New Kitchen

Here it is!

Old Kitchen

We finally renovated the kitchen!!! YAY!!!! Here are some pictures of what the kitchen used to look like. The biggest problem I had with the previous kitchen was the very limited counter space. Cooking or doing anything involved in the kitchen was truly a process.

New art

Yesterday afternoon I had the priveledge to paint with one of my dear friends Ashley Johnson from Johnson & Johnson. I ended up painting this little piece for my bathroom. Whenever I photograph this bathroom the colors always look way off- the painting is not lime green it is the same green as the towels.

The beginning of working outside ...............

We have been working the last few weeks on the outside of the house! Memorial Day my parents came over and helped Rob and I put up shutters and paint the dreaded wall. If you don't remember what the wall and the old shutters looked like let me refresh your memory!

Needless to say I believe there has been an improvement!



The above picture is so far the finished product of project extend the flower beds. Please exscuse the fact they need to be weeded! Also it is so hot outside my camera is fogging up.



We also planted 9 yellow knockout roses and a white spirea. Look over the cracks in the wall we haven't finished patching yet.

Finally a picture of the front door.... I need some help thinking of a summer something to brighten my door.

Oh Electrolux how I love Thee!

Yes - we tooke the plunge and bought an electrolux washer and dryer! It is FABULOUS! Highly recommend and totally worth the money! I mean Rob and I sat on the garage floor and watched the first wash cycle (I know we are dorks). We joked that one day our kids will say " My parents bought a hideous red washer and dryer and all they talk about was how great they were back in the day." HAHA. Anyway they have definitely made my life easier and our bills cheaper. Overall, GREAT INVESTMENT!

The Return of the Wall

This spring I decided to turn some of my attention outside. I mean after the long winter we had this girl needed some vitamin D back in her life. And last week God ordered just that - basically 5 beautiful days of sunshine! It even got hot one day!

TUESDAY
Mom and I got to work on making flower beds in front of the azaleas! They look fabulous! All they need now is some mulch and flowers, but that will have to wait.



WEDNESDAY
Mom (have I mentioned I have a fabulous mom! She so generously gives up many of her free days to come and work in my yard) and I cleared the brush from above "THE WALL." It definitely needed it and it was some HARD WORK. But now the wall definitely needs to be painted. I forgot to take pictures of the complete before but imagine the whole wall covered in the vine that starts halfway down the wall.



THURSDAY
Power washed the deck- sorry no pictures forgot because I was soaking wet!

Overall, I would say Mom and I had a pretty successful week!But don't worry there is more to come.

Back from my hiatus!

Well you all know I like to take a blog hiatus every so often. Well I am back at least for a few posts for now. Right now life is crazy and I am sure that you can say the same for your own family.
So what is going on in the Bensinger home these days? Well lots....
1) When we got back from our trip to Williamsburg- Oh yea- we went on vacation to Williamsburg a couple of weeks ago. It was Fabulous!!- we decided that we needed to replace to ugly and nasty old back doors. The upstairs door wasn't so bad but the downstairs one - well lets just say I don't want to talk about it.Needless to say it turned out to be a much bigger project than anticipated so it took an additional day than planned. This wouldn't have been a huge deal excepet we didn't get the downstairs door installed. This being said- the wifie didn't happen to look at the weather because she had just returned from a vacation where we had fabulous weather and the weather was fabulous in Birmingham. Needless to say the next day was 30 degrees outside and rainy and we had a tarp on the door. My sweet hubbie worked in the rain and cold to make sure we had a door in case it snowed! Lesson learned: Check the weather before taking doors or window off your house! HAHA. Oh well looks great now! Just needs a few finishing touches!

Always wondered....

I always wondered why my nice white bed skirt in the guest bedroom was always covered with fur! I mean I had some idea why becuase there is only one thing in our house that is covered in fur. But I didn't know what she was doing. A picture is worth a thousand words!

20 minutes re-do!

So the pup child graduated to dog child. Meaning she no longer needs her cage! YAY! So this made me very happy because it CLUTTERED our office!

Before:



After:

The banister downstairs!

I have always loved my MIL's( Mother-in-love)stairwell. It has a black main banister and white spindles. I thought this would be perfect to dress up the downstairs.So yet again off to home depot we went. By the way.while we were there I found it quite humerous that the "Manly" store home depot was playing the Mama Mia soundtrack!
Anyway we chose:
Black Suede ( For the main banister) and Vermont Cream ( For the spindles)

Here are some initial pictures of the project!

Beginning of the downstairs re-do!

Well I know you all have seen pictures of the downstairs dungeon! Uh that room makes me cringe, but hopefully not for much longer!

First we started by picking the paint color Cobblestone by Ralph Lauren. It looks more gray here but it does have some beige undertones


Ah the back wall I know! I told you the downstairs is scary!




We had to remove the nasty carpet on the stairs! And whoever installed this carpet definitely was not ever planning on it being removed. Needless to say it was a beast to get off of the stairs! That is what Rob is working on in theses pictures.



