Visit from Grandma Maureen

Grandma Maureen came to visit us in Iowa City as a little pit stop on her business trip to Philadelphia, PA. We were all so excited (especially Maureen!) that she and the girls bonded on this trip.  Scarlett is always pretty shy around her grandparents, because we don't get to see them very often, so it did my heart good to see her open up to Grandma.  Here they are cuddling on the couch while mom and dad cooked and cleaned up in sweet peace.

Maureen came just in time for Brian and me to go to our Jazz vs. Bucks game in Milwaukee, WI. This was our first overnight trip together without kids, and it was glorious.Maureen said the kids were soo good without us there, due to the save the worst tantrums for your mom phenomenon. Still, this made me happy.

 Driving 3 1/2 hrs without kids is a CINCH. 

What is a vacation without pretty food to eat?
 Meanwhile, Gma has things handled. On a Target run, she stumbled upon Free Family Night at the mall, so the girls ate Chick-Fil-A, received some clever balloon animals, and rode the Carousel for free!  We were tickled that their party night ended up being so accidentally AWESOME.

 After our little trip, we had some fun low-key time around town.  This pictures are from after church, playing with their new bubble machine Grandma got them.

Alice tears, per the norm.

Step 5: Clean, Decorate, and List!

Here's our AirBnB listing. We just had our first guests and they said they really enjoyed their stay. So excited!

https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/16162747

Main Bedroom

 The Queen Bed we bought in November.

  I got that dresser for free from a community Facebook gifting group and I updated it with green paint and sparkly knobs.  I loved that it brought a little more color to the room.

Bathroom

Kitchen

Shower

Shower entrance out of the kitchen. Cool, right?!?!  Mostly weird.

"Bedroom" 2 

(there's no window, so legally considered a flex room)

 Main living area

 I painted those walls separating the kitchen-they were dark wood before.

 Brian rewired and put in new light fixtures. Classy touch.

I clearly patched a whole in the wall some workers made when the pipes froze with a previous tenant. I need to paint it to match, but I'm good for now.  I'd also love to make a kid's bench/toy chest and replace that little box that is covering up the water main. Quirky basement, but we love it now.

Finally Alice got to say cheese for the photo!

Step 4: Paint

Here's some fuzzy pictures of the two rooms pre-paint. Mona left behind 1 can of  primer and 2 gallons of white paint. They were so hard to open because the lid was rusted shut, but when I opened them the paint was in just fine condition. Free paint, hurray! I ended up having to buy one more can, and I think I bought a cheaper brand. I liked Mona's old paint better, who knew?

Alice and Scarlett both got terrible fevers one week, and Alice fell asleep in my lap in the middle of the morning, so I laid her down in the new room while I painted the other. She slept so soundly in there.  So cute. 

Here's the finished walls and some cute framed artwork I found at Salvation Army for $2 each.  Score!

Step 3: Flooring

Farewell old floor. Hello cute new rug.

I discussed and debated what kind of flooring to buy.  This was going to be the most expensive, and most scary since we wanted to do it ourselves.  I first thought, laminate.  It's the most inexpensive, it looks like wood, you can buy brands that just lock themselves into place. Niice.  The only setbacks, we'd have to buy a saw to cut to fit certain pieces, and sometimes they bubble up when water gets into the cracks, the base of them (according to some reviews) aren't much more than cardboard.
  Then I was talking to my mom, and she'd mentioned that my brother Ben had just redone his in-laws' floors with this beautiful waterproof laminate that was all plastic.  Say wahhht?

I thought this would be perfect because we wanted to extend the same floor into the kitchen, so I researched this magical waterproof laminate.  Turns out that it wasn't laminate at all, it was fine vinyl plank flooring. I thought italics seemed appropriate with such a fancy description.  So we kept searching Lowe's trying to find a deal with one we liked. It was still more than I wanted to pay, more than $2 a sq foot. Then Brian suggested we branch out to Home Depot in Cedar Rapids, and wallah. Some beautiful light flooring to brighten up the basement for $1.69 a sq ft.

We learned about how to install on YouTube and with a little old-fashioned trial and error. We loved that you just needed one stroke from an exact-o-knife and then they snap in two. Also, you just had to stick the adhesives together, sometimes easier said then done to get them perfectly straight. We have a few little gaps, but not noticeable enough for us to care anymore. We did care at first, because we wanted to do a professional job, but now its all good!

 We came up with a natural non-matchy-matchy pattern and HIT THE FLO!

 Didn't get much crack, but it did break our backs after two days of bending over like that. I don't know how people make a living doing this kind of labor.

 The girls just hung out playing and watching movies while we worked. It improved the look of the whole place!  This was by far, the most noticeable change to downstairs.  Okay, maybe emptying it completely was too.

Step 2: Carpet

Again, it was probably smarter to wait to do carpet until after I painted so I could get real sloppy, but I procrastinated the paint situation (Mona left a bunch of cans downstairs that I had to investigate).  So we went with carpet next.  I think this was the girls favorite renovation.  This is us just discovering the sweet sensation of freshly laid carpet.  Ahhhh....

They went crazy!  Much cozier than the cold cement that was here. And, I really love the smell of it.

   

Step 1: Furniture

I was expecting this to be our last step but I found some amazing deals on Local Facebook sites and Craigslist. So we went and picked up a new Queen-sized bed and frame for $125 and a couch set for $75 on the same night.  A sweet neighbor used up his whole night helping us move and transport the furniture in the truck, like it was no big deal.  Some people are so wonderful.

Here's the new bed. It has a 4 inch memory foam topper so its super soft, we love it!This room used to be covered with a white flowery wallpaper. Here you can it stripped to reveal a nice dark paneling.  Cabin-ey feel, right?

And here we see the couch set. We were only planning on picking up the bigger couch for $50, but couldn't resist when she threw in the matching love seat for $25.  A steal!  They had to be de-dogged, but once vacuumed and scrubbed they're good as new.