Massive Monster Bush

We've talked about it numerous times, but always delayed removing the massive monster bush to the left of our house. Although a beast, it offered some extra privacy to our living room and ultimately we were unsure what to do with the space. However, before Mr. McGoo left for his family reunion at the beginning of August, he decided "NO MORE!" and coordinated to have it removed while he was away.

I was amazed at the difference as I walked up to my house following class one night. We are still undecided as to what we want to do next. I'm not to keen on another flower bed because I do not have a green thumb and we put little time into our yard these days. So we're still in discussions... we shall see.

Before

After

DIY Mini Project

In the middle of school craziness, even the most minor of to dos can seem somewhat impossible. If I find enough time to do said project, ultimately I end up choosing to spend that time with Mr. McGoo or others instead. Saturday afternoon, I saw a window of an opportunity and sprinted to complete my mini DIY project before the sunlight hours disappeared.

The goal: To make the three items to the left of our front door more uniform in color - matching the trim of the house. The three items to the left of our front door include: our house numbers, our letter slot, and our mailbox.

Before: Gold numbers, gold mail slot, and black mailbox.

 

Method: I used spray paint and a trash bag opened up as my painting background instead of getting it all over the driveway. For each piece, I started with a white primer, followed by white paint, and concluded with a crystal clear satin finish.

After: I'm satisfied with the results! A quick and easy DIY project that has visible results - the best kind of DIY if you ask me. The only thing negative about the mini project is the discovery that the mail slot is not lined up well with our actual mailbox. In almost 5.5 years of living in this home, I never noticed that reality until the completion of this project... Oh well, just adds to the character of our house.

New Home Addition

Exciting news! Our new stove & oven has arrived and is now fully in place! A fabulous Christmas present indeed.

Our other stove & oven had 2 of the 4 burners out - one of which was the only "large" burner. One of the "working" burners only stayed hot if you had it at a tilt - talk about annoying!


So here is the beauty:

Mr. McGoo and I are enjoying the ease of such a new kitchen appliance! We feel spoiled!
Thanks Dad McGoo!

Green Thumb

I do not have a green thumb. Seriously, I believe the farthest thing from it. I think if I'm completely honest with myself, I'd have to admit that plants scare me. I'm not sure what to do with them. Plus they seem so fragile, slow moving, and time consuming - my current schedule doesn't really allow for much time to give green things TLC.

But our front yard plants were growing out of control... something had to be done.

I borrowed my rents' clippers (or whatever they are called) and attempted to gain some control over the greenery in the bed in front of my house this morning. I went out to tackle the task. It started off well. I was on a mission and knew what I needed to do. Or so I thought... but once I began the snip, snip, snip of the branches and leaves growing over the bed's borders, I got lost.

How do you "form" a plant?

I am apparently completely lacking... but I attempted and at least got the majority of the plants growth back into the borders of the bed. See for yourself:

before

after

The major problem with this whole lacking a green thumb thing is that I really desire to have a garden that grows tomatoes (for my hubs), squash, zucchini, cucumbers, green peppers, and watermelon. It would rock to be able to pull those items (some of my favorite eats) from my own backyard and put them to good use one day. Hmmm.... maybe one day I will learn.

Leak?

A couple weeks ago, Mr. McGoo and I stepped into our house after a day out and about and were greeted by a nasty smell. Although I had cleaned the day before, complete with vacuuming, dusting, bathrooms, etc, the house smelled musty, stagnant, and almost semi-sewage like. Lovely!

Not a good compliment to a lady that tries hard to keep the house clean and semi-models her mother in keeping a clean home (ps. I'm NOWHERE close to mom's amazing cleanliness, but I'm working towards that goal - my many to do's, work and school often make me slack unlike my mother ever does, but when I clean, I clean like a champ working to get a home looking in tip-top mom Wilson shape).

We had no idea what the smell was, but finally discovered that it had to be coming from under the house... we called our plumber and set up a date to find the problem and hopefully provide a solution. A few days later, smell still coming and going, we had our neighbor (who is Mr. Handyman Fix It for a living) check out the problem area. He discovered there was a leak in our piping, which our plumber took care of the next day.

