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. 

From "honey-do" to "honey-did"

My boyfriend has been hard at work on several projects throughout the house. 

Some projects of his own and some from my "honey-do" list. 

We finally painted the air return. It went from white to satin nickel.  A lot cheaper than buying one in that color. 

The floor vents were done as well. They went from an ugly dark tan to satin nickel. 

We were such a fan of how our kitchen outlets looked, the rest of the house was changed as well. 

The laundry room has been an adventure. Originally there was going to be a shelf and a hanging rod. It was determined the studs weren't placed to support the shelf. During this process a pipe was drilled into. A quick phone call to the plumber and it was determined to be an air vent for the sewage system. Yeah... The room stunk by the time the repair was made. My very handy boyfriend fixed it up, patched up the hole in the wall and repainted. He's a good man. 

He also strung the wires in the office behind the wall. 

We had them delete the towel bar from our master bath. We installed hooks for our towels. 

A once bare corner of our great room was decorated. 

And other pictures now cover the once bare walls

Other small decor items have been purchased. 

My boyfriend replaced the awful landscaping. They use mulch that fades within a couple of weeks and use no weed barrier so we are forced to pull weeds every couple of weeks.  Now that won't be a problem. 

We purchased cheap office carpeting for the unfinished portion of the basement. Eventually the boxes will be stored away and the workout area will be complete.

My boyfriend found the sump pump running and hot due to all the mud and debris they left in it. So that was cleaned out and now works properly. 

And finally the garage that he's been working so very hard on. 

Today was the day for my pantry door to FINALLY be installed. We got the call this morning that the replacement door was here. We bought special tools so we could drill it correctly ourselves.  Well, guess what??  It was drilled wrong, yet AGAIN!!  My jaw dropped when we opened it. It was supposed to just be the uncut slab after all the confusion from last time. How on earth did they get it wrong again?  It literally was the exact same way it was last time it came in wrong. My boyfriend swears it IS the same door and is making them check their store room for the correct one. 

I helped load it back into the truck and walked away. I am so aggravated.  All I want is my pantry door. What has to be done to make that happen??