We Must Be Up Inside the Cyclone

 One of these days, I'm gonna get back to blogging about shoes. Today is not that day.

So, it's funny my last blog was about finishing a renovation, and completing a dream inside our new home. Now, it's all upside down. Let me catch up those of you not connected to us on social media, whether you're a follower of my blog, or a complete stranger that's just stumbled upon this Katybug world.

On Wednesday, I was working on laundry in the guest room - which is in the basement - folding towels. While doing so, I decided to sort through the box of linens that we'd moved into the closet while doing the never-ending task of unpacking/arranging a new home (we're in just over a year, now). As I got deeper into the box, I noticed stuff was feeling damp. The first couple items I thought, well maybe they're just 'cold' from being down here now that the weather is changing. As I got to the bottom few items, it was clear they were definitely wet. I pulled the last blanket out, and saw the bottom of the box was soaked through. Dread set in. I pulled the empty box out of the closet, and saw the carpet soaked through. There wasn't much left in the closet, but I pulled the rest of it out, and that's when I saw the water damage/mildew on the walls/closet door. I knew we were looking at a possible/likely call to insurance.

Cut to 2 days, and multiple specialists later: it's bad. As it was said to us "Not what we would call a massive job, but it's not small." They haven't started yet to see how intense the work is actually going to be, but what we know:

The leak is from the dishwasher being installed improperly by the previous owner. Whether that was said owner, or a 'professional' (if it was, he doesn't deserve full quotes) that did the installation, we have no idea. The cabinetry in our kitchen is pretty heavy-duty. So much so, that the plates surrounding it trapped in the water from leaking to the kitchen, and it instead went into the walls, and downstairs to the basement. We may not ever know how long this has been going on, but they'll be able to tell us more once they start pulling up flooring and seeing how much water damage there is/how far it has spread. 

We're now in a holding pattern for all of the calls to be made, details to be finalized, and most importantly: asbestos test to be ran. Our house was built in the 70s. If there is asbestos, we for sure have to leave while they do all of the repairs. That could be a few weeks, it could be a few months. We literally will not know more until they start tearing our house apart.

We just bought this house a year ago. We never would have bought it if we knew this dishwasher install had been half-assed. It breaks my heart to say that, because I LOVE our house, but why would we buy a house over our planned budget if it wasn't perfect (it was, and that's why we did.)? We've seen several comments/questions about us not getting the house inspected properly: we did. Whether the inspector should have caught this, I don't know. Again, we're in a year and the water damage has just shown up, so how do you expect the inspector to know? Maybe she should have crawled under the counter and inspected the clamp? I doubt that's any inspector's process, but who knows. I'd imagine they look for a leak/signs of water damage, and move on. I can tell you our inspector was over the top meticulous with her walk-through, and the things she noticed (we were there for the entire thing), so I can't imagine this is her fault. Not being an expert, I have no idea. I just know it's not ours, and here we are paying the price. 

Our reality is unknown right now. I think I've been fairly open about my anxiety on this blog, but just in case I haven't, and for new readers, I struggle with it daily. I am UBER high-functioning anxiety. I will break myself before I let anyone know something is wrong. I need to make everyone happy, I need everything to be as perfect as I can make it, I need to show everyone how amazing I am: ALL OF THESE, AT ALL TIMES. On the flipside, what no one sees - for the most part - are my private (in a bathroom stall, sneaking into an empty room, etc.) anxiety moments. I do not do well with the unknown. It causes me to overthink everything, I get short of breath, I start to panic (depending on the situation), I get shaky, etc. 

So, here we are. I'm blogging this in my "perfect" calm house. 

