Laundry Room

It is already a WELL known fact that I LOVE LAUNDRY ROOMS!!!

This is our current laundry room with the current owners stuff.

Here are a few of my inspiration pictures, thanks to PINTREST :D

 

This is one of my FAVORITES

I love the cabinet in the middle.

I have found this beauty that I would love to put there

 

Im not sure how it would fit in the space, but I think it would look nice.

However with the $89 price tag it is alittle steep, considering I think I would need at least 2 or so. 

I have also been looking at our local Craig list (KSL classifieds) to see if I can find something for about $40. 

  

I love these sheelfs, I think they would look really nice above my sink.  I would prob make them alittle less tall, but still pretty cool.

 

I have found some good similarities at Ikea YES i LOVE IKEA! :) 

 

These average at about $10 each.  I have also found some at our hardware stores, so im not totally sure what my plan is, but im slowly thinking it though.

I really want to do THIS 

 

I have already told my wonderful hubby that I would like to add this style.  He is not really big into bold colors, he prefers neutrals, but Im thinking of doing a color like this for the upper half of the wall.  I love the clean lines of the white board bottom.   

OK ENTER MY GIRLY THING

I stole this idea from House of Smiths blog.  However, with 3 boys in the house, I need alittle girly BLING.  This also REALLY makes me want to make the walls this COLOR along with the white.  

Im not sure if I will be able to convince the boys, however the laundry room IS mine, so I will see what I can do! :)

There is currently a big sink and counter, along with a big cabnet however, I would like to get rid of all of that.  Well not the sink.  I really would love to have  mud room

OR  

I love how these cubby's look, and I think they would give a good use to our space.  I know that our space is smaller.  I would like to have a place for each of the 4 of us to have a drop zone.  IE shoes, purse, coat, backpacks, etc.

We currently have a 2 door system, from the garage into the house, so I would like to move the door from where it currently is, to enter a break between the laundry room and future mud room.

 

From this pic, i wold like to get rid of the counter next to the sink.  And add the door there.  I am not sure how that would go, so it is till very much in the air, but i would like the rest of that space for a mud room.

I have yet to figure out my estimated budget, but I know that this whole process will go SLOW, and I will be using alot of things I have around home to build my dream!

However I have put together a list of things to make it work for us.

• Paint
• New Washer and Dryer (our current ones are staying with the house)
• Iron Station
• New Light
• Panels on wall 
• Cabnets above Wash/Dryer
• Shelf's above sink
• Window treatment
• Move door
• Mud room plan
• Place for coats, shoes, keys, etc
•  sorting system?

Well as you can see there is LOTS of planning at this point.  I know that this is one of the rooms I would like to get working on just after we move in.  However we are not going to be buying our washer and dryer for a few days after we move in, so I would like to start with,
-taking down the current system on the wall, and Paint behind where the washer and dryer will go, and on the window wall.  We will see what happens!!!

Happy MONDAY everyone.

Back on Track

House stuff seems to be on track.  I'm still not holding my breath, but excitement is coming out of EVERY PORE of my body!
This weekend I spent going through each and every crevice, and I have started to PACK! 
I am overly excited, for some sick reason, I love to pack.  I have a feeling it is because there is something more if I am packing, but regardless I love it!
As hubby and I were laying in bed last night we discussed the budget.  Not only a new budget, but a budget where we have a mortgage that is DOUBLE our current one.
To put it simply I am TERRIFIED!!! However, i'm the money one, so I am GOING to make it work.  I have yet to really figure out HOW we will make it work, but somehow we will. (more on that mid week)

I have however started my project list. 
I will spend the next few weeks going through room by room, on what I want to do.  Both short term, and long, AND on a budget.  Our first few projects will give us about $100 a month. That doesn't give us a lot to work with, but the excitement will keep us going.  OR SO I HOPE! :)

Confessions

I love launbdry rooms! Love love love!!

