How do they move PODS?

Have you ever wondered how they deliver and move PODS!?  Well, when we had our POD redelivered to our new house we were able to witness (and snap pictures of) the whole process.  It is really pretty amazing!  And I did ask permission before I took these pictures!  :0) 

They deliver the POD on the back of a truck.  They back the truck into your driveway and position the POD on the side you select. 

The truck has a machine on the back of it that has a completely different set of controls from the ones inside the truck. 

The delivery guy hooks chains to the bottom of the POD in three places on each side. 

He then uses the machine to move the metal frame on his truck bed out and away from the sides of the POD pulling the chains tight. 

Then he drives the truck out from under the POD.

So now the POD is suspended above your driveway by the chains hooked to the machine. 

The delivery man slowly lowers the POD to the ground.  I was surprised by how gentle this whole process was.  There was very little side to side movement, and the POD did not band onto the ground or anything like that. 

Then the delivery man moves the back cross bar on the machine up so that it is taller than the POD. 

Then he drives the machine away from the POD and back towards his truck. 

See, this is the machine out in the street in front of our house headed back to the truck:

And this is the machine approaching the truck

This is the machine actually going back onto the truck:

And this is right before the delivery man drove away:

Goodbye Creepy Vanity

I'm not going to lie.  This vanity totally creeped me out.  It was so yucky and mismatched and just aweful. 

Our new vanity is just so much more cheerful looking.  

With a few more tweaks and touch ups our master bathroom will be down right usable! 

Floors Glorious Floors...And A Hallway

We have finally for the most part finished our first space in the new house...the hallway. 

Here are a few pics of the hallway in all its former glory:

And here it is now:

I am seriously LOVING these wood floors!  And just look...no more green!! 

Jay's Room Partially Done

We have been working ourselves silly on renovations!  One of the first rooms we tackled was Jay's room so that we had a place where he could nap and play while we worked.  

In case you need a reminder, here is what we started with:

And here is where we stand right now:

Jay and Bobo (the elephant) were posing for the camera.  :0)

We let Jay pick out a "beautiful blue" color for his walls.  Uncle Jim painted the walls while Jay was at Grannie's napping one day.  When we brought Jay back over to the house to see his room he walked in and said:  "Wow it's SO beautiful!"  It was pretty cute!!  

We still have a ways to go, but we are definitely making progress! 

Kitchen Sneak Peak

When I look at this picture of our kitchen before....it makes me want to run far FAR away. 

But I am glad I didn't run because it is really starting to come along.  :0) 

My new Gas stove.  I have never had a gas stove before, but so far I really love it!  It's fun!! 

We used magnetic chalk board paint on our pantry doors, and it rocks!!!  (Please excuse the half painted wall on the right though) 

Anywho keep checking back to see the finished kitchen soon! 

Welcome Home!?!?

I found all the stuff to move pictures from my camera to the computer! So I can finally put up some pictures of our new (well new to us) house...and eventually of our finished renovations. :0)


We have owned the house for just over a month now and I can honestly say that we absolutely LOVE it!  It needs A LOT of cosmetic updates, but it has such good bones.  Once we finish our renovations it will be an amazing home for us!! 

I'll walk you through room by room and try to tell you the changes we are making to them.  One thing I can say is that EVERYTTHING was green.  Seriously.  The walls.  The trim.  The ceilings.  The cabinets.  The carpet.  Everything.  The previous owner had a serious love affair with a light sort of celery green color.   

Anywho.. Here is the front of the house:

Here is the cute front porch.  Ha ha it even has new fake grass carpeting on it....that we will probably rip out sometime next spring so that we can put down some tile instead. 

Here is the front door.  It has leaded glass in the middle of it that is really pretty.  I think I will eventually stain it a darker color. 

Here is the living/dining room:

We have already painted all the walls and the ceiling.  We also ripped out the carpet to get to the hardwood floors under it.  We are still in the process of switching out the light fixtures.   

I love this built in cabinet by the front door. 

In all honesty this kitchen was almost a dealbreaker.  It was cramped and very green.  We managed to start a fire in it the very first day we owned the house.  Jay turned on the stove and caught our pizza box on fire.  Needless to say, the stove was one of the FIRST things to be ripped out.  

Most of our budget has gone into this room.  We moved the water heater that was in a closet to my right when I took this picture.  The water heater is now in the garage and our fridge sits in its place.  We painted all the cabinets white and all the wood a khaki color.  We bought a new stove, new sink faucet, new dishwasher, new microwave, and a new grabage disposal.  We still have to rip out that green linoleum and put down some nice neutral tile, but we're probably going to do that over labor day weekend.   

This is the second living area.  We're going to use it as an office and play room.  We are going to paint all the wood my favorite color of all time: Pecan Sandie by Behr.  We are also going to switch out the light fixture and put down the same tile that we use for the kitchen. 

This picture is looking out of the doors of the office into the sun room.  The sun room is really going to be great when we get it fixed up!  We are going to use it as a breakfast area and a second living area.  It will have tile floors and probably some roman shades by the time we get done with it. 

