Bailey's Progress Report

Training

Bailey had her first puppy class this Monday! We signed her up for a 6 week class & we'll meet once a week. We're skipping the upcoming week for Memorial Day though. There are 15 puppies in her class. She wanted to sniff them all but her favorite was an English Bulldog named Hercules. They were so cute together. They kept trying to play during the orientation. I didn't learn much at the orientation since I've been around dogs so long, but it was still good for Bailey. Socialization is the main reason we're doing this. She already knows most of the stuff we'll be learning in the class...she just won't do it around distractions. This will help in that area. She'll also learn to heel. This is something we're struggling with so I'm glad we'll be starting on it during the next class. The class size is large but our instructor, Jenna, said they usually start large & people stop coming. Apparently the Thursday class is a lot smaller, but Monday works better for our schedules. I'll eventually take some pictures during her classes, but I didn't want to be the weirdo during her first class. Haha. 

Potty Training

We are finally making a lot of progress in this area! Bailey has only had 1 potty accident in the house since we moved in! She will go to the door, but she hasn't figured out how to tell us she needs to go out yet. Sometimes she will bark at us if we're on the bedroom floor. If we're on the second floor, she'll just go downstairs and wait by the door. Eventually we figure out she's missing & we'll go take her out. Our trainer has convinced us to get her some poochie bells. This way we can teach her to ring them when she has to go out. We won't be able to hear it from the top floor, but it shouldn't be a problem if we're on the second floor. I decided I wanted to make my own. I doubt it will be any cheaper ( I have most of the materials & I'm already up to $8, they sell them for $12) but I got to pick out the design :-) 

Bailey is also holding it all day now! She hasn't used the bathroom in the house all week while we've been at work. This is probably because we're keeping her in the foyer now, and there's no carpet to pee on. She doesn't really pee on potty pads, she just chews them up. We're also giving her less water. We were giving her way too much before. She will get excited & tinkle when we come home but hopefully she will grow out of that. 

Bailey's Newest Victim

Bailey tore up part of the linoleum floor we have in the foyer. I'm not sure how she did it, I guess she scratched it up. I was kind of surprised, but not super angry. We're replacing them with tile anyway...she just moved the task of replacing the ugly floors with pretty tile up on our to do list. 

Toys

I picked up a little chew toy for Bailey at the dollar store. She was in love with it! But then she killed it in the first 30 minutes!

Then...I just ripped out the rest of the stuffing (except the head, it's stuffed separately) and it's kind of like one of the stuffless toys they charge $12 for. Good as new!

We've decided to get a second crate for Bailey. Petco has them on sale now with free shipping! It might sound silly to have 2 crates. But it's not fun lugging it up & down 2 sets of stairs twice a day! We'll keep one on the bottom floor for her to use while we're at work and for us to travel with. The other will stay in our bedroom for her to sleep in at night. 

Since we're getting a second crate, we decided to get a second bed. I was SO excited when I found this one...I was even more excited when I found out it was only $16! I love Marshall's :-) This one will go in the downstairs crate since it will match our State room. (The ribbon I got to make her poochie bells with matches this perfectly!)

Moving In!

We have been moving our stuff little by little. We closed last Friday, everything went very well :-) We didn't move anything in on Friday. We just worked on some stuff & made a trip to Lowe's. This was supposed to be a short trip to pick up a few things for some small projects. It turned into a 2 hour trip! I treated the floors, Josh started changing toilet seats and my dad started changing the switches, plugs & their covers out. They're almost done...just the top floor to go!

Saturday, we moved a few loads of the big stuff since my dad was there with his truck. We stayed & worked in the house a little, made a trip to Home Depot & had our appliances delivered. Later in the afternoon, we went back to the apartment to pick up another load & to meet our friend, Brian, who was helping us. This is when we got Bailey to take her to the house!

Her first ride to the new house. She loved being able to sit between us in the truck!

Saturday night we grilled out. We were going to buy ourselves a grill as an anniversary gift but my dad surprised us with one! Bailey loved being outside...but she got SO dirty!

 She completely stuck her head down a hole (where I pulled up a dead shrub) here. She looked like a little pig. Later, we realized she was drinking water at the bottom of it. She had no interest in her clean water.

Look at how dirty her face is! 

On Sunday, we bought some things for our garden & started on it. 

 This is another picture of our back yard before.

We pulled up 3 rows of pavers. See that basket? It ended up being completely filled with weeds & rocks we picked out of our dirt, which is about 90% clay :-/.

