A busy Spring Break!

This Spring Break I worked on things that were on my 'to do' list for the house. I loved that I had all week to work on the house!

I hung the first items in the house. I hung 4 clocks and painted different cities under the clocks.



The main project was the formal dining. Unfortunately the guys that laid the wood floors got wood glue on the walls. It was frustrating at first because that room was the only room we weren't going to paint. (It was already red.) It ended up working out so well though. I got a red that Tyler and I like much more. I had to sand down the glue and repaint. Mom took a day off of work, came over and helped me paint. (THANK YOU MOM!!!) Now the walls look wonderful!



After the paint I was finally able to unpack the bar and china cabinet.




I also made wreaths for that room out of old sheet music. Mom found the idea on a design blog.



Tyler and I started buying furniture!!! YAY! We bought a big piece for our formal living. I started unpacking more boxes so we have some stuff in there for now. It will probably change, but it is nice to see it with stuff inside!



Mom and dad got us a shelf that fits in to 'the hole' next to the fire place for my birthday. We love it! As mom always says 'paint does wonders.' So the color might change once the couch comes in and the curtains go up. Just like the one above the stuff inside might change. Also in the picture is a chair that Ty and I bought for the den. It is a big chair!



Andreas and Luis came and hung the chandelier in the back staircase. This chandelier we got from Aunt Debbie and Uncle Larry. There are pictures of it in previous posts, but now it is up!! This was a great idea from Tyler. I love the chandelier above the staircase.



Finally, the stools came in. They will go in the den as well.



It was such a productive Spring Break. I am currently working on our formal dining table and a curtain for the upstairs 'yellow' bathroom. More posts soon to come!!

Let there be floors!!

The carpet down stairs is gone!!! The blog post is about 2 weeks late, but the floors were installed 2 weeks ago. It was a huge mess, dust everywhere and furniture stuffed in every nook that was tile, but we have floors. Thanks to Ines the dust is gone! (The pictures are pre-Ines so the reason they look foggy is because it is so dusty.) Now on to furniture, wood on the stairs and wood upstairs.

Everything was in the kitchen and our bathroom. Unfortunately we didn't pack to spend the night in Joan's room upstairs so we had to work our way through our bathroom to get to the closet and our toothbrushes!





They put the boxes for the wood upstairs on the floors after they laid them to weigh it down .

Best Tool Ever!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

For everyone reading this who needs a quick pick me up please follow these directions. Step 1. Find some ceramic tile in your house or someone elses house (if you do this be very sneaky)that you abhor. Step 2. Mosey on down to the tool rental department at Home Depot and Pick up a Demolition Hammer (this step is key to feeling good about yourself). Step 3. Return to the tile (if this isn't at your house, do not tell them I told you to do this!!!) and whisper something to the tile ( I chose, "Fredo, you're nothing to me now. You're not a brother, you're not a friend. I don't want to know you or what you do. I don't want to see you at the hotels, I don't want you near my house. When you see our mother, I want to know a day in advance, so I won't be there. You understand?" Feel free to throw in any Godfather quote of your choice) let the ceramic know that it did something wrong to you personally and will be eternally sorry. Step 4. Throw on some clothes that a homeless person wouldn't dare be seen wearing. Step 5. Pull the trigger on this bad boy and let the demolition begin!!!!



So, to appreciate the power and glory of this tool it may help you to know that on Wednesday after work I spent 1.5 hours taking up half a tile with a hammer and a crowbar. To say it was demoralizing and emasculating fit the bill all to well. At that moment, the ceramic tile held the upper hand in the relationship and it let me know it. How you ask? Oh, it had its ways.

But the victory that it sensed was short-lived dear friends. Tyler, the protagonist of this lovely tale came out on top.



Seriously, this thing cost like $50 bucks a day to rent and it makes you feel awesome about your life. If psychologists knew about the power of this tool to change the way people feel about themselves, they'd know that their best days are behind them. Tara got down on this bad boy as well... ata girl. Wow, I love this woman!


Hello Friends,

Funny story (well to me) during my three hours of taking all this nasty ceramic up, I started yelling at the ceramic about how I was fully victorious and it was pathetically losing. Tara called me out in front of her parents that night about screaming at the tile. That's the equivalent to someone talking about you flexing in the mirror after the shower...just me...well of course. Anyway, I manned up to me verbal tirades while using this machine because I felt it was owed a proper tribute after our paths magically crossed.

Please, if anyone knows of a tool that has similar psychological benefits, I would love to know about it.

Good bye, dear friend (2/20/2010 8am - 2/20/2010 1pm). You lived an awesome albeit short time in our house.

BIG, Busy Weekend!!!

This weekend was SO productive!
We are getting closer and closer to getting the wood floors installed. There are a few things that have been our goal to get done first since we moved in. Our first project was getting the downstairs painted. That is completed except for the guest bathroom downstairs, which is going to be a total renovation.
Our next goals were to get the wood floors installed and the chandeliers put up. When the previous owners moved out they were kind enough to take their lights with them to leave us a clean slate...and very dark rooms! We have purchased and/or painted all of the necessary chandeliers and are now ready to let there be light! Tyler and I have both painted chandeliers and this weekend I completed our last chandelier. I also added ribbon to the shades.





