After Kitchen Photos

Long time no see--especially since I'm not sure if anyone actually reads this thing. It might be better if I actually posted here, but that's a moot point. Anyhoo, our kitchen is about 87% completed, thanks to about 16 trips to Ikea over a month-long period (including 3 trips in one day). We used Ikea cabinets and Ikea countertops and are generally really happy with our choice, even though putting everything together was a headache, especially since Scott avoided that chore like the plague. We got a new dishwasher and microhood, and a new to us fridge that we scored on Craigslist for a steal. The walls will be painted a darker color soon, after we tile the back splash with white subway tiles for a cleaner look.

To jog your memory, here is a before picture, keeping in mind that this was before we moved in and all of our kitchen accessories were all over the countertop since we had no other place to put them:

We repainted the walls a nice light blue, which is now too light with the white-white cabinets and our future back splash. Scott broke the light on the left by simply using the pull chain. We're in the process of replacing it, but wiring has to happen in the attic, where there is about a foot of clearance, so neither of us has that project high on our list of Honey-Dos.






And here are the after photos!!















































What you do think, anonymous internet people? Things will still be changed--trim needs to be added, we're looking for another light for the main fixture, but we're really happy with how everything turned out.

Absentee blogging

I'll be the first to admit that I'm not a very motivated blogger. I began this thing to track our progress as we delve into home ownership and remodeling (as well as to give our family and friends who live farther away a peek into our home and what we've been doing with our free time), but I'm just not feeling motivated.

Our kitchen is half-painted. Am I going to go home and change into painting clothes and slop another coat on it so I can move on to taping off and painting the bathroom? Nope. I'll probably collapse on the couch with Scott and the dogs before dragging myself to the kitchen to see what I'll be throwing together for dinner. Our garage is still a pile of boxes and garbage leftover from the move and our new washer and dryer (Oh, yes, I got those. Did I blog about it? Nope! Not motivated, see?), but we won't be tackling them anytime soon. Our back gutters are off the house in the yard and neither of us has mustered the energy to trek the 5 or 10 blocks to Lowes to buy wood to make a fascia board.

It's not that we don't want to complete these (admittedly tiny) projects, but its more a fact of the more we do, the more we see that needs to be done. We need to re-seed our backyard since the crew that replaced our old septic tank dug up all the grass, but before we do that, we need to level it out, remove all the rocks (which there are about a billion--no lie), completely flatten it out and then put grass seed down. Which then brings up the questions of: Do we remove the two trees before or after we re-seed? and, where will the dogs go to the bathroom outside since our front yard isn't fenced?

It truly does seem like our "To-do" list is teetering over to never-ending, but I suppose that's why we bought a house. So we could have a list of things we want to do to make our house our own. Keeping this in the back of our heads just might kick-start us to start building my planter boxes for the vegetable garden I've been meaning to plant, or to clean out the spare room which has become a collector of things we don't know where else to put. And maybe, just maybe, I'll finish painting the kitchen tonight.

But don't hold your breath, that couch is looking mighty comfortable.

Bathtub woes

My bathtub doesn't hold water.

The only thing worse about this discovery is discovering it while in the bathtub after a particularly cold and stormy day.

Adding another 'honey-do' to our list...

Post move-in exhaustion

It's crazy how tired you get from just moving things from place to place. Especially when you factor in that we've been moving things into the new house for more than a week now and still have things to do at the old place. Which is why we're renting a carpet shampooer and cleaning the sucker tonight! Which means that hopefully by tomorrow, we'll be done with the old place and permanently in our very own home, no looking back!

Other than being exhausted and sad about the Blazers not making it to round two of the NBA playoffs, things are working out well here. The dogs have adapted well to sleeping in their own room (other than barking for who knows what reason at 3:00 am), and even though our house a a disaster, we're living quite happily.

