Our house...During

Here are a few during pictures. As you can see, we painted the walls and the trim. We replaced the carpet. This is the living room. I am currently working on painting the door and figuring out how to "dress" this bay window.
Looking the other way in the upstairs living room, down the hallway. You can probably see that the doorknobs and light fixtures have not been replaced yet.
This is our room (formerly the really blue room). I found this color on oops paint and loved it. It's more brown than green in person, but this picture looks kind of green for some reason.
The other room. Wow, it looks bright yellow in this picture! It's really more of a light gold color.
Everyone got in on the work--here's my grandpa stripping wallpaper in the utility room!!

And my grandma painting!
And my sister painting...
And my dad and Norris working on the new fan in the guest room. This is more the color that's in there, rather than what looked like bright gold above.
I loved using the power sander!

That's it for now...we are still under construction! I will take some pictures soon of where we are now to post!

Overall, our house is:

2000 Sq. Feet

3 bed/ 1.5 bath

We are using the 2nd bedroom as a guest room and the basement bedroom as a computer room/office with a bed also, so a guest room/office.

Our House....Before

We purchased our first home this spring! We closed at the end of April, and have been working on it ever since! Here are some (pretty rough) befores:

The kitchen. The cabinets are really nice, but everything else pretty much has to go!
The backyard. Lots of work to do there!
View from the front. We're definitely going to have to work on curb appeal! We are right across the street from three parks and a jogging trail, so if you turn around, it's really pretty. We'll have to work at making this view pretty too! The flags are still from the realtor. Also need to get rid of that bball goal.
Part of the back of the house. We'd like to put a deck in here.

The Garage..ready to be primed and painted. Norris is planning to paint and epoxy the floor.

The backyard. Getting a little better just by a week after we moved in! A fence needs to be built to hide the neighbor's "shed". We don't live in the ghetto, but our backyard neighbors seem to think we do!
The "harvest gold" kitchen floor. Wow. You can't really see the wallpaper that was up because I forgot to take pictures of it. It was primary colored apple trees all over.
The living room, after being primed. This carpet was pretty rank!

A hallway upstairs. Leads back to the bedrooms.
The guest bedroom, which was a nice bubble gum pink color! The other upstairs room (our room) was a baby boy blue. We can't figure out which room an adult lived in! The pink room does have a giant closet, so maybe that one?
The bathroom, after being primed. I love how big it is. I really wanted a house with a bathroom attached to our room, but this works for now. Let's put that on our "next house" list!
Utility room. There is a half bath without a wall (a toilet behind that partial wall). How strange.

The basement. It's been recently remodeled, which was really strange, but totally sold us on the house! Norris lived down here when we first bought because it was the nicer part of the house. I love the gas fireplace...or I'm sure I'll love it whenever it gets cold outside anyway!

Side area of the basement, connected to the picture above.
Kitchen in full construction mode. The only appliance left was this white dishwasher which we really don't like, but probably won't replace until it dies. Sweet brass light fixtures, huh?!?
Looking the other way in the kitchen. Left doorway goes to front room, then the staircase to the basement is over that ledge.
The living room, post primer, pre new light fixture and white trim.

Apple Cobbler: the quick and healthy way

Last night I made tacos for dinner. Not very ambitious, and more concerned about setting up our new Wii and Wii fit, to be honest!
I also painted the front door, which is my current house project. It used to be a medium oak color, and I am painting it white. It is taking forever to dry, so it is turning into a week long project to get enough coats on there. I will post pictures later.

Now for the "recipe":
1 apple (I prefer galas or pink ladies for this)
spray "butter"
splenda
cinnamon
oatmeal (about 3 T)

1. Set oven to 425 F.
2. I cut up the apple with an apple corer, then cut each slice in half after that (length wise). I arranged them in a very small pyrex dish.
3. Spray lightly with the spray butter and sprinkle with cinnamon and splenda.
4. Cook this in the microwave on high heat for 6 minutes.
5. Remove from microwave, add just enough oatmeal to lightly top the apples (I used about 3 T). Sprinkle a little more cinnamon on top. (I also think this would work if you just dumped a low sugar maple and brown sugar oatmeal on it!)
6. Put this in your preheated oven for 7 minutes.
7. Enjoy! If you really want some yum factor, add just a little vanilla frozen yogurt or fat free no sug. added ice cream. Even my husband loved this!!

First Post...

I am going to try this blogging thing. Let's see how long I can last! I think it will be a fun modern way of keeping a journal, although not very private.
Norris and I were married just over a month ago, and bought our first home a few months ago. We are very happy to live in the same city finally!
Hopefully, I will be posting recipes, renovating pictures (we have done a LOT!), and other updates. Comment if you wish!