 Currently, we have little lettuce plants & an eggplant here. We're actually going to shift things around a little. The flower garden will go here. The vegetable garden will go behind it, farther from the pavers. We'll be making raised beds for the vegetables. Hopefully we'll get around to making them next weekend.

Bailey thought she was helping. But really, she was just getting in the way. She was in Heaven with all the sticks & weeds though. When I pull weeds, she'll try to take them out of my hand to play with them. It's so funny but it gets annoying after about 30 seconds.

A Bailey footprint in the mud :-) 

Bailey's Progress Report

I know this is late but we were moving ALL weekend. :-) I'll try to have a more detailed (and on time) one this week.


Training

Bailey is doing really well with her training inside. She's doing great with sit, down, come & stay (most of the time for stay). We've even started teaching her how to high five! This was actually an accident but it was super cute & she's good at it so we've continued to work on it. Outside...she's showing improvement, but not as much as I would like. She doesn't get as much outside training as she needs to and she gets VERY distracted by other dogs. We've been getting a lot of rain, so her outside time on some days has been limited to short walks for her to use the bathroom. 

Potty Training

She has only had 1 accident while we were home this week. This was my fault, I wasn't paying attention to her. I think we were leaving a little too much water for her during the day while we were at work because she was peeing SO much! We have decreased her water a little this week & she isn't peeing as much. She still chews her potty pads up.

Bailey's Victims

Bailey has done very well in the chewing department until this week. She hasn't chewed anything except her potty pads & boxes we left under the bed until this week. I have been missing my sunglasses for about a week now. Bailey found them. Now they are in 2 pieces. Another day this week we came home & found small pieces of leather chewed up. We couldn't figure out where it came from. I thought she ate something at first. Then I looked up...it was one of the handles from a small chest we got as a wedding gift :-/. I think one of the reasons she has chewed stuff up this week is because she's been getting less play time. We've been so busy with house stuff we just try to tire her out really quickly. We're working on this :-) So far we're doing better than I expected. Now that I said that, I'm sure she'll make me regret it. Once we get in our house she won't be staying in the bedroom while we're at work. We'll put her in the foyer since there is less to mess up & there is no carpet.

 Luckily, these were only $10

 The handle. Hopefully I can find some sort of replacement.

Appliances

We've been researching appliances for a while now. I have actually enjoyed this part :-). After carefully considering all our options, we've decided that we'll go ahead and purchase the entire suite now. I searched tons of stores and tons of brands. We looked at the crazy expensive stuff & the super cheap stuff. We decided to choose something in the middle. We chose a stainless steel Maytag suite. I read reviews, looked at pictures & compared prices for nearly 2 weeks before deciding on these appliances. I thought we would just go in a store & pick them all out in one day. It definitely hasn't been that easy. 

I'm a bargain shopper so I've been waiting for a deal. Home Depot has 10% off Energy Star appliances right now. You can get an additional $400 off Maytag appliances (the more you buy, the more you save). On top of that, our credit card has a 5% cash back reward on home purchases through June. I shopped at Home Depot through the Chase website and I'll get an extra 3% back for that. We'll just pay this off when our statement comes in & we'll still get to collect the rewards! I also found a coupon code online! These promotions combined saved us close to $700! That means technically the dishwasher & microwave are free :-). They will be delivered Saturday. I can't wait for them to come in! Josh pretty much let me pick all the appliances out. His only requirement was that I didn't pick a fridge with the freezer on the bottom :-) I originally really wanted one of those but after doing a little research I decided against them really quickly! That's a good thing, because they're more expensive. 



This is the fridge I decided on. I really like side by sides because I think the freezers are much easier to organize.

This is the stove I chose. I love it! It's a convection oven & the baking element is hidden, so it should be a lot easier to clean!

I'll just post pics of the dishwasher and; microwave when it's all installed, they're not as exciting ;-) I think putting these in alone will improve the appearance of our kitchen a LOT. It will definitely improve the function!

Another exciting thing...we have our final walk-through tomorrow. This will be the last time we see the house before we move in! I can't believe we'll be homeowners in less than 48 hours! 

We Close in 3 Days!

These past few months of house hunting have flown by! We'll begin moving in to our new house this Friday. We are waiting on the results of the final inspection (which is scheduled for today). After that, we're all set & we just have to wait. Hopefully everything is good. If not, I'll probably panic a little, so keep your fingers crossed for us.