My brain is in overdrive. First and foremost are my children. Gus is a 19-year-old cat. Everything in my being wants to keep his everyday exactly as he knows it. Minus our current situation, I told Steve for years: once we moved to Canada, I wanted to hold off on any other changes. Gus has lost his Grandpa, 2 siblings, gained a sister, and moved to Canada in 4 years. An old man deserves some calm, and he hasn't had it for years. Harvey (our 11-year-old cat) will be loud and dramatic about any change we throw at her. It will make me sad, as her Mommy, because I am overprotective, but I also know she's a bit dramatic (I don't know where she gets it from), so I'll get her through it. 

People keep saying "at least you'll get". The "gets" are yet to be determined, but while I hope we'll be thrilled with the end results, most of them have no clue what it's like to be forced to renovate. We've wanted it, yes, but who would ever say: "You know what? I'm redoing this house tomorrow. I've not consulted anyone, or thought about my choices, or discussed any of the process, but YAY RENOVATION!" Again, as an anxious person... I want time to plan/think things through.

It's all going to work itself out, I know. I'm going to do my best to stay calm and positive through this process, however long and painful it's going to be. Right now though, I just need it all to get started, because the unknowns are driving me out of my mind.

There's No Place Like Home

 FINALLY, the transformation of the bonus room over the garage in our new house is complete! 

When we decided to put in an offer on the house, we knew this room would eventually become my office, because if I was going to be working from home, I needed the larger office of the two of us (this is, of course, before COVID, so we had no clue Steve would be working from home, too). The more I kept thinking about turning this massive room into just an office, the less sense it made. I mean, I LOVE a good spacious, open room - but this one would've been overkill. I thought, "Well, I could just do like a sitting area on the other side.", but we've got places to sit and relax all over the house, one of which is a library, which is what I'd likely use my seating space in an office for (reading). So I started thinking about what else I could do. Suddenly, it just clicked. We didn't have an extra room in this house for me to convert to a closet - which had been on our list of "wants, not needs" - why not just treat this massive room as two rooms, and build a closet/dressing room from scratch? So, now that we had a plan, I couldn't WAIT to get started!

The room needed a total transformation. It was used as a bedroom by the previous owners. So fully carpeted, ugly green walls (sorry, I guess I should say "not my choice of color walls" - what's ugly to one person...), dated curtains, etc. I have a Before shot without the carpet. We'd already pulled it up before I thought to snag one. 

So, first up was the flooring. Before you ask - we did the floor before the painting, because I had the hands available to help with ripping up carpet, removing the doors and tracks from the closet, and get started on laying the floor. It took a few oopsies to get down the installation, so it was slow-going the first couple nights, but once we got the process down, it went super fast. I did most of the full boards myself, and had help from a friend for the boards that needed to be trimmed down before being installed. The final result was SO much better than the carpeting. 

Next up, painting! As you can see in the pictures above, the green was pea soup, and just NOT in my palette of acceptable wall colors. Since I now knew I was doing two rooms, I needed something neutral that would work for both rooms. Grey fit the bill. Once I got the walls painted, I started putting my office together. That meant unpacking all of the Oz boxes, and starting to arrange the shelves. By this time, Christmas was getting close, so I got to put up my Oz tree while I worked, as well. I took a picture of the final room, so everyone could see how pretty the wall color was, with the Oz stuff able to shine.

The only thing that was missing was the perfect chair. Lo and behold, a few months later, I found that, too!

Now, it was on to the big project (I know, like reflooring and painting aren't big enough, right?!): the closet. Now, I'll start this with a little backstory about me. My whole life, I've had fanciful dreams about what my house would be when I "grew up" (still waiting for that part to come). When I was little, I knew my house was going to have a spiral staircase, and a rotating door to get into the kitchen. Each room was going to have its own theme - one of which was a beach, with a hammock. As I got a little older, in my teenage years, it was the dream of having a house on the lake. We would pass them all while we were on boats in East TN, or North GA, and I would just fantasize about that being mine one day. As I got into my 20s and 30s, the one thing I knew I wanted was a room I could turn into a closet. Well, here we are, I'm pushing 40, and two out of three ain't bad! I'm on a lake, and I have my "room as a closet"! For these pictures, I am just going to show you progress pictures, with captions under each.

