all the sparkle

jessica frost-ballas

House Update!

Well we are officially one week away from settlement and it's amazing to see the daily changes taking place in the house!  Just today I saw our builder, the carpet layer, the tile layer, several electricians, the painter, the hardware installers, the kitchen installers, the plumber, and a house ... View Post

Kitchen Installation! And more!

My most favorite part of the building process has begun and it's just as exciting as I thought it would be!  We're on day 2 of the kitchen installation.  There was a hiccup or two along the way (I'll explain) but everything's working out exactly as I had hoped. I did a quick (emphasis on quick) ... View Post

Website updates

So you may or may not have noticed but there have been a couple of changes to the blog layout.  Over the last few months I've been reading various home construction blogs and my favorites are the ones that not only describe items they're using in their home but also give information for those items ... View Post

Christmas in August!!

As a house-warming gift my mom and dad paid for our ADT security system and gave us money towards new furniture.  Every major piece of furniture in our house was either inherited, given to us (as children or when we first moved out of the house), or bought at a yard sale/thrift store.  As a result, ... View Post

Should have kept my mouth shut…

That's the last time I'll jinx myself by saying "yay, we're almost done" or "yay, no more decisions!"... So between my last post and today we've had some MAJOR changes... Starting with the master bathroom: for a long time I was set on these tiles from Oceanside Glass Tile in Oasis.  However, ... View Post

Ooh shiny!

We're down to the final decisions now!  What am I going to do when I'm not constantly thinking about glass tiles or paint colors or kitchen cabinets?! We finalized our kitchen appliances today!  We had selected our appliance models in February when we signed our contract but unfortunately several ... View Post

Less than a month to go!

It's hard to believe that by this time next month, we should be eating chinese take-out while we sort through boxes in our NEW HOUSE!  In the last two and a half months we've seen the lot go from dirt to this: http://i1071.photobucket.com/albums/u503/sparkler39/IMG_2189.jpg We're in the home ... View Post