Would you say this would cause a leak?

Ummm yeah! Who knows how long that has been going on underneath our house! TWO MASSIVE HOLES in that pipe! Needless to say, Mr. McGoo had the plumber replace all of the line underneath the house - the old stuff, and I do mean OLD is shown in the second photo.

The joys of an old house!

Thankfully we had a warm weekend and I believe most of the standing water has cleared up and the smell has disappeared! Praise God we found it sooner than later, as the problem would only have increased!

Here's to a good smelling home, once again!

Neighbors

My hubs forwarded me this article and I believe it's too good and too relevant not to pass along. However, before I show you the little preview and provide the link for you to read the full article, I have a few questions for you...

1. Do you know your neighbors?
2. How many neighbors on your street in your apartment building do you know?
3. Have you ever invited your neighbors over?

For Mr. McGoo and myself, the answers to these questions are not very positive....

1. A couple, we know our neighbor to our left and the neighbor to our right.
2. Out of a whole lot of houses on a big block, two houses is it.
3. No. We have never invited our neighbors into our home, nor worked to get to know those outside of our next door neighbors to our right and left.

We have lived in our house since the day we got married, and Mr. McGoo 5 years prior to that. Granted, we could make excuses and say we live in a college neighborhood with a whole lot of rental homes, meaning college students come and go, which is true, but that would be a co-out. I know for a fact we have multiple home owners on our street and even if college students come and go - couldn't we reach out to them during that season?

So with that being said... here is the teaser and the follow up link for a must read article:

TO LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR, 

YOU MUST KNOW YOUR NEIGHBOR 

by Ben Stevens

Having recently moved into an anonymous apartment complex so common around the country, my wife and I decided to invite all the people in our building over for Sunday lunch. They didn’t know each other, we didn’t know them, and we had no idea how it would be received. But most of them came. In fact, they stayed for four hours. And before long we were making up a list of our birthdays to exchange with one another, at their suggestion.

When we moved into the complex, we thought a lot about “how hard it is to meet your neighbors.” And when we discussed the idea of a get-together with the few people we knew in our building, they also commented that it is “tough to have community in the suburbs.” But we were all wrong. It is not difficult to get to know your neighbors—it is simply not something most of us value.

The result is a culture of seclusion [...]

So needless to say, after reading this article I asked Mr. McGoo when we're holding the neighbor get together? :)

If you're succeeding in getting to know your neighbors and inviting them into your life, let me know! I'd love to hear some of the creative ways you stay involved in their lives and get to know them along the way!

Organize Me 1

On Monday, my church hosted their monthly Girl's Night Out event. This month it was called ORGANIZE ME and along with enjoying a dinner with our fellow Sunday School classmates, we had a professional organizer, Sandy Wright speak.

Although I consider myself a pretty organized, task oriented, to do list type personality, I can definitely use some hints about organization. Mr. McGoo and I lead a busy life, and unfortunately when busy becomes a bit overwhelming the household can become a bit of a chaotic place: leave a pile here, put a stack of clothes there, you know the routine?!

Ps. I was informed at this event that CHOAS stands for:  

Can't Have Anyone Over Syndrome

So Mrs. Wright was definitely speaking to me that night. She used Romans 12:12-14 as the basis of her discussion:

Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. Share with the Lord’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality. Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. 

She pulled five specific points from this verse, calling us to be:

1. joyful in hope
2. patient in affliction
3. faithful in prayer
4. share with people who are in need
5. practice hospitality

What a great reminder... we are called to be hospitable, we are called to have people over to our homes and if we are organized it will not stress us. If we have our homes in order with a system that works (file papers here, put clothes there, make bed, etc), then when an opportunity arises to invite someone over we will no longer fret or not invite due to the state of our homes. No more panicked worry about the state of our homes getting in the way.

