Lots to report!

We've been super-diligent with house work recently.


Cyndi, Katii and Dad came to help us with painting this weekend. We three girls went to Lowe's to "look at" paint and ended up coming home with three gallons. James had picked out the colors on a previous trip, although he didn't know that's what he was doing at the time. We were meandering down the paint aisle, and he picked up three paint cards and said, "What about these, for the kitchen, den, and living room?" As that was the first time he'd shown any interest in paint colors, I took that to mean that he was head over heels for those colors. Turns out he had only a passing interest in them, but how was I to know that?


First, we painted the den--a lovely lime-y green color, which turned out a lot brighter than we thought it would. As Cyndi says, "It's not the color you chose, but it's the color you'll love" Never were truer words spoken. I am infatuated with my den color. Here are some pictures:



Of course a good paint job starts with taping.




Cyndi hard at work--she's quite the expert at painting.



A little silliness.


After the family left on Sunday, James and I did the living room. The color is called chilled cantaloupe. It looks like a fleshy, peachy, salmon-y color. We're not as thrilled with it as with the den, but it'll look better when there's furniture in the room and paintings on the walls. Lots of paintings on the walls.

Speaking of the walls. There was a lot of spackling to be done in the living room. Here's a tip: the spackle has to dry before you paint. We thought we'd start painting in the areas of the room that didn't have spackle and work our way to the patches and by the time we got to them they'd be dry. Not the case. It seemed like the more we painted, the longer it took for the spackle to dry. Probably we added too much moisture to the room with all the paint. Lesson learned. We didn't have that much time wasted, but there was probably a half hour or so that we were literally watching the paint dry. Or the spackle to be more precise.

Here are pictures from that day:










On Sunday night and Monday, we ripped up carpet and started stripping the old finish off of the wood underneath. That is a big project which has not been completed yet, but there are sure to be lots of pictures when it is complete, as well as a too-long description of the hardships of stripping floors by hand.

Could be better, could be worse...

Ripped up the carpet in the den today and this is what we found...

There's lots of paint splatters all over, it's mostly scuffed up, a little uneven, and there's a pretty broad stripe of paint all the way around the room. Clearly, the previous owners knew they were putting down carpet, so they didn't take much care with protecting the floors. All told, though, I'm pleased. We'll sand and refinish, and I think it'll be just right. We can't make the floors perfectly even--if you drop a marble it will roll all over the place. But we bought a 60+ year old house, and that's what you get! I'm excited.

Here's a close up...

Yard Work

James did a lot of raking this weekend. The weather was beautiful. Here's a picture of the hottie at work...

And the product of all that work: 5 bags of leaves!!!

We could have filled a few more bags if we had them, but he raked the excess leaves and pinestraw around a couple of trees. I was hoping to use some of the leaves for compost, but I think there are too many pine needles mixed in. I'll have to look up the effect of pine straw on composting.

A Picture's Worth 1000 Words

Here's a picture of our house...we'll paint the outside eventually, but there are bigger fish to fry right now.

For the foreseeable future, this is what it will look like if you drive by.

And so it begins...

We have dubbed 2008 "The Year of the House". Although we technically moved in to our new digs in 2007 we were so busy with the holidays, etc. that we didn't have time to do anything to spruce it up. But throughout 2008 there will be sprucing galore! And if I am more diligent with this blog than I have been with the multiple other blogs I've started and abandoned there will be documentation...we'll see how that goes.

A few projects worth looking forward to:

• Ripping up carpet throughout downstairs to reveal (hopefully) beautiful hardwood
• Painting every wall in the house
• New shelves in the kitchen cabinets
• Gardening

The first major project should be the carpet, for multiple reasons. First, I don't like the carpet. Second, it's only a matter of time before Daisy's hair is all over the place and I'd rather not have to vacuum. Third, we'll probably have to pry off the baseboards to pull up the carpet and if we paint first, the painting will probably get messed up.

Obstacles to overcome with this project include laziness, procrastination, possible condition of the floors underneath the carpet, and figuring out what to do with the old carpet once we've ripped it up. Will the trash men take it if we put it by the curb? Is there some municipal dumpster to which we must haul it? Research must be done.