Dog crates are for the birds

Or at the very least, they aren't for us. 

You might not even have known we had a 6x12 crate behind our garage, but we did. I really should have taken a before shot, since the crate was covered in creeping vines that Matt and my parents and I spent a good half an hour removing. Looks much prettier now:

 

Its in great shape, but since Leroy is strictly an indoor kitty, we are planning to put it up on Craigslist.  

Too much of a good thing?

While cleaning for the move, Matt and I took stock of the purchases we had made so far. It all seemed pretty reasonable, paint rollers, paint, new doors, plumbing, odds and ends. Pretty typical, really. But we did notice one thing:

 

We love paint brushes. Can't get enough of them, apparently. Though in all fairness, my parents did donate three to the cause. Paintbrush love must run in the family.

Moving takes it out of you

I think these pictures of me, Kate and Leroy say it all:

Moving, the Queen is just too large

Queen mattress I mean.

Since Matt and I are upgrading to a King, we thought we'd go ahead and move the frame and box spring of the queen mattress upstairs. It turned out to be quite the ordeal. Even with our low profile box spring, the staircase was just a little too short and narrow to fit. So, we (and by we I mean Matt) had to do some surgery.

First to go was a chunk of the bulkhead (awning?, I'm not sure what to call it)

 

But the Stair Gods were not satisfied with this sacrifice and demanded more: (this time you are looking down the stairs)

 

 And still, even with no more wall left to give, the Gods of Geometry said "NO!" and we ended up having to remove the bottom stair:

 

Only then did they relent and let us take the box spring up the stairs. We've decided just to leave it that way for now, since with James moving in shortly, we'd have to do it all over again anyway. Here's hoping he has a low profile box spring...

Moving, apartment exodus

Well, the wait is over, we're officially moved in to our new house! I took Thurs/Fri and Matt took Friday and my parents, sister, sister's boyfriend plus a few others all helped with the move. I must say, it went really smoothly. In fact, we were pretty much completely out of the Apt by 12 on Saturday. This was in no small part thanks to the fact that my sister, mom and dad came in thursday night and helped pack everything Friday. We had pretty much all the small stuff at the house before even picking the moving van up.

I took a couple "in progress" shots of the apt, including one of Leroy "helping"

Mom will be so happy

Spent most of the afternoon today putting the shelves back in their rightful places. You wouldn't think it, but it took some time. Mostly because I had to put back up all the brackets that hold them in place and then wrestle each shelf into position. The downside of paint is that everything is just the teensiest bit smaller and since its been so hot, tacky as all get out. But, I got it done with a little help from Matt

Now at least we don't have to put all our stuff on the floor, though we are doing a pretty stellar job collecting tools on the counter.

Matt continued to work on the door, which continued to put of a fight, including one memorable nail that went through the trim and actually into the door. We wanted security, but I think nailed shut is a little too far. He and Mark got it straightened out though and now our door has trim:

 

If you look carefully, you can see all the spackle where the wall literally ripped away when they took off the trim. Live and learn, next time we'll cut the caulk before taking off the trim.

And now, just for my mom, Matt got us some new locks for the windows. Like everything else tonight, we had to redo each piece twice, but now both windows lock and the hardware even matches the doors:

 

New front door and painted drawers

Today I washed, primed, and painted the kitchen drawers. In a bit of time changing magic, you can see three hours pass before your eyes in two seconds. Ready, set, go:

Time flies, right?


And while I was doing that, Matt, Mark and Dave put up our new front door

 The trim still needs to go back up, and it wasn't completely smooth sailing, but its up and it works and I think it is a vast improvement. In particular, the insulation around the door frame proved a little more, um, enthusiastic, than we were intending. But its nothing a little sanding and painting can't take care of.

 

I can't wait to see it with the trim all back in place.

Tomorrow I'll try to finish painting the faces of the drawers while Matt finishes the door. Then we'll put up the shelves and if there is any time left, start painting the cabinet doors. 

New bed

Matt and I went and bought a bed today. Slumberland was having a huge anniversary sale and since having people be able to stay with us was one of the reasons we got the house in the first place, we just went ahead and pulled the trigger.