So first was putting clothes into the already-existing closet, and purses wherever they were out of the way.

Next came building the shoe rack.

Harvey appreciates shoes as much as her Mama.

I quickly realized I had enough room to fit two more shelves, so I put those on order while I continued to work.

Next up was the a-little-bit-of-everything rack. I also realized I had room for another jewelry shelf, so I put it on order with the additional shoe racks.

Coming along!

Jewelry rack, with rack #2 underneath it.

Two more racks of shoes makes it complete!

The vanity table was a nightmare to try and figure out. I searched and searched for tables that would fit around that floor heater, to no avail. Finally realized I had enough depth next to the shoe rack to use a desk, instead. It's worked out great. I have hair accessories in the left drawer, makeup in the right, and my extensive perfume collection and vanity mirror up top!

I added the bench next. Harvey approves. It has storage inside of it, so all of my boots are stored in there.

Then came the rug... I'm certain this is additional approval she's showing, here.

Then hung the mirror. This mirror was actually a stand-up that I converted to a wall mount, and I love how it turned out!!

Artwork was up next. I found a Canadian artist on Etsy that I fell in love with, and asked her to customize a few of her pieces for me. I'm saving those as a surprise in the video below, and will credit her at the bottom of this blog. Her artwork is exactly what floats around in my head, and what I would be sketching for myself, if my health conditions hadn't taken away my ability to do so. She's fantastically talented, and I encourage you to check out her stuff! 

See that small-ish stack of purses in the first picture? It turns out to be way more that it looks like when you start color-coordinating all of them...

I built the purse shelves from some scrap lumber that my neighbor had. Cut it down (actually I didn't cut it down, but...), painted it, added brackets, and mounted on the last free space in the existing closet. The shelves need to be a little deeper, for how big a lot of my purses are (you'll see in the video), but I made it work. Lastly, I added a small laundry basket next to the sweaters, and the dressing room was complete*! 

*Confession, I want to change the curtain "door", and I might add more artwork on the other side of the shoe rack, plus I need lighting - but complete for now.

So, finally... here it all is together. I've rearranged the clothes in their sections a couple times already, and probably will again. My OCD-tendencies and anxiety result in a lot of rearranging in any project I ever take on. Currently, the dresses for example, are by strapless, sleeveless, short sleeved, then long sleeved - and by color within each of those. I might change it to just color-coded, period. We'll see...

ENJOY!

As far as where everything came from - the desk was from Amazon. Chair came from Wayfair. Closet is all IKEA, other than the bench (Amazon), and the rug (Overstock). The artwork is from BrookeJadeStudio. I'll add the image here, so you can see all 4 drawings better than you see them in the video (I wanted Allie to be the feature, there). 

So, the only thing left is to get at least one more bookshelf or storage cabinet for the office, so I can display the rest of my Oz stuff/spread out what's currently on the shelves, and have a place for all of my supplies, craft stuff, etc. The big projects are complete, and it's on to the next room!

 

As You Wish

So, a year ago, I promised you guys a wedding blog. Either I forgot I said that, or life got so busy it MADE me forget that... but somehow, that never happened.

Here we are, a year+ into our marriage, and I am finally going to write it. Now, a recap for those new to the blog: Steve and I have had quite a journey over the last 9 years. We became friends on Twitter, over our love of the Atlanta Braves. When I became single a couple years later, we started talking more often, and our relationship developed. We met for the first time in person in Atlanta, June 2013, when we attended Chipper Jones's number retirement, and have been together ever since.

