Booth Manor part deux

Its a bit of challenge to parent 3 kids and to have 5400 sq ft of house to redo every single square inch; On top of trying to maintain a diet and exercise regime and be a sane wife, friend and daughter. Let me say, I am not doing any of it well right now.

Booth Manor has had some upgrades but not the pretty oh wow updates. We have replaced the gutters and fascia on the house. Expensive fix that needed to be done but not one of those things that I would have liked to spend the money on. Also, the man that came out to verify the footage needed tweeked me when he questioned my design aesthetic saying he felt sorry for the neighbors and our house because I chose black gutters. Well dude, I love them.

matthew snapped this for me and its just the fascia. I will have to update with gutters.

Mike continued to do work under the house in the crawl space which I was almost convinced he had made into a man cave with the amount of time he spent laying new vapor barrier and insulation. It indeed cleared up the smell from the previous tenant and the feline friend that occupied the space freely peeing where ever it desired. This crawl space is directly under the master so the smell was intense and I could not handle it. The previous owners had a yappy dog as well that seemed to take his pee's on the master floor, so even after we ripped up the carpet, the wood underlay was so badly stained that it too needed to be replaced. While this was happening we had to move all our furniture to the living room so it was one big sleepover for the week. 

Mike put down new sub floor and primed and painted our master this weekend. Huge difference! It doesn't feel like a dirty motel room anymore.

Whilst I was awaiting for some of these projects to get a move on I decided that I couldn't sit here and nurse Levi anymore looking at this wall that needed to come down. So I got a straight knife and a hammer and tore the bitch down.

We had been questioning if it was a load bearing wall and have since concluded that it is and will need to have a support beam installed. Even with the studs showing I am happier with it, hopefully though it wont take months to complete. 

Another project I just decided to start was to paint our brick fire place white. Eventually the floors will be a dark wood and the walls are going greyish blue, which is another project I cannot wait to complete but cannot locate the right color, everything looks purple when the light hits it. Anywhoo the fireplace is not done but here is a work in progress 

Started out white washing them but have decided to go full on paint. We have also repainted the interior of the fireplace so it looks new again. 

Lets see here, I have picked out lots of fabric and have many many ideas for things that will be done but implementing them have not been the fastest which I knew going into this but as we all know i have the patience of a toddler. 

Levi is getting a cornice board and some pillows

Levi is getting a reading tent

Lily is getting length to her drapes and some canopy action

This is the entryway to the house and I cannot a.) wait to replace the 80's style stair railing and b.) take down the painted over wallpaper, to yes, replace it with different wallpaper. 

Its a statement for sure and will be only in this corner nook which does carry to the second floor but I have coveted it for sometime now and cannot wait to see the difference it makes. 

So yes it is slow going but improvements are being made. All the while my lily turned 3, my matthew started 2nd grade in a new school with ease, and mr koala is going to be 1 before I know it. Oh and a horse dog great dane joined our family. Time is flying for sure and the chaos of living upside down gets to me some days and other days I am thankful to have a handy husband and a mom who will do whatever she can to help.

Booth manor updates part 1

It looks as if I like to wait a month between posts. We are officially moved in to our new home and it has been quite overwhelming. The previous tenants (the owners ex daughter in law) left the place a hot mess. I am talking 30+ bags of trash in the garage, trash and shoe boxes galore in all the closets, smatterings of food and grease in the kitchen and I don't want to talk about the smell of old animal stains.

The first thing we did was have the old popcorn ceiling texture removed. That is the only thing Mike was cool with contracting out. It took a 4 person crew 4 days to remove the popcorn because of the age of the popcorn and then to smooth out the imperfections and repaint. It is one of those things that you may not notice but it makes a big difference. When I came to check on the progress I was completely caught off guard because the entire house was tarped off in sections to try and manage the dust oh and in the middle of summer with no ac. ( the night before we closed and we did our final walk through we came to notice that one of the 4 ac units had been stolen. so needless to say it was replaced however it was not up and running at the time of the contractors being here for the first 2 days FUN TIMES). I ate frozen yogurt that day with peanut butter, not on the Fighter Diet but it did ease my anxiety for the moment.

While the workers were busy on the inside, mike was busy on the outside cleaning up the badly neglected yard. Whilst pruning and cutting back bushes and limbs he managed to get into some wicked poison ivy which spread like crazy and the poor guy had to endure the pain for 5+days.

Next up was to remove and replace the carpet from the kids rooms and the basement. As previously mentioned there were multiple animals and pet stains living here. We are going to hardwood the floors again but I wanted to get the kids carpet this time so they would play in their room and feel comfy. We chose a textured Berber because if I have to see carpet lines from the vacuum cleaner I might as well just call it a day in the land of coo coo things that will drive me insane. The carpet folks removed and installed 1400 sq ft of carpet and I am in heaven with how it turned out.

