Update?

Well.... Since it's been almost TWO YEARS since I have posted anything about our lives, I guess it's time for another update, right?! It honestly took me entering about 10 different passwords to even log-in so I could make a new post, haha! Like everyone else, life has been busy, crazy, and exciting!  Allen and I have truly seen the Lords hand in our lives over the past three years and especially in the last few months as we have made life changing decisions (info to come later) and have been blessed beyond measure. I don't eve know where to start, but I guess I will start with our house!

 

After I graduated from BYU-I we moved home to California and stayed with Allen's parents in what we liked to call "the cottage" (it was their single car garage) while we decided what we were going to do which was such a blessing and we were so grateful for their willingness to let us be there. Knowing we would want to live in Loomis/Rocklin area since we are both from there and at that point the housing market was so low we decided we would make the most "gown-up" investment of our lives and buy a house!!! Allen was 100% on board and lets just say I had to take a lot of deep breaths during the process, it was nerve-racking but exciting at the same time! We bought a small fixer-upper in Rocklin in March of 2011 and spent the next 3 months remodeling (I won't even get into how stressful that was for me :) Anyways... here are some before and after pictures.

 

Front of the house: the front door is on the side, but that window in the front use to be a door with outside access from the master (weird) so we made it a window and painted.

 

Kitchen: We changed everything! New granite countertops, new appliances and fixtures, sanded the cabinet faces down (not fun) and painted them white. We painted the walls green and put in hardwood floors (of course!) throughout the main area.

 

Living area/Great Room: New floors, paint, fixtures, fire place..... One strange thing about the house was that there was really no over-head lighting, just a lot of switches that turned on lamps, so Allen added some canned lighting and only shocked himself a couple times and only fell through the ceiling once :)

 

These were double doors leading to the master, allen framed it off to one door.

 

 

Hall Bath and Master Bath: Again, New everything! New floors, vanity, tub, tub surround, lighting, and everything else! I don't have very many good "after" pictures of the bathrooms.

 

 

 

Master Bedroom: New carpet, paint, etc. Here you can see the old door that we replaced with a window. Also, to the right you can see double doors that led to the walk in closet, allen closed that off and added a pocket door in the bathroom instead (he is so handy!).

 

 

Overall, the entire house got new paint, floors, baseboards, and fixtures! I don't have any pictures of the spare bedrooms or laundry room, but we did EVERYTHING to every room. Here are some random pictures of the project!

 

 

 

 It was a lot of work and very stressful. I drove Allen crazy because I could not envision anything to picture what it would look like. That combined with my inability to make decisions, I was a real peach during the process, but we survived and love our home! I am so grateful to have Allen be so handy, we saved a lot of money since he did most of the remodel on his own with help from family and it all turned out great!!!