Third Floor Project

​Oh boy, this was the longest project of all time. In fact, we built an entire Dollar General at work in the time it took to finish one room and one bathroom in my own house! 

When we built our home back in 2017, we didn't know how we'd live in the space. Grady didn't exist either! We decided to leave the third floor semi finished but not totally. We did the hardwood stairs to it, hung dry wall and painted it and then plumbed the bathroom and left stubs. We didn't floor it, we just left the subfloor. The space counted for our SF in our cert of occupancy when we built the house. It was conditioned etc.

We decided to move the playroom from the second floor up to the third and make the second floor more of a theatre/gaming room. 

So this was our list to do for the third floor:

Put carpet down

Tile the bathroom

Add a frameless shower door

Get plumbing fixtures

Get a pretty light and mirror for the bathroom

Add three cabinets - one in the bathroom, one big "closet" for games etc because there isn't a closet up there and one wet bar so they could have drinks etc. 

Granite for bar and for the bathroom cabinet

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We started in July and finished in November. It was ridiculous but I'll spare you the details. Here is where we started and finished!

Our storage room...

And the finished product:

Should I mention how horrible of a tile job it is? Or how he used brown grout instead of gray and I had to paint every spec of grout to fix it? Or how we had a water pipe burst when the cabinets were installed? Or the two countertops it took to make sure the sink was in the middle? Or how the granite for our bar we picked out wasn't big enough even though they said it was? Or how the big closet cabinets couldn't fit up our doorway so they had to take them back to their shop to cut them in half to then bring them back? Or how the zillion pound beverage fridge was broken and I had to haul it back to the UPS store? Or how they didn't order enough tile? Like so many things went wrong. 

Details details. We are happy with the end result. These pics don't show the big bean bag we got or the current state but this was when we were sorta moving stuff up there! 

Top 12 Things I Still Love About Our Home

​1. Two dishwashers flanking our kitchen sink. It's a game changer when we have people over. Otherwise we switch each day. And the Shaw curved sink still makes me happy. 

2. Wiring every room with speaker wire. We have multiple "zones" for Sonos and enjoy having good sounding music in our main area, dining room, powder bath, porch, office and our bedroom/bathroom/shower. We don't have Sonos speakers, we have more boom boom ones ha. Eventually we will put speakers in the kids room when they are ready.

3. Our cabinets - best vendor we had building our home. Eudy's Cabinets

4. My getting ready area - it's just outside of our shower/bathroom and on the same side as my closet and the rest of the house so if Kevin's in the bathroom I can still get ready and off I go.

5. A storage area within a garage. We made one garage extra deep and built a wall so we have an area back there for yard stuff. 

6. Lighting - I still love every single light I picked out for this house back in 2017. 

7. Mudroom - my friend Lisa told me to do a "command center" for my junk with a charging station. It's so wonderful. It's standing height so I can stand in there at counter height and operate.  

8. Second set of washer and dryer in the mudroom. We use them so much - pool towels, dog towels, muddy baseball clothes, car wash towels and so on. PS - do you like how they're labeled? My mom couldn't figure out which was which many years ago so I labeled them for her!

9. Soooo many electrical outlets. And if they're on a wall in the vanity, they're not centered which would be behind a hand towel, they're moved forward to be easily accessible. 

10. Walk in attic space - a game changer. 

11. I like how none of our rooms other than the gym have those angled ceilings. We were particular that we didn't want those. Oh and the other wild thing - we did not want columns in our main room / kitchen so we have metal beams built into the wall to span the wide openings. 

12. Our porch - it is PERFECT in every way because it's 21'x26' and we have a gas starter real wood burning fireplace. We love it and spend so much time out there. 

Things I wish we had done -

Electrical outlets below each window for Christmas lights. More outlets in closets (not required for code but need for steaming or vacuuming). Can lights in kids and guest rooms. 

Weekending

​Friday night we hung around the house and made pizzas and went on a golf cart ride where we ended up hanging with a bunch of neighbors. 

Skiff walked about one house length. He is not allowed to walk long distances until 18 months old to let his bones develop. Walking with Daisy and Lindy!

He's the highlight of the neighborhood these days!

Saturday morning Grady had lacrosse and it was sooooo cold and windy. He LOVED it though and did super great! I was proud of him giving his all at something new to him.

Next up was baseball where they won. Hung around in the afternoon then went to the club for dinner with some friends. 

Sunday night steak fajita bowls. Couple neighborhood girlies were here and ate with us which was fun.  

Our driveway became a meeting ground of a bunch of neighbors riding by and stopping to chat... and see Skiff of course. Chat soon everyone. Crazy week. 

Friday

Sooo many Skiff pictures! ​

Skiff came to Grady's game this week! He loved it!

He also provided emotional support for a ton of math homework.

At the ballpark 

Every day is a good day to play outside 

Shrimp Alla Vodka - 

Fresh garlic, chopped onions, mushrooms and shrimp. Mixed with protein angel hair and Alfredo and marinara.

Molly Anne was Alice in the Alice in Wonderland play at school!

More homework with a tired puppy.

Happy Weekend! Oh, did I tell yall that skiff started sleeping through the night on night 4 of being with us? He's a good boy! 9:30-6:30 these days!

Spring

ONE - my friend asked if I had seen any cute spring bags and I sent her this one. I have it in black and now I feel like I need it in this ivory. Best part is you can wash these! ​

TWO - this top with white jeans! 

THREE - this skirt with a simple white tee or...

FOUR - this top! It would look good with jeans or a long maxi skirt. 

FIVE - spring break vibes

Delish

Don't buy these few things unless you want to eat all of them!!​

Menu this week

​You've probably noticed that nothing I make is complicated, especially during the work week. 

On Sunday I made this chicken, orzo, broccoli situation for Monday and it was SO good. Kids loved it.

Tonight we are having hamburger helper and a Caesar salad!!

Wednesday we are having shrimp alla vodka with mushrooms and fresh tomatoes. Just using jarred Rao's Alfredo and marinara mixed and I always use Barilla protein noodles

Thursday - chicken stir fry. 

Friday - pizza!