Christmas Light Contest

So I haven't really had a chance to show off my neighborhood. For some reason people around here either don't put up lights (which I'm fine with), or they put them up and do a really sloppy job (which I find offensive). We thought it would be fun on Christmas Eve to go around and document just a mere sampling of what the hood has to offer. We did not have to travel far.

The honorable mentions:

It looks like Halloween, not Christmas.

Hmm. Not that bad. Just a little lazy.

A plus for the light placement. D- for the creepy santa.

And the winners are:

3rd place!

2nd place! Love the single string of lights connecting the tree to the house.

And the Grand Prize of all time goes to. . . . .

Really? Yep, really.


Merry Christmas Everyone!

Replacing a Window

Not only replacing. . .cutting the house open so we can have it in a different place! Here's the pics:

the kitchen is going to be L-shaped which means we would be installing the cabinets over the window that is there now. I did not like that idea. I'm also not one to let a window keep me from designing the kitchen I want.

this is the new window. I got it at the re-store for 10 dollars. It is vinyl, but the most exciting part is that it is double-paned. The likes of which my house has never seen.

first, we had to tear the plaster down. This is a really messy, dusty job. We wear masks but I still worry about it.

then jeff framed in where the new window will go.

then we removed the old window

and put in the new window!

ta-da!

It's kind of an anniversary

of the day I put a bid in for my house one year ago. And then three and a half months later it was mine. (but mostly the bank's).

and then I was like "oh no, the responsibility is crushing my spirit!"

but then I was like "now I don't have to move every 6 months. Yay!"

I love you, dirty old house!

A bit of progress....

...nothing too productive though, don't worry. Here are a few more pictures. We finished framing in the new kitchen opening.

Kitchen Demo Take 1

Last week Jeff began tearing the kitchen apart. I can't really do anything because I'm too busy studying. I mainly sit on the couch studying and Jeff gets down to business with the occasional outcry of frustration. Well, we'll just call it an "outcry".

This is the before picture.

I was really excited to see how much this opens up my house. Because really, why did the kitchen have a door again? Next we have to move water, gas, and electric lines. I'm also hoping to have no part in that! Did I mention that I'm mainly the designer?

Where did the summer go??

Update:

I'm sorry, what can I say? I've been really busy having a great summer/start of school year so not much has been happening on the house front. I really have been preparing for the kitchen remodel, though, there is just nothing to show yet. I have purchased all of my appliances (used) and did it for $1000 even. How did I do it, you wonder? With the help of my favorite classifieds, KSL.com. Craiglist has been dethroned.

My dishwasher is quite beautiful! Who cares if I have no idea if it works! I also went to IKEA to pick out cabinets, etc., and I think I am going to save a lot of money there as well. They would like to charge me $80 for one cabinet door, all because I really want the glossy red. But that is unacceptable to me - so I'm going to buy the cheap white doors and wrap them with a glossy red vinyl courtesy of Jeff's place of employment. And we will see how that turns out.

I'm all about finding alternatives if the quality doesn't suffer. With Ikea, the quality is usually already suffering so I have nothing to lose! See you soon!

Bathroom - so close!

Here is the most updated picture of the bathroom. There are just the small things left. It's so hard to work on when the weather is nice! But I'm anxious to finish so I can start my kitchen...

took this pic with a fish eye lens so you can almost see the whole thing.
i just realized that the color of my bathroom is exactly the color of this blog

Bathroom Update

this is my showerhead that makes every shower feel like a lovely rain

And here is the mostly completed bathroom, with new cute toilet and new floor put in. Now comes installing the sink and painting.

And that's the end of this boring post.

Toilet Trauma

Here are some updated pics of the shower.

the shelf is now complete. do you think it's weird?

Just an update of what I look like.

Here we are installing the new floor. It is the dark wood laminate from ikea and it really could not be easier. Seriously.

It's all coming together! Now we just have to remove the toilet to finish the floor.....

Oh my good gracious nooooooo!!!!!! Turns out the toilet has been leaking, probably for quite some time. On the bright side, I have located the weird smell in my house.

It is truly heinous.

So we stripped everything down and let it dry out. Once it dries, we'll put a coat of polyurethane over it, and the bathroom renovation can resume.

In the meantime,

I'm out a toilet.

