Category Archives: owning a home

Furniture redo

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A while back we bought a little table and chair set from Ikea for the boys.  They are getting to the point where they like to color and play on a table.  So we figured its time to get them one of their own, and maybe selfishly thinking “maybe they’ll stop climbing to get to the kitchen table.”

I put the table together and the boys love it, they have even eaten at it a few times…until they keep getting up from the table after a bite of food.  Then its back to the high chair.

Anyway, once the table was all put together, in the living room and next to all the other furniture, something just didn’t look right and it was bugging me. All our furniture is dark, couches are dark, entertainment center is dark, even our carpet is darker…the table is pine and white! stark contrast, and it bugged me! So I take matters into my own hands, of course.  I pull out some stain that I already had stained that puppy dark.  Put a few coats of polyurethane on it and it looks gorgeous (well I think it does)! I love it next to all our dark furniture, now it looks like it belongs.  😉

Here’s the before:  And the after:Don’t you love my model, its funny that he got in the picture both times! Well I’ll leave you with some pictures of the boys I took a few weeks ago, playing at their newly beautified table:

Hayden coloring
Ian coloring

As you can see they like to color the table top too…luckily this table was made for children and you can just wipe it up with wet wipes!

Ian being goofy
Hayden

House For Sale

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photo
2 years ago we bought our first home:
New House
We spent time painting rooms, doing landscaping, and all kinds of other stuff:
House For Sale in Red Oak, TX

But in the end, it’s time to move on.

We finally did it, we put our house on the market today…It’s for sale! I love our house, I really do. I don’t love the location of it. It’s not that I don’t like Red Oak and the area, it’s fine, just not for me. Both Jonathan and I work in downtown Dallas and both of our families are about 45 – 50 minutes away. For most people, that’s plenty close….for me, it’s too far. I want to be able to call up my sister-in-law and in 15 minutes we are meeting for lunch or going shopping or whatever. We spend so many weekends in Dallas and do a lot in the Dallas area after work that I feel like we live in Dallas but sleep in Red Oak. Here has been my dilema…Jonathan would prefer to stay here or even further out than we are. I haven’t really pushed the issue of moving before now because I didn’t want to take Jonathan away from the area that he wants to live. He is a part of a Wednesday morning mens group with our church and if we moved he wouldn’t be able to keep going to that…and I didn’t want to be the reason for that. So the dilema comes in when I have to decide, do I stay in a place that I don’t like, an area that I don’t have but a few friends, and always wanting to be closer to my family. Or, do I try to talk him into moving and ultimately pull him away from his friends and church that he loves. So after a lot of thinking and going back and forth it comes down to the fact that I was so unhappy I had to talk him into moving but at the same time feel guilty about it because I know he doesn’t really want to move and I’m taking him away from friends. (It’s not like we are never going to see them again, we won’t be moving that far)

One day, somehow, we are going to have a family and I want to be close to our family when that happens. Another factor in our decision is that we weren’t sure we would get what we needed/wanted for our house. We don’t know what will happen with the housing market in the future….if we wait, will it get better or worse? After talking to a few realtors and seeing what other houses are going for, we decided to go for it. So for the next few months or longer (hopefully not that long) we will be living in a house that is neat and tidy and ready for potential buyers to view it at any moment! Anyone wanna buy a house?!

The holidays…

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ARE OVER!! Not that I’m happy about that but life can finally calm down now and get back to normal. What did we do for the holidays you ask…well, here is a look at what all we did the last few weeks/months. Over the last month I have taken several family photos. There were the Treadaways, our pastor and his family…

…And then Jalyn, our friends Josh and Shalyn’s baby…
Jalyn
…then there were the Nash’s. Gracelyn, who is 2, didn’t really want any part of taking photos so it made for a difficult day, along with my camera that was acting up…that’s a whole other story…
Nash's

We went with a group of our friends from church to see Bethlehem Revisited in Waxahachie…
Bethlehem Revisited

Our holiday festivities with family started on Dec 21 when we held our annual Turner-Medlin Family Christmas/Jake’s Birthday party. We all went to the Medlin’s and had some yummy chili and all the “kids” (we’re too old to be called kids) did a white elephant gift exchange and then Jake opened up his birthday presents. Jake turned 8 this year and I can’t believe he’s getting so old. I remember the day he was born…anyway, we had fun time together and couldn’t wait to do it all over again on New Years Day, when we celebrate my dad and Bob’s birthday…more on that later in the post.

On the 23rd we had all of Jonathan’s family over to our house for dinner and games. We all had a great time and always look forward to seeing everyone. (to see any of these collages bigger, simply click on it and viola)

Christmas Eve we went to our parents church for a candlelight service and then back to my parents house for dinner. After dinner we headed over to my aunts house to spend some time with her and my cousins and their kids. Had a good time seeing all of them and about 10:00pm my cousin’s son, Bryce, announced that “there was good news and bad news…the good news is that santa is in Texas, the bad news is that santa is in Texas and I’m not in bed!” So with that we all headed home.

