Goodbye, Gold!

We are slowly replacing all the little remnants of the 70s, 80s and 90s around the house. We've got several gold fixtures, wood paneling (painted thank goodness) and plenty of beige outlets and switches. Oh, and did I mention floral wallpaper?

Due to our tight budget (and our desire to make big-yet-thoughtful decisions without breaking the bank), I've been frequenting thrift stores for odds and ends. Well, I got lucky twice in a row! A couple weeks ago I found a kitchen light with potential-- it was a gold fixture with a nice white glass shade. Unfortunately I forgot to take a before picture with it all together, but I promise you the difference some black spray paint makes is amazing. The light was $8 at Goodwill, we used spray paint we had on hand, and "splurged" on a $9 Vintage/Edison bulb because the bulb is pretty visible from most angles. Total cost: $17. Replacing it with the hideous gold light fixture: priceless!

I'll be sharing more about the other lucky find later... we still have to add some finishing touches before it's photo-worthy.

Ceilings: Painted!

One more thing to cross off the list! After scraping the ceilings, we happily discovered that they were in great shape as-is in most rooms. This means we don't have to texture them at all--we could just paint right over them. Score!

The only rooms that require some texturing (due to flaws in the ceiling) are the bedrooms. Nick's dad was able to bust out the Master bedroom in under an hour with light texturing and it looks great! We just painted right over it after a couple days of drying. We still have the other two bedrooms to go, but those are a lower priority because we aren't using them much right now. 

Nick used a roller on the ceilings with flat white ceiling paint and then we went back and cut in later. The paint makes such a difference! Our ceilings feel at least 6 inches higher now and all our rooms look lighter and brighter. It was a labor-intensive project, but removing the popcorn and painting the ceilings added major equity to the house and makes us feel more comfortable in our home too. :) 

Take a look at the before and after:

In the last week we also made our own curtain setup and bought a big rug for the living room (both shown above). For the curtains we ended up spray painting electrical conduit ($3 for 8ft) and used fabric drop cloths as curtains with little curtain clips to hold them up. I still need to iron and hem them but they look great so far! We purchased the rug after selling our old washer and dryer. It was nice to not have to fork over any extra money for a big item on our list. Our little home is coming along!

Goodbye Post-it Yellow!

Moving into our new home, Nick's biggest priority was to get our ceilings scraped. Check! My biggest priority? Getting rid of that faded neon yellow in our kitchen. The yellow walls combined with the bright blue corian countertops was unsettling to say the least. The listing photographer did a great job capturing the kitchen in a decent light, but I promise you that most of the time the walls looked post-it yellow. Blegh!

But, what color to paint? We've got a lot of different elements in our kitchen that make most colors a no-go. White cabinets, black appliances, and oh yeah--bright blue counters. That area of the house doesn't get a ton of natural light (yet-- we have big things planned for that space), so it couldn't be too dark. We concluded that some sort of gray was the best option for the space as it's neutral and can help to coordinate all the different elements. The internet is obsessed with Revere Pewter by Benjamin Moore-- it's touted as a warm gray that goes with any color scheme. Bingo! The gal at Benjamin Moore gave us some suggestions and taught us how to look for different undertones in each color by placing it next to the blue counters. She agreed that Revere Pewter looked best as it lacks any heavy purple/green/yellow undertones that are all too common with shades of gray. 

While Nick started painting our ceilings, I got to work cutting in with our new kitchen color. At first it looked purple to me, but I'm pretty sure that was a combination of the yellow bouncing off the walls and my eyes playing tricks on me. Take a look at the difference! 

My iPhone pictures don't do the room justice compared to the pro's photos, but at least the YELLOW IS GONE! 

Here's our to-do list for the kitchen and dining areas:

Phase 1
-Paint walls!
-Knock out wall between dining area and living room
-Replace or paint ceiling lights in kitchen and dining area (get rid of the gold!)
-Install new baseboards
-Add crown moulding

Phase 2:
-Add a butcher block counter extending from the peninsula for barstool seating (I LOVE the idea of this)
-Replace black appliances with stainless steel or white (this could be 5+ years out for us... our current appliances are perfectly functional and the only reason we'd want to switch them out is for aesthetic purposes, so this is a low priority)

Ceilings: Scraped!

