the one where they built a wall...

As expected, the past month has been pretty hectic and we haven't got much done around the house.  We're getting closer to finalizing plans for the kitchen so now it's just a matter of saving a few extra bucks and scheduling each step of the remodeling process so that we are without a functioning kitchen for as little time as possible.  I'm already dreading the stress and patient discussions (a.k.a. arguments) in our near future.

In the meantime, I decided to close off one of the doors that is in James' bedroom.  The previous owners of our house used this room as a den/office space but, now that we've switched it into a bedroom, the extra wall space means more to us than an extra door.  Besides, I prefer James not have such easy access to the front door - if he's going to sneak out to meet friends at night, we aren't going to make it that easy for him.

Oh, and we still haven't gotten around to putting doors on James' closet.  We're planning on building a large barn door-type door on a track that will slide to the left when open - another reason I wanted to close off this doorway.

The other side of this door leads right to our front door and living room.  We've never used this door since moving in so I don't foresee us missing it.

We took the door off it's hinges and removed all of the trim and frame from the doorway - taking all of 5 minutes and a crowbar.

Next, we built a frame to fit the new hole with another stud centered in the middle for support.  This was then nailed into place.

We cut two pieces of drywall to fit either side of the doorway, taped, and mudded the seams. Voila...

We still have a little sanding to do and then will paint both sides - and hopefully there will be no indication that there was ever a door here!

In other news, I also bought two new rugs.  While I love the black and white rug that I originally bought for the living room, the high traffic caused it to shed more than we'd like - so we'll move this to one of the upstairs bedrooms.  I also wanted to get coordinating rugs for the living and dining rooms to tie everything together since it's basically one big room.  Warming things up would help too.  I found two rugs on overstock that I had to have.  I bought an 8x10 for the living room and a 5x8 to go under the dining table.  They arrived in less than a week and I love them!  I almost wish I bought another one for our bedroom but I'll rethink that once we're ready to fix up that room.

Now I want to make some new throw pillows and new curtains to go with the new look of the room...

This winter has been strangely mild so we've been trying to get out of the house as much as possible.  In between all of the running around the past couple weeks required, we managed to fit in a quick trip to the beach where James loved throwing rocks into the water and watching the surfers... 

We were also able to get away for a weekend and head up to New Hampshire for some R&R - well, as much R&R as one can get with a 14 month old running around.

We hope everyone had a great holiday season and will have an even better 2012!

month one.

We've only been in the house for a month and it already feels like so much has changed since the day that we moved in. 

Here are a few interior changes:

Living Room:

The walls were painted, we hung curtains, stained the tv stand, got a new sectional, got a new rug, and finally got around to framing and hanging a few pictures...

Dining Room:

The walls were painted, we replaced the light fixture, brought in our furniture and hung a few pictures...

James' Room:

The walls were painted, his furniture was moved in, we bought a new rug, and I replaced the old lace curtains with navy blue roman shades.  Now we just have to hang his frames on the walls and get some closet doors!

Most of our sweat has been poured into the outside of the house.  I should point out that my Mum has put just as much - if not more - time as us into the yard.  We've spent hours removing the pool and chopping down unwanted vines, briars, and branches but she has volunteered several of her afternoons to haul away much of our "debris".  We pay her by letting her watch James 3 days a week.

First, our pool was removed...

Next, we ripped out half of the vines/briars/brush that was growing uncontrollably in the back left corner of our yard.  It was crawling it's way up the surrounding trees and strangling them to near death.  For now, we have a 25ft. sandbox in our backyard.  We plan on putting a small stone patio down and then laying grass to cover the remaining portion of the yard.  That big tree in the middle of the picture below is what is rotted and needs to be removed - eventually.  We still have a lot of brush to get rid of on this side of the yard, obviously.  We're holding off on ripping the other briar patch out because there is an egg filled bird's nest inside.   Oh, and the drum barrel...we use that to cook...marshmallows?  No, town fire department, we wouldn't dare burn anything outside of the designated burn season!

We also started to rip out some more briars/vines from the back right corner of the yard.  The vines that are wrapping around these trees are even larger and stronger than the ones on the other side of the yard...

The next project I want to tackle is our bedroom.  Or maybe the main bathroom.  Or maybe the kitchen.  Arrgh.  The bedroom will probably be the least expensive of those options so I should probably focus my energy there.  (Although its getting more and more difficult to ignore the kitchen wallpaper and cabinets and bathroom sponge paint everyday.)  While we're saving up for bedroom furniture, we should be able to spruce up our room with a coat of paint, some new curtains, and a treatment on the back wall to mask the small, off-centered window.  For now, I guess I should just work on trying to figure out which piles of my laundry are clean and which are dirty.

And just because he cracks me up...

home sweet home

We have our house!  Because our renters aren't moving into my condo until June, we have a few more weeks before we need to move ALL of our belongings.  Now that we officially own the house, it’s painful to go back to the condo.  We are in love with our house and are sad when we have to leave it.  We’ve already made several trips over and fall more in love with it each time we pull in the driveway.  There's some painting going on this week so the plan is to move the rest of our belongings once that job is done.  If it wasn’t for our attempt to keep our son from huffing paint fumes, we’d have moved in immediately after signing the papers and getting a hold of our keys. We hope to be all moved in by next weekend – or at least have enough in the house to allow us to sleep, shower, eat, and clothe ourselves without too much difficulty.

After moving everything we had stored at my parents’ house, we spent most of the weekend tending to the pool.  As I’ve mentioned before, the house came equipped with a lovely (read: unwanted) above-ground pool in the back yard.  Within minutes of sending out a mass message looking for takers, it was claimed.  The weather was beautiful this past weekend so it was a pleasure to be outside - but uncovering and attempting to drain a pool is the last way I would have chosen to spend the days.  OK, so my Dad and Joe did most of the dirty work but I made sure to stay close by so I could bark alternative ways to do whatever the hell it was that they were doing.  In less than two days, the pool was completely drained.  It’s amazing what two garden hoses and some sucking can do.  I can’t wait to wave goodbye to “our” pool – but I must admit that I’m petrified to see what the back yard is going to look like once it’s gone.  I’ll just cross my fingers for more sunny days that can be enjoyed outside, shoveling rocks and sand, and filling in a potential ditch left by the pool.

I didn’t get a chance to take any pics once the cover was off and the water was almost completely drained but here are two from the beginning of the shitty draining process:

Other than filling our garage with miscellaneous boxes and prepping the pool for removal, Joe and Steve fixed the automatic garage door opener thingy, we installed our new washer and dryer in the laundry room, and I raked up a couple bags of leaves/vines/brush.  Yes, I raked up a few bags…Joe just grabbed the rake when he saw that the camera was out.  Scandalous.

I hope to share a few before/after pics of the inside of the house once the painting is completed later this week.  In the meantime, here’s one of James’ checking out his new room.  He likes it...but already told me to get a move on burning the lace curtains.

…and the token family shot…

Oh...Johnny and Christian stopped by to check out our new digs too.  Pretty standard weekend.  They’re amazing friends.