The Southern Mommy

Unlevel Walls and Floors

2010-07-30T16:14:00.000-07:00

We knew when we bought this house that the floors were unlevel. Apparently on this side of town the soil has lime in it and it has caused a large amount of shifting and settling. Our inspector was also a engineer and felt the house was fine and that it was done settling so we felt we were good to go. However when it comes to doing things that should be easy it is much harder when the house is no longer level. We found this out when we did the kitchen backsplash. If you look real close my tiles are so off haha! Gotta love white grout as it totally disguses all of the imperfections there. Now we are getting to enjoy the issue of settling as we are laying our hardwoods. The kitchen is so close to being done that I'll share pics soon.

Oh Spray Paint How I Love Thee...

2010-07-30T16:00:00.000-07:00

I can remember as far back at the age of 14 spray painting furniture for my bedroom and I'm still spray painting things many years later. Never quite as much as I have since moving in the new house. Changing of colors has turned into a appalling amount of cans of spray paint on our back deck. I'm sure the neighbors think I am absolute nuts! But I do love me some spray paint!

Backseat Conversations

2010-06-14T20:01:00.001-07:00

Today while we were out doing errands, I heard Ali ask Alex what his favorite sense is. Sight, touch, taste, hearing or smell she said. Which one would he do without? She is such a smart little girl. She just turned 6 and these are the conversations she likes to have.

Oh and the verdict was we all thought sight was the one we couldn't go without. Hearing was a close second.

Decision Time

2010-06-14T19:09:00.001-07:00

So we did close on our old house last Wednesday. What a relief! The money is in the bank so now it is time to make decisions on what we are putting into our new home. This past weekend we focused on flooring. We hit all of the local stores and decided to head into Memphis late Saturday to check Lumber Ligquidators out as well. So far our favorite has been 99 cent laminate at a local seconds store. Hilarious! However we really want to go the hardwood route. Since we are doing this ourselves, I've been on the mission to find the click type. We'll have to go with engineered but we are okay with that as long as it looks nice. I really want to find something for under $3 a square foot. I found a few options online so now I am just waiting for the samples to come in.

We came back from Memphis to find a leak in our hot water closet. Thinking it was the water heater we called into our home warranty place for service. I got in there today and noticed it was worse. Pulled the carpet up and the pad was SOAKED and that it wasn't the water heater. Oh great I thought as it seemed to be coming from the tub on the other wall. Well the service guys came and guess where it was coming from??? The freaking toliet on the other side of the tub had loose bolts and it was leaking out of it. They tightened the bolts and collected their $60. Laughing to myself was seriously my only option. We seem to play the What Will Go Wrong in this House Today? game alot around here.

Almost to the Finish Line

2010-06-08T07:56:00.001-07:00

We close on our old house tomorrow! Finally! The relief my hubby and I feel is immense. I can wait to go out and pick new floors out. We are getting a nice chunk of equity back that we plan to spend on improvements for the new house. Our first plan was to split it in half and put half towards repairs and the other half towards the mortgage. Unfortunately the market is overflowing with houses up for sale so we sold for about $12,000 below our appraised amount. In the end though we just wanted it sold and to not have to deal with it anymore.

This weekend I plan to tile the kitchen backplash and my hubby is hopefully going to work on the pool. Did I mention we have a concrete pool here? We are excited to not have to deal with pool liners however is needs to be painted. Since the house was a foreclosure it sat for about a year so it is full of leaves,frogs and a few dead squirrels. Yuck! So we have drained it and next up is a good cleaning. From what my hubby said then we have to acid wash it and then paint. I thought of saving it for a next summer project but the kids miss their pool. No way we can afford to fill it with water twice so we will deal with it now.

Well I'm off to the bank, grocery and post office. I promised the kids one last swim at the old house so we will stop there last.

Hello.. I'm still breathing!

