Thursday’s Top Five

Before I get to this week’s top five (I love my new little series!), I must say I had the most wonderful Mother’s Day weekend! I will blog about that tomorrow.
This week’s Top Five is about my favorite home improvement projects. We have been in our house for just over three years now. It’s not a big house, and definitely not our dream home, but we have done several upgrades to it and I feel as if we have put our “stamp” on it.

The first picture I took of our little abode! I don’t think we even owned it at this point!
This is what our kitchen looked like when we moved in:

WOW! I almost forgot how horrid it was! White appliances in terrible shape, “wood” countertops, icky hardware, wallpaper border, and scratched cabinets.
1. Painted countertops

Everyone thought I was crazy when I said I wanted to paint our countertops, but I had nothing to lose. The fake butcher block was getting on my last nerve. You can read more about this project here, here, and here! It was an easy and cost effective project. I would do it again in a heartbeat. It’s not something I would want in my forever house, but it did the trick for the time being! Other updates in our kitchen: new paint, new appliances, new skirt above the sink, and new hardware.
2. Dining Room (or really dining area) Light

You can barely see our old light in this picture. It was just a standard, builder-grade light. Nothing special. My mom, or maybe it was Brandon, bought a new light for my dining room.
Ta-da!

Love!
3. New Doors
Brandon’s parents bought us new doors for Christmas last year. They made a huge difference!

4. Bathroom

This is really the only picture I have saved from our old master bath. Almost two years ago, on my summer vacation, I started to pull up one of the sticky tiles in our master. The shower was leaking, so I pulled the rest up. After walking on the concrete slab for almost 6 months, we decided to completely gut the shower and remodel both bathrooms.

Hallway bath:

5. Blinds
Before:

And I don’t have a current after shot… but this will give you the feel.

Brandon recently installed blinds on our back patio door. It gave us some much needed privacy! I always felt like I was being watched… Creepy.
As much as I long for a bigger, nicer, newer home, I am going to miss our first starter home SO much. So many wonderful memories!

Countertops

I finished my countertop project about a year ago. You can read about Phase I here, Phase 2 here, and see the finished product here.
Bran’s brother is trying to sell his house, and he had the same countertops that our house did. The good ‘ol fake butcher block.

I actually forgot to take a before pic, so I swiped this one from their listing.
Here’s the after product:

Please pretend the painter’s tape is no longer there.  
I thought they turned out rather well! He bought the chocolate brown kit which is much darker than ours. I really liked it though.
Say a prayer for my kiddos. We are getting ready for the big end of year test!! We’ve been working so hard!!

Leaving on a Jet Plane

I have been on overdrive since Thursday. I am leaving Monday for my trip to Orlando. I am super excited to go, but I have so much to finish here at home before I leave. It all started Thursday. I had a meeting after school with the rest of the teachers going to Orlando. I had to drive all the way into town for the hour long meeting then drive all the way back to school. I didn’t leave work until after 6:00! I haven’t done that since my first semester of teaching. Getting sub plans ready for one day is hard enough. Planning for an entire week is torture!
Friday I started the day with an interview at Central Office for summer school. It lasted all of three minutes. We had a fun day on Friday, but again, I didn’t leave school until after 5:00. That’s soooo late for a Friday!! I usually am out by 3:45!
Today I woke up and went straight to school (about 9:00). I finished typing up my plans for each day and got everything ready. I hope I didn’t forget anything! My sub is teaching long multiplication. That is such a hard skill for fourth graders, and they usually get very frustrated. I am praying that this year they will ALL just “get it.” After I finished my plans, I came home and worked for a couple of hours on my graduate school homework. This class is much harder than my previous two. I have a 90% so far and that makes me nervous!
Bran went duck hunting this morning while I was tying up all my loose ends. He was ready for a nap when he got home. After I finished up my homework, we laid down and slept for almost three hours. It was lovely. We then went to his parents house to eat pizza and a cookie cake for Bran’s birthday. Our nephew Jaxon was there. He is two and is absolutely hilarious. After the party, we ran to TJ Maxx to return a dress I bought. I then bought a new bag to take as a carry-on, a new purse, dress, and Bran got a new hat and sweatshirt. We also had to make another stop to get a friend’s birthday gift. Our last stop was Hastings so Bran could rent a movie he wanted.
When we finally got home, I started laundry and cleaning. There is no way I can leave for Florida with my house a disaster. And it truly is a disaster. Ever since our bathroom renovation, I haven’t exactly gotten it all cleaned up and together.
Speaking of my bathrooms, they are almost done! In the master, I just need a rug and the trim put back up. In the hallway bath, I need trim and a mirror. So here are the pictures!
Master:




