Hooray! I found the cord for my camera! Where, you might ask? Why, in the ice chest in the garage, of course! Where else would it be?? (I have slowly been losing my mind lately, so I'm just grateful I was able to find it!)
And now I can share all the beautiful pictures of the new house with you! First, a HUGE thanks to my friends Kristen and Kristen, who, with their own amazing blogs, have inspired me to blog as much as I do and who spent the time to teach me how to do all the cool photo collages you are about to see! Thank you so much for your help!!!
And now....without further ado, the pictures you have all been waiting for:
It is so beautiful! Travis has been working really hard on the landscaping, pulling weeds and watering the lawn to make it green again. The house had been sitting vacant for seven months, so everything was pretty much dead, and the weeds were taking over. Now, the flower beds look AMAZING, and the grass is so green and soft and nice to walk on!
Travis and I spent the weekend together in Del Rio, working on the house and getting a good start on a few of the many, many projects that we want to complete on the house. The first major thing on Travis' list is to get the fence installed around the backyard so that we can get a dog. I told him we shouldn't get a dog until we had a fence, so he has been working really hard to get it set up! :o) Here are some pictures of that work being done (if you are viewing this on my blog, you should be able to click on the pictures to make them bigger):
Travis has hired Jerry, one of the locals who works on the base, to help him with building the fence. This past weekend, they dug all the holes for the fence posts, cut the poles, and cemented the poles into the holes! We rented the tool they are using in the pictures, and it took about three hours for them to dig the 21 holes we needed for the fence. I helped with two of the holes, but Jerry and Travis did most of the work. (I was more excited about getting the painting done inside!) We ended up breaking the tool on some of the rocks in the soil, but it happened as we were finishing the last hole, so it didn't slow us down! This next week, Travis and Jerry will be working on installing the cement border around the bottom and the actual fence itself. (Travis has promised to take pictures, so hopefully we can keep you updated on that progress!)
Another project we worked on this weekend was repainting the guest bedrooms and getting them set up. I won't be moving my stuff into the house until June, so things are looking pretty bare. But, Travis has all of his stuff there now, so I was really excited to help him get that set up. The first guest bedroom was painted a bright, Barbie doll pink for the little girl who used to live there, so I promptly got that repainted to a nice shade of beige. That room will be empty for a while, until I move my stuff there. We are using the third bedroom in the house as Travis' study, so I installed a couple of shelves for him to display his awards from pilot training, bulldog figurines, and books, and I hung up all of his Air Force pictures and certifications. I am really excited about the room - it turned out better than I thought it would!! We took down the blue curtains, installed a new ceiling fans with good, bright lights, and repainted over all the crayon and holes that the little boy had put on the walls. I think it looks great!! The pictures below include the guest bathroom, and the before and after pictures of the two guest bedrooms:
Another project we did this weekend was to fix up the front door. We're sure it used to be pretty, but after seven years of wear and tear and then seven months of no attention, the door had faded to a horrible, dirty gray color. We repainted it to match the color of the trim around the house, and it looks fabulous. It makes a huge difference having the front door look so good! We also spent several hours trying to replace the locks on the front door and the garage door, which turned out to be much harder than we thought. That was still a work in progress when I left on Monday!! Another project we are going to tackle in the future is refreshing the paint around the entire exterior of the house. Travis already repainted a small section, and it looks sooooo good. We may have to wait until the summer is over before we do that project, though, because it is going to be hot in Del Rio! Here are the pictures of the newly painted front door:
Our house has about 2200 square feet and has three bedrooms and two and a half baths. We have a gorgeous entry way with dark tile in it, a beautiful kitchen and living room with wood floors, and an enormous master bedroom. There are big closets in the bedroom and lots of storage space in the bathrooms. All the bedrooms are carpeted, but we are planning to replace the carpets with something clean, fluffy, and fresh. Every room has great light fixtures in it (except Travis' study, where we had to replace the awful ceiling fan). There is a covered patio on the back of the house looking out onto the HUGE backyard. We are planning to expand the patio, since we want to be able to use the grill without burning down the house! (That's yet another project we are going to tackle later on...) Here are several pictures of the rest of the house:
I am really looking forward to moving out to Del Rio! There are so many things both Travis and I want to do, and we had a blast working together on getting the house in shape. Travis spends all of his extra time working on the house, and I can't wait to be able to do more with him! I won't be surprised when the employees at Home Depot know us both by name, with all the projects and ideas we have in mind!
So, the house continues to be a work in progress, and I will keep you all updated with more photos as I can get them. Travis has promised to take pictures as he continues building the fence, and I will be out there again in June to get more pictures, so let me know what you want to see!
And, one final picture (this one's for you, Dad). Katie gave me her bedroom set in exchange for my bed frame, so I didn't have room anymore in my bedroom in Austin for a section of my couch. While trying to sell my house, I couldn't just leave it in the garage or cluttering up the master bedroom, so I decided to take it to Del Rio. So, I moved it downstairs and loaded it into my enormous tank of a car. It fit. I was shocked. I took a picture:
My new Honda Pilot...with a giant couch (four feet long, three feet high) in the back. And I could still see out the back with the rearview mirror. I closed the door and drove to Del Rio. I never could have done this with my little Honda Accord. Nice. Thanks for the new car, Dad!