2010-06-04T12:49:00.000-07:00

But barely... Wow I can't believe the last time I posted was December. This whole new house and selling the old house has been a doozy! It took us 4 1/2 months to close on our new house.. Seriously by the time we were done we has lost all of the excitement! But we did finally close Feb 25th.. The old house finally sold and we should close on it next week. The couple who bought it seem really nice and have two sweet kids. We are happy that our first "house baby" is going to people who will appreciate it.

We are working on finishing moving everything out. We moved over here full time around the middle of April but only brought the main things since so much renovating needed to be done.

The new house work is going good. I'm about half finished with the painting. That has been some serious fun as some of the rooms have two layers of wallpaper with a coat of paint on the top layer.. Seriously who does that! Lazy people I tell ya! I have the kids rooms done and they look great. I'll share pics of those soon. We are living on top of nasty carpet but as soon as I get the check from the old house I am getting wood floors asap!

So I'm living in a bit of chaos right now but I'm happy! Oh and I've lost 8 lbs since I started all this work. Nice side benefit!

New Bathroom Pics

2009-12-03T06:53:00.000-08:00

Yesterday we had a realtor open house so I finally got around to getting updated pictures of our bathroom. It never stops amazing me what a coat of paint will do for a room. The color ended up being darker than I planned. I originally bought this color for our master bedroom but thought it was too dark so I lightened it with white. I thought I had enough left to do the bathroom but ran out so I had to use the last gallon of the full color. I think it turned out well though.

I used the peel and stick vinyl tiles on the floor. That was so super easy. I probably would have used ceramic tile if we were staying here but since we are selling I needed something fast,easy and cheap. These were like $17 a box and I used two boxes.

The wall around the tub got new mosaic tile. Again so easy I hated I didn't do it 8 years ago when we moved in. The only problem I ran into with this was the corners were off some. I filled it in with some grout and it is unnoticeable unless you are sitting in the tub looking at it.

You can't see it but the wall cabinet got a coat of Dove White. It made it really pop!

Bathroom Re-do

2009-11-21T13:57:00.000-08:00

I have been crazy busy this week redoing our master bath. We've really worked hard these past few months updating and the poor master bath looked like it was forgotten. She got new floors, new color and a tile backsplash around the tub. I wish I could afford to replace the light but the one up is okay so I'm leaving it. Somehow in the process I managed so get a chemical burn on my left eye as well as raw spots so I'm stumbling around in my glasses for the next week. I hate wearing glasses! They make me feel drunk. So tomorrow I should have it finished for after pics.
Here is the before:

Things are changing...

2009-11-11T09:15:00.001-08:00

and it isn't just the leaves on the trees. Wow things have really changed here since my last post. Shortly after my last post about our appraisal we decided to start seriously house hunting. The appraisal made us realize that nothing else we could do to the house would improve the value. We live in a wonderful neighborhood but most of the houses are all in the same price range. Extra square footage is the only thing that increases value and not by a whole lot.

The third house we looked at met all of our needs so we made a offer! I seriously can't believe it all happened so fast. We have our current house up for sale and close on the new one December 15th.

We are going to so miss our current house. We brought both of our kids home as new babies to this house and it holds so many memories. Both kids are excited about moving so that is a plus. The new house is a foreclosure so it needs a good bit of updating which I'm excited about. DH has promised me a nice updated kitchen as well once our current house is sold.

I'm currently not working. Crazy I know but the stress of keeping the house perfect for showings was starting to really freak us out so I decided to leave my part time job. It was a risk and I'm not a big risk taker but DH reminded me nothing in life worth anything is without risk.

Recovery Time

2009-09-15T13:35:00.000-07:00

Whooosh! I feel like I should be in a ICU for Home Renovation. My darling husband decided to refinance our house while the interest rates are still low. The only problem was we had to get a appraisal. Oh my.... You've never seen two people move so fast with a paint brush. Now I spent all summer tackling my to do list but so much needed to be done. Am I the only one who paints a room and the trim is left undone for a few months??

Of course the appraiser could have cared less. I'm sure he has seen some pretty rough homes and his parting words was having a clean and prettied up house makes no difference. He better be glad he was moving out the door on those words! We knew staging made no difference so we didn't bother but gosh it had to be clean! But I did get a pretty new kitchen faucet out of the deal and a hubby who was willing to work!

