Officially Hoosiers!

Big things have happened in the Davidson household recently.  For those of you who don't know, let me recap:

October 2011-Purchased first home
March 2012-Brad comes home and says we are moving to Indianapolis
April 2012-Brad starts commuting to Indy for work
May 2012-I finish school
June 2012-House is packed and we hit the road

Like I said, Brad had been living up here in Indy since around late April.  I stayed in Knoxville and finished the school year and started to get the house ready.  The moving truck came on June 1st, and they packed all of our things (the best part of being relocated for your job).  Then they came back on the 2nd and loaded everything up, and on the 3rd they drove all of our things to Indy.  They arrived at the new house (which just so happenes to be the house that our friends The Martin's lived in before they bought their house) on June 4th.  Needless to say, we have been pretty busy over the last month and had a lot of big changes. 

Since getting here, I have unpacked the house and busied myself with reading endless books, and trying not to get too bored.  I have been interviewing for jobs as well, whcih until recently had been a pretty difficult task.  After what seemed like a long search but in reality was only about a month of serious searching, I got offered a job TODAY.  We are so excited, as this was the last thnig left to check off our long 'to-do' list for the move.  So, all is right.  We are settled in, have jobs, and are loving Indy thus far. 

The move to Indy wasn't as hard as some might think because we have two very important things here that helped: David and Lindsey.  My girlfriend and former college roomie moved here with her husband 2 years ago.  They have been such a BIG help in getting us settled and inviting us to meet all their friends-they've really been our own welcoming committee!  Lindsey and I used to dream about the day when we were neighbors, and it has finally become a reality.  Since Brad and I didn't want to buy for a year, we ended up renting David and Lindsey's house they were renting-they just bought their first house!  Our houses are literally 2.7 miles apart-how perfect! 

Needless to say, we are excited right now, but sad that we left some amazing friends in Knoxville.  I loved my school, my kiddos, and the people I worked with immensely.  It will be impossible to work with better teachers than I did at Inskip!  But times like this remind me of that song you used to sing in elementary school:  "make new friends, but keep the old, one is silver and the other gold."  We didn't lose these friends, we just added another city to the many places where we will make memories together!

I can't say I will get better at blogging-that would be a lie-but I'm sure I will be much better at blogging during the summer, since I haven't gone back to work yet! 

So here's to being a midwesterner, a hoosier, a colt, a sport car racing, and a Pacers fan.  Here's to learning how to drive in snow, buying snow boots, and proper winter clothes.  Here's to learning how to like/tolerate basketball, hiding my disappointment in tailgating attire, and loving every new aspect of this life. 

Cheers and welcome to Indy!

From Shabby to Chic

Well, it seems like I am taking on more and more projects around the house!  We are so close to being "done" with the things that we want to do right now that I can taste it!  More news to come about the big hole in our wall, which is now nicely painted and looking fabulous, if I do say so myself.

Anywho, this post is all about how I refurbished our UGLY vanity in the upstairs guest bathroom.  See it was straight up out of the 80's-when this house was built.  I wasn't crazy about the wood, or the counter top, or the sink faucet for that matter.  So, I decided to re-do the vanity and just buy a new faucet instead of replacing the whole thing-which costs a lot of dinero $$$-so booo to that.

This is how the shabby vanity looked before I got started (note, those are still the ugly floors, so you know this picture is a little bit dated)...

I know what you're thinking...why in the world would you want to paint and cover up that lovely wood-baha NOT!  So, I got started right away.  First I took off the two doors and all the hardware-except the toilet paper holder bolts.  Why?  Because I'm lazy-don't judge.  After everything was removed, I lightly sanded the whole vanity, including doors, with my palm sander-every girl needs one, seriously- I. LOVE. MINE.  After the sanding I wiped all the dust away and put 2 coats of primer.  Some people only use 1 coat of primer, but I find that it makes the paint easier and requires less applications if the primer is a little thicker.  Some might disagree, but I didn't see anybody offering to help me complete this task-so my thinking is clearly correct.  After the primer dried, I added a coat of paint-like so...

  The color looks super yellow in the pictures, but the bottom picture is actually more accurate.  This might be because I just snap these pictures with my iPhone...so much for the new iPhone having the 'best' camera like they advertise.  I definitely need another form of camera.  Oh well.

Then the fun part began.  I got out my palm sander, again, and just sanded the freshly painted vanity.  I sanded and distressed the thing to death.  I kept putting the doors side be side to make sure that I had them 'aged' in different spots, so it didn't match exactly.  I mean, what old stuff has marks in the exact same place?  Then I rubbed some old stain that we had left from the home office transformation on the doors and vanity.  I would rub it on, then use another cloth to rub it off.  I kept repeating this until I thought it looked 'aged' enough.  When I was done, I just attached all the hardware again and BAM-new vanity.

