Christmas Time

WOW!  It has been a while since the last time I have posted.  Once again, I have been slacking!  Sorry all.  Tony and I have been really busy these past couples weeks with the holidays, house updates, and of course work!  

We hope that you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving!  I know that we did.  We absolutely love going home and seeing all of our friends and family.  I am still looking forward to the day (if Tony finds a comparable job) when we can move back to Peoria.  Until then, we are enjoying our time in Saint Louis and having fun with our friends here.  

This time of year always reminds us of how much we have to be thankful for.  Isn't it upsetting that the rest of the year we somehow tend to forget that?  On my 45 minute commute to and from work, I always try and use that time to just thank God for all that He has given us, and of course to take care of all the little kiddos at my work <3  Ever since I have become a nurse 3.5 years ago, I have wished several times to go back in time when I lived a naive life in my little bubble and bad things didn't happen.  The time when I didn't even know some of the things I have seen even existed.  Well, I can't and I have just become so thankful for every day that I have been given.  

I think this time of year is so beautiful.  Everywhere you go the lights are shining, Christmas trees are up, people are doing good deeds for others, and the music is so joyful.  Since this is Tony and I's first year owning a house we were pretty excited to decorate it.  Okay I was excited to decorate it.  We put our lights up outside the weekend after Thanksgiving when we got home that Sunday.

As you can see we had leave piles too since we slacked on the yard work the week and a half before.  Yard work is something no one warns you about before you buy a home...

Finished product!  The Gilfillan home for Christmas <3

Now the decorating didn't stop once the outside was done.  Decorating the inside is the best part and the one that we are more familiar with.  Our Christmas tree pretty much looks the same every year...

But last year there was a nice addition to the tree since it was our first Christmas together as a family...

Thank you MaryBeth and Cass for this adorable ornament.

And I of course I had to throw in the usual picture of Biggs

You may remember in my previous post that I really wanted the stairwell to be finished by Christmas so that I could hang garland.  Well here it is...

 I love the way that it turned out.  At night when the lights are down and these lights along with the Christmas tree lights are on, it's so pretty.  I should have taken a picture of that...

This year is also different in the fact that my parents gave us my grandparent's nativity set that my grandpa made back in the day.  I remember every year setting this up with my mom and playing with the people all December long.  I can't wait for the day when I will be setting up the Christmas decorations with our children.

Craftsmanship at its best.

Last, but certainly not least, we have a fireplace this year that we decorated.  We had a fireplace in our last place in Chicago that we decorated so this also isn't 100% new.

Biggs was being a very good boy and sitting still for the picture.  I usually have a Christmas shirt on him, but he must have taken it off somewhere now that I am thinking about it....that's probably why he was being so good...

"Christmas through the eyes of a child." This is a picture of my niece Olivia that was taken by her Aunt Heidi.  Looking at this picture just makes all of our "problems" seem so small.... 

I would love to see and hear how you all decorated your apartment or house.  How this time of year has brought you and your loved ones even closer than before.  The good deeds that others have done for you or that you have done for others.  Each day is a gift and it's important to remember that not only during this time of year, but throughout the entire year.

Hoarders House....Honestly!

Happy Wednesday all!  Okay so I know this blog is supposed to be about our house renovation and all of our DIY projects but I just couldn't help myself.  Our good friends Jared (our personal contractor) and his wife Jaclyn also just bought their first house.  Since they are both creative and talented people they wanted to buy a complete "fixer upper" and flip it so they can make money for Jared to build their dream home.  Sounds like a good idea, right?  Well they have been telling us about their house for months and months (while they were waiting for the short sale to go through) and how the people literally left trash/belongings everywhere.  I know that they have been saying this, but to actually see it for myself....I ....I have no words.  I made it all the way to the upstairs until I started to have a small panic attack, not for myself, but for them (and the realization that people really do live like this). 

...and this is just the garage!...a 3 car one at that!

Bless Jared and Jaclyn's heart and their willingness to put forth all this work to make this house (well walls and a roof) a home again (aka a livable space).  All I know is that if there are any two people who can take on this project...it's Jared and Jaclyn. 

 Someday will be dining room and kitchen expansion...

 ...lol good thing we brought over champagne for them!

 (Above) Current dinging room now but they will be expanding the kitchen to this area

 (above and below) Current kitchen before expansion

 Some day this will be the master bedroom (above) and master bathroom (below)

 Future kid's rooms (above and below x2)

...and of course one of the many closets that were still filled with clothes!

So the immediate days after they closed on the house what were we doing?  We took our tush's over there and started cleaning all the s**t out of there!  4 days and 2 (HUGE) dumpsters  later their house is cleared out!  

(sorry I don't have any after photos yet)

We are so excited to see all the transformations that will be taking place in their house within the next year or so.....!

