Abby’s Saturday // Two Hundred And Seventy-Two

Highlight of the Week

Today’s a BIG day!! A day we’ve been talking about for years and it’s finally today!!

A little backstory: when we bought our house (over 4 years ago now) one of the major selling points was the huge 3rd floor. It needed some work (let’s be honest: our entire house needed a lot of work – we truly bought a “fixer-upper”) but with a little TLC, we knew we could turn it into incredible living space!
The transformation process has been slow. We had so many other projects that needed completed – things that needed to be done so we could actually move in & then things to improve parts of the house that we’d be living in daily (if you like to see “before & afters”, I’ve written several posts filled with crazy pictures of the house before we moved in & after we did a ton of work: Downstairs, Upstairs, Bathroom) The 3rd floor took a backseat to us replacing our windows & improving our heating system (and adding A/C) – lots of fun “necessary” things.

Last year, with a tiny little munchkin on the way, we began to dive into the process of renovating our 3rd floor. Before Leander was born, Derrick’s office & our guest room resided in our 3rd bedroom. But with Leander on the way, we knew we needed that 3rd bedroom for him. So, with our growing family & needing more space, it was time to tap into the potential of our 3rd floor.

It’s been a long process. A process with more steps than we originally planned. Once upon a time, I naively thought that fixing up our 3rd floor was as simple as painting the walls & laying down some new flooring. Boy was I wrong. Several rounds of insulation later (both blown-in & hung) new paneling for the walls, gallons & gallons of paint, some new dry-wall, some patching, some sanding, tearing out the old flooring & installing an entirely new floor, a whole new heating/AC system – finally brings us to today – new carpet!!

Yes, This Happened

• So, I bought this new printer a few months ago. I was having weird problems with my original printer (it was literally the cheapest thing ever & I’d been using it for way longer than I expected to) so I upgraded to a fancy wireless HP Envy printer. Other than having weird problems with my other printer, I wanted to upgrade so I could take part in HP’s “Instant Ink” program. Have you heard of it? I heard about it on a podcast I listen to (Young House Love Has A Podcast – it’s a favorite). In a nutshell, it’s a subscription based-model in which you only pay for the pages you print – not the amount of ink you use. The best part? They have a FREE level! As long as you print less than 15 pages a month – it’s 100% free. (The next level up is super reasonable too: 50 printed pages for only $2.99 a month – WAY cheaper than when I was paying for ink!) Since the printer is hooked up to our WiFi, it sends an update to HP, keeping them updated on how much ink I have. Whenever my cartridge runs low, they simply send me a new one in the mail – I literally never have to think about running out of ink again! For the girl who would be caught running to Target to frantically buy new ink cartridges (and WOW are they expensive), this was a dream come true.
• Anyways, it’s been working amazing & I’ve been loving it. But just this week, I tried to print some paperwork for a wedding meeting & my pages came out with the color ink – but no black. Strange. I changed a few settings & tried to reprint & this time I just got a blank piece of paper. Since I’m limited as to how many pages I can print, I didn’t want to just keep trying new print jobs to troubleshoot (I hardly print anything, so that 15-page free level is perfect for me!) I contacted HP’s tech support (assuming they would just say, “Oh, there’s probably a problem with your cartridge, switch it out & we’ll send you a replacement.”) And that’s exactly what the tech said. Awesome. I switched out the black cartridge, attempted to reprint my paperwork annddd it still was not working. The original tech I was talking to transferred me over to someone else (now thinking that there must be a hardware or firmware issue). Well, it’s a LONG story, but 3 hours later, they determined that my printer had some sort of hardware issue & they would just replace it under warranty (and then even that turned into an issue because they said they would replace it under it’s warranty, then they said they messed up & the warranty was expired, then they said, oh just kidding, we can still replace it – it literally turned into a nightmare). It was a terrible LONG process that took up a HUGE chunk of my day. But thankfully, I’m getting a whole new printer – and I guess that’s all that matters!
• I’m not one of those “crazy” Starbucks people (you know the ones: they are posting on social media that they’re getting drinks at Starbucks every single day). But, I enjoy a Starbucks coffee every now & then. Well, I woke up Thursday morning & saw on social media (yep, from those crazy people) that Starbucks’ Christmas drinks were back & for that day only – if you ordered a Christmas drink, they’d give you a free reusable Christmas cup. Well, that was all I needed to hear: so bundled up in our pajamas, we hopped in the car & rode over to Starbucks (waited thru the drive thru line that was wrapped around the building) and got my Peppermint Mocha & free Christmas cup! SCORE.
• I think we might put up our Christmas tree tomorrow?

Feeling Blessed

You know I can’t stop talking about the 3rd floor!

I just wanted to say how proud I am of Derrick – he has put a ton of work into prepping the room for the carpet to be delivered today! He has been working non-stop for the last 2 weeks to install the new floor, paint, patch & sand in order for everything to be ready for new carpet! You know, the last thing we want, after having beautiful new carpet installed, to have to break out the paint & worry about staining our brand new carpet! So, he’s been working every single night after work to finish the room! And he did it!

It looks incredible and I am so excited about the new potential of this space! It’s so amazing to think that after 4 years, our dream of making the upstairs “usable space” is finally a reality!

Just in case you’re wondering, as of right now, our plan is to make the 3rd floor Derrick’s studio space (room for him to set up his keyboard & mics & recording equipment) as well as a “family room” area that will double as guest room space when we have family come to visit! There is a little bit of work left to do before we can move furniture up there – but having the carpet finally laid down makes it feel like such an accomplishment! Another major “to-do” thing to check off of our “house list”!