"Home" Stretch

Sorry I haven't been blogging much about the house! A bunch of you keep asking for more updates and pictures. Well, sorry, no pictures today (please don't hate me!) but they're coming soon! Our decorator came over yesterday to move a few things around the house and finalize plans. She's coming back on Tuesday to completely finish decorating the house. We have spent so much time and money on the remodel that we haven't purchased too many pieces of furniture. We did go out and get a really comfy loveseat and two armless chairs, but our decorator is bringing in some paintings for the walls, lamps and a number of other things.

I'm going to make a confession here....

Aaron has this huge painting that he LOVES of birds...or ducks...I dunno, I can't really tell! All I know is that i'm not the biggest fan of it. I tend to like more abstract pieces and landscape paintings. Anyway, this bird/duck painting that he has needed a new piece of glass because it had cracked down the middle a while back. Since we need things for the walls, I decided (a little against my will) to drive down to Michaels and I figured I'd just purchase a new frame. Come to find out that the frame isn't standard so they suggested that they could buff out the scuffs in the frame and put a new piece of glass over it. "Sure, that sounds good." But $89 later!! The things we do for love. I admit, the colors in it are beautiful, but it just isn't my style. I know Aaron really appreciates it and I love him, so i'm biting my tongue on this one! Our decorator loves the painting, too. So much that she is bringing two more from the same artist (Audubon) over and will be hanging one in our bedroom and two in our living room. I wonder if I might start ducking throughout the house in order to save myself from flying birds pooping on my head! Ok, that was a joke....

Well, the next week and a half will be a bit crazy. This is the final stretch of our house work! As I mentioned, our house will be decorated on Tuesday, our realtor is coming over to take pictures on Thursday and we have a window cleaner coming on the 13th. Basically, we'll be completely done with the inside on Monday! I can hardly believe i'm writing that.

We are hoping for an open house on March 15, but that will depend on when the work gets done on the outside. Though we've been able to do pretty much everything ourselves, we had to hire someone to replace the trim on the outside of our house because a lot of it was rotting. He'll then put a new coat of paint on all the trim as well. Tomorrow, our realtor and I are going shopping for plants and flowers to decorate the outside of the house. I think it'll look beautiful! We're really going to enjoy living in a completed house for a little while.

Good news is that a house that went on the market in our neighborhood two weeks ago is already under contract! I know they put it on the market for a pretty good price, too. Apparently there are still a ton of home buyers in our area. Yay! If we sell within the next month or two, we'll need to find a temporary place to live until we move in early June. Aaron will pin as Captain June 1 (sooo proud of him!) and then he has 44 days of leave, so we can actually leave town as early as about June 5.

We're hoping to take a hop over to Europe for two weeks sometime between May and June. I'm keeping my fingers crossed!