Touring Tuesday

This Tuesday I'm not going to take you for a tour around my house because I'm too busy touring the beautiful Florida Keys.

This is my current view...

While everyone else is out on the boat for an afternoon fishing trip, I opted to stay back and park my butt at the beach for a while. I went out with them yesterday and had quite enough chunk blowing practice thankyouverymuch.

P.s. don't be fooled by my reference to a beach in the Keys. There really is no such thing. We just happen to stay in a community that has a gated private area where they trucked in some sand and decided to call it a beach.

See ya in a week!

Touring Tuesday - The Purple Bedroom

I'm gonna be totally honest and tell ya'll that I almost left ya hangin' again.... but here I am!

I have 30 minutes or less to publish this post on Tuesday, so I've picked a quick transformation to show ya'll this week. Our guest bedroom!

This house was previously owned by an elderly couple who were the guardians of their very young granddaughter. This granddaughter had a very pretty princess room. It was purple, with a pink accent wall, and a pretty little princess bed. 

As much as I love pink, purple, and pretty princess beds.... it just didn't quite fit our style.

The princess bed got sold and went to make another little girl very happy to transition to a big girl bed.

The floors got ripped up, the window got replaced, and the ceiling popcorn got scraped off.

Thanks Mom!!! This was a HORRIBLE job that us girls got stuck with. (that ceiling needed some repairs as well, it was a MESS!)

After the whole room was sprayed with knock down texturing.... It got painted a nice pretty yellow, and got a new ceiling fan and some soft squishy carpet floors. 

Funny story....we were SO stumped on what color to paint this room. I randomly thought about yellow one day and thought that there was no way The Boy would EVER go for that idea. Then, one night, he said "I was thinking about the color for the guest bedroom again - what do you think about yellow??" And yellow it was :-)

This isn't really what that room looks like anymore...but this is what it looked like when we moved in. We might have had an unfortunate accident with the mirrored closet doors that resulted in the use of a shower curtain rod and a sheet for over a year to hide our mess. And....we might have been lacking in a bit of furniture, but we made it work!

Anyone need a place to stay in SoFlo? 

Teenage Hangover....

Remember a few weeks ago when I post-poned Touring Tuesday because I was just way too busy? And then I promised I would tell you about it? Well, here I am to tell you about it....

A few weeks ago, my two teenage cousins came to visit us from TN for a week. Their visit happened to overlap the Boy being out of town, so we got a few girl days in before he came home and rained on our estrogen party...but that was perfectly okay with me. Do you have any idea what happens in a house full of JUST girls for DAYS????? I do! What happens is your guest room gets hit by a Teenage Tornado...

You get very used to the guest bathroom being occupied for long periods of time, there is a lot of running around the house in underwear, you spend 6 hours at the mall, and you get talked into dying your hair pink! Yup, pink. If you follow me on Instagram (@amylynn0185), you may have seen it already. The girls said they really wanted to dye their hair while they were here, and really wanted their cool cousin Amy to do it for them. So of course, being the cool cousin that I am, I verified with their mom that it was okay, and then we got to work, at 3 am. AND in my high on peroxide and no-sleep delirium I got a little crazy with the bleach and took some to my own hair as well.

Not bad, right? Everyone seemed very happy with their new wild hair, and no hair fell out in the process. Success!!!!

We have a lot of family that lives locally, so they spent most of their time here running around trying to see everyone, but we also got a few more days together later on in the week.

We spent an afternoon at the beach....

We went to lunch and got pedi's...

and I took them on a driving tour of the area where they grew up and we reminisced. They moved away about 8 years ago so they were pretty young when they lived here, but they still have very vivid memories. Fun fact, I actually lived with them for about 6 months right before they moved away, so we're pretty close. 

On their last night in town, the Boy took us all out to dinner on the beach. The food sucked, but we had a great time. 

I can't wait until they are old enough to drink though. It's pretty torturous to be across from Fat Tuesday with a bunch of minors! The older one promised us that when she turns 21 she's gonna come back, sans little sister, so we can party :-) The younger one said that by the time she turns 21 we'll be too old to party with her... :-( 

Brat.

I had a great time with these crazy kids, but dude, teenagers are exhausting!!! I told them one night that I was exhausted, and the younger one looked at me completely straight faced and said "Teenage Hangover???"  Yup....pretty much!

Touring Tuesday - Kitchen Reveal

Last week I showed you the mess that was my kitchen...now let me show the beauty we are workin' with now!

The kitchen is the main focal point of our house. It's the first thing you see when you walk in the door, and it can be seen from every direction in our little home so it was really important to us that we went all out on it. 

We really didn't work on the house one room at a time, it was more like the whole house - one step at a time. After the ceiling was done in the kitchen, the lights and wiring went in, the walls and ceiling got knock down texturing, it was primed, the floors went in, and THEN it was time to paint. Mom, Step-dad and I painted the kitchen/living/dining room this green color that I am in love with. This green has made it's rounds...in fact, my best friend now has this color in her bedroom AND office because she loved it so much too. 