Christmas morning Jonathan and I opened gifts at our house, well some of them…I made Jonathan go on a scavenger hunt for his gift. He started out at our house and then headed to the park which sent him to our pastors house where they slipped the present in their mailbox for me. I think he enjoyed it but maybe not as much as his present which was two tickets to the Trans-Siberian Orchestra concert.

After that we went to my padres house for Christmas with my familia and ate a great lunch and opened gifts. And as always, we let the kids go first which only takes about 10 minutes total because they rip through them all at warp speed. After lunch and presents we decided to play a game of family feud…that was a lot of fun, except my dad kept forgetting the rules! My niece got a doll house and my nephew got a new Wii so they were both preoccupied with those the majority of the afternoon and that was a gift to all of us!!! That’s the only way we were able to play family feud.
Later that afternoon we headed over to Jonathan’s parents and hung out there a while. Tim and Kara got rock band for the wii so we played that for a while and then Jonathan’s dad made a great ham for dinner so we ate and opened some gifts. Over all, we had a wonderful Christmas and are blessed by our family and friends that spent it with us!

Then for about a week our lives were back to semi normalcy…I went back to work but Jonathan had the week off. New Years Eve we spent over at Richard and Amber’s house playing games and eating some yummy mexican food. Then for the countdown to bring in the new year we lit some sparklers–that’s always fun!
Day 106 ~ 365 Days Project New Years Eve '08
NYE '08

And finally, Welcome 2009! We have entered into yet another new year. We slept in new years day because lets face it, we were up late partying the night before!! You know us, we’re such the partiers-HA! Then later that afternoon my family and the Medlins came over to our house and we grilled some fajitas and celebrated our dad’s birthdays! Honestly I can’t remember how old they both are–somewhere in the early 60’s! yikes, sorry guys, I love you, but that’s old! Day 107 ~ 365 Days Project

We always have fun getting together but don’t do it as often as I would like. The Medlin’s have always been a second family to us, Bob and Vicki were like our “other parents” and Ty and Tami were like siblings growing up. It’s so much fun now that we are all grown up and adults…We’ve all grown up together and shared special occasions together as we each get married, have kids and watch each of us, or them, become parents for the first time…it’s been fun!! A great way to start a new year. I’ve been told that how you spend your New Year’s Day sets the stage for that year…we’re off to a great start!

Because we had so much fun on New Year’s Day, you get two collages.

Tonight Jonathan and I went to the Trans-Siberian Orchestra concert for his Christmas gift and had a blast. This is my 5 year to go to the concert and I have loved every year. It’s a Christmas tradition that I had and then when Jonathan and I started dating we decided to make it our tradition. We are going on a cruise in February so we decided that we just wouldn’t be able to spring for tickets to TSO this year and the cruise. We were both bummed about not getting to go, Jonathan was pretty bummed so I decided to surprise him with tickets for Christmas. He tried many times to get me to agree to get tickets and it was hard to tell him “No, I just don’t think we can this year” when I had already bought 2 tickets. Anyway, we went to the concert and love it! The camera police are usually out making sure you don’t take any pictures of the concert but I was able to sneak some with my camera phone–gotta love them! So here are some illegal pictures from the TSO concert:
TSO concert
TSO concert
After the concert we met Jen and Jed for dinner at Patrizio’s in Highland Park Village….let me tell you, they have some amazing italian food! I’ve been there before and have always wanted to take Jonathan so I figured why not now! We had a good time with Jen and Jed and then decided to get some Italian Gelato at Paciugo’s to go with our Italian food.

And that concludes our holiday festivities! I hope everyone had a good time with their family and friends over the holidays and here’s to a wonderful new year!

Starving artist!!!

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Okay not really, but I thought that would get your attention. I have opened a gallery on imagekind where people can purchase photos I’ve taken. Not that I’m expecting people to but I thought, why not make money if I can…and maybe help us pay off some of our debt, or a new camera lens-HAHA. So if you feel obliged visit my gallery at http://lblundell.imagekind.com or just click the link to the sidebar to the right…is says “imagekind, buy my art”. Take a look around and let me know what you think.