This is my current one. Not perfect, but nice. 

Here is the new one. It is ok but I've been scowering Pinterest and found some great ideas!!!

So much space, so little funature!

As we begin boxing up things around the house, we think about our new home.  I have planned out all of the rooms on the main floor.  With where things will go, what will be in what cabnets in the kitchen, etc. Im EXCITED!! ;) and when im exited I plan.  (find me on pintrest and you will see how crazy I am).
However once the main floor is all perfect, we are out of furniture. 
There are a few items that are alittle too small for the location, however that is something we are dreaming of, and not necessary.

We have a full beautiful basement, with nothing to fill it. 

Both hubby and I want theses.  We would love to have a way for all of our guests to enjoy the space

HOWEVER, They come with a hefty price tag.  

We also have a HUGE room with nothing to place in it. It is currently home to a beauitful pool table, which hubby and I would love to have, HOWEVER, once again no money :(

I am trying my best to hold back, and realize that for at least the next year, we will have a very empty basement.

I have been looking on our local version of Craig's list, to find possible alternatives so we can enjoy our theater room,  but it adds up so quickly.

One major drawback of a new home.  Wanting to firnish it all!!  RIGHT NOW! 

Hold me back honey!!

CRAZY!!

Ok! I really will be back to blogging again SOON!!! However, there is SO MUCH going on right now, there isn't much I can do about it! :)

So our house was on the market on monday 9/9 we had our first showing Wed 9/11 we then had a showing Thrus, Fri and 2 on sat.  Then 1 on monday.  On tuesday (9/17) I received a call from my Realtor.  We had an OFFER!!!!  After a few back and forths as of 11:00 pm 9/17 we were under contract to sell our house.
EAK!!!
I guess when it is right, it is right!
It is still surreal quite and we know that it might not work, but for now, we are just hoping it will work out if it is supposed to.

I love looking at blogs so I have started working on project ideas.  I still love my budgeting, but for the next few months, I have a feeling this will be a house/design blog.

I am totally HOOKED ON PINTREST right now so check out my home and project tab.

If you look at my projects you can see there are a few things that are what I WANT! :)
Here are the first 3... well that i hope to do within the first month.
1. Epoxy the floor in the garage (Ideas 1 2) and products (before we move in)
2. Paint the floor of the Storage room.  I LOVE THIS BLOG.  And she did this post and im SOLD!  I wanted to do it with a FUN color, but hubby nixed that idea. 



So im looking at these colors right now :)

3. SHHHHH dont tell hubby.  But i want to try this
1 2 3 4




So you can see the world at our house is NUTS!! :)

Why?

My husband and I have had an interesting discussion over the past few days.  Why is that when you buy most things that you deal directly with the maker.
I love going to the farmers market, I love working with those who make the amazing things.
HOWEVER this does not happen when purchasing and selling a house.  I have spent the day running the numbers (I LIKE NUMBERS :) lol we received an offer on our home, and now it is time to plan for the money side.
However, after the numbers were done and the papers were signed... I had to chance my minds focus.  Off to WHY we use a realtor.  Here are a few links, however im still not sold.  SO just a few links.
What do you think?

• 5 steps to picking the right agent to sell your home
• The 8 Top Home-Selling Mistakes You Should Avoid
• Top 10 Mistakes Sellers Make When Choosing a Realtor

What do you think?

Would you try a for sale by owner?

What is your best recommendations? 

SHOWING!

Showing a house can be VERY stressful.  With 2 little ones at home, it is not an easy task.
So far we have been on the market for ONE week, and so far we have had 5 showings.
This is SO different from the last time we had our house on the market.  I am really praying for an offer.
Because I get VERY anxious when I dont have control over things, Ive been playing on pintrest prepping to move.  :)

The last time we moved, we got 2 boxes of boxes from my sister.  They were from costco and super nice.  However this time we don't have them.  We ARE going to be hiring movers, it makes it all worth wile to do this.  So we are slowly planning our steps. 

