Our home gym

It took just a few weekends. All the credit goes to my amazing boyfriend, who did all the work by himself. 

He even installed a speaker system 

Now all of our messy storage and utilities are hidden away. 

It's become a very inviting place. I'm already working out more. 

Living in a construction zone

The two lots on either side of us are under construction. The lot two down from us is underway as well. As is the giant lot on the corner or our street. 

Great news for us!  Come spring time most of the construction near us will be complete. 

Until then...  We spend our days dodging large equipment coming to and fro. And dealing with the mud and mess invading the streets. 

It's nice to have some progress in the neighborhood. Not to mention new neighbors!!

It's winter time here on The Bluffs and the view is amazing. 

DIY finishing the basement

It started out as a shelving project that turned into a much larger one. 

The next weekend, with a brand new nail gun in hand, framing went up. 

The third weekend lighting was installed

Then drywall was hung

This weekend the mudding process has begun. All DIY by my boyfriend. I'm beyond impressed.  I think we are just over $1000 into a project that would have cost at least $10k through our builder. 

The finishing touch to my kitchen

It's been, what?  Almost four months since we found and ordered the perfect pantry door?  After sending it back twice for being cut wrong they finally delivered an uncut door. 

As my boyfriend sees it, it's always the perfect excuse to buy a new rotary tool. 

I came home Monday evening after work to find it already hung and in place. 

I just love this door. My finishing touch was painting it black to add just a little pop to the kitchen. 

Who Knew?

I worked all weekend while my boyfriend tinkered in the basement, finishing our workout room. 

As it turns out, he's got some skills. I am seriously impressed. It must be that new nail gun. 😉

Fall on The Bluffs.

Our road is just a base layer of asphalt. They will be putting in the final layer as more construction is completed. However, when they poured the end of our driveway they forgot to leave a lip that can allow for another layer of asphalt. So, what does that mean? They had to rip it out.  We have a lovely pit at the end of our driveway for a few days. 

This is the small lip they are trying to mimic. 

Now it's poured. It looks awfully dark but it looks like it's starting to lighten. I just hope the color doesn't stand out too much when it's done. 

The garage has been painted. We chose "poolhouse" by Sherwin Williams. 

The final project, or so we hope, is finishing the basement workout room. 

So far my boyfriend has installed shelving in the utility portion. This weekend he will work on the framing of the workout room. (Note the new nail gun. It's his pride and joy)

The projects keep coming

I was brought to Sherwin Williams and asked to pick out a paint color.  My boyfriend wanted to improve the look of the concrete on the front of our house. We've never been a big fan of how the brick ends well above the ground and switches to concrete. 

Having been completely surprised at these plans, I tried my best to pick out a color that would blend with the brick.  I based this choice off of pictures on my phone. This definitely looks better than the red clay stained concrete we just couldn't get clean. 

The next project was wrangling the dump truck driver in the community. We made a deal, and for $800 he was able to haul in a few truck loads of dirt to the back of our yard. Then he took his little dozer and flattened out the area under the tree line.  It also covered up all the little stumps. Now we are able to place our trampoline and install our fire pit. 

We live in the lovely state of Ohio. When we moved here we learned all about Radon. A peachy little radioactive gas that is easily inhaled and can increase your risk of lung cancer.   It gets into the home through the foundation and those of us with basements will have a higher concentration.  

We purchased a detector with our last home and immediately placed it in our new basement. You let it sit for a couple of days while keeping the house closed up tight.  A safe reading would show less than 4. Our original reading showed over 60!! Then settled down to 24 over a few days. WAY too high for our little ones to be playing in the basement. 

We contacted the Environmental Doctors and they placed a radon abatement system in for us for about $850. 

Part of it is covering the sump pump which I love. 

 It's a giant pipe that goes into the slab and vents it out above our roof line, away from any windows. 

After just a couple of days our reading now sits comfortably at .9. 

The latest project is putting an epoxy paint on the garage floor.  It took a few days as everything had to be moved, then paint, wait 3 days for it to dry. Move everything back and complete the rest. I think if we had it to do all over again it would have been done before we moved stuff in.