However, there are a few things we found out since moving that haven't been so great:

• Both brand-new toilets in the house were installed wrong. I'm talking wobbly seats, tilted bowls, you name it. I'm so lucky to have a husband who knows what he's doing when it comes to repairing things like that. He's already fixed one of them (and bought a new seat and cover for it since he says, "It's nice knowing that our new toilet seat has only had our butts on it..." Sure honey, whatever makes you happy).
• There is a drawer in my kitchen that's not actually a drawer. It's just a front. It aggravates me. For no other reason than I really could use that drawer space! When we do our massive kitchen remodel someday, I'm demanding that drawer actually be a drawer.
• Speaking of drawers, our bedroom dresser doesn't fit on the wall in our master bedroom. It has to go next to the door to the bathroom and leave enough room for the door to the bedroom to open. This is why all of our clothes are in suitcases on the floor.
• Also along the lines of our things not fitting in our house, our TV cabinet (which is only from IKEA and cost next to nothing, but still) doesn't fit in the little corner next to the fireplace in the family room. Our TV is now on an old coffee table until Scott can build a new cabinet to house all of the components and the TV.
• The gutters are full of junk. Which we discovered this week when it decided to rain like we were in Delhi during monsoon season. This new discovery was also enhanced by the fact that since they're full of junk, they got too heavy to stay screwed to the house and are now about 2 inches away from the eaves.

But you know what? Despite all of these niggling little details that really "grind my gears", all of these things that we're going to have to spend more money to fix, I'm falling in love with this little house. In all of it's quirky glory, red painted kitchen and all. So wish me luck, everyone--this weekend my goal is to put all of our things away in their proper locations (ha, yeah right) and to start painting--because that red kitchen has got to go!

Not much has happened recently. We're slowly moving into the house, which means that both our rental and house are in terrible shape. Boxes and clutter everywhere, and it's driving me crazy! I would gladly pay someone any amount of money to be able to wave my hand and have everything in our new house. It doesn't even have to be put away! Just there. Tonight we're going out to celebrate the Hubs' birthday, which is tomorrow. I'm excited--Thai food and German Chocolate Cake for dessert. Saturday we're moving the big things--couch, loveseat, tables, beds, etc. After all of that is done, we're getting beer and fish and chips. And YoCream, if I have my way. (What? I totally deserve a fatty calorie-laden meal after working my hiney off moving things to and fro.)

Yesterday we packed boxes and did something new (and important to me)--we picked up our first CSA box! (And watched the Blazers lose horribly, but we're putting that behind us). Since we got married last year, Scott and I have been trying to eat better and live better. We planted a vegetable garden in our backyard. We buy organic and natural foods when it's reasonably priced, since we feel better after eating them. We support restaurants that use local ingredients, and we shop at Farmers' Markets. Our meat comes mostly from our local butcher shop, which sells only grass-fed beef and free range chicken.

The next step in this process was to join a CSA program. CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture. We found a farm we liked near us, checked out their crops online and paid our fees. Every week starting this week, we get to drive to a meeting point and pick up our little box of organic veggies. Yes, it's expensive. Yes, I know that we could save a ton of money if we just bought our produce at the store. But we like helping out a local farm. We're also hoping that this encourages us to eat a little better in addition to introducing us to new foods.

I'd also like to say that yes, we're blessed with jobs that allow us to splurge on things like this every so often. We save for things, and we go without some things that other people might think are necessary. We definitely know how lucky we are to live the way we live and in an area of the country that has such great opportunities like this one!

Captain, we have a problem...

I'm sure this is the post that my family has been waiting for, since they knew it was bound to happen one of these days.
This is my husband:
This is the article in the New York Times that he was featured in.
And that is the chair that he wants featured prominently in our new house. It's a chair that he built himself, finished himself and upholstered himself. Right now, it's in our office. In the new house, since we have a family room, my guess is that is where he will want it placed. And...to put it nicely...I do not. I'd rather our house be put together, cohesive, and not cluttered with gigantic pieces of furniture like this chair.
I totally get that it's important to him. He loves the darn thing! Obviously, he spent time building it and putting it together, and it is likely the only way our family is going to be in the New York Times (even if I'm just mentioned as "the wife"), but truth be told--it kind of embarrasses me. I know, I know, the terrible wife prize just got awarded to me. It's not the kind of thing I want people to look at in our house. I'm fine with it being in the house, but just not obviously there. And let's face it, it's not the kind of thing you can decorate around, unless you want to built a life-size set of the bridge of the Enterprise behind it.
I suppose this is something that we're going to have to compromise on, and that I'm just going to have to dust and try and ignore, but my fingers are crossed that it somehow doesn't fit in the family room.

