Well don't you clean up nicely

This is our bathroom. He's vivacious.

This is my Matt's father, to whom we are forever grateful for lending his experienced hand. He was our personal slave and he worked hard (well into 3:30 AM on Saturday night, along with my diligent husband and brother-in-law).

This is Matt's talented mother, who worked and weeded and painted and with whom I ran many trips to Home Depot and Wal-Mart with.

This flower bed (as well as the others lining our entire house) was filled with weeds. (Example below.)

We gave it a nice face lift. I even have a pretty little flower planter now, THANK YOU LEANNE!

She also taught me how to obtain my own green thumb

We worked hard and I am very happy that hard work often brings such grand rewards. (I even learned how to prune. Dustin, you'd be so proud.)

So this is the before of our kitchen, if you have forgotten.

And after screwing over a billion screws,

and taping,

and sawing (This is Eric, who drove long hours and stayed up late and drove home all in a weekend just to help us. We love Eric.)

and laying tiles, you get something like this. Only cleaner.

"Honey, it's like one of those shows"

is what our neighbor said to his girlfriend upon entering our home. Even though from the pictures things don't look half bad, up close this house needs some care.

We accomplished a lot in the past week (thanks to help from some very generous parents, and a good sister who brought three lovely children and made us popular with the neighbors).

We've grilled (in our own yard).

We've demoed:

The nasty cat smelling carpet is gone, as well as the baseboards.

The poorly installed flooring (including the screws holding the bulges down) is/are gone.

We've vacuumed up all of the staples and items liable to puncture.

We've thrown some paint around.

And it's all been very gratifying.

Do you like it? You can visit.

This is a house.

We liked it.

So we bought it.

Do you like it?

It's getting made pretty right now.

There's even a room for you to stay in when you come.