I have been searching the Blogging world for assistance, because I know there are some amazing minds out there.

Preparing to SALE!
We have tried to sale before, so we kinda know the drill.  Clean up EVERYTHING.  Ever last toy.  Give everything a place, and more then anything EXPECT that buyers will look in every drawer and cabinet.  Be ready for that.
We started by boxing up some stuff, and gratefully rather then renting a storage unit, we used my in-laws basement to keep a few boxes.This blog has some great ideas on little tips to prep.
HGTV talks alot about de-personalizing  your home, however our Realtor told us that people like a warm home, so some photos are good, just dont have a crazy wall that is overwhelming.  We removed all our crosses, since a cross in Utah is very out of place.  We cleaned up alot and got down to the nitty gritty.
Grout, inside and out of windows, cleaning out window wells, the like ;)

Stagging:
Once again, I looked to this blog for assistance. I love her pics.  I didn't take before pics, but I should have.  However we went though each and every step we could find online to help us stage our home, and make it look BEAUTIFUL!!

Showing:
We have a wonderful loving dog, however it is best to keep the pup out of the house when showing.  We also have light carpet so alot shows up.  We have spot cleaned with our carpet cleaner, and we try each day to vacuum, keep on top of the laundry, clean the mirrors, all counters, and of course make the beds.  This is our daily ritual!

Packing:
I have been collecting up boxes from work, and so has my handsome honey.  Hopefully we will be packing them full soon, and I plan to use these awesome labels.  I was planning to just write on the boxes, but so far im liking these.  So prob use a mix..

House Rules

Our house stuff is ALL over right now. I will share a few of the OLD photos of our house, when it was last on the market, we have changed some thing. But over the next few months, there will be LOTS of project!!!
I have a few little projects I am working on and will share them as well! :)
These are our house rules. Yes alittle different from the traditional ones, but I love them. I have this framed in our kitchen. (it is down right now because of the listing)

House Rules 

#1                Always Say I Love You

#2          Never Tell A Lie

#3           If You Take It Out, Put It Away

#4             In Bed By 9:00 PM,                     

       Lights Out By 10:00 PM

#5            Daddy Administers All Medicines

#6            Daddy Has All Passwords

#7             You Get What You Get,                    

     And You Don’t Throw A Fit

  Some FUN!
Old House 

 

New House

IM EXCITED!!!!

Good is Enough

A few years ago, my aunt posted about a blog she had found.  I tried to find it, but no such luck.  The post discussed the expectation of women in today's world.  From facebook to pintrest to blogs (yes I do agree) we have so many things we feel we should be.
I came across this post last fall I when I went to school full time, I started 1 week before I gave birth to my second child.  I took 1 week off from classes and only took off 7 weeks from work.  By week 7 I was half way though the semester, taking 15 credit hours, nursing and caring for a brand new baby and my beautiful 5 yr old, trying to be a wife, and working 40 hours a week.  I was EXHAUSTED!!
Come December, I was still holding strong, but gratefully with a responsible and caring husband he said "NEVER AGAIN".


Since this time I have reflected alot about who we are as women. As a woman I feel that many of us have an unreal expectation of ourselves.  I also have this assumption due to a few posts from others.

I will admit that in my years I have learned that Women are just sometimes CRUEL!!! and beyond that there is alot of pressure we put on each other.  I remember a while back, I was dolling myself up to just go somewhere simple (it is very rare for me to wear makeup, so it was a change) he asked why I was doing it.  I said "to look nice for you" he smiled.  What i didn't quite understand at the time was, I did not need to doll myself up for him, he doesn't mind but it is not a necessity. However I see so many women obsessed with looking perfect, because of who might see them.

As my son has started school I have noticed it even more, I tried for a few days to have the perfect packed lunches, but quickly realized it was more then I could handle right now, as long as he had lunch he was good.

