IN LESS THAN 2 WEEKS!!!!!!


****Insert moving to Texas happy dance here****

Brian and I are both from Texas so going "home" is really exciting for us.  His job is taking us to the Houston/Galveston area so we will be close to our families and many of our friends.  New Orleans will always have a special place in our hearts, but we are ready to get back.  

Its crazy the things you miss from your home state.  Last month we flew to Corpus and were sitting in a restaurant taking in our surrounding.  It felt so good to see Texas A&M hats/shirts everywhere, hear Cross Canadian Ragweed and Cooter Graw on a regular country radio station and to see Blue Bonnets growing on the side of the road and in front yards.  We caught ourselves smiling, thinking the same thing....it feels good to be home.

In my last post I mentioned a few projects that were not ready to be posted.  Well, that was packing my POD....

and the entertainment center.....here is a before reminder

The previous owner had already cut a drawer front from the drawer body and most of the drawers didn't close all the way and there were some problems with the doors.  I fixed the alignment problems, built in shelves for the DVD/Cable box/etc, moved and updated the hardware, and painted it Bird's Egg.  It now looks like an entertainment center.  Here is the after.

I am planning on keeping the entertainment center for us.  Our home now has a niche for the TV so as soon as I found out we were probably moving, I decided to keep it and refinish it for us. I love the finished product and hopefully it will work great in our new house.  Click here to see it in our new home.

 Speaking of....we did secretly go house shopping last weekend and have been in negotiations on a particular home.  We are supposed to find out today if our last offer is excepted.  Please pray that it is and that nothing goes wrong with inspections and appraisals and closing goes smoothly.  If things work out, we will only be displaced for a few weeks and we can get started on updating our new house ASAP.  There will definitely be some DIY home posts in the future.

I promise to keep everyone posted and if you live in the Houston area and need furniture worked on, keep me in mind.  Hopefully I will be taking on furniture work in a few months.

SIDE NOTE:  Today is our 7 year anniversary!  Time flies when you are having fun.  Love you, babe!   Here are a few pictures from our special day.

 

When the doors opened and I started down the aisle.
This is one of my favorites.

On the boat 

My fisherman's groom's cake

A Few Updates

So, some how its been over 3 weeks since my last post.  Time flies when you are super busy!  Things have been crazy around here lately.  So crazy I really haven't bothered to take many before pictures or good quality afters.  Here is a quick overview of what I have been up to over the past few weeks.

 One client brought by this family piece and a bench that was made from an old bed.

Before

Before

After

After

I bought this dresser a while back and finally had time to work on it.

Before

After

After

After

Remember this dresser?

It was purchased for a baby girl nursery.  The client already had a creamy, distressed, glazed mirror and wanted her other nursery furniture refinished to match.  She had purchased a bookcase on Craigslist and ordered a Jenny Lind baby bed in white.  Now they both match the mirror and coordinate with the dresser.  It is going to be a super cute nursery!

Here is a desk that I refinished for a friend.  It is a family piece they wanted painted to match the beds in their girls' room.

Before

Before

Before

After

After

After

After

And another little project.  I have been working on changing this beautiful dresser into an entertainment center.  It already had a drawer front cut off by the previous owner.  She had started the project and couldn't finish so she contacted me to see if I could do something with it.  Since one drawer front was cut off, I couldn't use it as a dresser so I figured I'd stick with the entertainment center idea.  The dresser is solid wood (SUPER HEAVY) and has gorgeous lines.  I love it.  They do not make pieces like this anymore. I will post after pictures in the next few days.

I have been busy with several other things but they are not ready for posting.  Did I mention how busy the past few weeks have been?  On top of all of this, we went home to Texas this past weekend to watch my brother's girlfriend graduate with her Master's degree.  What an accomplishment!  So proud and excited for her. 

I will have the entertainment center finished in the next few days and will post a picture of it as soon as possible.   I hope everyone has a wonderful week and safe Memorial day weekend!

A Weekend on the Coast

Brian and I flew to south Texas last Friday to spend an extended weekend on the coast.  We got to see family, friends and some pretty water.  Rockport, Texas is a quiet coastal town that is mostly made up of retirees and winter Texans.  Coastal Living Magazine had a great article about Rockport a few years ago.  Check it out here.

Brian and I are going to retire here  :)  It's never too early to start planning right?!  For us, it is in Texas, close to family and on the water....Perfection.  Rockport has a super cute road named Austin Street that has all kinds of shops on it.  Of course we checked out the furniture scene as well as ate some great food.  And I might have drove past/stalked George Strait's house hoping that maybe he would be outside and I would catch a glimpse of him.  He wasn't home.  Just devastated me more since I didn't get to see him in concert either.  Sigh.  Overall it was a great little coastal getaway.

Here are some photos from the trip.

This was our morning view.  Isn't it great?!  We stayed in a downstairs studio apt to a larger canal home. It was so quiet and peaceful in the mornings.  Rockport is known for its bird watching and they were all over the place.  Other than them and a few boats going through the canal to go fish, it was very quiet in the mornings.

Blue Heron in the neighbors yard.

White Heron

This pelican let me get so close to him.  I love watching them fly just a few inches over the water.

Something about them fascinate me.

Rockport is one of the windiest places in Texas.  There are several wind farms in the area...where they have fields of huge windmills.  Due to all the wind, the Oak trees along the water grow to the side.  It looks like someone used a trimmer to shape them with curved tops but its just how they grow in the wind.

The birds were all in the tops of the trees.

On Sunday, we decided to drive down to Port Aransas to check out the beach and how much the town 

has grown.  We haven't been down there in 4 or 5 years so there were a lot of changes.  Even on the

bridge you can tell the water is probably going to be clear at the beach.

I know its not Florida or the Caribbean, but for Texas, this is fairly clear and pretty water.  We were afraid the cold front was going to have the water murky and brown but it was very pretty that day.

Hopefully I will have some furniture pictures in the next few days.  I am finishing up a few pieces today and have some more custom pieces to follow but the weather forecast is rain all week!  YUCK!  

Custom Dresser B&A

Hi all.  Even with the humidity this week, I finished up a custom dresser.  This is a client piece that was purchased at a resale shop several years ago.  Dressers like this are hard to find and finding them in a resale shop really never happens.  Here are a few before pictures:

Isn't it gorgeous?!?!  Solid wood top.  Solid wood curved drawers.  Pretty handles.  Just lovely.

Lets talk about handles for a minutes.  Looking at these handles one would think they will have to be painted to be salvaged but if you ever come across a solid wood, quality old dresser like this, there is a good chance the handles are solid brass.  To check use a magnet from your refridgerator.  Brass is non magnetic so if your magnet does not stick to the handle, it might be solid brass.  I use Brasso to polish brass.  If just wiping the handles with Brasso doesn't help try paint stripper on them or some other paint remover.  A lot of times the handles have been clear coated or painted in the past so that has to be stripped off before polishing will work.  These handles looked kind of gross up close. 

Years of tarnish had covered up everything shiny and pretty about them.  After I confirmed they were not magnetic I was positive they were solid brass.  I stripped the clear coat off then polished them and this is the end result.

Can you believe?!  They are so beautiful!  So glad I know how to identify brass and I didn't paint them!

Now on to the rest of the makeover.  The dresser went from having beautiful shape and curves with blah paint and yucky handles to looking glamorous and rich.  I LOVE IT!  More importantly though, my client loves it which makes me extremely happy.  Here are the after photos:

So pretty!  I love makeovers like this.  I love bringing pieces like this back to life.  Hopefully it will be a treasured piece for a long time.