The pictures!! The pictures of my beautiful home!! Hooray!!

The dining room light is just peeking out here. I love it. 

The bedrooms. They were all just the same before. Now I have a yoga room,
a "kids" room, and the cool hippie guest room. I even put chalkboard paint
 inside the closet of the kids' room!

This orange bathroom was quite a few shades brighter than originally imagined.
But I'm kind of loving it. 

The Master was just so bad....

And now I love it so much.....

And this closet makes me feel like a Kardashian. In a good way. :-)

This was not easy.

Before I post these after pictures, let's be clear. This wasn't easy.
It wasn't. It just wasn't!
So please remember, as you look at these, and I know most of you are homeowners so I don't have to explain... but getting to this point was SO MUCH HARDER than I thought it was going to be.
I thought I could get ceiling fans up in a day.
I thought I just needed light bulbs in the fluorescent lighting fixture in the garage.
I thought getting a replacement light cover and a garage door remote would be easy.
I thought ranges came with cords.

I thought you could just buy window screens. Hahaha.
I thought I could install a dishwasher by myself.
I thought my outlets would be hidden by my couches.
I thought moving my cable to another wall wouldn't cause problems.
I thought my laundry room was bigger!
I thought maybe bondo would be in stock at every Home Depot.
I thought that perhaps removing/changing out my shower head would be just as easy as it was in the eight other places I've lived! I also thought that perhaps the members of my Elder's Quorum might know more about these things than I do. They do not. They were excellent at helping me move, though.) :-)
I thought I could get caulking off easier.
And a few other things, I'm sure.
The truth was:
I just put up my last ceiling fan when Jessica was here 5 days ago. Because I needed her help. A lot.
That lighting fixture in the garage was totally burned up and I needed a new one and so I bought it and then screw anchors didn't work and so I needed toggle bolts and then I broke a set of light bulbs all over my garage floor and then I bought the wrong light bulb size (T8 not T12) and then they didn't carry a lighting cover for it, but 4 trips to 3 different Home Depots and at least it works, even though I have to order a custom cover for it. :-) It works! I installed it! And I know how to use toggle bolts.
I still don't have a light cover that fits the garage door opener. Moving on.
I actually like that I know how to install range and dryer cords now. Putting on the dryer hose was awful. I cut myself (on accident) a lot during all of this.
I cannot install a dishwasher. And neither will a plumber, in case you were wondering.
I just painted my outlets to match my wall.
The cable took 2 tries to get right, and I still have a hole in my wall.
When I am pregnant, I will not be able to fit in my laundry room.
Jonmark's niece's boyfriend was very helpful at removing the entire arm of the shower head and informing me that I should just buy a new arm since he couldn't get the shower head off, either.
Bondo took a few trips to get and smells terrible, and speaking of which, I just realized I need to paint it white.
The caulking will probably be there until my dad comes to visit.
Oh, and John came and helped me install my dining room light. And it took 2 other guys (my brother and my friend Travis) and myself to install my microwave. So I lived without a microwave for 2 weeks since I moved an hour away from all my friends.
AND. My truck battery died the first week here at 10pm. And I knew only one person in the neighborhood. So at 7:20 the next morning I had to wake him up to take me to AutoZone to get a new battery so I could go to work the next day. And I almost cried.
I did cry over the garage door at one point, but that's just a long story. I did learn the function of the "close force" knob. Let's leave it at that.
I love my home. I am grateful for all that I've learned. But wow, this was a few months of rough lessons. I still love my pink tools.

I hated this sign that day.

Purple band-aid. Check.

So many calls to the Genie company and they still can't figure it out.
How can a home built in 2006 have a garage door opener that looks like it's from 1982?

Let's Deal With The Flooring First.

So the biggest regret, trial, obstacle, call it what you will, of this entire house situation has been my flooring. Which has made me more quiet (somehow) and has probably given me a little bit of Post-traumatic stress disorder related to my house.
So here is the story.
AZ Discount flooring is a mess. They ordered the wrong amount of carpet. They forgot my tile. They didn't know I wanted white risers on my stairs. I really cannot begin to tell you how frustrating it all was.
And then. My hardwood. My hardwood was supposed to be a medium brown distressed wood. Instead they put in a smooth dark wood.
Why?
Because the sample was four years old. Because the floors I wanted were discontinued 2 years ago and the sample was never changed.
Because when Ark flooring changed the wood they still called it "Maple Kahlua," they just added a "-c" to the end of the UPC code.
And why didn't I catch it?
Because I didn't have good lighting in the house and because I saw it only at night and because they left it a mess and because I was making every decision and maybe was a little overwhelmed.
She, Marie, the owner, refuses to make it right. Apparently it is enormously expensive to rip out hardwood floors (engineered hardwood, but it's all the same). She is pretty crazy, yelled at me, threatened to put a lien on my house, made a collection company call me, and told the installer I was accusing him of sexual harassment (which I was not and never would since I have never met him) so that he wouldn't be on my side.
The Registrar of Contractors deals with things like this. They are going to work on my case for free. Their website says it will take 3 weeks, but after talking to them it's more like 6 months.
So. The complaint is in. They will come and interview me and then her and then we get to go to trial.
And for awhile, maybe a long while, I will be living with these floors.
So. I lived at Stephanie's for 3 months instead of 3 weeks because of this. And at some point I felt like my house was full of buyer's remorse and was more like someone else's construction site and less like the great house I had envisioned. And it was seriously very rough on my little psyche.
But I'm in. And it's better. But I couldn't just leave that part out. Pictures next.