I need a weekend for the weekend

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What a weekend! I think we need to have three day weekends. Friday and Saturday will be the weekend and then Sunday will be the recovery for the weekend. On Sunday you can’t do anything but rest and relax to get you ready for the week. Think it will ever happen? I don’t either. Well, we did a lot this weekend and now the hubs and I are both exhausted. Let’s see, where to begin–Friday Jonathan had a CWF show in Rockwall so I went and hung out with the parentals. My mom, Vicki and I went to find some flowers for an arrangement to put in a vase I have for our living room on Friday afternoon and then we met my dad and bob for dinner. We went back to their house for a while and then I headed back home so I could let miss houdini out of her crate. Presley has been digging to get out of the fence so we leave her in her crate now instead of outside. It’s her fault, if she wouldn’t dig she could have free roam of the back yard on a gorgeous day like today. But–No, she insists on digging. Whatever floats her boat! Anyway, Saturday we woke up and went to Lowes and spent entirely too much money. We got some stone border to put around the flower beds and trees and some mulch and flowers. We spent the day in the yard, pulling the grass that had grown in the flower beds and around the trees and then put the stone border in. I planted some flowers that I’m sure will die in a couple of weeks, but they look nice now! Then Saturday night we went to Red Hot & Blue for my birthday dinner with family and friends. We had a great time celebrating the 2nd anniversary of my 25th birthday. Sunday I headed to Dallas for a wedding shower for my best friend Jen and then had to run up to work to pick something up and run some more errands in Dallas. It was a full day of running around and gas usage! I got home just when the women’s group that met at our house was wrapping up and Jonathan had spent the whole time outside putting the mulch in the flower beds and trying to fix our tree out back that is now the leaning tower of pisa because of the storms that came through last week. Sunday evening I did some much needed grocery shopping and then took a government test that I’m sure I failed. Then I watched the season premier of Desperate Housewives, a TV show that I’m sure has more drama than any soap opera ever created, and then headed to bed. I’ll post some pictures of our yard/flower beds once I get take and get them uploaded.

This morning I had to drive to our new Plano hospital because it’s my turn to work out here this week..we all rotate through so once a week I’ll be in Plano. The drive its self isn’t that bad, there really wasn’t much traffic, it’s just a long drive. We’ll see what the traffic is like when I leave though–that might be a different story. So I’m sitting here in our new lab on the computer looking out a nice big window onto Preston and soaking in the sun…it’s great! We don’t have any windows at our Dallas lab so this is a treat! Although I think they put the windows in to mess with us because the glass is weird and makes everything out of focus so it hurts my eyes to look through it–but it’s still a window to the outside world. Well, I guess that’s enough rambling for one day…Back to work I go!

Weekend wrap up

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Another great weeeknd! Friday night we were supposed to go to the David Barnes concert at House of Blues in Dallas but I really didn’t feel like going. It had been a long, frustrating week and I didn’t really want to be in a big crowd of loud people. So instead we took some dinner over to Smiley and Shari..they just had a new baby. Then we went to eat at Bennigan’s and then went to Best Buy to get some new speakers for my computer. Saturday we both slept in until around 11:00 and while Jonathan went to meet with a friend, I caught up on some TV shows that were recordered on the DVR (What Not To Wear, Trading Spaces, and Flip that House). When the hubs got back home we ran to Target (of course) and then to Lowes to get a tree for the backyard and looked around for some ideas of what to put in the flower beds. We got home Saturday just in time to unload the tree and then go the Lynch’s house for dinner and games. It was quite an evening with scene it, Are you smarter than a 5th grader and rock band. Sunday we went to church and I convinced Jonathan to help in the Nursery with me. We had all of 2 kiddos. Then after church, Jonathan had a meeting and I went home and started pulling weeds in our yard. It seems as if the entire yard is one giant weed! I spent 4 hours pulling weeds and barely made a dent in the backyard. I had enough of that and I went in to take a test in my stupid art course. Jonathan finally made it home about 5:30 and then planted our tree that we got the day before. Now we just have to wait and watch it grow-HA. After all that, we were trying to figure out what to make for dinner and his parents showed up. They were on their way back from San Antonio so they stopped by to say hi. We were in the kitchen and Presley started going crazy and barking non stop…I looked through the storm door (I always leave it open it it’s nice out) and there they were walking up the driveway–Nice surprise. We watched a little TV and then headed to bed…both sore and worn out! I’ll post a picture of our new tree sometime this week.

Painting the kitchen

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Friday night Jonathan and I started painting the kitchen…I’m lucky I finally got him to do it! For some reason he doesn’t want to paint anything….he’s afraid to put holes in the wall because “they are permanent” and I guess he’s afraid of permanency? So he’s scared to paint a kitchen for fear he won’t like it but he married me for the REST OF HIS LIFE –hummmm odd ball! Anyway we finally wrapped it up and it’s all finished. Below are the before and after pictures. Well I forgot to get a before picture so it’s just one we took before we moved in.

kitcken
painted kitchen

Relaxing

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The other day someone asked what I did to relax. Most people say read a book, watch TV or soak in a tub…well for most people that would work but not for me. I’ get bored doing all that and not relaxed. My mind just wonders to all the things that need to be done or I want to do and that’s not relaxing. So while most are reading a book to relax, I’m out doing something in the yard or painting–not on a canvas–you must be joking, but a room. So this weekend hopefully I’ll be able get atleast our kitchen painted. Now I just need to get Jonathan on board–I don’t expect him to paint, I don’t mind doing it all. He’s got a CWF show Saturday night anyway so while he’s donig that, I can relax while painting the kitchen. I think I’ve picked out a color but not quite sure yet. I’m thinking sage green, oh it’s gonna look good! I’ll post pictures when I get a chance.