I like to refer to this bathroom as shabby chic room because I think the shower curtain kinda gives off that vibe-hence the reason I wanted a distressed/aged looking vanity.

There are lots of other things going on at our house...Brad went out of town for a weekend, and in that short amount of time I managed to repaint the downstairs, started to repaint the trim downstairs, bought a vintage stereo to house our cable box, and all sorts of other fun things.  More pictures and posts to come soon!  I'd be dangerous if he was gone a whole week.....(insert evil laugh)

Wide open spaces

When Brad and I bought our house, one of the first things that we wanted to do was to knock a big hole in the wall that divided the living room from the kitchen.  When working with a small space, openings in walls seems to make the rooms seem bigger and brighter.  So, with this in mind, we called our AMAZING contractor to come over and take a look at  knocking a hole in the wall.  John is the best.  Period.  When we were buying our house and when all the ugliness happened with our first house, he was the one who talked to our lawyer, inspected the houses, and made sure that the house we were buying was safe and a good investment-he did this all expecting and refusing to take any sort of monetary compensation.  We would trust John with our lives.  He is-simply put-an amazing man.  He even takes care of our dog while they are working on the house-he'll let her out, make sure she has water, and play with her.  Talk about pampering!  So needless to say, we will NEVER use anybody but John.  He's the man.

After John came over to house, listened to me give a detailed explanation of how I wanted the wall to look-hey, I'm anal, what can I say?-they got to work.  I came home yesterday to a ray of light from the kitchen window shining through to the living room.  Success.  It. Looks. Awesome.

Before-closed off and small looking...

After...hello light, hello openness, hello awesomeness...

More pictures to come as they finish the project.  So excited!!

You learn the most from the things you do wrong...

Well, this weekend started off with a Saturday morning trip to the local tile store, Stovers, and Knox Rail Salvage to check out their selection of flooring, tiles, and other things that all DIY projects require.  After deciding to simply give our 2 guest bathrooms a 'facelift' instead of completely re-doing them (my idea-I mean they NEVER get used...I'd rather spend the big bucks on the master bath, which gets used EVERYDAY) we decided that giving the floors a new look wouldn't be such a bad idea.  After Brad and his friend decided they could do the  job, we bought some peel and stick tiles (sounds classy, I know-but they actually look much nicer than what you are probably thinking), beer, and decided to cut loose.  

Here is what the downstairs bathroom floor looked like pre-tile...

I know what you're thinking, sexy flooring.  And yes that is a beer on the counter.  Maybe that was the cause of the eventual demise of the flooring?  More to come  about that later in the post.

So, the boys got started, doing an excellent job, taking out the toilet, not making a big mess, and just chugging right along-in terms of the progress and their drinks.  Here are some of the 'action' shots of the work.

Prettyyyyyyyyyy

Getting there...

And finally, the after shot...too bad it was short-lived.  

The bathroom looked great, and I could almost see the finished product with crisp new white trim, instead of that awful wood stuff that we still have lingering around the house in certain rooms, a fresh painted vanity, and updated faucet.  

We got up on Sunday and went out on another home improvement store run to buy the new faucet.  We were extremely excited for this quick, inexpensive transformation! When we got home to install the newly purchased faucet, I left Brad to do this on his own, and I headed out for a brisk 20 mile run.  When I got back in the car after my run, Brad informed me that when he went to get under the sink to replace the faucet, he noticed that water was coming up from the floor... meaning we had a leak and a big problem.  See, the beauty of a self-adhesive tile is that you just stick it down, but the other side of that is, it cannot have ANY moisture on it for 5 days after installing it-so needless to say, our little water bubbles that were locked underneath were a big oh sh*t sign.  Poor Brad had to rip up all his handy work.  He watched hours of work come out in a matter of minutes.  

So, now the floor looks like the 'pre' picture again.  Bummer.  The moral of the story is, make sure the toilet is sealed once you put it back in place.  Man, we really thought it was and definitely did LOTS of flushes throughout the evening to make sure, but I guess it just wasn't sealed perfectly...who knows.  Hell, now that we have the floor out of there, it doesn't seem to be leaking at all...maybe the new wax ring that we had to install formed to the seal?  Your guess is as good as mine.  BUT the silver lining is that Brad wasn't super crazy about how the tile looked against the hardwood (didn't really care-I thought it looked good), so we will get to pick something that he thinks 'goes' better against the hardwood-as if he is a resident expert in picking things that 'go' together. Ha.  That made me laugh.  