Waiting for Summer

It's been raining for what feels like weeks here in the Pacific Northwest. I suppose I should expect it, it's only April 1st, after all, but I'm so tired of all the dreariness! Since summer seems so far away, and since we'll probably not see temperatures in the 80's until July, I'm dreaming of sitting on a patio, sipping an ice-cold lemonade. Preferably while a Jake Gyllenhaal-lookalike fans me, but it's more likely that Scott will be mowing the lawn or playing with the dogs, so my patio had better be pretty calming!

Nothing's more relaxing than a day at the beach, so I'm pulling inspiration from shades of blue and natural wood tones and textures like wicker. And since our patio at the new house looks like this currently, it needs all the help it can get!

Notice the wall on the right side? Completely useless. You can move it back and forth and the roof stays in place. That window? Not from the house, it's just something that someone found somewhere else. The barbecue is rusted (not such a loss, since we bought one last summer), and the corrugated plastic roof is green with algae. Just something else I'd love to tear down!
This is what I'm thinking of for a patio:






I think the pendant lamp fixture is gorgeous, although I'm not sure how something like that would really work outside if I took off the roof. A huge rounded loveseat to sink into when Jake brings my lemonades would be amazing, and it's big enough for the dogs to lay on, too. The corrugated metal drink station would be great for a pitcher of water or sangria during a party. Plant stands at different heights add visual interest (preferably topped with hearty plants since I don't have a green thumb), and I love the all-weather rug with a geometric pattern, since it will do a great job of hiding dirt! Maybe over time our beige concrete patio will transform into something more relaxing--I can only hope!

First photos

First-time home-buyers, my husband (Scott) and I looked at maybe 50 or so homes before deciding that this was The One. So far, things have gone smoothly with offers and counter-offers, so we're counting our blessings and anxiously waiting the day when we get our keys (the Prosecco is already chilling in the refrigerator)! We (ok, so it's really just me; Scott has little to no interest in blogging about anything, much less about our house and, as an extension, our lives. But here goes...

When we had the inspector look at our house, Scott and I (and my dad!) tagged along. Scott wanted to go so he could look over the inspector's shoulder, and I went so I could take some pictures to show our family who hasn't been there yet. The inspection went well, just a few things that the sellers are fixing before we move in, in addition to putting in a new septic tank--because, let's face it--we don't want the old one to ooze or explode all over our yard.

Here some of the first photos that I've taken of our house. They're incomplete-- I didn't take any of the front of the house (yet) since there is a 10-foot tall hedge of arborvitae (which I hate) that we'll rip out AS SOON as we move in, if I have any say in the matter. So here are some of the best pictures--the house is a 1967 ranch-style, so the floor plan is likely the same as other homes throughout our neighborhood (and probably beyond--architects weren't too creative, it seems!)

This is the living room--the room you walk into when you enter the house. It has a huge window that currently looks out onto the aforementioned hedge, but the fireplace is lovely and wood-burning. Scott and I are so excited to build a fire and sit on a couch in front of it. We're sort of disappointed to move in April, so we have to wait until autumn for fires!

The kitchen is small, and heeds some upgrading. We're trying to figure out the best way of adding cabinet space without covering up the existing pass-through into the family room. And yes, the red has got to go! I'm taking the picture from the "dining room," which is just a space between the living room and the family room.





The backyard also needs some work--those trees are cutting into some sort of groundwater or something and will need to be pulled out and replaced with something. There's a stump from a tree that was cut down and wasn't ground out, so we'd like to do that as well. There is a potting shed that needs to be repainted, but that can wait, too!

Here is the view into the family room from the "dining room". It's the only room in the house that's carpeted, and it has a sliding door (on the right) out to the bizarre (more on that in a later post) patio. Yup, another wood-burning fireplace, so Scott and I have options when we decide to have a fire. This also means we'll need two sets of fireplace things since I don't want to have to drag them across the house when I need to use them.


There are three bedrooms, but since they all look the same, I'm leaving those pictures out, at least until we paint and decorate them, since they're boring, empty rooms right now! Both bathrooms (the full and the master's half-bath) are painted the same color of brown. Ugly and dark, this color seriously makes these room feel like little Hobbit-holes. And not in a cozy, snuggle under a blanket with a cup of tea kind of way. But paint can cure a thousand ills, right?

We're waiting to hear from the appraisers, but until then, all we can do is continue (begin) to pack. We're only 24 days away!