How Rob feels about the carpet on the steps!

We are so lucky to have friends ( Thank you Johnson's!) that allowed us to borrow their ladder so we could get the stairwell complete!


I promise I did help and didn't just take pictures the whole time!

New additions to the Living Room!

Well the living room is still a work in progress, but we are getting there! So a couple of weeks ago we got to put up curtains. It always amazes me how much curtains can transform a room!

Before:


Excuse the blurriness in the next picture, but I thought Macy looked cute watching Rob.




After:


Other additions to the Living Room:
Some pillows that I have been working on and finished right before Christmas!


And finally my mom found this at Kirklands and new it would be perfect for over our sofa! Rob and I both love it!

Better Late Than Never!

I think I say this a lot.But here is what the house looked like for Christmas!






I think I say this a lot.But here is what the house looked like for Christmas!

Electricity goes crazy!

So I yet again apologize for the lack of blogging lately. Hopefully tomorrow when I get off work I will take pictures of our Christmas decorations and put them up. Needless to say I have been busy working at my real job and stuyding for finals. Last week happened to be a very interesting week at the house. It all started on Saturday night when I noticed the internet connnection had gone out. No big deal I will just call Charter sometime next week and get them to come and look at it. Well I had a final on Wednesday so I waited till tuesday to call Charter and then had them come out on Friday. I didn't want to have to deal with them messing up my study time. Wednesday night I had gone out with some friends and when I got home Rob stated that all of the lights had been flickering in the house. So he turned all the lights out except for the room he was in. I stated that it was really windy outside so maybe that had something to do with it. Well the next morning, I went to start the dryer and all the house dimmed when I attempted to start it. Big clue that this wasn't good. Charter arrived and stated that my cable internet cord looked burned. Like electrically burned. Not good! Then he went outside and he said sparks were coming out of there connection outside. Yet again not good! Sparks don't come out of cable internet.The supervisor for Charter came out and looked at it and said that he would turn off all the power in the house because some how I had lost my ground wire connection. Basically, saying my house was one big electrical charge. At the time I happened to be alone at the house. And of course freaked out! To make a long story short Alabama power ended up coming out and fixing everything our ground wire was completely broken. Everything is fixed now and working better than it had been. Oh the joy of owning a house! But it is totally worth it. Hopefully, I will get a new camera for Christmas so I will be able to post more pictures!

Update on plumbing.....

Well the good news is - the sink can be used! The bad news there is definitely more plumbing to be fixed. We have really old pipes so if we don't replace a certain section we risk flooding the basement. No good! So the plumber will be coming back out to fix that section and hopefully everything will be fixed.

Plumbing 101

Well the good news.... the part my mom and I fixed. NOT THE PROBLEM! Good job girls! Bad News there is a leak in the stack that so happenly is covered up by a wall, but at least it is behind the dishwasher. So the plumber is coming back out today to build us "bigger and badder" under the sink and in the wall plumbing. (In his own words). When he was messing around under the sink, all the old plumbing just fell off the sink. Needless to say the 1970's plumbing had to go! So by tonight hopefully I will have a functioning kitchen sink! YAY!!!

Plumbing problems!!

So we officially have an issue that Rob and I can not fix on our own. The kitchen sink had been backing up. About 16 hours later the clog was out, but one small little rubber coupling would not stop leaking. So after much debate and putting our pride aside the plumber is on his way and hopefully will be able to fix the problem that Rob and I (plus my mother) have been battling for a week.

Fall is definitely here!

Here are the pictures of the front of the house I promised a few weeks ago! Notice no crate murtles.

"The Wall"

So we have this retaining wall to the right of our house. It has looked bad from day one in my opinion. It used to have vines growing over it(actaully roses) but the week before we closed on our house they chopped them down. So now the wall is an eye sore. So I think I am going to paint it! The picture below shows the wall as being a dark taupe that will match the siding. Rob is off next week so I hope we can do it then.



The bushes along the bottom of the wall are going to be yellow knockout roses. And remember the crape myrtles are gone and replaced with compact hollys.

Also we are going to try to get an electrician out to the house to give us a qoute on putting up two sconces on either side of the entryway. Right now there is just one light as you walk out the door. It happens to be right at the height of your head so therefore at night you get a facefull of bugs. I also want to put a recessed can light above the door. This is the sconce I really like:

Crate murder!

So on Wednesday I committed crate murder! Yep it was quick only about 30 minutes,a handsaw, and they were GONE!!! I can't believe how much removing the crate myrtle trees opened up the front of the house. I need to post a picture, but I don't' have access to my camera right now or the time, but shortly my friends. The crate myrtle trees where replaced by a compact holly. So I added some yellow mums and said "HELLO FALL!." Did I mention that I did this all in 60 degree weather. AMAZING!! Especially in Alabama. My mom is working on a fall wreath for me this weekend. I can't wait!
All I have to say is I love FALL!!!