Tuesday, July 26, 2011

What's your favorite filling?

Apple? Cherry? Blueberry? Strawberry?  Most people love a fresh-baked pie, and I'm really no exception (although I do prefer crumbles to top pie crust).  But in this intense heat wave we've been experiencing for over a week, I am entertaining no ideas of pie baking.  It would just be wrong, for so many reasons.  So I'll have to get my "fill fix" another way.  Dirt fill.

Not mud pies, as you might expect in a house with two little kids who are frequent hose-in-dirt offenders.  Rather, the dirt fill is coming for our crater!   That back hoe is inside our fenced crater.  I let out a Catie-esque, "Woo hoo!"

They haven't made any other progress yet, but at least the machine is there, looking impressive and ready for business.   So now we're waiting for the dirt fill.  Let's hope they don't confuse that with land fill. 

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Main Tub Scrub (and Caulk)


Perhaps you'll remember how the main bathtub looked when we bought the house.  It needed, umm...some elbow grease.  A few days after we settled in I went to tackle it and realized the sad truth.  The previous owners left it that way because it couldn't be scrubbed away.  It was embedded in the silicone caulk.  Yuck.  It gave me the heebie-jeebies just showering in there.  A call to my ever-handy, highly-experienced father yielded the verdict of death to the silicone.  Rip it/scrape it out.  Scrub, scrub scrub.  Tape for protection.  And then, re-caulk with quick-drying, flexible kitchen and bath silicone (in a tube).  I was pleased with the results of a few hours of work.  

Except that, in the process, I had to reattach/caulk a few bathtub tiles and when I scraped the first tile, the one below it fell right off, taking the supporting plaster right with it.  So, in the last picture you can see the gap left behind.  Stay tuned to see the results of that project.

Saturday, July 2, 2011

Inside, now Outside

Besides the hose, this is the kids' favorite thing about the new house.  It's a bit rickety, but they love it and it has already provided hours of entertainment.


Dominic is learning all sorts of new things! (this is part of our front lawn--which reminds me, anyone know how to get rid of moles?  We're getting nasty mounds of dirt and tunnels.  Or how to keep deer from eating hostas?


Then, our next big project.  Getting the hole/crater/marsh filled.  You can see a little more than half of it in the picture below.  But we've got some nice old pine trees! :)

Friday, July 1, 2011

Previous Owners
Now that we finally have internet, I decide to acquiesce to the whimsy of some friends and put up "work in progress" pictures.  In truth, I would have preferred to wait until we finished and had finally made the space just what we want, but, as they so rightly pointed out, when will that be?

So here you have it, I even included a few pictures from before when we were house hunting.  All the window coverings were left, so we attempted to work with them...not sure how that will pan out in the long run.

Us
This is how the white wicker that we inherited looks in the living room, surprisingly nice, we thought. It was just hard to imagine how slightly ornate, garden-y furniture would look in what the previous owners made a very formal space.  But we're not stuffy people at all, so I think it'll work for us.  Future plans include painting the walls a very light, springy green and adding patterned, brightly colored curtains to frame the big window.  Oh, and of course lots of pillows for the wicker after I recover the cushions.





Then there's our reading nook.  Reminds me of my dorm room in Mauck, right ladies?  And all those books have to go somewhere! (Actually 25 boxes did go somewhere...Matt's office on campus.  Hooray!) 
Mantle--beginnings of decor

And we've made a start at decorating the mantle.  Very creative, I thought. :)  Plans are to recreate my wedding bouquet with red roses and bright lilies and trailing ferns...



We very quickly made the kitchen our own.  Maybe just one set of letter magnets would do?  But if you look closely, between the oven and fridge is my masterpiece of family organization.  Seriously, this is going to be life changing.  A place for wallet, keys, charger for cell phones, files for incoming mail, and a notepad for lists, reminders, etc.  Next is a family calendar and a magnetic dry erase for menu plan/chores.
And here's our wicker table in the dining room.  I rather like it.   We are extremely pleased with our new house and neighborhood.  I'll put up pics of the other rooms soon.  And I think I'll post, as sort of an online chronicle, details on our various home improvement and decorating projects.  More to come! :)