I have more tidbits to share from the talk, and some things really resonated with me... but for now, I'll share how this reminder of things I know but do not always put into action encouraged me to get back on the horse and get the job done. Over the past few days I have re-worked our budget and put it back into play (we've slacked a bit over the past few months - NO MORE!), I meal planned for numerous meals (2 weeks+), cut coupons, took the time to get e-coupons (if you shop at Kroger - do NOT miss this easy extra savings - today alone it gave me an additional $5 off in 7 e-coupons), grocery shopped with my hubby, and reorganized a couple of the cabinets that hold our groceries (we do not have a pantry, how dreamy that would be one day).

So without further ado, because I know some folks are curious, here are the meals (dinners) I'm ready to do over the next few weeks, plus of course snacks, lunches, and sides we have readily available:

• McGoo style chili
• taco soup
• potato soup - mix kind
• potato soup - homemade kind
• cheeseburger soup
• tacos
• chicken divan
• grilled chicken salad
• salmon
• spinach chicken alfredo
• creamy chicken and rice
• BLT's
• italian chicken
• tilapia
• breakfast - dinner of champions

Moving in the right direction. One thing at a time, right? Now to tackle that office/paperwork area I set as a goal to the ladies sitting near me on Monday night... hmm.....

Central's Girl's Night Out: "Organize Me" - Karli, Erica, and Me

Living Room Transformation

It has almost been a year since we begun our living room transformation. It started as a possible vision, a "what if", and now we are finally near complete. We began in February 2010.

This is what our living room looked like before we began in February. This is the first area/place you see when you walk into our home. To your right, when standing at the place of this first photo there is/was a door leading into our guest room to the right. I do not have a before picture (that I could find) to show that to you well.

Standing at our entry "hall" at the front door, to the right is/was a door leading to our guest room

The first thing we did in February was close in the entry door (one of two) to our guest room. It was the first thing you came to within the room, on your right as you entered into the living room. Here is the photo of what it looked like once we closed the door in and made it once again a wall.

The door to the guest room that is no more

In March, we took our living room transformation further and worked to open up the flow through the living room and kitchen. We LOVE how creating this opening and "bar" type area really opened up the space. The rooms now feels so much bigger and we look forward to seeing how it makes hosting large gatherings much more interactive, rather than having one group in the kitchen, on in the living room with little room for interaction otherwise. (Sadly, life has gotten so busy, I'm not sure we've had a big gathering - always less than 6 or 7 people - since we began this transformation - that changes tonight!)

Unfortunately life got busy and expenses were not available, so without time and money, the living room transformation was put on hold after this event in March.

However, thanks to the amazing nature of my parents, their awesome hard work, and dedication of their New Year's weekend time, we were able to utilize the time that Mr. McGoo was in Ethiopia and I was already home. We worked hard together to surprise Mr. McGoo and were able to ring in the new year with a much closer to completed living room!

The first step was SUPER DAD tackling the much needed sanding of the newly created wall (door no more), and working to keep such sanding from covering every inch of my home with dust. Dad's genius created a bubble that made the project neat and clean. Check him out!


Once that was completed, we were ready to start the priming and painting process. I struggled to decide on a paint color for the room. I searched on the internet for inspiration, hoping to find a room I wanted to mimic and utilize the style... it took awhile, but I found it. This was my inspiration:

Simple Inspiration - NOT MY HOME!

I took this photo as inspiration and built my own design/decor around it. First was the paint color... thanks to youngest sis, who helped, we picked out a color called BON VOYAGE. It's teal. I began searching for an accent color - thinking it would be that burnt orange color, but as I found decor pieces I liked, I ended up choosing a muted red accent instead. The other accent is brown. With the paint color in hand, and the accent colors chosen, I worked to find a rug, curtains, new ottoman/coffee table, etc...

Here is the close to finished product (below). What do you think? Did we create a LIVING ROOM TRANSFORMATION?

New artwork - Mr. McGoo hung them perfectly, it wasn't easy!

I have a side table to the right now (no more tv tray).