We already have tons of plans to make our house a home. I'll be sure to take tons of before & after pictures along the way. Here is a brief tour of the house as it is now.

 This is part of our front yard. I'm not sure how much you can tell in this picture but there is no grass. The green is all weeds. We'll be tilling up the front yard and laying sod so we can actually have some grass this summer. There's a small flower bed around the tree. It's mostly weeds too. I haven't decided exactly what I'll plant there, but I have it narrowed down to either planting Hostas (like the ones in our back yard, a few pics down), Gerbera Daisies or Dahlias.

The front of the house. We were originally planning on changing the color of the trim. It's a process I don't really want to go through with the HOA right now. We'll revisit the idea when it needs to be touched up. I don't mind the green though. 

When you walk in, the half bath is on your right...this is the only picture I have of it right now. I love this mirror and the sink, we'll probably just paint in here for now. We'll eventually change the floors though. The next door on the right is the coat closet, the garage door is on the left (I don't have pictures of all of this right now). 

If you keep moving forward, you go into the den...this will eventually be the man cave/game room. This is a pretty large room.  

Josh has also decided he would like his office to be down here. It will probably be in the corner near the glass sliding door.

 A bunny outside!

 This is what our patio currently looks like. The previous owners covered up pretty much the entire back yard with this stuff. We'll keep some of it for this summer (we'll get rid of the weeds & pressure wash the concrete pavers), but we plan on replacing it with something a little more attractive eventually. We'll also be removing about half of them so we can have some grass. 

This is the back view of the house. We'll remove all the dead shrubs. We will eventually build a deck from the second floor (off the kitchen) and fence in the back yard.

If you go up the first set of stairs, you go the kitchen & living room on the 2nd floor. I've already posted pics of the kitchen so I left those out this time. The laundry closet is also on this floor.

The living room/dining area from the kitchen. 

 The living room

 From the living room. We haven't decided if this area will be used for dining, or if we will extend the living room.

One of the many ugly fans in the house. This will be leaving this weekend! 

Next, is the 3rd floor, which has 3 bedrooms & 2 bathrooms. I just realized I don't have any pictures of the master bedroom. 

 Looking out the master bathroom window.

 These cabinets will eventually be stained darker and we will likely change the fixtures. We'll also put tile down at some point. 

 Notice the lack of shower head. This won't last long. 

We'll be replacing this ugly row of lights with something a little more appealing. I just have to decide what I want for sure. We'll also be taking the huge mirror down and replacing it with two smaller, more attractive mirrors. 

This hideous seat cover (if not the whole toilet) will be leaving soon.

 This is in the hallway area of the 3rd floor. This ugly light will also be leaving this weekend. I'm not sure what to do with that space above the linen closet. I'll eventually find something decorative to put up there. 

 This will be my craft room until we have a human baby.

 Guest bedroom (I love that it has a bay window).

 Guest bedroom again.

 I think we will eventually stain all of the railing a darker color too.

This is the ugly guest bathroom as it is now. It needs a little TLC. Don't worry...this is at the top of our to do list :-)

Bailey's Progress Report

I know this is late. We went home this weekend. I had plans to post this Thursday night but blogger was down :-/ Anyway...here’s Bailey’s progress report for the past week :-)

Training

This past week has been pretty good with Bailey...with a few minor exceptions. As I mentioned before, we took her to the park on Sunday. I already talked about some of her encounters with dogs so I won’t really talk about that. We didn’t want her walking all that distance at one time so we made frequent stops. We decided to do some training during one of them. She does great with her training in our apartment but she hasn’t been around many distractions. There were plenty of distractions this time! People, dogs, bikes, strollers, kites and all sorts of things. She did surprisingly well! She did start to walk away while we were working on “Stay” a few times. Other than that she did very well! We were both very pleased with her.

She has been showing lots of improvement in the apartment. She does well with “Stay” as long as she isn’t super excited & playful (we try not to train during those times anyway...it gets too frustrating). We’ve gotten to the point where we can leave the room & make random noises and she will still stay. We haven’t pushed her too far with this. I think we’re up to about 40 seconds. I like this because I can multi-task :-) I’ll tell her to stay...go fold a towel or something, slam the dryer door closed & come back to treat her. During the end of her training sessions, when her attention span starts to deteriorate, she’ll just start to follow us.

