Researching and Found Treasure!

Earlier last week we had dinner at Grammy's and Aunt Deb mentioned a surplus building supply store out in Columbia. (Brilliant idea!) We decided to go in the morning on Saturday just to check out what they had. J stayed back at the little house with Dad to work on removing the window in the bathroom. After an adventurous start, we were on our way to what I'd discover as my new favorite store!!! I can not wait for Beverly to come visit so I can take her there- she would LOVE it too!!! We had so much fun looking at all the treasures the stores had to offer. :) We also made some friends-two very helpful and patient employees. They helped us find all kinds of things, answered lots of questions, and even measured and remeasured as we were deciding on windows. I even showed them the blog! haha! (gotta love my little iPhone) Our plan is the head back over there this coming weekend to purchase windows. :) :) :)

 a REAL cow carpet! I feel like my sweet man would love this! :) 

 lovely windows

big fun pantry cabinets :) 

Oh, and P.S.- our door didn't make it. Actually, we're still waiting on it. It'll come soon, I have hope! :)

The Door is Coming!

Good News! Our beautiful, new door is on its way! Our BIG project this weekend is to get rid of the sliding front door and replace it with a fun, mission-style entry door. No, we won't be painting this baby yet- in fact we're mainly just praying it'll be here in time to install. (If you don't mind praying too we would be grateful!) The lovely dumpster that has been sitting in the front yard for the past month will depart next Tuesday and we need to get the slider pulled out before then! We'll see if our door comes! Hopefully, our little cottage house will get a dramatic face lift this weekend!

No News

Not too much to report on the renovation this weekend- we were away up in Raleigh to celebrate the wedding of my dear friends Jenny and Rob! We're planning a BIG project for this coming weekend...stay tuned!

 reminiscent of Barbie & Ken, right? 

beautiful!!

Inspiration

I'm not an interior designer by any means but I do like trying to make our happy home beautiful and cozy. I get just as excited about decorating the little house as much as I do about renovating it! I've been dreaming up paint and tile colors for a few weeks. However, I kept going back to this idea that I needed an inspiration piece to tie the house together and this weekend I found it! We were out shopping and found this not so little treasure! Nothing says cozy like a soft, comfy area rug! I just love all the colors! I've been really leaning towards using accents of robin's egg blue and soft, deep greens in the little house. (Of course we needed the garnet color as well- hello, we are Snipes after all) I'm so excited for the fun accessories I can make and find to go along with our 'inspiration' piece! 

Calico Cherry

Our floors came in and they are lovely! On Friday Joshua and I picked up our laminate hardwoods. I was really nervous about them because I'm not a fan of the 'cherry' color but I should have known to trust J and his good taste. He really did a great job picking them out. I think the floors are going to look great. It will still be a little while before we actually install them but we got them for a steal and couldn't pass up the offer! 

  This man can drive a trailer! He did a fantastic job manuevering it all over the place including a crazy gas station! I never cease to be impressed with him. (sigh)

 all loaded up

Joshua is beginning to feel like this blog is filled with pictures of only him- and if you know him you know that doesn't exactly please him. :) My sweet man isn't into being the subject of my pictures so he snapped this one of me so you could be sure that I do actually exist. :)

a little iPad dreaming

My sweet hubby found a fantastic app, Floorplans, for our iPad a few weekends ago. He used it to draw out the floor plan of the cottage using approximate measurements. Then he let me play! The app has furniture for various rooms so that you can determine where furniture fits relative to the sizes of rooms. I had a blast with it. It felt a lot like playing dollhouse. This is what I came up with. :) We'll have to wait and see what everything actually ends up looking like. For now, here's the plan:

A New Roof for the Cottage

goodbye old roof!

 Everyone working HARD!

look who's on the ROOF!!

l

 so very handsome all-the-time!

one of many trips up that ladder! 

So this past weekend's project was a BIG one. I didn't get to help at all but that's primarily because I really couldn't. Joshua let me try to hold a bundle of shingles and I couldn't even hold it on my own! Needless to say, roofing is back breaking work! J calculated the weight of the bundles times the number of bundles they carried and determined that they carried over 3,000 pounds up to the roof! All the guys on the land worked together on the roof. They worked all day Saturday and even into the evening. Then they were back at it on Sunday afternoon into the evening again! The roof looks great and we are thankful for our family pulling together once again!

Calico Cherry

J got a phone call today that our flooring has finally shipped and is waiting for pick up! One small step closer!

Goodbye Bathroom

Warning: This post is going to get scary. :) 

Here's the bathroom before demo:

...and here's the bathroom after...(actually, shortly after this they pulled the tub out too)

believe it or not, this is where that vanity used to be! 

Sort of looks like a haunted house to me....

Thankful for Our Family!

This isn't the first time I've said it and it's definitely not going to be the last- our family is a-m-a-z-i-n-g. You won't catch Dad in these pictures but he's been faithfully helping from the very start.Thank you everyone for the help this weekend! :) If you find yourself bored on a Saturday you're always welcome to visit the little house...we might put you to work. ;) 

Sydney taking out the kitchen wall...I love this girl, she can even make demolition glamorous! 

Bradley was definitely an trooper. He ripped out almost the entire bathroom. 

(more on that later)

Teamwork: Syd, Uncle Allen, Bradley, and J pulling off the last cabinet...woo hoo!

My mama-in-love peeling wall paper... 

The Dumpster Arrives...

what a lovely lawn ornament :) 

time to get started! 

it won't be empty for long :) 

Date Night

Friday night is date night so this week we decided on a quick dinner and a trip to Lowes. Nothing like quality time perusing cabinet stains and laminate designs. :) We really did have a good time. I'm so indecisive and my sweet man is so patient. I'm a blessed girl, to be sure! After staring at the choices for quite a while...we decided we liked this cabinet stain and this laminate for the countertops. We'll probably do something like it- I never realized how pricey cabinets can be. It's a good thing we have a small kitchen. I can definitely see how a big kitchen remodel would require a big budget! Joshua had an  idea to get them unfinished and then stain them ourselves. That would be another fun project to do together and we'll save a little too!

 stain color and laminate design

cabinets and countertops together (at the store...we aren't planning to do the tin backsplash)

The Cottage Project

For our first year of marriage we decided to live in Blythewood but not on 'the land' with our family. We are enjoying our adorable, little apartment but we've decided that in the Spring we would like to move to Jordan Crossing. Our kind and gracious family is allowing us to stay in the rental house on the land. It's small and in desperate need of a little TLC, but with a little love we think it will be perfect for us! We plan to give 'the little house' a few significant renovations and turn it into a cozy cottage. :) Our long-term plan isn't to stay in the cottage but we want to make some modifications to make our stay a bit more pleasant. Then, when we move on to our own home our family will benefit by having an updated place to continue renting. My beloved Beverly suggested chronicling the changes to the cottage and thus The Cottage in the Country blog. We began our project this month and our move-in date is set for the beginning of May. We have quite the To Do list but in the words of my sweet Joshua, "the house is a can of worms- it's just a matter of when we decide to put the lid back on the can."

First Official Lowe's Shopping Trip

We're up early on our day off and headed to Lowes for our first OFFICIAL trip- that means we're actually buying things for our project! Yay!! ...um, kinda. :)