The good news, is that we did the same floor to the upstairs bathroom, and it is great.  No leaks, no water, no moisture.  Apparently this toilet decided to cooperate.  I am in the process of refinishing the vanity in this bathroom, so please disregard the poorly primed vanity and lack of doors.  More to come about that project once I actually finish it...eeeek!  Soon...I swear, along with all the pictures I have yet to post of the house....

Before

 During-Note the toilet in the tub and the presence of beer...yet again-many hours after the first in the downstairs bathroom...maybe they got better with the volume that was consumed?

 Probably should've painted behind the toilet, where we couldn't reach when we re-painted the bathroom...nah

 After...so pretty, such a difference!

Once again, like the vanity downstairs, this one is getting a fresh coat of paint on the vanity and on that awful wood junk trim.  Since I think the curtain in here is kinda shabby chic, I am going to antique the vanity once I paint it.  Meaning, I am going to sand my newly painted vanity and rub stain on it to make it look old.  This bathroom also got a new faucet, which is not installed yet.  Brad was pretty pissed, irate, furious tired after his discovery of the moisture in the downstairs bath, that he was done for the day with any sort of home improvement projects around the house.  Can't say I blame him.  

So, there you have it.  You live and you learn.  Sh*t happens, or in our case, sh*t water happens to your floor sometimes, and you've just gotta roll with the punches.  We are learning as we go, and next time we will be damn sure that there is not a leak anywhere!  Hopefully we can rope Brad's flooring partner in crime to come and finish the bathroom floor again-I have a feeling it will take the promise of beer and pizza.  I can handle that.

House pictures...at least from upstairs

Please forgive my massive delay in putting up some pictures of the house.  If you got the Christmas card you've at least seen the outside of the house, which is progress, right?!?

Anyway, due to the fact that I am swamped at work, running around like crazy getting Christmas gifts for our families and kiddos we've adopted, and running like a maniac with my loyal partner Will, taking pictures of the house has kinda been on the back burner.  Not to mention, I have NO idea where my camera is at the current moment, so this iphone pictures will have to do for now!

So...let's begin shall we?  Oooh and if you want to know why I have all this time at work today to post these pictures, allow me to explain.  Today is the second to last day of school, the last full day of school for the year and also PJ day.  We haven't done a darn thing all day, and my kids are staying with their classroom teachers because they are all having parties.  So, let's just say I have a lot of time on my hands.

Let's start with the master.  We love our bedroom.  When we first put the paint color on the wall I HATED it.  All I could think of was a Carolina Tarheel-sick-but it has started to grow on me, and it makes the room bright and cheery! (the fact that Brad picked out the color has nothing to do with me disliking the color-just sayin')

View from the door

View from the door toward the window and bathroom and yes I did make those curtains, with help from Grammy of course!

View from closet toward vanity/bathroom area

View from bed to vanity area...heeeeey Rachel in the mirror!

Vanity area

Master bathroom

So there you have it.  The master bedroom.  If we were on CRIBS I would've taken a picture of the bed and said a lie about how "this is where all the magic happens" but let's get real...how many of those people on cribs that said they were getting lots of action were actually married? Ha.  Just kidding!  Brad will KILL me if he reads this post!

Next up, the guest room, which is our UGA room.  We have our diplomas and artwork, AND since we live in orange country-gross, disgusting, tacky-we thought we needed a room so we could represent.  Holla.

Georgia room-view from door

Another view from the door

LOVE that painting-goes perfect in our room!

Diploma wall-notice that my side has 2 diplomas :)

This room is great and has already seen it's fair share of house guests.  Both sets of parents, all siblings, wonderful friends from Indy, and hopefully many many more people to come!  Secret-the reason there is a black strip at the top of the wall is because there was a border on the walls that had already been painted over a few times.  Since we had to strip wallpaper in the guest bathroom-we did not want to jump on this task-especially since the layers of paint had acted like an adhesive and super glued it to the wall.  So mom had the great idea of just painting a black strip at the top.  Problem solved.  No wallpaper removal required, and I think it helps anchor the room.  Thoughts?

Next up-the hall bath upstairs.  I wish I was better at taking pictures like other friends I know-Amelia-but alas I'm not, so I do not have 'before' pictures.  BUT if I did, it would show you a bathroom with wallpaper AND border.  Ugh.  Talk about a pain in the rear-end.  Once I finished stripping the wallpaper and border combo, mom painted the bathroom with some paint she had leftover from a sorority room or from lord knows where and it looks like shabby chic room.  