Here's my pretty new faucet that will be joined by a new counter(granite hopefully!) and white subway tile soon.

Painting!

2009-09-04T12:32:00.000-07:00

I'm painting my hall today. Top to bottom. Gosh I hate painting ceilings! It always makes me realize I have wimpy arms. I hope to share pics soon. I've got to finish the trim. I've been working on framing the kids artwork from their summer art class this week. It is going to look great on the wall and they are going to be tickled to have their own gallery.

Longest Yard Sale!

2009-08-09T15:27:00.000-07:00

I somehow got my husband to agree to hit the Longest Yard Sale this year. The last time we were able to go was in 2001. The next year we welcomed our baby boy and of course he was born on August 5th which always seems to be the same time the yard sale is running. This year we lucked out though that his birthday was Wednesday and school doesn't start until the 14th.

Did I mention we also took both kids with us? I had a long talk with them beforehand and both agreed that they would be good, no whining etc... It took about 2 hours for that to last! Apparently when I said it would be the biggest yard sale they had ever seen, I forgot that the biggest yard sale they had been to was 2-3 put together. Thankfully I had installed their tvs and we had unlimited DVDs to watch. DH and I spent Friday swapping out who would sit in the car with the kids. It took longer but we at least got to enjoy looking without a fussy kid with us.

In the end we had a great time! We left from Mississippi Thursday night and stayed in Attalia, Alabama that night. The next morning we hit Gadsen around 8am. It was hot and traffic was super heavy. I totally forgot my camera so I hate we have no pictures of the actual sales. We stopped at Mentone and drove into Chattanooga for the night. Our hotel was right next to Homegoods and you would have thought I was too tired to shop but I just had to! We don't have a Homegoods in our city :(

The next morning we made our way back to the sale. I thought traffic in Alabama was bad but Tennessee was much much worse and the sales were further apart. The route is beautiful though. We had to stop several times just to admire the view. We only made it to Dunlap before we stopped and headed home.

I didn't find a ton of things but I'm so happy with what I did find. It was totally worth the experience and if we can do it next year (sans kids of course) we will be there!

We were packed to the roof of the car. This was after we took the cooler and the suitcase out.

So here are my goodies:

This was the first thing I picked up. I thought $5 was a good price but saw them for $3 and $2 down the road. Just my luck!

Next I found these bird plates. The lady had $10 on two of them. I asked if it was $10 for each or $10 for two. She said she would take $10 for all 4. SOLD! I also found this white ceramic turtle at her sale for $2.

I found this Fire King plates for $3 each and got a doggie beanie baby for Ali for free. I'm hoping to find several more pieces for a wall display.

I got these two lamps for $3. They need some TLC but I loved their shape. This sale had some amazing buys. The family running it said it had been their mother's estate and they were just hoping to pass it on to others. They had a cute pink vinyl table and chair set for $25 and old quilts for $5 each. Everything needed some TLC but was a super buy!

I forgot to take a picture but found one of those huge spoon and fork sets for $6. Talk about a conversation starter! Just carry those around for awhile. I also found these bookends for my husbands 1776-1976 collection. His grandmother left him her collection when she passed away so we try to add to it when we can. They have the makers name and 1976 on the bottom. DH was very excited since it was a rare piece to find and only $5 for the set.

Those were my last finds until we started in Chattanooga on Saturday morning. My first stop I found these little seashells for 50 cents. This sale had a baby goat for sale that the kids loved. We thought about going green and using him instead of a lawn mower hehe!

Right up the road I found all of this for $6.

The lady running this sale had the most beautiful seashell mirrors. She told me she used to make them to sell. The ones she had were not totally finished. One was only $5 and near finished but I just new the shells would probably get knocked off on the way home.

Next I found these for $3 each at different sales. The insides are not perfect but displayed you'll only see the outside anyway. I love the patina of them.