New curtains, new pillows

New ottoman/coffee table (much less bulky than before), new rug

Love how the opening now pops even more with the trim painted white

View from the foyer/entry "hallway" - front door area

new large vase and decor

Only thing left is to finish the decor: plans are to add a few pieces of art, a new end table (waiting for price to hopefully go down), possibly a ladder bookcase (watching the price on that one too), getting Mr. McGoo's favorite rocking chair recovered and cushion added, and adding a few hung photos.

Thankful for all the help along the way and one more room in this house is coming together... and like always, we'll have another home project soon. Always something!

Paint in My Hair, Paint Everywhere

Paint in my hair, Paint everywhere,

Paint in the room, no longer looking gloom.
Painting done there, Painting to do everywhere,
Painting the living space, Painting all over the place.
Updating the house, not being quiet as a mouse,
Enjoying the changes, making new arranges.
Hoping the end is in sight, it will be a great delight.

Well we completed the painting process last night for the guest room. I'm not even thinking about a third coat, so I hope it doesn't need it. So far the verdict is such: I love how bright the room is and how much larger it now looks. I'm looking forward to adding all the necessary accents to pull the room color pallet together - looking to get curtains and a few accessories to go with my new decor pillows. Once all the pieces are put into place, I'm certain we'll love it. The jury is out until then... but AT LEAST I like it better than the dark green (my hubby - typical male with desired dungeon/dark color tastes - thinks differently, so I'm hoping to pull it all together soon so maybe he'll say that he likes it). Only time will tell.

We wore ourselves out last night... from cleaning up after the major project conducted by some guys we hired (more on that later - we opened up our layout a little in the house from the living room to the kitchen), to starting the second coat of paint in the guest room, to completing the second coat of paint, to cleaning up our mess post painting, to putting everything back in its place in the guest room, to cleaning the floors from the mess of painting and the previous project of the day, to attempting to get some rest (much after midnight) - we are worn out!

But I'll say this, changes are definitely happening at the McGoo house... I cannot wait to have it all complete and post many photos, complete with some before & after shots. Today we are getting a dishwasher installed... goodbye "roll-able, must plug into the wall and hook to the facet dishwasher" that took up tons of square footage in our kitchen - hello modern dishwasher that will go UNDER the counter (novel idea)!

We will definitely have to have an open house party or something of the sort to show off our casa once all the changes are complete. Looking forward to that day.

Great Weather, Good Friends, Nice Weekend

We had a great weekend and I think seeing the sun shining and enjoying the non cold temps gave everyone a little more pep in their step. We were able to visit with new and old friends both Friday and Saturday night. On both occasions we ate delicious grub and more than enjoyed the company of friends.

In addition to the normal weekend occurrence of school, we enjoyed the amazing weather in full by taking our furbabies on a walk. We were out and about for about an hour and took them to the U of Memphis to enjoy some of the open spaces/fields available around there. They LOVED IT! And so did we! We had to wait for a train to pass in order to get to the university and that seemed to perplex Dexter - what is this thing? Once we got the open space at the university, Kodi Bear enjoyed wandering about at his own free will - he's good like that. Dexter, on the other hand, had to be leashed at all times because we know he'd be gone for good if we let him off... so to help my pup out, I took a few laps back and forth on the field to get Dexter running. He is FAST! I did my best not to trip and fall (not a small feat for me! seriously!), as well as keep up with him so he could run as he desired - you could tell he was having a blast, tongue sticking out everywhere and all. The fun part of this process was that once we ran across the field from one side to the other, Kodi would follow. Dexter and I would stop - so Momma could catch her breath and get ready to run back. Kodi would stand behind Dexter and I and once we took off again, he'd wait a few seconds and then chase us or race us back. It was hilarious. I'm sure my hubby would have a thing or two to say as he watched this process occur more than a few times, while sitting on the bench relaxing. I'm sure I looked like a dork as usual.

Below are photos I took of the boys before we went on our walking excursion Saturday. I caught Dex laying out in the sun like an iguana! Right next to the sliding glass door, he was sprawled out enjoying the rays. Very cute - so I had to get some shots. Here are a few of my favs...

Both of our furbabies - Kodi on his bed (not so excited about Mom's photo shoot) and Dex front and center ready for his close up!

