Tag: house

2020 Spring Cleaning List

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spring cleaning list

I shared my spring cleaning list for 2019 and really enjoyed having it to reference this year. 2020 is a bit different since I’ve been home basically 24/7 for the past 2 months so my house has been a bit more organized than it normally is. I still have some deep cleaning and organizing to do though!

It’s been raining pretty much non-stop in Michigan which means our water table is super high. We have a partially finished basement and have never really had any issues with flooding. This week, however, we started to get a puddle of water on the finished side of our basement. It’s leaking up through the cement and into the carpet. There’s not a ton we can do about the situation other than to try and keep it dry. We will most likely need new carpet though! I will just have to live with the fact that my basement won’t be clean and tidy this spring.

Here is my 2020 spring cleaning list. Let me know what’s on your list to tackle this year!

  1. Move furniture and clean the floors
  2. Clean and organize the fridge and freezer (house and garage)
  3. Dust the blinds and wash the curtains
  4. Organize the basement “pantry”
  5. Deep clean the laundry room
  6. Clean out and re-organize the storage room
  7. Dust the shelves in the dining room and re-decorate
  8. Mount the TV in the living room and clean out the TV stand
  9. Take out winter clothes from our closets and add in spring clothes
  10. Deep clean the mudroom and put away winter boots and shoes
  11. Finish painting the rest of the furniture
  12. Clean out dressers and donate/sell clothes
  13. Power-wash the outdoor furniture and patio areas
  14. Dust the walls and ceilings

It’s Memorial Day on Monday which means we have a 3 day weekend! I’m hoping to cross off a few of the items on my list this weekend since we can’t go to the lake like we usually do for Memorial Day.

What are your plans for the weekend?

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Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

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Summer 2019 Bucketlist

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summer 2019 bucketlist

June is here which means it’s practically summertime in Michigan! Summer is always so busy for us so I like to make a list of things that I want to get done. Pretty much every weekend in the summer we are at an airshow so my free time is super limited. Creating a bucketlist helps me to actually enjoy my summer!

  • Watch fireworks
  • Have a bonfire and roast s’mores
  • Go hiking
  • Host a cookout
  • Learn how to mow the lawn
  • Plant flowers
  • Paint our dressers
  • Go kayaking
  • Spend as much time at the lake as possible
  • Try to teach Oscar to swim
  • Go for boat rides
  • Spend a day doing nothing but reading
  • Go to the beach
  • Eat dinner outside every night for a week
  • Plan a small wedding anniversary trip
  • Airshows, airshows, airshows

What are your plans for this summer?

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Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

House Updates – Year One

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Buying Your First House, We bought our first house

In March we celebrated one year in our house. We went from renting a two bedroom apartment to owning a three bedroom 1941 cape cod in the cutest neighborhood. You can read the full post about buying our home here but to summarize it was love at first sight. Brett and I walked in and knew right away that this house was meant for us. One year later and we still feel that way and are so grateful to live here.

Over the past year we have made a couple of updates to the house and plan on making a few more in the near future. The first thing that needed updated was the garage. We have a detached one car garage with a carport. When we moved in the garage door was original to the garage but someone had added an electronic opener at some point. The garage door was too heavy though so it snapped the springs and was unable to open with the electric opener. I wish I would have taken a picture with the old garage door but you can see the new one below.

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Part of the reason we wanted to buy a house was so that I could park in a garage in the winter. In order to make this dream a reality we bought a new garage door and opener. My dad and uncle graciously installed both which was no easy task.

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Before I could park in the garage a workbench needed to be removed to make room for my car. My dad had the idea to turn the old workbench into an outdoor bar! He cut the bench to make it hit at the end of the carport and added a small patio for chairs. For my birthday my dad built four bar stools. We bought outdoor lights and hung up metal signs that we collected on the side of the garage. Now the carport is a cool hang out area and bar for when we have friends and family over.

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There was a concrete slab at the end of our garage where a shed used to stand. My dad designed and built another shed to fit on the slab with a door into our garage. The shed is used to store our lawn mowers and other outdoor necessities. He built shelves on the inside and an area for firewood and chairs to be stored on the outside. He also re-roofed the garage while building the shed.

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We made a small minor updates inside the house but nothing major yet. The main things we hope to accomplish in the next couple of years are building a second bathroom, re-doing our driveway, and replacing the kitchen floor. The interior of the house was recently re-painted and we love the colors so that makes things easy for us!

A big shout out to my dad for making all of these things happen! I have a vision and he always creates a plan and gets things done!

Overall, we are so happy with our purchase and look forward to many more years here!

Have you been working on any house projects lately?

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Five on Friday #8

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Five on Friday

Happy Friyay!

I hope that you had a great week and are looking forward to an even better weekend! Because it was the first full week of the month I was super busy preparing client statements and doing account maintenance. The weather is finally getting better in Michigan so I’ve been taking Oscar for walks and it’s motivating me to do more after work. All in all, things are starting to look up!

  1. I bought an Apple Watch last weekend for my work’s upcoming walking challenge. I really love the Apple Watch so far but I still need to figure out how to work a few things! I am hoping that having this watch and doing the walking challenge will help motivate me to continue pushing myself towards my healthy lifestyle goal.
  2. It might finally be nice enough out this weekend to start doing yard work! It also might rain and I will not be raking leaves in the rain haha.
  3. My sister in law is having twins in July or August! They have been trying for the last few years to have a baby and they announced at Christmas that they are expecting twins! I am preparing for the babies in the best way I know how – reading! I’ve read all the articles and blogs on twins that I can find. I’ve been shopping and planning the shower. I seriously can’t wait to hold those little miracles.
  4. I watched the movie Seven with Brett and our friend last week. It was the creepiest movie that I have ever seen and I can’t stop thinking about it. UGH! Have you seen it?
  5. I know I’m behind on the times but I finally started using the Kindle App on my iPhone! I’ve already read two books and know that this will help me increase my reading! I’m really going to miss paper books though so I know that I won’t be reading everything on Kindle. I’m always looking for book recommendations so please let me know if you have any!

