I'm Back & Ready to Rock & Renovate!!!

Let me blow the dust off and shine the windows.  This poor ole blog has seriously been neglected.  If you don't remember, or you are new, this was the former home of "Starter Home to Dream Home".  Now it is:

THE DIZZY HOUSE.

I needed a fresh new start after my long 3+ year hiatus (story below).  My style has evolved and changed, as it should.  I think we all moved on from band aid colored walls and fake ivy on our kitchen cabinets!

When thinking of what to rename my site I wanted something with personality, depth, craziness and a little silly. Cause that's what my family is.  We are controlled chaos (ok, NOT controlled. just chaos).  As I was brainstorming, I quickly thought of the conversation I had with my 8 year old daughter a couple nights ago.  She was beaming with joy as she was telling me about her new school.  After a hard summer of moving twice, and another move ahead, she had finally felt settled.  She found friends and I had not seen her this happy in months.  It was quite the change from her moping around self just weeks before.  She mentioned her school friends had formed a club and met at recess. I asked her what she called the club.
"The Dizzy Girl Club"
So cute.  I couldn't get that out of my head. Was it the name I liked so much or just all that happiness in my daughter's face when she said it?  Who cares.  I felt the same way.  After 3 years of moving and feeling a little lost and a lot lost at times we were finally going to be settled.  Our family had a home of our own.

The Dizzy House was born.

Now what happened to me from the the last post in 2011 up until now? 

Twins turned two. I went insane. Something had to go.
My photography business exploded.  House blog fell off my "want to do" list to "I can't do right now" list.
Got prego with #4. Yes, it was planned.
Morning sickess was all day and all night sickness.
Husband got transferred to Pullman Washington (you don't even want to know...) so we moved.
Rented our "starter home" out and moved into a rental, ourselves, for the next 2 1/2 yrs.
Tears were shed at the thought of renters using my new kitchen.
More tears were shed at the site of the horrendous rental I was forced to live in (we won't go there, long story..).
Still throwing up into the 3rd trimester
Lived in a town of 300 people for 2 1/2 yrs (Colton Washington. I know. I had never heard of it either.)
I went into hiding.
Dropped all my careers.
Laid in bed all day sick with pregnancy.
Gained 80 lbs with my pregnancy.
I learned to sew curtains and pillows (now that alone was worth it!).
Had the Baby! YAY, not sick anymore!
Lost the 80 lbs I gained
Moved again from one rental to another. Just shy of being homeless.
And... drum roll.... after 2 1/2 years in isolation, living where no Target is within 100 miles, we got the news we were being transferred back to PORTLAND!
Tears of joy were shed. 

The story continues...

Kicked my renters out of our Starter home to get it ready to sell.
Cried when I saw what renters did to my home. 
Revamped my home in 2 weeks, to get it staged and ready to sell (that's a blog post in itself!).
Listed my home on our own. Sold it in 35 days. Made a good profit.
The day we were moving into our rental, literally carting our stuff into the rental house, we got wind of a home that just listed. Ran over to see it.  Loved it.  Made an offer that day!
We got the home!

Here she is:

This adorable, perfectly charming colonial became mine on October 7th, 2014.  This home is the light at the end of the 3 year tunnel.  It is a big gift that I have been wishing for and I feel so lucky.

This colonial is like a girl that is cute, but could be a real smokin hottie, she just needs my touch!  She has great bones, and SOOOO much potential I can hardly contain myself!  Lucky for me, I convinced my husband of all her glory and potential and he was on board from the get go. 

I am going to turn her from a bad 90s hairday into a classy, traditional/transitional, gorgeous, comfortable colonial home.  I will be painting every. single. surface.  Ripping out almost every. single. thing.  And because we only pay cash for our renovations, it will all be DIY! 

I'm back and we got a lot of updates to do! Can't wait to share!!

First project on the list:
Built in Bunk Beds: Boy/Girl neutral classic shared room.