 

I agree they are super fun and cool, but for me, too much effort that really doesn't change the world for my son.

My sister shared a blog with me.  It talks about what I have posted here, "mommy wars"  " I think deep down many of us are just a little bit afraid that someone else is doing a better job at this whole thing than we are."

I also have been feeling quite overwhelmed with putting our house on the market so I decided, to do alittle blog stocking and found alittle bit older post.

"a more experienced Mom from church gave me these comforting words and I’ve clung to them ever since.  “It was God who gave you only so many hours in a day.  Who are you to expect more out of yourself than God does?”

Last night when I got home, I knew the house needed alot more work before our open house today.  I picked up my boys, and got home.  As I was driving home I was putting a to do list into play.  I picked up my son, and he wanted to go get a drink.  Since we are keeping to the budget I told him no, but we decided we could do something else fun insteed.  I informed him that he had homework to do as well.
DADDY TO THE RESCUE! (my sweet hubby is VERY VERY VERY sick) but he sat by my little man to help him get his work done. 

When I was finishing up vacuuming at bedtime, my son really wanted to pull out his train track, I told him no, and he got upset and hid.  I sat on the floor had him come and sit on my lap.  I have been so overwhelmed with so many things right now, it was wonderful to sit down and take a moment to talk with my son!
Those sweet moments make it all worth while and I know that no matter what, HE is why i do it all, and nothing else matters.

Ideas from Others

As we prepare to embark on a REAL home ownership, there are many other expenses, along with a larger mortgage that we are needing to prepare for.  I was parusing through my regular regiment of blogs when I found a link to this blog. So far I am TOTALLY loving it.  I have been thinking ALOT about little ways to trim down the budget.  She has given me some good ideas.

As I have posted before our "Other" categories are as following

Groceries

Dining Out

Medical

Auto

-Shady

-Gifts

-Clothes

-house

-Personal

-Spending

-Boys

-Church

-Dates

I would like to say that we were on a RICE and BEANS budget, but we weren't So now we are SERIOUS! we need to be if we want to be successful!  Which we do ;) lol

We have our house staring us in the face.  Our current BI WEEKLY budget for those over the last 6 months have totaled up to about $1,500.  That is $3,000 a MONTH!! CRAZY!! What a waste of MONEY.
Now it is time to get serious! I would like to put our budget into a MINIMUM of 500 less per 2 weeks, to start out with, then drop it in half to $750

As I have stated in the past food is a rough subject for us and it needs to change. I have been buiding a meal plan and it has been working alright, I just need to be MORE aggressive.  Which I can do!  The other spending we do is superficial, it is nice to have the dog groomed, however, not necessary.
We do have a few required expenses.
AUTO: We have 2 cars because my hubby and I work each 20 min from home, in opposite directions. We spend on average $180 every two weeks on gas/maintenance. we also ALWAYS put away money for our boys savings at $45 every two weeks, and lastly we have medical expensise that come and go but average at about $20 every two weeks.
Breakdown
Auto: 180
Boys: 45
Medical: 20
      $245
Now we have $755 left for everything else. Seems simple dont you think?

I will keep you posted.  Today is Wed, and payday is Friday.  We are gonna try it this pay period and you can join me on my journey.

LOANS!

I am sorry in ADVANCE my world is totally HOUSE driven right now! May be bad, and I am sorry, but it is what it is! :)
It is pretty much inevitable that at one time or another, everyone will have a loan.  I know there are many out there (Dave Ramsey) that would like it differently, FREAK ALL of us would like it differently, however that is NOT the name of the game. 
I am the first to admit that I have debt in my life, like most

Car
Credit Card
Student Loan
Mortgage

And now as we prepare to embark on another step of our journey we will be obtaining another mortgage with our new home.