Steve likes to tell people he proposed 493,876 times - he probably did, but in his version of the story, I turned him down all those times. Truth is, we planned our wedding in October 2013 in a hotel room in Halifax, NS. We knew I was going to move to Canada, so we agreed the wedding would be in Atlanta. Atlanta will ALWAYS be home to me, and is the foundation of us getting together, so it was the perfect location. Little did we know, our immigration journey was going to be a long and bumpy one. November 2018, I FINALLY moved up to Canada on a visa. We got married in a quick justice of the peace ceremony in December so we could put in my permanent resident application. I didn't want to let go of the wedding I'd been planning for over 5 years, so we decided we'd still have the Atlanta wedding, and that would be the day we actually celebrated as our wedding anniversary.

I spent 5 months planning a wedding remotely, and let me tell you - I could not have asked for better vendors than the ones we used. I'll add all of their links at the bottom of this blog, because they deserve any and all business I can bring them. The ONLY part of the planning that was stressful for me, was not being able to see the venue in person. I am ALWAYS in hostess mode, and not knowing exactly where everything was, and how it was laid out (I was given floor plans and pictures, but it's never the same as seeing it in person) was killing me. Having a ridiculously patient venue staff was much appreciated, because I know I can be a lot, at times. I also was stressing over our wedding portraits, not knowing the scenery available to us at the venue. The portraits were EASILY the most important part of the day for me, because we had waited so long, and worked so hard for this moment. Our photog, Katie, was incredible, and made a point to visit the venue months ahead of the wedding to tell me what she saw for pictures. We had a bit of a kerfuffle getting an officiant, and I'm glad we did, because James ended up being the perfect choice for our special day.

I was blessed enough to have my Mama and sister do the flowers and cake for our day, so there wasn't any stress there, since they know me so well. My only stress with that part was making sure they knew how much I appreciated their efforts.

So, the day before the wedding came, and Mama, Gordon (stepdad), and I met at the venue to do a walk through of the venue, and make sure we had a good plan for setup the next day. Our wedding was a small affair, just family and close friends, so there wasn't a big event to prepare for, and seeing it all in person calmed me a lot. Again, the venue staff was so accommodating, and patient with all of my questions.

The prep on the wedding day is a bit of a blur, because it was so crazy. But I have this weird trait, as a SUPER anxious person, to go into calm mode when things are hectic (especially in a party setting, maybe it's the hostess in me?). So I just adjusted with the little curves the day threw at me. I simplified my makeup, was fine that the cake was melting in the heat, didn't care that I forgot some of the decorations in the car, etc. All that mattered to me was that Steve and I were getting our day, finally.

We started with a first look. I love the whole "first look is the walk down the aisle" concept, but since the portraits were so important to me, this gave us a chance to knock most of those out pre-wedding.

Then we came to the ceremony. As my readers know, my Daddy passed away in 2014. So, I knew I needed to have my Mama walk me down the aisle. She means just as much to me as he did. I have been so blessed with the parents (David, Jan, and Gordon) that God has given me, and having them all there, even with one in spirit, meant so much to me. We walked down to Haley Reinhart's version of Can't Help Falling in Love with You, as a nod to my Daddy. He was known to call and sing Happy Birthday to his friends/family as Elvis, so that was my way of including him in the moment.

We had an unplugged ceremony, and I think our guests felt restricted from that, so we have hardly any pictures from the reception (I'd hoped we'd have selfies galore). But the day was PERFECT, and we have amazing memories to last a lifetime. We could not have asked for a better day, and both still comment on the day when we look at the pictures. I mean...

PERFECTION.

If you're looking in the ATL area for wedding vendors:

Photography: Katie Coon Photography

Venue: Lanier Islands

Officiant: James Hamp

Hair: Laura Austin

Busy... I'm So Busy, My Head is Spinnin'

I was shocked, when writing my last blog, that it had been 9 months since I'd written last. I said I was going to write the post about our wedding, next.

It has now officially (tomorrow) been one year since that blog, and not a draft has been written. 

I guess life has changed a bit, huh? So, I am still going to do the wedding blog, maybe even tonight, but want to just do a general catch-up blog, first. I have a blog that I know is coming soon, but posting it without catching everyone up first would not make any sense, since none of you know what has happened in the last year, unless we're friends on social media. Brace yourselves - this is going to be a long one.