We’ve just started on “Down” and she’s doing OK with that (we haven’t given it a command yet, but she understands the hand signal). I got her to do it the first time! When she’s doing this, she doesn’t like waiting for her treat. She’s actually gotten pretty bad about that in general. Unless she’s pretty tired, sometimes she’s very rough when she takes treats & she’ll even jump a little. I know she’s a energetic puppy & it’s normal, but she wasn’t doing that before. I think she’s getting more comfortable around us & testing her boundaries.

We make her sit & wait until we tell her she can eat before she has her food. She’s pretty good with this but she doesn’t understand the “Go eat” part yet, she just sits there and waits. I just click, treat & shake her food bowl then walk away. I’m not sure if this is how I should do it or not, but it seems to be working. We also randomly take her food away from her and give it back to make sure she isn’t aggressive when we come near her food. This might seem silly right now, but I don’t want her to be food aggressive later. That can be really bad with small children or other dogs around.

And...we finally have her enrolled in an obedience class! I’m super excited about this! Her first class is on the 24th.

Potty Training

The accidents have been getting less frequent over the past week. She rarely has accidents when we’re home. We’ve been monitoring her water intake a lot closer, so I’m sure that helps. She has started tearing up her potty pads again though. She’s getting a little better about hinting that she needs to go out. She will look at us and whine. Sometimes this might mean she wants us to get a toy she can’t get to or that she just wants to play. To be safe, we assume she has to go out. Even if she doesn’t really have to go, she’ll at least dribble.

This is what I come home to most days. I can't complain...so far (knock on wood!), this is all she's torn up.

As far as the vinegar and water mixture, it seems to be doing pretty well. I haven’t noticed her sniffing the areas she has gone it (except right after I spray it, I think she enjoys the scent of vinegar) and she hasn’t been using the same areas. I’ll continue to use this for a week or so then re-evaluate. I’m definitely loving the price a lot more!

Socialization

We have a dog park in our apartment complex. It’s very small but it’s an outdoor area where she can just run. We never see other dogs when we go. I did get lucky earlier this week. I took her to go train at the dog park on Tuesday. Just as we were getting started, 2 other dogs came! We have seen them in passing while going on walks, so Bailey has met them briefly before. She was a little scared of them the last time we met. The smallest is a 4 lb Yorkie & the other is  Schnoodle about her size. She was really good with them this time! She wasn’t scared at all & she barely barked. I was a little worried she was going to hurt the Yorkie because she was so tiny & fragile looking! The dad told me they have a Labradoodle too & she’s used to having to take up for herself. They ended up playing really well together :-) Hopefully I’ll think to take pictures next time.

This is what happened when Josh came home from playing basketball last Tuesday (the same day we went to the dog park). She'll kick it with her feet then jump on it. We have given her an old basketball to play with. She's an athletic little puppy.

First Trip Home

We had our first trip home with Bailey this weekend. It was tiring, but we had a lot of fun! She slept the majority of the time both ways. She got along with all the dogs she came in contact with (and that's a LOT). She did very well in her crate during the night & she didn't have any accidents in my mother in law's house :-) She got to visit my dad Saturday while we were at Matt's graduation. I'm glad she got some canine interaction. she got to see her mom again, which makes me really happy. My dad said she was VERY excited to see her mom & tried to get some milk. Haha. Her mom wouldn't have it though. The visit with mom wasn't all good though. Bailey was covered in fleas when we picked her up. We use Frontline, which is a great product, but it only kills when the fleas bite. I couldn't wait for them to bite her. We washed her in Dawn, just like when she first came home, and we were able to get them all off...after lots of washing & picking! We had washed her Friday before we left home so she would smell good the first time she met Josh's side of the family. As a result of 2 baths in 2 days (I really hated to do that, but it was better than the fleas...I know they were driving her insane) her skin is pretty dry so she's itchy. We started adding a little oil to her food yesterday morning & she's already showing a little improvement. Hopefully, after another day or so, her skin & coat will be back to normal. 

Yesterday, we went to my mom's house on the way back up here. My cousin was there with his little puppy. This was their first time meeting & it took a little while for them to warm up to each other. Eventually they were chasing each other around the yard. They were so cute. 

Packing up for the trip home.

What happened to my house?!?!?!

She did this for the majority of the trip. I love that she's using her chew toy as a pillow. Haha

Vet Visits

While we were in NC this weekend, we got Bailey’s 3rd set of shots. She got to go to the same vet she’s seen for her last 2 sets. This is the same vet I used to work at through high school. She did really well. She didn’t even flinch when Dr. Deese gave her a shot.

Her next set of shots will be in 4 more weeks. We’ll have to decided on a vet up here pretty soon because we won’t be going home around that time.