How was your week? Do you have any plans for this weekend?

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Photo by Farsai Chaikulngamdee on Unsplash

 

 

 

 

 

 

2018: Third Quarter Goals

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2018 Third Quarter Goals

Goooood morning and Happy Monday!

I can’t believe that we are already half way through 2018! This year is going by so quickly and now that summer is here I would really like time to slow down a bit 🙂

You may be wondering why I do quarter goals instead of monthly or annual goals if you haven’t read my first and second goal posts. I really like to give myself extra time to complete goals so monthly goals are out of the question. However, a year is too much time to concentrate on my goals so splitting them into four parts makes them more manageable!

The second quarter of 2018 proved to be a very trying time for me. I learned a lot but I am happy to leave the events in the past. I’m ready to have a fresh start in third quarter!

  1. Finish unpacking. Yes, we moved in March and yes, we still have a few boxes to unpack. I’d love to go into fourth quarter with an unpacked house with fully built furniture. Moving is hard and I feel like we will never run out of things to do but we are loving being homeowners!
  2. Teach Oscar some basic commands. Oscar can already sit pretty well and is on his way to being fully potty trained. I would love to focus on his leash walking skills, stay, shake, and getting him to fully recognize his name.
  3. Create some work-life balance. Ugh, this is so hard for me but I really need to learn to put myself first! I have been so stressed at work and it’s not good for me or my co-workers. I have been trying to leave on time, take lunches, and get up from my desk instead of being locked up all day.
  4. Finish up all of our remaining wedding items. This includes picking up our wedding video from the videographer, writing vender reviews, finishing our wedding album, writing some wedding related blog posts, and thanking the many people who helped make our day special again.
  5. Go on a date with Brett. I can’t remember the last time Brett and I truly went on a date just the two of us. I would love to see a movie, go to dinner, or grab ice cream and just chat. We have both been so busy and I honestly miss him! Some nights we have to stay up late talking because we haven’t been able to spend any time together and we have a lot to catch up on.
  6. Start planning our next adventure. I miss traveling and I am longing to get out of the country for a bit. Our honeymoon in London was SO fun and I constantly think about it. Brett and I have so much fun traveling together and right now he works for an airline so we fly stand-by for free. We need to take advantage of these benefits and get away!

These are just a few of the things that I am hoping to accomplish over the next couple of months! I know 2018 will be over before we know it so it’s time to really kick my booty into gear!

Thanks for reading!

Lifestyle Blog, Life of Hayley

Image via Unsplash

We Bought Our First House!

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Buying Your First House, We bought our first house

 

Hey, hey.

In my last post I mentioned that I had some exciting news to share! So here we go….

*Drum Roll*

Brett and I bought our first house!

In my first quarter goals I wrote about looking for our first house but I never expected to make an offer, have the offer accepted, and move in all before the end of March. I would say that we are lucky but it wasn’t all luck. We worked SO hard to be able to buy this house. It took a lot of dedication and teamwork to be able to afford a house at our age. We are grateful to continue our story together in our first house!

Here’s the story of our first house:

In early January I found a house online that I loved right away. Brett was a little hesitant but agreed to go look. We weren’t really looking to buy right away since we just signed a new lease in December. We saw the house, Brett fell in love, but someone else put in an offer and it got accepted. The house changed to pending.

Fast forward two weeks and the house came back on the market. We went again to look but I still had some anxiety about making an offer. We slept on it and the next morning had our realtor put in our offer. Right off the bat we knew that the house needed a new roof so we planned for that expense in our offer.

24 hours later and we still hadn’t heard from the sellers. It turns out another couple made a similar offer so the seller’s realtor asked us for our best and final offer. At this point Brett and I are both kind of over the house. We put in our final offer and pretty much knew we aren’t going to get the house.

I can remember sitting on the couch the night we made our final offer. I was browsing Zillow on my laptop when I came across this adorable 1941 Cape Cod in our dream neighborhood. It felt like fate.

The next morning we got the news that our offer on the first house did not get accepted. It was a weird feeling because I did really like that house and could imagine us living there for a long time. I was also happy because I wanted to see that Cape Cod that I found on Zillow. I texted the MLS number to our realtor right away.

48 hours later I hurried to the Cape Cod after work for our viewing. We brought my parents, sister, and our friend to help us make the decision. Right away Brett and I both knew that this was the house for us. There was no anxiety or second thoughts. We made an offer right away.

3 hours later the sellers accepted our offer and we broke out a bottle of wine to celebrate! We closed on March 5th and officially moved in on March 10th. Brett and I are overjoyed with the house.

We still have a lot of things to do and boxes to unpack but the house is coming along perfectly. We have already hosted a few cookouts on our back deck and have enjoyed many walks in our new neighborhood. I can’t wait to see what the future holds for our little family.

This is the beginning of a new chapter in the Life of Hayley (and Brett) and I could not be any more excited. I will try to share some pictures along the way but for now it is mostly half unpacked boxes and empty walls.

Thanks for reading!

 

Lifestyle Blog, Life of Hayley