While taking multiple photos of the beast (Dexter) as he laid out in the sun, I caught this AWESOME photo - he's yawning, but it looks so cool!

As I mentioned earlier, Kodi wasn't all about the photo shoot. He mostly gave me the look that says, "What are you doing?"

Along with the fun times with friends and the pups, the hubby and I continued to tackle some home projects. We finally got the guest room primed (lots of speed bumps along the way - i.e. emotional break down last week, pure exhaustion, etc). We also put our first coat of paint on the walls last night and are in hopes of applying coat #2 this evening. The dark greenish color is definitely gone, now we're working towards completing the Castle Stone color... only time will tell if the color turns out like I desired after the second coat.

Today is the first week day of my hubby's spring break... he's a trooper - instead of enjoying the sun somewhere outside of Memphis, he's at home in the midst of home projects. More on that later.

Home Owner = Constant Project

If you're a home owner then I'm sure you'll understand what I mean by "Home Owner = Constant Project". The reality is, whether you have an old or new home, there is always things to change, always projects to unfold, and always things on the wish list.

For me and Mr. McGoo, a To Do List of home projects needing to be tackled is always underway. We have an older home and there is plenty to do. "Project flooring" was completed a few weeks ago, maybe a month now. It has made the home look TOTALLY different and we love it! And around the same time, we completed "project take the door away". So yesterday we began "project re-do guest room". The guest room nearest our bathroom, and technically the first bedroom on the right when you enter our home (there is not an entrance there anymore) is currently a disaster zone. Last night we sanded down all the puddy around the new drywall that was put into place when they removed the door. We also filled in all the holes in the walls and sanded down any bumpy rough patches that we could find. The room is currently coated in dust from this endeavor, and although I did my best to vacuum up as much as I could last night, an intense cleaning is in my future. We'll have to wipe down everything and clean it up before the next step... primer... paint... and finally putting the room back together.

Currently the bedroom is a dingy darkish green. I (yes, the pronoun has changed here because Mr. McGoo hates painting and I know this will be a solo endeavor once the paint cans are popped open - he did tons with the sanding and will help clean up and prep, and I really don't mind painting. I'll turn on the tv in there and get to work while enjoying a cheesy Family Channel movie) will change the room in a big way by taking away the dingy darkish, not so nice looking green, and replacing it with a neutral CASTLE STONE. The bedroom will instantly look bigger with this neutral lighter color. Currently the bedding is a neutral, masculine pattern that's simple with thick lines of tans and browns. I will keep that bedding but add an accent color now that I have a neutral pallet on the walls. I'll pick my accent color by choosing a few pillows to add (one solid, one or two patterned) and once I have the accent color I can then choose some curtains to put up in the room also. Looking forward to the change.

All of these changes - at least the ones with the walls and putting the room back in order will need to be completed by the weekend. My father in law is coming back in town to stay a bit and this room is where he stays... want to get the project complete before he arrives. Time to get down to work!

Casa in the Works

Our casa is experiencing quite a few changes as of late. We FINALLY had the wood lamanent flooring laid down that we've been in possession of for over six months. Boy has it made a VERY dramatic difference in the aesthetics of our home! We love it already!

Below are are some before and after photos showing the vast difference between the OLD and the NEW flooring. I've been really impressed how my paint colors of choice (back in May, see McGugan Extreme Makeover: Home Edition for details) compliment the new flooring very well. It seems to bring it all together. Check it out:

The new flooring goes throughout our back living room, old office (which will have a new function soon), kitchen, and mini hallway in between the kitchen, bathroom, and guest room. The project was just completed on Monday, so rearranging, repainting trim, and decorating has not begun. It's a work in progress. I believe it always will be, but we're definitely making headway into the right direction. Love it!

The other project that was completed on Sunday (completed in raw form, remember not decorated, painted, or finished at all) was the removal of a door. Our front living room had a door leading to one of our guest rooms. This guest room had another door that lead to the mini hallway near the bathroom and kitchen. We had the door to the living room removed. This project not only created more wall space for us, but it will also make a difference in the noise level experienced by the guest room and the insulation of the guest room. Very exciting.