Well, we survived! Nick and I met his parents at the house last night around 5:30 and got to work quickly. The prep work took some trial and error at first... The tutorials say to tape the plastic on the wall, close to the ceiling and drape plastic on the floors before wetting the popcorn. What they don't tell you is that said tape loses it's stick when wet and drops all the plastic to the floor! What we ended up doing was spreading out a giant sheet of plastic on the floors and tape it to the wall on all edges, just above the baseboards. It was a messier job but saved a lot of plastic.

The entire project took us just over 6 hours to complete. Our whole house is now popcorn free! 

Next on the list is texturing/painting the ceilings. The ceilings are in great condition and don't have a lot of flaws, so Nick's mom suggested that we use a textured paint roller in lieu of spreading around joint compound. It'll save us a lot of time and will be a more subtle look, which is exactly what Nick and I are going for.

Projects Aplenty

Tomorrow the little blue house is officially ours! We'll be taking a couple days to tackle a very messy project before moving in: scraping popcorn ceilings. Nick has ordered us some fancy HAZMAT-looking suits complete with respirators and googles. They're actually designed for this project and supposedly the pros use the same ones. Anything to prevent poison from getting into our lungs! 

These are pictures from the original MLS listing. The photographer did a great job, but you can see how the ceilings feel low and make the room look darker. Scraping the ceilings, adding a bit of texture and a fresh coat of white paint should help to brighten up the room a bit.  

Unfortunately the wood-burning stove had to come out as it is not EPA certified. Big bummer for us! Now there's just a gaping hole in its place. We're hoping to replace it with a gas insert or a newer wood stove by next winter. 

Our official "phase 1" plans for the living room so far are:

- Scrape popcorn ceilings

- Texture and paint ceilings

- Remove old school paneling from wall next to fireplace

-Paint the walls a light/neutral color (in person these walls have a peach/rose hue that we don't love)

- Expand the doorway between the kitchen and dining area by knocking out 5 ft of wall (we'll most definitely need Nick's dad's help on this one as it is likely a load-bearing wall and involves installing a giant header)

- Insert matching laminate flooring where said wall used to be

- Replace curtains with something lighter in color and texture (the curtains that the sellers left are heavy and pretty old school. We think they also darken the room a bit.)

- Add a large area rug (we love this one from Home Depot-- it looks even happier in person)

-Hang art on the walls

For "phase 2" here are our thoughts:

- Cover up the brick fireplace with drywall/tile/moulding 

- Add a mantel 

- Hang TV above mantel on fireplace

- Find a way to hide all cords! 

-Change out the dated baseboards 

-Install crown moulding 

Due to our limited budget we've decided to tackle each room in phases (as inspired by my long-time favorite people at Young House Love). Phase 1 includes what we think are the more urgent items as well as projects that are more affordable to tackle in the beginning (e.g. painting the walls). Phase 2 involves more time-consuming/extensive work or pricier projects that we'll be able to budget for in the future. We'll likely have a phase 1 and 2 for the living room, kitchen, and backyard. The other rooms of the house won't set us back too much if we tackle them all at once. 

Three cheers for DIY! 

A Boydhouse of Our Own

Over the last couple years Nick and I have been working diligently to pay off our hefty student loans from the [private] grad school days. We have a set budget and several months' reserves in our savings account, and anything over that that comes in goes directly to our loans. Our long-term goals have always been to pay off our loans, then buy a house or duplex, do a bit of traveling (we'd love to see South America and definitely want to go back to Europe), and then start planning for a family. Well, after lots of thinking and plenty of calculations from Mr. Numbers Guy (aka Nick), we consulted our favorite lender and discovered that by going on "income-based repayment"with our student loans, we could qualify to buy a house! Now, the idea behind this new payment plan is that we will look better on paper to a lender-- we'd have lower mandatory outs per month and therefore a significantly lower debt-to-income ratio. However, that won't stop us from continuing to aggressively pay down our student loans whenever possible because our mortgage payments will be $5 less than our rent!