This is the second bathroom.  We are going to leave the ivory and brown tile for now, but we'll probably reglaze it in a few years so that it is white instead.  We have already painted the walls and the cabinets.  And we still have to take the wallpaper off the ceiling.  I am not quite sure why there is wallpaper on the ceiling...but there is....for now.   

 

This is part of the hallway.  It is "L" shaped and leads to all the bedrooms and bathrooms.  I really love the built in bookcase.  We have painted the walls, ceiling, and bookcase and we ripped out all the carpet. 

This is Mr. Jay's room.  It is SO much bigger than his room at our last house.  :0)  Um...and we have redone everything in it.  We patched and painted the walls and ceiling.  And we ripped out that lovely lime green carpet in favor of the hardwood floors under it. 

This is the middle bedroom.  And I know what you're thinking: Wow finally a room that is not green!  Well before you get too excited.....the ceiling was green.  Seriously.  So once again we painted the walls and ceiling and ripped out all the green scary carpet.  

Here is our padded room...I mean master bedroom.  But it was padded.  And covered with an aweful celery green fake silk fabric.  The fabric was stapled to the walls with literally THOUSANDS of staples that had to be removed one by one.  We spent days and days ripping staples out of these walls.  I owe my mom and Aunt Sarah something amazing after all the time and hard work they put towards this room.  Seriously.  Amazing.  Not to mention the fact that the stuffing material behind the fabric was apparently a great habitat for spiders.  Did you know that I hate spiders!?  Well I do.  And now I hate them even more.   

Here is our master bathroom.  It was scary.  And creepy.  We are fixing it. 

The walls will probably stay pink for a few years, but we plan to eventually reglaze them so that they are white.  I think the pink and turquoise is really awesome but Jason is not such a fan. 

So do you think we've lost our marbles yet!?  It needs a lot of work huh!?  Well, here is a picture of my number one criteria when we were house hunting:

 

I wanted a big yard!  And we certainly have one!  :0) 

This is the area that will be my garden next spring.  I think that just this garden area itself is the size of our entire yard at the old house.   

 

 

So now you've seen our new casa.  :0)  Keep checking back to see all the renovations as we get them completed. 

My Cousin's New House!!

Jay, my mom, and I were able to visit my cousin and her husband in Louisiana for a couple of days this week. It was a very exciting and eventful trip! My cousin and her husband found out they they are going to have a baby boy this November!! So far everyone in my family has had boys (5 of them total!) and we are very excited to welcome another one!! :0)

They are also in the process of buying their very first house! We were able to go see it while we were there, and it is seriously adorable! We are so happy for them, and I can't wait to see what it looks like after my cousin adds all of her personal touches to it. I was able to snap a few pictures of it while we were there. They're not the best, but they'll give youa general idea. Jay was very tired and very grumpy...so all the pictures were taken one handed while I held my wiggling two year old in the other hand...
Here is a picture of the street from the front yard:

Here is a picture of my cousin and her hubby (and Jay) in front of the house:

Here is the kitchen.  The door that you see at the far end leads to the garage, and the washer and dryer sit on either side of that door:

Here is a dark view of the dining room.  It is at the opposite end of the kitchen from the garage door:

Here is a view of the living room.  I didn't have the chance to snap a shot when there were no people in the room, sp please excuse the picture.  Everyone was talking...

Here is the fire place:

There is a hallway that has all of the bedrooms off of it.  This is the hall bathroom:

This is one of the smaller bedrooms.  (There are three bedrooms total)  I thought I had gotten a picture of the other one, but somehow I missed it.  Oops! 

This is the shower and toilet area in the master bathroom:

This is the sink area of the master bothroom.  It is right across from the shower and toilet area. 

Here is th master bedroom itself.  I love the green color on the walls!  I want it in my kitchen (hint hint Jason)  :0)

This is a little rose garden area behind the swimming pool in the backyard.  The couple that owned the house before kept the yard in pristine condition.  It is very cute! 

Here is the backyard.  The wood lattice that you see in the side of the deck and above ground pool area.  There is also a very nice storage building, but somehow I didn't get any pictures of it either...

Anyhow, isn't this just the cutest house!?  We are very excited for them, hopefully they'll get the guest bedroom set up soon so we can go visit them again!!  :0)

Happy Birthday To Meeeee!!

For my birthday last week we decided to go to the Fort Worth Museum of Natural Science and History.  It wa really fun!  If you haven't been since they remofled it, you should definitely check it out.  They have a large children's area with tons of different things to do.  You can play blocks, go shopping, design rooms, play with water, and build train tracks on all sorts of crazy wooden platforms. 

Here is a pic of Jay and I about to go into the childrens' area:

  They also have a neat dinosaur exhibit.  Most of it is designed for older kids, but they have an outdoor area where kids can dig for dino bones.  It was hot, but fun! 

I tried to get Jay to stay still long enoough for a picture:

They also have an exhibit called Sea N Recycle done in honor of the Plastiki boat (a boat made out of plastic grabage)  It was sad to think of all the trash in our oceans, but the exhibit was pretty neat to see.  

 

Here is Jay very focused on building a train track on one of the round tables:

It was a very fun (and air conditioned!) way to spend my birthday!  And we definitely plan to go back to the museum!  Next time maybe we'll even try to take Jay to see one of the Omni movies...