Stay tuned as more changes will happen in the coming weeks. Paint colors to be chosen, decor to be purchased, room functions to be changed... we have some work to do, but the changes already are encouraging along the way!

An Eventful Weekend

Our weekend started out with something special, fun, and out of the norm. Friday night we were able to actually enjoy the gift we got my Daddy for his birthday (back in November). My hubby and I, along with my mom and youngest sister purchased tickets to the Brian Regan show here at the Orpheum theater. We knew the gift would be delayed, the show not being until January, but felt like it would be a perfect night out for Dad and good "non tie or sweater" gift for his birthday.

We had a great time. We first went to dinner at The Majestic Grille to enjoy some grub and good conversation and then made our way to the Orpheum to enjoy some laughs. Brian Regan was great. My hubby had never seen or heard him before. I had heard some of his stuff on cd, but had never seen a live show before (for any comedian), so it was an exciting night. We had some good laughs and some good jokes/stories to talk about later in the night and even throughout the weekend. It was a fun time, and I'm pretty sure Dad enjoyed it, which is most important since it was for him.

Saturday for me consisted of getting up at the same time I do every weekday morning... 620am the alarm sounded and it was time to get up for school. Two weeks down and it's going well (no tests yet, ask me again after I experience one of those in a few weeks), but getting up at 620am on a Saturday hasn't gotten any easier yet. There is just SOMETHING about it, something about my mind knowing it's a Saturday and I should be able to sleep to 8am or so that gets me. It's a struggle, but I've gotten up each time with time to spare to pick up a cup of coffee along the way.

On Sunday, probably the most interesting thing of the weekend happened... our bed broke. Oh yea, lovely huh? The bed will not be 3 years old until March 31st and it BROKE. My hubby was being so sweet, getting up to take the dogs out of the room so they wouldn't bother me for an extra 30 minutes or hour of sleep, but as he got up... KAAABLAAAMMMMM! The bed tilted to one side... "ARE YOU OKAY?! WHAT HAPPENED?" is what came out of my mouth as a sat up as quick as possible. Yuppers... turns out one of the rails broke. The rails have a metal piece within them that then slides into the headboard or foot board accordingly to connect all pieces together... well the metal piece stripped through the wood completely, broken. Freak accident. We had to completely take the bed apart to take the pressure off the parts of the bed that were not broken. When we took the broken rail to the furniture store to show them and order our new rails, they said they've never seen that before. So my guess is that the wood was splintered or cracked internally from the very beginning and over the last couple years, that metal piece has been moving more and more towards freedom and a broken bed.

Oh yeah, the warehouse isn't open on Sundays or today (MLK Day)... so we've been sleeping with a mattress on the floor and will again tonight before we get our bed put back together on Tuesday. Oh the joys of randomness!

While we were out purchasing our new bed rails, we also picked up curtains for our bedroom. We put them up last night and I'm already loving them (camera phone picture to the right from when we were at the store trying to decide). Not only do they shut out the light wonderfully from the next door neighbors home, but they also add some additional colors to our room. Now for project "make a pillow to accentuate". We'll see how that goes.

Happy Monday!

Ps. Our super talented friend, James Joseph worked diligently as Mr. Do It All on a FREE album that just hit the internet. Check out his work and enjoy: http://www.earsmackaudio.com/morning-colours-free-album

Christmas Decor

With every Christmas season comes the unpacking and displaying of Christmas decor. Having been raised in a home where the Christmas tree was always lit and covered with ornaments during this time of year, as well as having the stockings hang from the fireplace... these items are something I too equate with Christmas time. It's amazing how a lit tree and some stockings can instantly bring a warmth within a house, not only looking inviting to others, but also offering comfort to those living here. There is nothing like turning off the lights in the house, except for that tree... sitting on the couch under a warm blanket and reflecting over the blessings in our life.