I am back in school, and feeling all SMART again! :) lol  or just doing homework.  I have built an amortization schedule.  The HUGE mortgage ;) we were calculating was $50,000, not sure about your area but here that would buy one a VERY VERY VERY run down home.  However as homework goes, we made up the chart then totaled out the total payments made.
This may come as a suprise to some, but when you barrow  $50,000 at 8% intrest for 10 years you will pay a total of $72,796.56 (not inlcuding extra fees) a cost of just over $22,000 for 10 yr.  But now lets change this just a bit

Here we will discuss amortization over a real mortgage at real rates for real periods.

OPTION 1
The average home price in the united states is $280,000
The current Interest rates on a 30 yr fixed mortgage is at 4.625%
Term 30 years
Payment $1,439.59 

Total paid $518.252.40

Difference of $238,252  MORE then price.  Wow that is almost paying for the home TWICE

OPTION 2
The average home price in the united states is $280,000
The current Interest rates on a 15 yr fixed mortgage is at 3.625%
Term 15 years
Payment 2,018.90

Total Paid $363,402

Difference of $83,402  MORE then price.  Crazy what a difference of 1% point and 15 yr can make. 

Other Options
Sadly more often then not there are many other loan options, and many hurt you more then help

If you have ever heard of an ARM or Jumbo RUN.   
ARM: is an Adjustable Rate Mortgage: Not sure if you are aware but interest rates are at an ALL TIME LOW in our country right now.  My parents always talk of buying one of their first homes at a 14% interest rate, nowadays is under 5%.  The ARM does not take advantage of the options available. 

• "Both 2/28 and 3/27 mortgages are examples of ARMs. A 2/28 mortgage's initial interest rate is fixed for a period of two years and then resets to a floating rate for the remaining 28 years of the mortgage. A 3/27 mortgage is typically the same as a 2/28 mortgage, except that the interest rate is fixed for three years and then floats for the remaining 27 years of the mortgage."

This shows you just how SCARY an ARM can be.  If interest rates are always moving, you may NEVER know what your payments might be and it is CONSTANTLY changing. 


Jumbo:
In the United States, a jumbo mortgage is a mortgage loan that may have high credit quality, but is in an amount above conventional conforming loan limits.This standard is set by the two government-sponsored enterprises, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and sets the limit on the maximum value of any individual mortgage they will purchase from a lender. Fannie Mae (FNMA) and Freddie Mac (FHLMC) are large agencies that purchase the bulk of U.S. residential mortgages from banks and other lenders, allowing them to free up liquidity to lend more mortgages. When FNMA and FHLMC limits don't cover the full loan amount, the loan is referred to as a "jumbo mortgage". The average interest rates on jumbo mortgages are typically higher than for conforming mortgages, although not based primarily on credit risk.


Who would want this type of risk? Sadly prior to the Real Estate crisis, this is how lending was taking place, however banks were buying these loans.  Kinda scare don't you think? 

Excitement!

As a society we are very NOW people.  We all want things NOW!!! And even more then that we want control over all of this as well. 
I will tell you this right now I AM GUILTY OF THIS!

This is currently how I feel!

As we are putting our home on the market and hoping and dreaming of getting our DREAM HOUSE, that we currently have under contract. However we all know that it isn't done until name is signed on the BLACK line.

I am very anxious about our new home, and I want it all to work out perfect, BECAUSE of this, we can break the budget!!
Over the past few days we have gone CRAZY getting our house on the market! So far we have purchased quite a few items, however these alone are not breaking the budget, but it can add up quickly!

 

We bought a gallon of paint and my sweetie painted one HUGE wall in our house. $28
beacuse we were painting we needed a few extra supplies adding up to another $10
The flys here are out of control so we bought a few fly traps $5

Then we needed some cleaning products (CLR, Outdoor Windex, Stainless cleaner, Bar keepers friend, Clorax wipes, scrubbing bubbles, new filter, vent covers, carpet cleaner, etc)  $110

So may seem simple but before we knew it we had spent $153