View from the hallway-bright and warm

View from the shower...the light fixture used to be an awful gold color, along with all the other hardware in the bathroom, so we just sprayed those suckers along with the frame of the mirror to make it match and not seem so dated.  The light fixture has actually grown on me!  Crazy?  Maybe. AND don't hate on my little Christmas tree!

Last but certainly not least in the upstairs photo tour...the mancave.  I already told y'all about the closet to desk area transformation-so here is just a quick look at the room.  The pictures really don't do it justice-oh well.  This is Brad's favorite spot in the house-mine too!  We watch movies up here, play DJ Hero on XBOX-yeah, that is what we do for fun.  Judge away.

View from the door-the lighting looks awful in this picture...should've turned on the lamps instead

Another 'larger' deer is on the way to keep our friend company-update to come upon arrival

View from couch-see Brad's little man tree?  We really need to bulk up his man ornament collection.

The closet that was turned into a desk area

So, that about does it for the upper level house tour for today.  One day when I find my camera/get a better one, I will put up better pictures with soft mood lighting.  Until then I hope these give you a little taste of what the house looks like.  I will get ones up of the bottom floor ASAP.  

Until then, Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all!

How many trees is too many?

That is the question that my dear misinformed husband asked me on Sunday as I was excitedly putting up 3 more trees at our house...4 if you count the one on the front porch...errr 6 if you count the two tiny ones in each bathroom! :)

After going shopping a la store de Grammy to find some Christmas decorations for us as well as my classroom, we had quite a few more things to add to our collection.

Since I have YET to put up picture of the whole house-I swear I will by Monday-let me describe our rooms.  Clearly I am the best wife in the world.  I let Brad turn one of the guest rooms into his mave aka man cave.  So in the spirit, his room got a little tree...he still needs to beef up his manly ornament collection, but that will come over time, and when they're all on sale after Christmas!

Our other guest room is an actual guest room.  Since we have such beautifully framed diplomas and UGA artwork-thanks to Thom-we wanted to make sure that they were displayed properly.  So why not have a Red and Black guest room?  What kind of tree do you think we have in this room...you guessed it, a UGA tree.  Go Dawgs!

Finally, we have a little tree on the kitchen counter.  It is cute and the little train around the bottom is from la store de Grammy as well!

So there you have it, some more trees for Christmas.  I did buy two little tiny metallic tacky trees for the two guest bathrooms.  I like them, get off me.  More pictures to come soon, and next time I will take them of the entire house and rooms, not just the trees!

Perspective

As I said in my last blog post, I am an ESL teacher at an inner city school in Tennessee.  This means I spend my day teaching kids who speak a language other than English the thrilling rules and exceptions to the English language-oh boy are there many.  I work with mostly Hispanic-Spanish speaking students, but I also have a mixture of other elasticities and languages-which makes my groups diverse and totally awesome.  I have Spanish speaking kids using Russian words and African students speaking Spanish...it truly is a community of learners-meshing different languages, cultures, customs, and traditions together. 

I know there are many people in this country who have a problem with immigrants, how they got here, why they don't speak English, etc, and I understand the frustration and attitudes that these people have, but to you I say, please come to my school.  Please come and see how wonderful these little kids are and how much they appreciate everything that is done for them.  Come and see how wonderfully involved their parents are with their school work and progress.  Come and see how respectful they are-and their parents-to their teachers and peers.  These are children, and they are wonderful.  No child should ever be the subject of a political debate, fight, or made to be an example.  Ever.  

With the holidays fast approaching, I have been given a heavy dose of perspective by my little ones and their families.  Many/most of these families don't have two pennies to rub together, but they would do anything in the world that I asked of them.  If I called them and said I need 28 pieces of cinnamon gum (just for you Amelia) in the next 10 minutes, they would find a way to get here with all pieces and never think twice.  They would do anything for me, and because of this, I try and do a lot for them.  I'm their advocate, their friend, but more importantly, I'm their family.  I make doctors appointments, go to birthday parties, and worry about them when it is 25 degrees outside and I know they don't have a winter coat-like it was this morning.  I love my little kiddos and their families more than anything-almost more than my husband...just kiddingish! <3

So this holiday season make sure to take time to be thankful for what you have, not upset about what you don't because you already have it much better than most.  Sure it would be nice to have a shiny new XBOX, a brand new purse, or a diamond ring, but there are so many more people who need, not want for the things we take for granted.  I've always known that poverty is all around us, but I guess I never looked for it, or just refused to see it.  Don't ignore it...open your eyes and heart!  Don't pass up the man outside of Kroger singing Christmas carols ringing the bell for the Salvation Army or a family/friend in need.

I'm such a softy full of cheesy ideals, hearts, and warm fuzzies.  Sheesh.