Once we were armed with this good news, Nick and I went into action mode and, for the first time, started seriously looking for ourselves. After doing the House Hunt with dozens of clients over the last few years, it was so fun to finally have our turn! Because we're in an average of 5-10 different homes per week (perks of being Realtors), we were already very aware of what we did and did not want in a home. Lo and behold, we found a house just 5 minutes from where we live now that matches all of our criteria! Granted, this house still needs some work to bring it to where we want it, but its bones are perfect.

Our Baby Blue Beauty

Again, because of our jobs, we were already very familiar with the market in that area. We were actually actively looking for a couple clients in that area too (and are so glad we found it first! haha). Nick and I agreed to offer slightly less than market value and asked that they help us with closing costs. We also asked for their brand new HE washer and dryer because, why not? And because we were representing ourselves, that 3% buyer's agent commission went right back to us. Boom! To boot, I wrote a sweet little letter to the sellers, letting them know that we're looking forward to making this house a long-term home and promise to take good care of it (true story).

Well, the letter worked! Not even the other agent (who also works with ReMax) could believe the deal we are getting. Since then our inspection came back very clean and our appraisal came in sparkling. Our lender and his team have been pounding the pavement to get this done for us, and will have completed this deal from start-to-finish in 25 days! We get our keys in just a few days and are SO EXCITED to be HOMEOWNERS! We'll have projects a plenty in the first few months, so stay tuned!

Hello Again!

I recently pulled up this ol' blog just for kicks and found myself sucked into it for hours. I am so glad we documented all of our excitement during our first couple years in Oregon. Reading through it again has been such fun. I'm glad that we made the best of our lives as we transitioned from California to Oregon, from Portland to Eugene, from first real jobs to our now for-real jobs, and from scraping by to making a good living. What an adventure this has been!

As always with us, there's been a lot of change lately! First and foremost, you can now call me Mrs. Boyd. :) Nick and I tied the knot in April last year at Mt. Pisgah Arboretum in Eugene. We were spoiled with unusually good weather and lots of friends and family who traveled from all over for our special day. It was a big do-it-ourselves event that took months of planning, but we wouldn't have changed anything about it (except for the fake rose petals/plastic diamonds mysteriously sprinkled on all the tables, haha). Our favorite part was the big Oak tree under which we were married-- our family hung lace embroidery hoops from the branches and walking down the aisle was absolutely magical!

For our Honeymoon we traveled first to Tiel, the Netherlands and stayed with my cousins for a few nights. They took us to all of the sights around Holland and really spoiled us with good food, great company and lots of laughter. We even went to another cousin's Greek-style wedding in Rotterdam! It was quite fancy and again, we felt so fortunate to be there. After spending time with family, Nick and I moved on to our next adventure: Amsterdam. What a beautiful, friendly city! We stayed in a modern apartment in De Pijp, just a few minutes from several museums and the popular Vondelpark. We already want to go back! After a few days in Amsterdam we took the train to Paris and spent the remaining days enjoying some of the best food and wine we've ever had! In case you'd like a recommendation, La Place Royale was an incredibly romantic dining experience. And even the 3-Euro bottles of Bordeaux were delicious!

Zaanse Schans

Rewind: About six months before we got married, Nick convinced me to join him in Real Estate with ReMax. Unfortunately the jobs out there for educators were incredibly slim and I was having no luck finding work that paid more than I earned as a Nanny. It took a big leap of faith, but I took the jump and have not looked back. Nick and I have been working together as Real Estate Partners since I passed the exam in September 2012. We've been having a lot of fun working together, being our own bosses (not each other's, haha), and finding our niches within our biz. Despite the unpredictable schedule that comes with being relatively new agents, it's been SO nice to make our own hours! Yay for mid-week vacations and working in PJs from the couch on a Thursday morning!

2012 = WIN

• Closed my first real estate transactions
• Moved into the nicest home we’ve ever lived in
• Proposed to my girlfriend, she said yes. Best friend is my best man.
• Switched firms and never looked back
• Gained the friendships and respect of colleagues
• Had a great summer full of camping, shooting, swimming, and visiting with friends & family.
• Read more books in one year than throughout the last 10 of my life
• Sold over $2 million in real estate
• Caught my first Largemouth Bass (8 of them, in fact)
• Gained a business partner (my Fianceé)
• Gained a housemember
• Tripled my Savings Account
• Survived another year

-Nick