Our "New" House

This past month our house has been invaded by painters and carpet cleaners.  When we found out what Jeremy's year-end bonus was, we decided to do a few home projects.  The first project we did was getting our exterior all repainted.  Even though our house is only 3 1/2 years old, some of the trim paint was already starting to flake off in the front and the stinkin' woodpeckers had ruined chunks of our back stucco.  Rather than have the HOA get after us, we decided to just go ahead and get it redone.  The whole project only took about 3 days and the end result was exactly what we wanted.  Same colors and no more holes!  The quality of workmanship should also last longer.

The next project we had done was painting the entire interior of our home.  When we moved in, everything was flat white paint.   Not a good thing with kids!  About two years ago, Jeremy and I (mostly me) painted a natural color throughout the majority of the house.  (I painted Max's room a light blue, the boys' room a medium gray, and the office the same gray).  However, we never could quite paint the top section of the staircase.  We tried various ladders and poles but they didn't work.  I wanted the lines perfectly cut in, so we just never finished that part.  It bugged us everytime we went up and down those stairs.  We hired Arizona Painting Company and within two days, our home AND staircase was repainted in a slightly darker color called Sandstone (by Dunn Edwards).  We love the color and how the white trim, doors and blind now "pop."

Part of the kitchen mid-paint.

Lastly, we had the carpets, tile, and living room couches all cleaned yesterday.  Those areas weren't horribly bad, but with four kids, two cats, and a plethora of people always coming and going, they needed a good deep clean.  We hired John Randall from Randall Carpet Care (www.goodyearcarpetcleaningservice.com) and it took him just about 7 hours to clean the entire house. 

Now that everything is freshened up, we can start putting the rooms back together.  My next project is to develop some of the family pictures that Caitin Nalder (www.nalderphotography.com) took of us last year to hang on the walls.  It's about time!