Multiple other small things have been done. New fans and lights in the kids room and guest room. Mike has braved the crawl space and secured it from other animals and their feces. Blinds have been removed and my old draped installed, although that is a for the moment fix as I have new ideas and color scheme brewing for the living room. We also have plans to remove a wall between the kitchen and main room which will open everything up and require new seating and area rug in my mind. Additional cabinets have been installed in the laundry room. I HAVE A REAL LAUNDRY ROOM and its possibly my favorite things about the house. And in between opening the boxes and finding space for items Lily had her first fever ever for 4 days, Levi is teething and Matthew had an abscess tooth removed and he starts a new school next week. I have eaten entire jars of peanut butter but I have also continued to make it to the gym, missing only one day. Finding a new gym closer to the house is proving to be difficult, 2 of the gyms didn't have squat racks, can you even consider yourself a gym without one?

I plan to capture the updates as they occur with the house and share them here hoping for inspiration and patience. Thats all for now!

no more push mower for us

yea thats a hole in the floor

Pet stain anyone?

out of the 80s blinds

#everysinglewindowneedstobereplaced

It's been a hot minute since my last post. We are still fighter dieting over here and making progress. I get discouraged when I see my photos from behind but it will eventually tighten up I hope.

A lot has been going on, we sold and bought a house and will be moving from 2200sq ft to over 5200 Sq ft on an acre of land, to say I am excited and nervous is an understatement.

There is a lot of work and updating to be done on the new place which I love to do but hate how long the process takes, I am not the queen of patience.

I will be sharing before and after photos of the new abode here as well. So transformations all around.

Hope you all have a wonderful remainder of your summer as back to school is right around the corner topped with hobby lobby and their pumpkin display.

8 months pp

Serenity Now

This has been a very trying week to say the least. I can say the one thing that kept me sane through it was having the routine of my diet and exercise. I did not miss one day at the gym and kept my diet on point. The scale is finally catching up and I am at my goal weight! I am planning to go a little bit further and also do my best to gain some more muscle, especially in the back, legs and glutes. Fighter Diet has helped me to stay sane and get these results at 6 months postpartum. 

Happy Dance

So this is the start of week 5 of my Fighter Diet challenge and while yesterday I as feeling a bit down today I am feeling stoked. I had my body fat measured today and am down 4% since the start of the challenge putting my at 16.8% Bf which is an awesome accomplishment for me! The fighter diet is pretty easy to follow and the challenge girls are great for motivation. I would recommend it to any of my girls looking to get inspired to lose weight and gain muscle. www.fighterdiet.com

I am still a work in progress and will be for the long haul but I am finally able to see results in myself.

I am particularly happy with myself because I have been able to eat healthy and continue to nurse Levi, who just turned 6 months over the weekend. I am tooting my own horn a little bit yes, sometimes I think we need to. I am very thankful for Mike for suggesting I join him this past January for the original challenge, having a supportive partner helps for sure. I will continue to post my journey here and am happy to answer any questions about Fighter Diet that I can. 

No April Fools

Whoa its April already! It has been 12 weeks since I started a healthier journey and I fell off the wagon pretty hard these last few weeks, not necessarily in the types of foods I was eating but more the amount of food. Today I start a new challenge called the Fighter Diet. I have been toying with it for a few weeks because the amount of vegetables you are to consume throughout the day is insane. Talking 5lbs of veggies! So at least I won't be hungry but my problem isn't fighting hunger pangs it is fighting the sugar cravings and that will be doubly hard come Sunday when sugary filled treats will be strewn throughout the house in plastic eggs.

SO back to the initial challenge. Mike and I agreed to enter the BodyBuilding 200K transformation at the beginning of the year as a kick start for us both to eat better foods. Mike of course has been super successful as he has will power like nothing I have ever seen, plus he has been lifting heavy for 10+ years which doesn't hurt. I have lost 8lbs and am a lot stronger than I was at the beginning but I am no where close to where I want to be physically. I met a figure competitor at the gym and she told me about Fighter Diet and based on her physique I would say it works pretty damn well. I looked into it and they were having this challenge and I decided that it was right up my alley. I will be focusing more on weights than cardio and am going to do my best to be 100% laser focused on my diet. I know I can do this but again plan to use you all to keep me honest.

Here are my before and after pictures from initial challenge, and the after will now become my before for my current challenge.

Yes it is embarrassing to share but I know that at my before I was 8 weeks postpartum

Almost 5 months postpartum

Happy April Ya'll

I have not missed a day at the gym since I tweaked my back, likely a total of 3 days missed since January. Tomorrow I start a new challenge and I am stoked to start this new journey and see some serious results. I will post more about the challenge and stats soon. Happy Spring Ya'll!