Every year, my hubby and I debate over the type of lights we will put on the tree... white or colored, white or colored? Each year, we put up colored lights. Not only are these the lights of our childhood... both my man and I were raised with Christmas trees hosting colored lights, so it reminds us of many childhood Christmas memories... but there also becomes a decisive reason for displaying colored lights on our tree rather than white. My man and I both are attracted to white lit trees... they look so put together, so sophistated, so nice... but when we look at who we are and what we are like, it's too easy to make the decision, like my man has said before, .... "who are we kidding? We're anything but sophisticated!" ha ha, so colored lights it is this year, and colored lights it probably always will be.

Here are a few of the pictures of our current Christmas decor - it's the most wonderful time of the year!

My fabulous Aunt Terri gave this adorable mat to me while we were in KC. It's quickly become one of my favorite happy decorations around this holiday. Too cute! I've received multiple compliments on it. Thanks ATerri!

The Christmas Tree, colored lights and all. My hubby puts the red garland on it every year and it is a great touch to fill out the tree...

The mantle... one of my favorite aspects of our Christmas decor - 4 stockings, one for my man, one for me, and one for each of our furbabies. The stocking hangers spell out J-O-Y with a pine cone decoration to hold the fourth stocking.

And last but not least our welcome wreath on the door - Pier 1 purchase a few years ago. I love it.

Christmas is only a week away! I cannot wait to celebrate our Savior's birth with my family!

Merry Christmas!

Extreme Makeover: Home Edition

Seriously, PRODUCTIVE does not even begin to scratch the surface of what we did this past weekend. The McGugan Extreme Makeover: Home Edition was exactly that - an EXTREME HOME MAKEOVER.

Over the Memorial Day "long" weekend, we did some major home changes. My amazing family came together and put in at least 30-40 hours worth of work EACH during the three day period. Craziness!!! My middle sis (Robin) and her hubby (Brent) traveled all the way from Nashville to be a part of the action, and Mom, Dad, and youngest sis (Kelsey) were ready and willing to get the job done. The hubby and I were and continue to be overwhelmed by my family's generosity in their time and labor. Even some of our buddies came by to help Saturday with the demolition of the shed... Thanks Riser!!! Thanks Keith! A job well done by everyone!

So, you might be asking yourself,

30-40 hours? What the heck did ya'll do?

Let me give you a tally, just to give you a small glimpse of the productivity this weekend:

• Demo'd the backyard shed
• Moved every single demo'd piece of material onto the curb
• Dug up all the concrete, brick, and shingles that were under the shed
• After priming the backroom, we painted it twice
• Framed out the new window in the backroom
• Painted the backroom trim
• Painted two coats onto the master bedroom door and office doors
• Stripped the kitchen cabinets, doors, and drawers with CitriStrip liquid - two times each piece
• Sanded down (all the way through many layers, down to the plain wood) kitchen cabinets
• Sanded down (down to the plain wood) kitchen doors and drawers
• Primed the kitchen cabinets, doors, and drawers
• Painted two coats of paint onto the kitchen cabinets, doors, and drawers - although we desired and had planned to stain the cabinets it turned out that different woods were used during the creation of each piece, as well as random bits of wood filler throughout the kitchen made us have to go with the painting process instead of stain
  
• Primed the walls above the railing in the kitchen
• Painted two coats of paint in the kitchen, above and below the center trim railing
• Put new hardware of the kitchen cabinet doors and drawers
• Cleaned and scrapped down existing hinges for the kitchen cabinet doors to reuse them
• Primed, and painted two coats worth on the doors separating the kitchen and living room
• Painted two coats in the area/hallway between the kitchen and bathroom
• Replaced the door handles on both slat doors between the backroom & kitchen and the living room & kitchen to match the room they open into
• Put new liner down into the cabinets and drawers

As you can see, we WORKED this past weekend. Below are "Before & After" photos of the kitchen. Before = white cabinets and green walls. After = brown cabinets and "pebble path" walls.

That's the same table before & after, the after just happens to be without the leaf folded out. I love that table, it was a grand buy after our wedding!

I'm thinking all the changes were worth all the work. Now all we have to do is save up for the new floors. ;) Always something, right? Thanks for all the help guys! My family rocks!!!