Adding a Little Bit of Character

We are still far from complete on our kitchen but now we are just taking little baby steps to make it more of a "Gilfillan" feel.  The last couple changes that we have made have been adding hardware to the doors/drawers and changing out some of the light fixtures. 

First thing's first....new hardware!

 Workin' hard!

Yay!  So happy with the new hardware.  It definitely adds a more "homey" feel to the kitchen :)  We had to get 18 knobs and 18 handles...whew!  The knobs were $1.97 and the handles were $3.47...so definitely not cheap!  I think in total with our Lowe's discount we spent about 90 dollars on hardware :(  I will admit though...I didn't really shop around too much.  I knew what I wanted and got wayyy to antsy and went out and bought them.  I justify it though by saying that we are still wayyy more under budget than if we had just gone out and bought new cabinets instead of putting the work into these.  From what we have calculated so far (excluding a future countertop) our kitchen redo it totaling us $400 (for a space that holds 18 cabinets and drawers and lighting fixtures!)....speaking of lighting fixtures....

Here is a pick of my amazing husband taking down the 80's light in the kitchen. 

 Yuck look at all the dirt/bug guts on the ceiling!  I swear I don't think that light was ever cleaned....

Bug guts....!

Since there were sooo many bug guts and dirt we washed the ceiling and repainted it before we put up the light fixtures.

Very IMPORTANT:  Make sure you turn off the electricity to the light before messing with all the wires in the light.  Don't worry, we did remember to do that...wheww! 

This is our new light about the stove...

We are happy with it :)  AND I was able to pick it out one Friday afternoon when we both had off work without second guessing umpti-million different times!  Progress is being made...!

(Matching light above the sink)

We are planning on (at some point) buying darker counter tops for more of a contrast.  We are thinking along the lines of a brownish/tanish color?  What do you all think??

Staircase Reveal

I am so so sooooo sorry that I wasn't able to post this on Friday.  Life can get the best of us sometimes, right?!  Well, here is the big reveal now!  The moment that you all have been waiting for...the completed staircase!!  I just want to make another special shout out to Jared for all the hard work that he did!  This project was wayy bigger than Tony and I could have ever done on our own!  He did such and amazing job and we are so very lucky to have such a great friend like him! 

Picture of the half wall....and picture of the finished product!

Look how much it opens up the space!

We absolutely love it! 

We love all the small detail that he put into the staircase....

(Jared did a molding type design)

We love the fact that we went with the thick wooden balusters to give it the country feel versus iron spindles. 

Now, the only thing left to do is to get the carpet guy out here to lay the carpet back down in the areas where it had to come up (minute thing) and paint where the old railing used to be hung....

.....good thing we are planning on repainting the entire room.....once we get the guts to decide on a color for this HUGE room!

Best thing about this project being done is that now we can finally talk about the main bathroom redo!  More to come on that...

Fall Fun

Ahh... I did it once again, I haven't blogged in a week!  I blame it on the day job...er..wait I mean the night job...er...oh shoot you all know I work days/nights so you know what I'm talking about! 

Anywho, I hope that you all had a Happy Halloween!  Before I went to work I was able to dress Biggs up in his dinosaur costume.....

....so precious! 

Tony told me Biggs had no idea what to think of all the trick or treaters...I am sure he was probably thinking somewhere along the lines of "why the heck are all these people coming to the door and no one is petting me!"  Good thing I cuddle and play with him as much as possible on my days/nights off.

So before Halloween came around Tony and I were able to decorate some pumpkins.  Mine, well didn't turn out as well as I had hoped...Tony's on the other hand turned out great!

Can you guess which one is who's??

I thought it would be a really cool idea to put glow in the dark paint on my pumpkin instead of carve it.....obvious fail...

Tony's ...well his is amazing and he didn't even use a tracer which makes me feel even more jealous when I look at his compared to mine.

 ...and Bigg's looking up at Tony thinking "why is that crazy lady taking so many pictures?"

Now that Halloween is over its on to Thanksgiving!  Another awesome holiday, which you all know includes lots more calories to consume!  I love this time of year because I love all the fall colors.  I had to take a couple pictures of the trees in our yard and all their pretty colors. 

 

 Our yard is full of multicolored trees...this picture doesn't even do it justice!

Trees unfortunately means leaves, leaves, leaves!  Here are a couple pictures of the day Biggs and I decided to rake the leaves.  More like I raked and Biggs just played!

"ahhhhh help me I am drowning in leaves!!" 

 ...getting myself out...

...Okay this is better!  I can pose and look cute for a picture now!

Oh and I want to tell you all...the stairs are finally completed!  The final result will come tomorrow!  Happy official Thanksgiving season everyone!!