The Casa: Before Shots Volume III- Hallway and Bath

When you walk in the front door you're greeted with this, um, interesting floor. We'll replace it eventually, but for now there is a runner in it's immediate future. The first doorway goes into the kitchen.























And the second doorway leads into the living room, which is where I stood to take this picture of the rest of the hallway. There are two very small, but strangely deep, hall closets on the left and a closet with the furnace and water heater on the right. The first door on the right is the hall bath.
























And so, here we are in the bathroom- shower, toilet (duh), large vanity and a linen closet. This is so much more space than our apartment bathroom, so I'm really excited about that. That shower curtain is the previous owner's, already returned to them.
























Eventually we'll change out the vanity light fixture, but it will either require some craftiness or a lot more money because the current fixture is a pull-chain. We'll likely have to wait to install a switch for whatever light we want to put there.

Weekend Roundup

Friday:
-Work, blech
-Make grocery list
-Watch a couple of 30 Rocks and eat dinner
-Lowe's for drum room paint
-Get one coat up on the walls
-Clean up
-Head back to apartment to bed

Saturday
-Oversleep
-Shower
-Breakfast and coffee
-Ace hardware for more paint supplies
-Lowe's again for bathroom and hallway paint
-Pick up shop vac from mom
-Grab some lunch
-Eat at house
-Put second coat on drum room walls
-Matt comes by to lend a hand
-Finish drum room and clean bathroom walls
-Dinner from Schlotzky's
-Start removing drum room tape while boys prep hallways walls
-Hand tape removal off to Josh and start taping bathroom
-Adios to Matt
-Run by apartment to grab overnight stuff and let cat in
-Back to house to finish up most of hallway taping
-Bedtime

Sunday:
-Up, send Josh for coffee and more painting tape
-Finish taping hallway
-Have muffin and coffee
-Demo kitchen pantry while Josh tapes hall ceiling
-Prime the bathroom
-Prime the two dark hallway walls
-Clean up paint tools
-Stop by apartment to drop off stuff
-Grocery shopping
-Unload cargo
-Shower
-Frozen pizza and ice cream while watching two episodes from Conan's last week
-Into bed for a bit of reading
-Sleep
-Unfortunately dream about painting

I Won The Lottery

Okay, not really. But I felt like I did when I was catching up on the episodes of Conan on my DVR and discovered that they re-aired the sketch of Conan and Mr. T at the apple orchard. This is my favorite clip of all-time, and I voted for it on the Late Night Underground page. My clip was aired! I won! Obviously I wasn't the only person to pick this segment, but perhaps I was the vote that put it over the top and made them decide that they just had to show it again. You never know!

The Casa: Before Shots Volume II- The Living Room

Our new living room has a huge window overlooking the backyard, recessed lighting, and a built-in bookcase that extends the length of one wall. We are currently working on sanding that beast down before we paint it. And the walls will definitely not be staying that color. It's not a bad color, it's just not my kind of color.

Weekend Roundup

Friday:
-Work, yuck
-Errands to Home Depot and Lowe's
-Grab some Chick-fil-a
-Plop some paint samples on the appropriate walls
-Head back to apartment
-Bedtime

Saturday:
-Rise and shine
-Head to house
-Work on sanding built-in doors and shelves
-Back to apartment to clean up
-Justin & Emily's for Abbey's birthday party
-Apartment again to eat a bite and grab a few things
-Meet Matt & Ashley at the house
-Start taping for painting
-Move some of Ikea closet cabinets to garage
-More taping
-Eat pizza
-See Matt & Ashley off
-Finish up a few things
-Back to apartment for bedtime

Sunday:
-Oversleep, not feeling well
-Sit around till feeling a bit better
-Grocery shopping
-Hit Home Depot with Mom to pick up ladder
-House for work and laundry
-Prime Josh's drum room 3 loads of laundry
-Clean up
-Head to apartment
-Shower
-Get ready for bed
-Bit of reading
-Sleepville

Pantry Project- Before

Who knew that when I was dreaming way back in 2007 that I would so soon have a pantry of my own to make pretty. Not me! But now I do and as it turned out I was just in time to catch the last weekend of the Container Store's elfa sale. So, after some consulting and confusion we picked up all the ingredients for new shelves and a cart for the microwave. Now that I have so much more counter space I don't want to donate any of it to the ugly appliance. The nice elfa-elf that helped us was almost giddy to hear that I shared her distaste for the cooking box. I will someday also get the over-the-door storage system, but I couldn't go whole-hog just yet. Maybe next year's sale will bring the opportunity. Anyway, here's what I'm starting with. You fortunately can't really tell just how gross and grimy it is in there right now. I'm going to tear out the shelves and supports, scrub the walls something fierce, and maybe even paint it (if I could choose the right color, which we all know is quite the ordeal). I am very excited about having a nice, new and well-organized pantry in my future- even if I have to work hard for it!