Growing

Bailey is growing up so fast! Her little personality is growing just as fast as her body! She’s up to a little over 17 lbs now! I had to loosen her collar up a notch and it made me a little sad :-/ I wish I could keep her a puppy forever...but that she would still eventually act like a big dog. I love her little puppy personality & she’s super entertaining...but I don’t think I could deal with it her whole life. Haha.

This is her goofy face. Sometimes her lips get stuck like this. I think it's adorable.

Furniture!

Josh and I currently live in a 1 bedroom apartment. We're about to move into a 3 bedroom townhome about 3 times larger than our apartment. We're clearly going to have a good amount of space to fill! I've been looking around at all types furniture and other things we'll need. We've decided that we'll keep our current furniture and just supplement as we go. Eventually our living room furniture will move to the bottom level of the house in our den and we'll get new living room furniture. This will be the case for a lot of our current furniture (definitely the glass dining table)! 

So, why the random furniture post? I found this website a while back. Ana has TONS of plans on here for just about any type of furniture you can think of. I'm really considering tackling some of her projects. There is a sense of fulfillment I get when I make something. Even better, it will be cheaper than buying similar furniture! I'm still not quite sure how many, if any, of these projects I will take on though. Although I would absolutely love to finish furnishing our house with these projects, I don't have much free time, so it would take FOREVER to finish everything I want to do. We also don't have all the tools required and there are other things we want to buy before getting tools that we'll only use occasionally. 

Anyway...enough of rambling. Here are a few of my favorite projects:

 Tilt out Trashcan

Bench & Storage Shelf 

Storage Bed (for the guest room)

Murphy Bed or Day Bed (for the office or basement...just for a little extra sleeping room since we have so much out of town family)

Bathroom Bench

Patio Furniture

So...if you're handy or crafty...or even if you're not but you want to try to be, this is a great website to check out :-)

Plans for the House!

The move is coming up so fast! I'm excited, scared, and all sorts of other things! I have all sorts of plans for our new house. I just can't decide when we should start moving our things in. I'm completely torn between starting to move things in on day 2 so we can start living there, or waiting a few weeks so we can get more work done without living in chaos. That's one reason I'm awake right now. Sometimes at night I just get something stuck in my head and I can't sleep. I'm finally starting to get really sleepy again, but we have to be up in less than an hour, so trying to go back to sleep is pointless. Today is going to be a very rough day for me :-/

Anyway, we're set to close on the 20th. It's coming SO fast! I'm still a little worried something crazy will happen. As I posted before, our inspection went fine. We're still waiting on our appraisal...I feel like it's taking forever! It's been about a week and a half and I'm not very patient. We've done pretty much everything we need to do. We just need to purchase our homeowner's insurance, which we plan on doing early this week. After that, it's just a waiting game :-/

We're still working on our plan but for now we don't plan on moving anything in on the first day. My dad will be coming and we're going to make a few repairs/changes/upgrades on that first day. Right now, all the light switches & covers are that ugly beige color. My dad is going to change them all to white. Josh and I will be working on the cabinets. We've decided that refinishing them will make a huge difference in the kitchen. I can't wait to see how they turn out. I've been doing research for the past week or so. I'll definitely post before & after pics of it. 

Here's another look at the kitchen 

We'll be staining the cabinets a dark color. We have it narrowed to 2 shades. We'll also be adding some brushed nickel hardware to the cabinets. I think those 2 things alone will do SO much for this space. The counters are going to stay for a while, but we'll eventually replace them with granite (or something...we're considering our options and there's a new recycled material we want to research a little more). The upper cabinets will be raised closer to the ceiling. This will make it harder for me to reach and I'm not super crazy about it, but it's the only way we can put a microwave over the stove. I'm starting to consider just keeping a range hood and getting a microwave cart for the microwave. It would definitely be less work and I like the height of the cabinets the way they are now. 

Here is a little bit of inspiration. These cabinets were actually painted black. I prefer stain, but we found an ebony stain that I think would be perfect for a look similar to this. I like the granite color too. We looked at stain colors and granite at Lowe's yesterday, just to get an idea. I'm leaning toward a look similar to this one. Josh is leaning toward a lighter cabinet (his favorite stain was red mahogany) and darker counters. I really like both looks, I just don't know which one I like better! 

I know this is a crappy picture, but this is the cabinet color Josh likes.

I think either way we go, we'll love it. I can't wait to get started!