#renovationstation

[sapurdy1995]

Well on our way to making our house our home 🏡🎉

[pinecohn-blog-blog]

New place is undergoing development and is really coming together beautiful... #superbusy #workinhard #renovationstation #launchpad #freestyleconstruction #piecebypiecethepuzzleiscomplete #itlookssodifferentnowyouwouldntbelieveitlol #pinecohnsteading (at Concow, California)

[realtruthswithnordblackman]

Kitchen Reno-Top Five Tuesday (NOT!)

 Top Five Tuesday  is a way for me to really think about day-to-day things that make me happy.  It is fun.  You know what is not fun?  Renovating.  It is messy and exhausting.  Here is a list of my least favorite things about my current kitchen renovation:

5. Planning with Mr. Blackman--Our brains work in totally different ways.  Renovations seem to highlight these differences.

4. Paint Drying Time--It just holds me back man...Takes me out of my groove.   

3. Priming/Prepping--Boo...necessary, yet so annoying.  In the moment it feels so extraneous.  You work all day and, usually, have very little to show for it.     

2. Sanding--Messy and makes my skin dry.  

1. Drywall Dust--It gets everywhere and I mean EVERYWHERE. 

In keeping with my "1 Bad. 1 Good." philosophy, I will now say something positive about renovating.  When you finally finish all of those annoying steps, you are left with a great sense of accomplishment and pride.  AND if all goes well, it actually turns out better than you had envisioned!  Fingers crossed and Real Truth.

[realtruthswithnordblackman]

The time I bought a Christmas Tree...

The past two years have been a whirlwind for Mr. Blackman and I.  We haven't even had the time/space to put up a Christmas Tree!  In 2010, we were planning a January 2011 wedding and our home was literally filled to the brim with wedding paraphernalia.  Plus, we knew we didn't want to come home from a honeymoon to a house filled with leftover wedding paraphernalia, gifts, AND Christmas decor.  In 2011, we sold our home 6 days after putting it on the market, lived with my Mother-In-Law for 3 months and closed on a new house at the end of October.  Our new house was(ahem...still is) a bit of a fixer upper, so by December of that year we were still waiting to have our walls skim coated and our new wood floors installed.  I like to dramatically tell people that we did not have walls or floors, much less a Christmas tree.  So, basically 2012 was the year...the year that The Blackman's were going to have their first Christmas Tree!

Rewind about one year...On December 26, 2011 I forced Mr. Blackman and my Dad to go to Wal-Mart to get a Christmas Tree on clearance.  We knew we needed one and I wanted it to be nice AND big.  Please keep in mind that during this time our actual home was in complete disarray.  Most of our furniture was still being stored in our garage while we stripped, patched, primed, and painted every surface in sight.  Needless to say our house was empty and, by default, looked HUGE.  Sooooo, while checking out the clearance tree selection I had my own personal Goldilocks moment.  The 7.5' seemed much too small and the 10' seemed much too large, so I was convinced that the 9 footer would be jussssssssst right!  Mr. Blackman questioned my judgement (he thought the 7.5' would be plenty big) but I told him he was wrong because "I know stuff like this".  I bought it and went on my merry way!

Much later in the year, I measured my ceilings to find that they are exactly 8 feet. I did not tell Mr. Blackman of this discovery right away(Christmas is truly his favorite time of year).  In fact, I waited until Thanksgiving to break the news that we were going to have to modify our tree a little.  Today, a mere 4 days after Thanksgiving, we unpacked the tree and he lopped a little off both the top and bottom with his trusty hack saw.  The tree, now the right height, is still a bit crooked, but I'm convinced I can make it work.  After the whole ordeal all Mr. Blackman said was, "Hey, at least we got a deal."  Real Truth.