Hallway:


It makes me so happy that is SO close to being completely finished!!!!
So now it is almost midnight. I am about to take my weekly test for my class. Tomorrow, I will have to take my mid-term. I am nervous about that. After church, I am going to have to do all of my laundry, clean the entire house, bake an apple pie, buy groceries for Bran, and pack. *sigh* I guess I can always sleep on the plane! I just wish those progress reports would fill themselves out!

A Few Changes

Our bathrooms are soooooooooo close to being completed! The last little bits are actually up to us. We have to seal the grout, hang the curtain in the master, paint another coat in each bathroom, sand and paint the vanities, and install the trim. I am hoping to get most of that completed this weekend. We’ll see…. With my master courses starting this week and a big load of school stuff to complete, I am a busy girl. Thankfully we have Monday off for MLK day.

Here’s the masterpiece! I am so pleased with the way it turned out!!

Our contractor helped Bran install our new dining room light that Bran bought me for Christmas. It was a pain to install… However, it looks even better than I thought it would!! He is only charging me a homemade apple pie and a gallon of BlueBell ice cream for his electrical work.

This isn’t the best picture… but you get the idea! Our dining area just entered 2011. ha! Now we just have to patch the hole in our ceiling from the old fixture… Um… I will be googling that later!

In other news, I have some great opportunities coming up in
my career. I have been invited to a technology conference in Orlando with a few other people in my district at the end of this month. I’m super excited about that. Today I found out I will even get my own room! I know I will learn all about amazing ways to use technology in my classroom and make some new friends. I have to lead a parent meeting at my school when I get back. Hopefully that will go well!  Also, I got an email from our region’s co-op. I taught a class there last summer. I don’t know exactly what will eventually pan out, but I have some amazing opportunities with that connection. I hate to add more work to my already full plate, but it’s so hard to say no to things you love to do… Just pray that it will all work out!

Christmas Vacation!

It was so nice today not going up to school to get ready for this upcoming week. Instead, I was able to take a nice Sunday afternoon nap after church. It would’ve been better if Bran could’ve joined me, but of course he went to train. He might be fighting again in February. He’s still not home… He had to do a little bit of work today too. That boy is always so busy.
Fortunately, he made some time for me yesterday! We spent the entire day in Little Rock. First, we finished up our Christmas shopping at the mall. I do NOT like Little Rock. The traffic was horrible and the people were weird. Thank goodness for our GPS or we would’ve been so lost. I found some fantastic pictures on clearance from Kirklands. Even though I wasn’t supposed to be buying for me, I couldn’t resist.

That’s right! Only $4.97! I bought two: one for each bathroom! Now I just have to go and pick some nails up so I can hang them. We also bought some curtains for our bedroom from JC Pennys. We have talked about getting some, and I think waiting two years for curtains is long enough! Bran is just happy it’s not bright in our room in the mornings.
After shopping, we went to the Tran Siberian Orchestra concert at the Verizon Arena. They played all of the traditional Christmas carols with a rock-and-roll twist. It was awesome. I wish I had some pictures to post, but cameras were strictly prohibited.
We ate dinner at Carinos. I had a Chicken Parmesan Panini. It was yummy. However, the french fries they served with it were to die for. I actually ate the mound of french fries and took the panini home. haha! We had a great time together. It was nice to have all of my husbands attention. However, he really is not a good shopping partner.
One thing on my to-do list for my two weeks off is to get my new doors painted. I only have 2.5 done so far. They take FOREVER to paint.

Here is one that is finished. The door knob and hinges have an oil rubbed bronze finish. All the other finishes in my house are satin nickel… The new knobs were free though, so they will work for now!
 
Here is our door that still needs paint!

And I just thought I would throw this picture in from Bran’s fight last week!