 

We got a king and sprung for the higher end latex foam. Overkill? Perhaps, but I'm seriously looking forward to it. Our current bed will become the guest bed which Kate will be happy about. 





Also, on the way home Matt and I saw a toad by our apt, which made me happy

Abbey-fail

So while Matt was painting the cabinet faces, he noticed some novice work of mine on the side of the oven. And by novice, I mean painting novice, which would be me at about three weeks ago.

In any case, what I did was try to tape a straight line that someone could paint next to our oven. If you've been to our place, you know that the oven is deeply wedged against the peninsula and really can only be pushed back so far. So I did my best, taped my little heart out, and if you look at it with the door closed, I think I did a pretty good job:

You can still see that it was originally wood, but really, that line is pretty straight (not to mention, I spent quite a bit of time and energy on achieving that straight line, give a girl some credit). However, a smarter painter (Matt) would have done something much more clever and, get ready, OPENED THE DOOR! Genius, I know, that's why he's the best.

 Am I an idiot? Maybe. yes.... At least we had a good laugh about it.

Doors and knobs (like bednobs and broomsticks only less magical)

Today I finished painting the other side of the shelves that Carol started yesterday. I didn't take a pic, but if you are interested, you can use your imagination (or photoshop) to mirror image the pic i put up yesterday, cause that's basically what it looks like.

Matt did an awesome job finishing all the cabinet faces and trim on the window while Mark and I went to menards to buy doors.

We ended up buying 6 custom doors and a security door to replace the current interior which leads to the porch.  (see the post 2 previous to this one for more). Set us back a pretty penny, but I think it will be worth it.

Included in the new doors, I got a pretty new door for the entrance to the stairs to match the french door we already have. I'm hoping the glass, which clearly shows the stairs, will reduce the frequency of people entering the master bed by accident, since the doors are right next to each other (you can just barely see the door jamb to the master at the very left of the pic below).

  

We also had to make a decision on the hardware to go with the doors and went with oiled-bronze for the hinges and an egg shape knob:

  

Which i think will go nicely with the hardware already in the upstairs and the "feel" of the house so far.  (of course I don't have pics of the upstairs doors, I mean, who takes pics of doors while touring a house? but I'll snap some tomorrow and put them up so you can see what I'm talking about :) )

Yes, we're still painting the kitchen

Being as we closed on the house exactly a month ago today, you'd think maybe we'd have moved on to a new area of the house. But the kitchen has proved, as many projects do, to be more involved than we thought at the outset. The problem with painting the insides of the cabinets is that it pretty effectively quadruples the surface area you  have to paint. So with that big excuse out of the way, here's what got done yesterday:

I spent 2 hours at home depot getting paint and then achieved a lightening speed wardrobe change and sprinted to the company picnic, where i was for most of the afternoon. On the up side, i did get to finish painting the insides of the bottom cabinets, so the insides are officially done. And, true to form, i got completely covered in paint in the process

 

Matt and Mark hooked up the dishwasher, which looks awesome and runs great. Matt spent time working on painting the cabinet faces while Mark helped out with the trim, ooooo, shiny.

 

 

And Carol did a lovely job painting the shelves their respective colors

 

Thanks to Mark and Carol for the help!!!

Mini Dragon

After picking Matt up from coaching lacrosse camp, we went to Farm and Fleet to buy some plastic wrap for the porch. Its been so hot that using the garage as a shop to paint in just isn't feasible during the day, so we figured if we close all the doors in teh porch, turn on the AC and point a couple fans in the right direction, we can cool it off enough out there to do some work. But, since we just got the carpet cleaned, we wanted to make sure not to get paint on it.

 

We felt very Dexter.

Also, we found this gem at Farm and Fleet. I couldn't resist a pic, though we did not purchase. Yes, your eyes do not deceive, it is a blow torch for killing weeds. I think my favorite part is that it advertises "Kill weeds Safely and Naturally, without pesticides"

 

New doors

Yesterday I went to the house and finished priming the shelves for the cabinets.

 

Necessary , but doesn't really make for great pics. Though i did manage to prime my phone in the process:

We also went to Menards to look at doors, since they are having a big sale this weekend. Seems like we are probably going to have to customer order them, since we want 4 panel to go with the ones we already have upstairs, not the traditional 6.