My last blog was July 2nd of last year, and I was discouraged about us finding a house. Exactly 18 days later, we did just that! When I was still in the States, and not sure when I'd be able to move up, we would talk about where we were going to live. My joke was always "well, we'll have a house on the water, for sure." Knowing that would never be the case, because the housing market up here is so expensive, that waterfront property was out of our reach. We'd been looking in an area that had big yards, because we had a precious pooch, that needed space to run. As all of my readers know, we unexpectedly lost her in 2017. But we stayed in the same area, because it was still the area we loved. On July 19, we got a text from a friend for us to take a look at a house in a different area, that we'd not had any desire to look at. His advice "I know it's not where you're looking, but trust me." We looked online, and it was a lakefront house. We called our realtor, asking her to add it to the 3 houses we had lined up for viewings the next day. When we showed up at the house, as we turned on the street, I was already saying "Ughhh... I hate how close the houses are to each other." When we parked in front of the house, and got out of the car, I instantly said "Wow... I love the outside. Look at that door! It looks like a lakehouse. You don't even notice that it's close to the neighbors." 

I was in love before I knew I was in love.

As we walked through the house, more and more got better. So we came to the moment we were "dreading". Going down to the basement. Every other house we'd looked at that we'd loved the main floor(s), the basement had killed it. For those not familiar with our relationship, we met on Twitter and became friends from both being Braves fans. We both happen to be big sports memorabilia collectors, so we were in need of a big basement to display everything. We walked downstairs, and I won't say we were blown away by the basement, but we could definitely see it working for us, plus it had my much desired downstairs guest bedroom. I love a guest bedroom where your guests feel like they have their own space at the end of the day. We walked down to the lake (even though there was no need - IT'S A LAKE, I'll take it), and by the time we got back up to the house, we looked at each other, and just knew. By early afternoon, we had an offer in on the house, and by that evening it had been accepted. We were under contract for our house!!

This was it the day we saw it first.

And this is the view from our backyard. 

So, our closing day wasn't until October 1st. Lots happened between then, most important: MY BIRTHDAY. I kid, my birthday used to be a big thing... but now that I live up here, the multiple friend celebrations can't happen. Our most notable thing between July and October was our visit to Newfoundland. Steve is from there, and his sister/her family live in St. John's. So we decided to go over Labor Day weekend. I am going to post some pictures, but NONE of them do the beauty of this area justice. I hope to get better with our "good" camera, and go when we can spend a good amount of time for me to capture the magnificence properly. We had SUCH a fun time with family, and I was sad to leave.

I also HAD to get screeched in while I was there. I am now an honorary Newfoundlander. I'm going to post the video of that moment first, but I HIGHLY recommend you watched them in order, because the guy that did the ceremony was BORN to do this job, and it was one of the best experiences of my life. 

The moment of being declared an honorary Newfoundlander (last of the series - video 5)

Pre-show (video 1)

Cooking the Newfie steak (video 2)

Most of the ceremony, plus kissing the cod! (video 3)

The shot of screech! (video 4)

So then, October rolled around, and we moved into our new house! We have done SO much work on the house since we've moved in, and even hosted a couple of parties in November and December, even though the house wasn't anywhere near ready for company. We got the fabulous news that Steve was finally going to get his hernia surgery that he'd been waiting on for almost 2 years at the time. The week before his surgery, COVID became a thing in North America. THANKFULLY, since it was so new, it did not delay his surgery. 2-3 more weeks, and he would've been on another indefinite end list. That being said, it has been our life since then. He's thankfully back at work (but from home), but we've been mostly at home for 5 months now. 

Yes, it sucks at times - my Mama & Stepdad were supposed to visit us end of May/first of June, and got cancelled - but you know what? We're healthy, and have income and a roof over our heads. I say we're good. 

I hope you all are, too!