Here you can see our pretty new floors :-) and our wood cabinets that we assembled, with no instructions. And no, they weren't an Ikea special... lol....they just came from a small company for a good deal and I guess they figured if we were dumb brave enough to install them ourselves, we should be smart enough to assemble them ourselves too. That, or it was their failed evil ploy to get us to pay for them to do it. 

Then we had another assembly party for the upper cabinets. I'm vertically challenged so we called in the Step-dad and Step Brother for this project!

 Ta-da! Beautiful cabinets! And then..... there was GRANITE!!!!!

Ahhh.... beautiful clean countertops. Before we added all our STUFF!

This is pretty much what it looks like now. Except we have cabinets over the sink that we added at a later time. We were undecided initially about what we were going to do up there because the company we ordered from didn't sell anything that fit. We wound up ordering small cabinets and an extra doo-hickey that the boyfriend fabricated and made work quite nicely. He's awesome like that....

So, there ya have it! Our newly renovated kitchen!!!! It came a long way from this, huh?

We're pretty proud of it. 

Touring Tuesday - Operation Rip Everything OUT!

I know I left ya'll hangin' last week... sorry about that. I was very busy, and I have lots to tell you, but right now it's Tuesday - so let's tour!

Two weeks ago, I left you with this sneak peak of our original kitchen.

 Pretty scary, huh???

The first step was to start tearing it all apart so we could have a clean slate to work with. These homemade cabinets just weren't gonna cut it.

From the minute we walked into this house, we knew this wall HAD to go. It made the kitchen it's own little room that was super small and cramped, not to mention - HOT! In spite of the cheesy little ceiling fan that hung in the middle. The Boy had way too much fun with this part of the project.

Now that there was room to breathe, we could start ripping out the cabinets and such.

It was already looking SO much better! 

But, things have to look worse again before they get better. The drywall in the kitchen was NASTY and there was this icky drop ceiling that had to go now that the wall was gone. SO, out it all went!!!

See? Whats up with the weird ceiling??? eww....

What a mess! And the fun was just beginning. 

We took a sledge hammer to the tile, and then an industrial chipper....and then....we found 20 year old linoleum under it. NO FUN. Thankfully we were able to rent this nifty tool on the bottom right that helped get it up. Because let me tell you, it did NOT want to come up!

We were very lucky to have a LOT of help from family throughout this whole project. 

The Brother in laws, and my Step dad, came over and helped put up some new drywall, and it was time to start putting things back together! Putting it all together was a much slower process....and the Boy didn't find it nearly as exciting since now he had to be careful and meticulous.

 There are no sledge hammers to be used during assembly!

Next week - the finished product!

Touring Tuesday...

Has been post-poned this week, and I do apologize... but I've been pre-occupied with hours upon hours at the mall, along with what I refer to as the "Teenage Tornado", and pink, teal, and red hair dye. Details to follow shortly. Probably after the weekend. 

That's a BIG Guppy!!!!

Last week the stars finally aligned and I was available, along with my friend Jenn and her husband Damian, to join The Boy in some late night Tarpon fishing. 

Tarpon fishing is a pain in the butt. It has to be the right time of the year, the moon has to be right, the tides have to be right, the weather has to be right, and you have to be available when all of that happens. I was pretty excited that it finally all worked out and I was able to come. (The Boy has been MANY times without me) Jenn and Damian have been asking to go for a while too, but as this is usually a last minute deal, it's rare that they can drop what they are doing to join us. 

Jenn and I just waiting on the big one while I drove the boat

It was very late, and we were very tired, but the fish were biting everywhere and we were determined to hook up with a big one. And a big one we did hook.... well, Damian did.

 These fish put up the BIGGEST fight. You actually have to chase them with the boat to gain on them at all. As soon as Damian would think he was gaining on it, it would get a burst of energy and run off. He was exhausted, and had to ask Jenn for a drink, lol....

 Here is The Boy making it an "official catch" with a "leader touch". In competitions, if you can get the fish close enough to the boat to touch the leader on the line it's considered a catch.

 As The Boy would say - "That's a big guppy!"

A much deserved beer for a job well done! There was some serious teamwork that went into catching that fish! (yes, I cut Ed's head off...it was dark, gimme a break)

Touring Tuesday!

The vote was pretty unanimous that everyone wanted to see the transformation of my house into a home, and if you don't - who cares. This is MY blog, and I can blog about whatever I want! :-P

Let me start off by saying that purchasing this house was the biggest headache I've ever had to deal with in my life. So much so, that we almost walked away from it more than once. I'm so glad we didn't though, because I love it. Most of the time. We literally started the purchase process in November of 2007 and didn't close until May 2008. We knew it needed a LOT of work, but we were really in love with the backyard and figured it would all be worth it. Plus, that boy of mine is pretty handy, and really enjoys a challenge. He also can't leave anything "stock" so it's always assumed that anything we ever purchase will be "customized". 