This week Andreas and Luis (our wonderful painters) are coming to install 3 chandeliers. The first will be in the entry where we do not have light at all. (We are SOOOO excited!) The next will be in the den. We got a 5 foot chandelier to go in that room to replace the tragic gold fan. Finally, they are removing a canned light in the back staircase and putting in a chandelier that we got from Aunt Debbie and Uncle Larry. In order to get the chandeliers installed we needed to rent 15 foot scaffolding. We went down to our local Home Depot and they do not carry the safety pins for the scaffolding. (Seriously! No safety pins!) So they would not rent it to us (and we didn't want it with out them). So we went to another Home Depot to get the scaffolding. After loading it carefully in Daddy's truck, a slow drive back and unloading it into the house we have scaffolding! Sunday we put it up for Luis and Andreas to use Monday.








This week we are also getting the crown molding in our room installed!!! (YAY Andreas and Luis!) We are also scheduling the wood floors and hope to be rid of this carpet by the end of March! (A great birthday present...no carpet!!)

So many changes and we are loving it! This house turns more into our home everyday!

The house in the snow!

the work continues

As requested I will give you MORE pictures and LESS writing.

The attached pictures are from a lot of the updates that are going on or that we have already completed. From painting to our current project, kitchen renovation. Now we have a CRAZY kitchen. Tyler and Ryan Cockrell did demo and now there is a huge section ripped out of our cabinets. Ty and dad are building a floor to ceiling cabinet for us. (There is a picture where I didn't know that they were working on electrical...whoops! I guess when you are holding an electrical box in your hands you don't want to see a flash. Needless to say I might have given daddy an unwanted surprise! So you will see the picture I took and a picture of daddy's response.) Also the kitchen cabinets are down so they can be cleaned and painted.

The upcoming projects are for the wood floor to be put down, chandeliers hung and the cabinets to be painted black. Our house is a MAD HOUSE, but it is amazing working on all of these projects and seeing things come together. We still have yet to hang anything, we just aren't there yet, but we are getting close!

(I have to add that the furniture in the pictures is NOT the furniture that will be in the den.)

Tyler's First Post: A Long Time Coming

The good news, the Yell's have made a lot of progress at 3132 Blue Oak. The bad news, we've neglected this blog for far too long. This is my first post on this blog that Tara set up. I was first asked to introduced myself when we received our wood floors shipped and all 4,000 lbs. were left on our street(The delivery man wasn't one for wowing the customer). My neighbors bared with me as I moved all 110 cartons of heavy wood into the home. As you can see from the picture in this post this added to the mess that is our humble abode. That was back in October. Since then Tara has walked 60 miles to help cure breast cancer (I'm super proud of her), I've continued running to train for a marathon and life has moved on. It has been wonderful working with Tara to make this feel like our home after it was vacant for 3 years, foreclosed on and treated like a frat house by the people who lived here before us. We've enjoyed (I can say that looking back on it at least) painting things big (entire rooms) and small (all 100+ balusters on the stair rails). I keep telling myself that if we take care of the small things now (fingers crossed) the larger things will take care of itself. Tara & I are wanting to make this place feel as cozy as our parents houses did growing up. Feel free to share your thoughts / wisdom on this hopeful thought.

So what drama has there been you may be asking yourself. As misfortune would have it, most of the drama has taken place when I was in Manhattan for a week in December. Tara called me one night to say the water pressure was dropping. The next day she called me to say that we had no water! (did the city run out, I thought?) It turns out our pressure release valve (we're still working to find this) went kerplunk and caused the water pressure in our house to go from a respectable 60 p.s.i. to a superhuman 110 p.s.i. It turns out our appliances (mainly the water heater) was not a fan of the water coming in at nearly twice it's normal strength. A valve broke on the water heater which caused it to flood and was diverted to the outside of our house. This meant that we were heating water as it flooded into the street and leaving us a nice gas bill. Once the neighbors called the city they turned off the water without informing Tara (the left a note on the front door but we don't we enter the house in the back and don't always see the front of the house). Tara was able to shortly get our water turned back on with the use of only one of two water heaters and we're still in the process of fixing the pressure release valve (first step is to find it by digging in the front yard without paying a plumber to dig around and find it)then have the everything fixed by the warranty company. So we have water again which is of course nice.

Where we stand today after the wonderful holiday season is that the handrail is being painted black (a little unorthodox but it's looking awesome). The picture shown has one rail painted black and the rest have primer on them. We have been taking trips to the city dump & Goodwill to rid ourselves of all things that weigh us down, I love the ability to clean house even though we have 4,000lbs of wood in our entry. We are also having Andreas and Louis (our maid, Ines' husband and son respectively) work their magic to have some things painted.

Tara has been on her hands and knees painting all the base boards and white trim in the house (we've calculated that there's around 500' of the darned molding)but alas, it is looking new again. This house was a mess when we moved in and slowly but surely we're trying to make it our own and place so that we're happy and proud enough to invite all our friends over for a homemade vegan meal. The next rooms on our list is painting the Study (I'm pretty emotional about this one) and finishing the trim in the Formal Dining Room (Tara hates trim the way a 4 year old boy hates brushing their teeth by now). Within the month the big moment will be happening of laying the wood floors that we bought in October. Between the wood floors being laid, all the walls painted, and other things coming together such as the stairs being painted, the chandeliers hung, and furniture starting to show up plus painting the kitchen cabinets this address is starting to feel like a true home instead of an address that end up at everyday.

Our goal is to have all our blog readers who care to, enjoy a meal on us in our home as we laugh often about the lessons learned from putting this place together.
Thank you for your patience and we will be posting a lot more. Mainly because it's starting to get more exciting with things happening in stride. If anyone has any questions about what were doing with certain rooms or recommendations from past lessons learned, feel free to share.