So I have been frequenting the local gas stations a bit more than usual.

And I'm writing a little song called "Fixing Other People's Mistakes".

It's blues-y.

Tiling the Shower

I was well aware that tiling the shower would be an epic endeavor, possibly the hardest project I have slated for my house. It did not disappoint in its epicness. It took Jeff and I 14 hours straight one day and I am glad to say we came out of it with our relationship intact.

First wall of the shower. I'm thinking everything is going really well. It wasn't. It turns out that when you are tiling it's really hard to go back and correct mistakes.

2nd wall. I'm getting pretty excited at this point.

Complete.

In conclusion, there are some pretty obvious flaws, but I think we did really well for first-timers. I can definitely see why people usually hire people for this sort of thing, but I probably saved a couple thousand dollars.

I also found out that my tub wasn't quite as white as I thought it was. Oh well, it's staying! Now we have to grout and seal and maybe one day soon I will be able to shower!

Bathroom - Tile Prep

the time has come for the bathroom renovation. I knew it would be the hardest so I wanted to get it done while I have some motivation left. the week was spent prepping the shower walls which first required the stripping of wallpaper and old weird plastic tile.

the cut out is actually an old window that was covered up when the addition to the back of the house was done. I had a great idea of using the existing frame as a built-in shelf for the shower. I think I might love it.

the existing wall where the faucet sits was completely rotted out and moldy. Gross. So we had to tear it out and re-sheetrock. Actually, jeff did pretty much everything you see here. I was mostly making dinner instead. I thought I lucked out on that deal.

exposed pipes and studs. cool, we are really doing it!! I'm a grown-up!

new sheetrock. also new faucets and pipes(?). we ran a pipe up to the top of the wall so I can actually have a shower.

most of the wallpaper is gone. it really wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. but, again, jeff did most of it. you can see the new frame for the shelf. I liked how the wood part looked so I decided to keep it instead of tiling over it. we'll see how that goes.

backerboard is up. this part really was awful because of course the walls aren't straight. already a huge improvement! I kinda wanted to stop here...

last weekend I also painted the front door red and removed the screen door. the door took 4 coats of paint and needs one more. what a pain! but I think it helped the outside a lot. spring also helps the outside a lot.

well, on to tiling! I think it's going to be awesome!

My Canadian Couch

There are quite a few canadian staples that I enjoy, one of those being the furniture company EQ3. Pictured below is the couch of my dreams. I was fully willing to purchase this couch but they are no longer shipping to the U.S.

Behold, y'all, the Byrd Sofa. Isn't it delicious?

So I have compromised with this sad looking thing below:

It is also by EQ3 but lacks the mid century style of the Byrd sofa.

It is, however, much much better than 99% percent of the used

couches up for sale in the past few months.

The other very exciting progression is that the popcorn ceiling is gone! I ended up paying someone to do it (you know the price was right since I am super cheap) but I still had to prime and put 2 coats of paint on the new ceiling which is much harder for me than for a regular-sized person. (what's that you say? I need my own reality show on TLC?)

I thought I'd show you what my bedroom is doing right now, since nothing else is happening. It is pretty much finished!

this green looks totally ugly in pictures, but more of a jade color in reality.

Hurrah for spring!

floors look awesome, right?

nothing special about the closet except for the fact that it is twice as big as my last one. look at the space between clothes!

Kind of quaint.

I just realized that I didn't get any baseboards in these pictures...they are magnificent actually, but maybe next time!

Refinishing floors/Painting

Hooray, it's me! Welcome to the first renovation post. I have now owned the house for three weeks and I think that we are making some quantifiable progress. Even better, I now know how to refinish hardwood floors.

This is Jeff. He's doing a lot of work free of charge.

Remember, this is the master bedroom before.

Wow so green! What was I thinking? This is only the first coat, it gets better.
(don't know what those spots are incidentally)

Pretty sunset outside! Not so pretty inside.

The initial sanding of the floors. We rented this from home depot and Jeff did most of the work.

So it turns out that refinishing floors requires a lot of vacuuming.

Putting a coat of varnish on the floor. I decided to go with the risky choice of a matte finish and no stain because I love the look of the natural floor. I wish I also would have chosen a flat paint not a semi-gloss but oh well, maybe next remodel.