And...here it is! Our first little house.

It's nothing fancy...just a typical South Florida single family home from the 70's.

I know most of you are probably saying "Wth, I thought you said the backyard was what sold you Amy?!?!?!" And,well, it is! In this area, that's actually a pretty large backyard. The major selling point for us was that gate, with the road behind it that you see beyond the pool. The picture of the enclosure is actually taken from that street. For us, that means that we can park our boat back there! Right where that shed is actually....because that shed isn't there anymore. But that's a story for another day.

(Interesting fact: the pic on the bottom left was actually taken and sent from my phone to the boy the day that our realtor called and told me to scope the house out. From then on, he was hooked.)

Once all the purchasing drama was over, it was time to get to work. 

First stop - The Kitchen!

Yes, those cabinets above the stove are indeed upside down. 

Come back next week to see "Operation: RIP EVERYTHING OUT!"

Fur Baby Friday!

I'm popping in on this FurBaby Friday to show you just how awesome my Fur Baby is. 

Can your Fur Baby do that????

(psst...hey...Mrs.Monologues....where's your link up this week???)

I've been thinking....

When I was doing my post about organizing and such... I got to thinking about how I've never showed ya'll how we made our house a home! Our house was a MESS when we bought it. We actually bought in May of 2008 and didn't even move in until September because we were doing some major re-vamping. I'm talking knocking walls down and everything. I was way too busy to blog back then, and then I had every intention of writing about it, but never got around to it. Soooo, I was thinking about doing a series called "Touring Tuesdays" and showing you one room at a time, the mission of turning our house a home. Would ya'll be interested in that?

I mean, really... we were dealing with PINK walls people.

Taking a break!

With as much work as we've been doing around the house on the weekends, we haven't had much time for fun stuff. On Sunday we took a break and headed on down to the Keys for the day to fish with my Godparents. The weather was beautiful, but the seas were quite bumpy. Much  more bumpy than the weather forecast called for. I get motion sickness and I held in there pretty good for most of the day, but it finally hit me and I decided I wasn't feeling too hot. I took my usual spot flat on the deck of the boat (trust me, you feel much less rocking) and missed out on most of the fish catching. Sad :-(  Fortunately, no chunks were blown and I felt fine as soon as we hit calmer water. We got to watch a beautiful sunset while the boys were cleaning fish....(no amazing catches to take pics of, just a few small Dolphin)

We stopped for a nice dinner, and then made our way home. It's so nice being 2 hours from paradise. It made for a very long day, and a sleepy Monday, but a break is a break, and it was nice to get away. Sickness and all. There is no such thing as a bad day in the Keys!

End of Spring Cleaning

Spring is almost over, and even though it feels like Summer down here in So Flo, we're not quite there.We ARE getting ready for it though! The past few weekends we have been cleaning things up around the house. Well, the boy has. I've been helping/supervising. 

We cut the lawn (I actually did this...), the boy trimmed the neighbors trees that have been intruding into our backyard, I helped pile it all up out front for bulk pickup, he cut up our non-functioning hot tub, I helped stack that up out front.... and then we successfully looked like white trash for 4 days until the truck came and picked it all up....

 

And then this past weekend, the boy pressure cleaned the patio, the sidewalk, and the windows. He's such a hard worker, even on his days off...

There was absolutely nothing I could do to help with this task except to keep his coozie full with a nice cold Budweiser. I finally decided that I needed to be productive too, so I took to organizing some stuff on the inside of the house!

I like to stay pretty organized, but every now and then even my most organized areas need a little sprucing. It seems to work best to just pull everything out and start over. So that's exactly what I did. 

The linen closet was the first victim. 

I emptied everything out... and then started putting it back in. 

 

 

I keep all my seasonal and extra scented oils, and travel items in these stackable bins.  I love these little bins. I got them at Target and they are all over my house. 

See? This is my guest bathroom cabinet.

I also use them in my deep freezer. 

So after I sorted through everything and put them in their respective bins, I put everything back in. 

 TA-DA!!!!! 

I know it looks like there is much more stuff in there now, and there is. I actually had a huge stack of towels on the table that I had been needing to put in, but I was putting it off because it was such a mess that I knew they wouldn't fit. I rolled up the beach towels, instead of folding (I think I can fit more this way) and I moved around the junk up top. I'm gonna get some more bins for the extra soaps and such on the right next time I hit Target. 

Next up, I decided to re-do the junk drawer in the kitchen using some bins I got at Staples - 3 for $1!

  

I emptied that whole mess out onto the counter. Set out my bins, and then started the sorting.

Some stuff had to find a new home. And that new home may or may not have been the garbage can. 

And then there was the talking beer opener. It definitely needed a new home. It went to live in the garage on the beer fridge, where I believe it should have always lived. I have no idea how it wound up in the junk drawer. Or why it's still in it's package....

 

So there it went to live. Still in it's package.

And I had a pretty organized junk drawer!