its for guests, not storage

Although from the way its looked since we moved in, you wouldn't really know it. Oh, yeah, there's a bed and stuff, but there was also all of this:

and this:

And while its convenient to store stuff like that, its not very pretty. So today I did some rearranging and now we have much more presentable space that can also function as a craft room for me, since my parents were kind enough to bring my old art table last time they came to visit:

Of course, like every time I organize a room, I now have a giant box of stuff that belongs somewhere else (its the blue one closest to you):

ah well, at least its just a box instead of a whole room.

More kitchen dreaming and scheming

We have a perfectly functional sink. It holds water, fits pots and pans, drains fine, etc. all the things you might want a sink to do. But it isnt' much of a looker (full disclosure, i didn't help out much here by not prettying it up for this shot, but i was kinda tired and not in the mood for staging today)

With all the updates we are planning, you didn't think we'd leave out the kitchen sink did you? well no sir, we have dreams for this one too. We think a farmhouse/apron front sink would go really well with our farmhouse and would make a nice focal point for the huge room. Looks like Kohler makes a pretty nice one:

The cool think about this one is that the front hangs out to the right and left a bit, making it easier to fit over existing cabinets without looking like a total cob job.

Five doors down, two to go.

We now have a laundry room door! Courtesy of Matt and Mark and quite a bit of work, we can now close the laundry room when guests come over. Which you can tell by this shot:

 

Is something we might want to do. You can also notice from this angle that they had to remove some more of the peg board to put it up. And that board above the door, oh, yeah, they had to put that up too. When whoever it was installed the door, they forgot to put a header up. Kinda silly, really, since that's what you nail the trim into. In fact, the way we found this out in the first place was that when Mark tried to take the trim off, he put a hole in the dry wall:

 Honest mistake, considering the circumstances.  Fortunately, we just popped it back out and a bit of spackle will set us all to rights. We have to paint anyway :)

Now just the doors in the living room are left.

Kitchen counter, part two

So as promised, here's what we are thinking of doing with the island counter. Butcher block!

Yes, I realize this would mean we have two different color counters, since we'd only be replacing the island with this, but butcher block is pretty cool. you can prep food on it and all you have to do is soak it in mineral oil to maintain it. Plus, i think it would really tie into the old farmhouse idea.

Since the island is a different piece of countertop anyway, I think it would work alright. Sort of like this:

 

But in completely different colors, of course.

Now we just need to figure out which color/wood (maple, cherry, walnut, etc)

and style (end or edge, I'm thinking edge)

we want :)

Kitchen counters

So in our quest to completely redo the kitchen, we ran into a small conundrum. Specifically, the kitchen counters. I did a rough estimate and we have about 50 square feet of counter space. Which is amazing for cooking, but a little, well, ouch on the pocketbook. We'd love to redo the whole thing, especially given the bare spots:

and the creative build job on the island. Yes, there is a lip on the the counter, and yes, that lip is resting on the top of the cabinets instead of hanging over it, making the whole thing slope towards the fridge.

So, yeah, we need a new counter, but at 40-100 bucks a sq ft, stuff like corian, quartz, and granite seemed a little out of reach.

But then! Mark to the rescue. Apparently, Rust-Oleum makes a counter resurfacing product that only costs 250 for about 50 square feet. Here's a mock up (from their pretty cool website) of what it might look like:

 

The really scary thing is that the knobs and pulls look almost exactly like ours...

 

Of course, that won't fix the island countertop craziness, but we have some ideas for that. More later, I promise ;)

Cars and cooking

So part of the reason we've been a little slow working on the house is that Matt has been very busy working on the cars. He replaced the shocks in the van, the rotors and brakes for all four wheels on the subaru, and helped Mark replace the rear breaks on their jeep. Wheew, I'm exhausted just saying it. Here's some visuals to go with the story:

We are starting a parts graveyard next to the old washer. Eventually, we'll take it all to the dump, but we might as well wait until we have a full load, right?

While Matt was working on cars, I did some cooking (sometimes we are weirdly gender oriented). In any case, although we don't have a garden yet, we did discover a tomatillo plant in one of our flower beds. A strange place for it, to be sure, but I'm not one to look a gift horse in the mouth. So instead I made salsa, which turned out pretty awesome, i have to say.

 

I also went to the farmers market and bought basil to make pesto (inspired by a trip to one of Matt's labmates garden, which was redolent of basil, mostly because he had basil everywhere). In any case, I couldn't get the idea of pesto out of my head, and since we are mostly out, i bought a pound of basil and made some

I also kept some cuttings and I'm really hoping they'll root so I can grow some of my own. Yum.

Can you spot the change?

So I know I posted an almost identical picture this morning, but can you spot the difference?

I'll give you a hint...

 

If you guessed new closet door, you're a post behind. But if you said new knob and deadlock on the door to the basement (the one with the glass panes), you'd be very correct my friend. It was a hard fought 45 minutes at Home Depot to get that lock keyed to match our current keys, but now everything matches, and that is weirdly satisfying. Its sort of reminds me of the feeling I had when I realized I'd rather get socks and underwear than toys for Christmas... strangely adult and maybe just a touch lame, but rewarding nonetheless.

And speaking of knobs, while Matt was doing that I finally got around to putting on some of the knobs for the kitchen cabinets!

I had the tape measure, a ruler and two different levels going and they are as level and square as can reasonably be expected for not exactly straight or square cabinets.I still have a couple drawers to do, as well as the pantry, but I'm pretty pleased with how it is all coming together.

Oh, and Leroy inspected and approves

Door installation

Yesterday while I was mowing the grass Matt and Mark put up not one, not two, but three of our new doors. We now have a closet door in the kitchen for the first time in 2 months, and it looks pretty awesome if i do say so myself:

Before:

 

After:

They also did the two in the bathroom, which means we officially begun bathroom remodeling! 

Before:

 

After:

 There's still a good bit of work to be done to fix the nail holes and we have to, sigh, repaint everything, but I think it was worth it. 

AND, as an added bonus, since we changed the shape of the knobs, the two doors in the bathroom don't get stuck together anymore. 

Something is missing

Can you guess what it is?

No, I'm not referring to the apple tree

 

That came down a while ago:

 

But if you guessed the dog crate, you are exactly right!

Sold today for 150 bones. Not too shabby considering we only had it up on craigslist about 2 weeks AND we didn't have to disassemble it. Thanks to James for being our money collector and general overseer while we were out at a bbq. 150 might have been a low price, but I, for one, am glad not to have it cluttering our yard anymore (even if it was a good place for Matthew to go and hide out)

Pillows

Well, as is to be expected, we've been pretty busy, but not on the house. I have to apologize for the lack of posting while we were doing things like have Matt's lab over for a party and work on wedding planning. But i am excited to announce that i finally found some extra pillows for the living room. Apparently, cranberry is out this year, and we already have three that color anyway. So i was concentrating on finding some in light blue to match the one we already have. I went to more places than i'd like to admit, but i think we finally got them.

 

The large pillow at the back of the first shot is the original. I think i got the color pretty spot on. The second pic shows a close up of the patter. I like the chrysanthemum one best, but they only had one and i was too tired of looking to squabble over swirls vs. flowers, so we have what we have and i'm happy with it.