The Casa: Before Shots Volume I- The Kitchen

Okay, posting some pics of the house as it stands, before we really get down to work this week and weekend. Starting with the kitchen/dining room. Looks a little messy because I took these after we had dragged in our supplies for staying the night.

















The refrigerator has now filled in the space on the right. I'll have to take a new pic of it in all it's shininess.



















































Here is half of the dining room area. Small door is the pantry (I have a pantry!), and larger door goes to the garage. I'll be sharing my pantry plans later. And of course, I just realized since we're not even painting this space there isn't going to be a huge difference between the before and after. Oh well, ha. Going from a 64 sq. foot kitchen to this space makes me giddy. I only have 2 drawers in our apartment kitchen. My new kitchen has 5 times that many! And more cabinets than I currently know what to do with. Josh was a good husband though and stood glassy-eyed, but patient, as I rambled about which cabinet I think I'll put the plates in.

Best In Show

One of my favorite events in the year is finally here. It's Westminster time! I have to leave work early cause my ride has an appointment, so I'm gonna do a little tidying and shower and then hunker down for some good dog watching. I was hoping to re-read my dog judging book beforehand, but it it snuck up on me and I didn't have time to anyway. Fell asleep watching Best In Show last night.

Weekend Roundup

Friday:
-Up early and head to house
-Discover leak under sink and panic
-Clean house
-Visit with Seller, there to pick up forgotten items
-More cleaning
-Rearrange some closet accessories
-Go over new appliance info with Frank the delivery man
-Discover that opening up the water line to refrigerator fixed the leak under the sink
-More cleaning
-Read some Newsweek
-Go over stuff that I did with Josh
-Head back to apartment
-Hot dogs and french fries for dinner
-Catch up blog reading I missed during the day
-Bedtime

Saturday:
-Oversleep big time
-Shower
-Try to get pantry stuff from Container Store- too many people!
-Stop at store for donut and hygiene products
-Get ready
-Jen's birthday party- badminton, croquet, wii, burning stuff, good food, beer and laughs
-Grab some Whataburger
-Eat, watch episode of Late Night
-Hit the hay

Sunday:
-Oversleep again!
-Shower
-Ham & cheese tortilla and apple for breakfast/lunch
-Get ready
-Steph & Rodney's for paint supplies, John & Ann's to pick up tree
-Deliver and plant tree at Deana's
-Container Store for another attempt, successful this time- new pantry here I come
-Drop off elfa stuff at house and check under sink just in case
-Target for a few grocery items and birthday cake
-Apartment for Josh to grab a quick shower
-Deana & Jack's for birthday dinner
-Back to apartment for bedtime

Dining Room Idea Board

I had a nice birthday yesterday. My boss gave me very little work all day. I got the Ellis Island book and some sweets from Mom and she, and I had Chinese food for dinner. And Josh walked through the door with some daisies and gave me the Martha Stewart book I asked for and said I have more gifts in the mail. All in all, lovely. Also, if you sent me a message or gave me a call, my phone was brokeny until 9 or so last night.

Trying to plan what we (I) want to do to the house. I know I have lamented my inability to make decisions before. Well, guess how easy that makes choosing paint colors. Yeah, not so easy. Well, I know which general color I want to use in most of the spaces. But the exact shade and paint? Ha. We decided to not paint the kitchen/dining room area. That's the only space that isn't getting a fresh coat. So, since I already know the wall color that made it a bit easier to put together my board for the room. So, here ya go. A bit of a NYC theme. Cheesy perhaps, but we likes it. Those photos are just examples, I'll use some of my own photos once I edit them to B&W. And that chair is the same chair we have now, but I'll be painting them all white. And yeah, I already know that I've got an Ikea problem. Don't expect it to be cured either, we're on a budget people.

Quickie Weekend Roundup

Friday:
-Work, blech
-Pick up house keys at Title Co.
-Get ready
-Visit with Veronica @ Saukum casa while boys practice
-Fate Lions show at City Tavern
-Home to bed

Saturday:
-Sleep in
-Start laundry
-Catch up on some dvr'd telly
-Finish laundry
-Head over to new house
-Show Mom around
-Grab supplies at Target and Home Depot
-Camp out at new casa

Sunday:
-Rise and shine
-Measure every surface to be painted
-Head back to apartment
-Shower
-Make spreadsheet to figure out painting square footage
-Enter numbers while watching Whatever Martha!
-Grocery shopping
-Unload cargo
-Head to Hoovers for Josh's birthday dinner and Super Bowl watching
-Back home for some Britcoms on PBS
-Sleepytown