Lemon McCoy Cookie Jar for $10 that was priced at $15.

and my last finds

McDonalds Character Glasses for $1 each. I've never seen these old characters before.

Orange Pyrex mixing bowl $5

White Hobnail piece $1

I hope you enjoyed my finds! Hopefully next year I will remember my camera. DH and I had a laugh over those hideous lamps Rhoda posted. The kids were afraid of them when they saw them! To see Rhoda's Longest Yard Sale post click here:

It is so HOT!

2009-06-21T07:41:00.000-07:00

We are edging towards 100 degrees here in MS. It is so hot that if you plan on stepping outside you have two options:
1. Wear as little clothes as possible. 2. Be heading to the pool to cool off.

Thankfully yard sales around here start at 6am. I am done and home before it is too bad outside. This week was a slow week but I found a few goodies.

Wooden tealight holder $1

Rollercoaster car $5 The lady started the price off at $10 when I asked and seeing me pass it she just kept dropping her price until I said I'd take it. The kids have rode this nonstop!

White Dishes/Pots 50 cents each. I'm thinking succulents for these.

Shelf $10 This was marked $15 but I heard him offer it to someone else for $10. When that person didn't take it I snatched it up! I thought it would look good by the pool but it may stay inside. I'm in love with all of the curves.

Birdhouse for 50 cents. This will get a coat of white for sure!

Old Library Card Catalog Holder $2

Thanks to Rhoda at Southern Hospitality hosting another Thrifty Treasures! I look forward to seeing everyone's finds every Monday and I'm finally getting to share some of mine. Click the button below to see all the other great finds!

Me.....

2009-04-16T15:04:00.001-07:00

I thought I would post a little about me... I am 28 years old... I am a mother of a almost 5 year old and 6 year old. Yes, they are 20 months apart... Yes, I barely remember my baby's first year lol... I used to be a stay at home mom up to 3 months ago. I so so miss it but my old job offered me a part time position during the kids school time so I couldn't turn it down. Now I feel like I do half and half. I leave home drop the kids off at school and go to work. I leave work at 2 and go get the kids from school and go home.

I love to decorate my home and do a ton of DIY projects. I have been like this all of my life. I moved my furniture around in my bedroom every few months as a teen. It used to drive my mom crazy and now I drive my husband crazy! I love to go to yard sales and thrift stores and find goodies for pennies that I can redo. I lay awake at night thinking about things I'd like to redo in my home. It is a sickness I tell ya!

I love my life though and that is really what matters!!

It's Been Awhile...

2008-03-09T13:06:00.000-07:00

since I made that very first post back in November. Right after that we spent a entire week replacing our carpet with hardwood and painting several rooms in our house. That inspired months worth of redecorating that has been filling my time. So it is now March. Spring Break for my son Alex is this upcoming week. He's excited to be out and he's going to a local art camp a couple of hours each day that he is looking forward too. My little man is not much of a sportsy kind of kid. Give him a box of crayons and paper and he is set for hours.

It is such a change having both kids at home all day for a week. Ali and I get so stuck in our ways that it gets a little crazy when we have a few more family members tossed in with us. Our routine gets off and by the time the break/vacation is over we are all ready for it to be.

We have been having such crazy weather here. A week ago it was in the low 70s. It snowed this past Friday night for the first time in years. Strange strange weather... The kids went crazy for it though. They've never seen snow so they were out at 8:00 at night making snowmen and snow angels...

Well I have to run to the grocery store now, we are out of bread, milk and laundry detergent.. Those are musts with a 3 and 5 year old.

A Good Day

2007-11-07T12:19:00.000-08:00

Today is a good day. A good day means I wake up refreshed while hearing giggles in the background. My 3 year old was up and at it this morning. I laid there awake for 15 minutes and she talked nonstop the entire time. I'm suprised her Daddy's ear didn't fall off. A good day also means she stays happy all day. We play, we sing, we clean.. We just finished playing hide n seek. Ali Claire's idea of hiding is she waits until you get close enough and she giggles or if you pretend to actually search for her she'll yell out where she is. 3 year olds are such fun.