Our Teeny Little House . . . And Its Million Projects

We are so grateful for our little house! For some reason, BYU makes it IMPOSSIBLE to find married housing . . . seriously impossible. The only way I found to do it was by joining a Facebook page where people were listing their contracts. But even then, only about 2 people would list a contract per week and then that post would get 30 comments within the HOUR. And the people that were commenting were like, "We'll take it now without even seeing it" or "We'll give you a million dollars if you let us live here." I mean, EVERYONE was desperate to find married housing! Seriously! I looked and looked and looked and everything honestly looked like junk. We were sitting at Amanda and Kyle's house one night doing homework and we had looked at some contracts earlier that day but most of them were trash or already taken, so we didn't know what we were going to do. Well, Kyle called us . . . from Hawaii, and told us that the guy that was renting their little house had recently purchased a new house a little further south and would be moving out. He then asked if we would like to rent it . . . OF COURSE! It's not fancy by any means, but it's secluded, not an apartment, has awesome landlords (haha), has a chicken coop, and is perfect for just Jake and me. So we said yes.

Oh yeah... Apparently Utah decided it was going to NEVER-EVER-EVER-EVER-EVER stop snowing this year. He has to shovel our driveway sooooo many times. . . 

Well, we've been moved in for a little over three weeks now and it's been great! Our heater is a little funky and old, but runs and keeps our little house sort of warm, so we like it. We can park both our cars in the driveway. We have a home for our cute little chickens. And we have plenty of storage!

There are some tricky things about the house though. . . It's pretty old and random, and honestly, it's like someone built the house straight from concrete and then painted it. What does this mean? It means that it's impossible to hang stuff on the walls. We learned this the hard way. . .

The walls are plain, so I wanted to have Jake build some hanging shelves. We thought this was going to be an easy task! So, we bought the wood and some other tools we would need for the project, and after going to Lowe's three times, we thought we were good. So Jake starts drilling through the wall and what do we find?... THE HOLE WENT ALL THE WAY THROUGH THE WALL. I could see from the kitchen, through the wall, to the living room. . . I sighed heavily.

Jake Facetimed his dad and showed him the issue. RALPH TO THE RESCUE, as always! He told Jake what to do (and I wish I could explain how he did it, but it basically was like he built a mount on the other side of the wall. . . Luckily they're all covered, because they're not pretty). And the thing is so sturdy I could sit on it... Apparently. I'm not planning on testing it out. So we have that.

We do plan on painting them and putting pictures in those frames. . . at some point.

But we went to Hobby Lobby last weekend and I bought this thing to go above our bed because that, too, is pretty empty. . . And it's so heavy, Jake doesn't think he'll be able to hang it. At this point, I'm not even sure we could figure out how to hang up pictures on the walls?!?! AGH! But it's ok, because luckily Jake loves projects and doesn't get stressed out easily like his wife. :)

Our house is a work in progress, but hey, at least we have a bookshelf. . . Thanks, Ikea. Oh, and we have a projector for our room. Thanks, Amazon. Except now our issue is... if I hang pictures on the wall above the dresser, how will we watch our shows?!?!!? OH, THE HORROR.

And yes, you can see that I have my own bag of popcorn and Jake has his own bowl. That's because he's a butter and salt kind of guy, where I prefer the kettle corn. . . and yes, if you think we teetered over getting the Whirly Pop or the Hot Air Popper Whatever at Bed Bath and Beyond, you are correct. . . I have a feeling he's going to get me the Whirly Pop for my birthday. . . . . . . .