The super big, OMG, house-changing project

I told you I was on it (everyone should thank Betsy for guilting me into finishing this post before the coming of the next millennium). It just took us a while to put all our furniture back in their original places. Anyway, as many of you already know, our super big, OMG, house-changing project consisted of getting new windows for the whole house. This may not seem that exciting but the difference to the house is significant.

First, the amount of light that comes in the house has significantly increased. Now, I thought the house got a lot of light before with all of its big windows but I never realized how much the old screens and windows blocked the light. Now, we get beautiful rays of sunshine pouring into the house in all directions.

Second, the house has become a lot quieter. The old saying "if these walls could talk" did not apply to our house. Because our walls did talk. Or rather, we would talk and anyone within a 30 foot radius of the house could hear us. And we could hear them. The neighbors talking across the street? Yep, we could hear you. The dogs parking across the way? Yep, it was like they were standing in the room with us. The sounds never really bothered us. Both Duff and I sleep like the dead. But now, an eerie calm has descended upon the house. No more cricket chirps and bird songs. Its like we actually live in a house now and not a tent.

Third, we have discovered that our air conditioner actually works. Before we thought that our 25 year old behomoth was just puttering on its last legs. But now we have discovered that it works just fine. In fact, we've actually had a few days where we felt the house was too cold! This never happened before! We were constantly turning the thermostat down to keep from sweating. Now, we keep the thermostat at a reasonable temperature and the air conditioner almost never runs. Its craziness!

Fourth, the new windows make opening windows and airing the house possible. Before, we had 4 windows in the house that we could not open (9 if you count the basement windows) and the rest of the windows we could open (with effort) and sometimes close (sometimes, with a lot of effort and banging and occassionaly tools were involved). Now, they slide up and down with the work of one little finger. They also flip in for easy cleaning (not that that will happen any time soon).

(former un-open-able window)

Fifth, our basement is less scary now. The previous basement windows were gross. There is no other word for them (sorry, I have no before pictures). They had metal frames on them that had rusted severely over the past 50 years. Most had rusted through and had small holes where you could see straight through them (kind of like metal lace). One in particular had broken and was stuffed closed by the previous owner with a plastic bag (note to other homeowners, do not try this as home--plastic bags are not intended to seal windows). The glass was also so old and ill-used that you couldn't really see through it. Which overall gave the basement a dark, haunted feel. Now we have lovely white casement windows that open (*gasp) with the flip of a lever and let in copious amounts of light.

There are about eight or nine other things I could add here to espouse the wonder that is our new windows. But I'm trying not to bore you to death...just maybe to sleep. So I'll leave off for now. But oh, new windows, how we love you.

Suprise Saturday Project

So, Duff and I did a surprise Saturday project today. We didn't really decide that we wanted to do this project until half-way through the week. Although it was last minute, we couldn't be happier with the results. Let's see if you can notice the difference...

Before:
After:

Before:
After:
That's right! We replaced our kitchen floor. I've been wanting to replace it since we first moved in (something about imitation terra cotta tiles just rubbed me the wrong way). But it wasn't until recently, though, that Duff finally came around. And now that he's seen what the new floor looks like, he agrees that we should have changed them much earlier. Plus, the process was super easy and only took us about 5 hours (note to other homeowners: dry ice is the BEST way to remove vinyl tiles. no ifs, ands or buts about it.). Most importantly, though, aren't the new floors pretty?

We had a visitor this morning

Look who came to have breakfast at the O'Current's house...

Sorry about the quality and angle of these pictures, but I was taking them through the windows so as not to scare away the deer.

Running puppy pic, as promised

Surprise, surprise

So Duff and I were wondering through Lowe's yesterday searching for supplies for another project we're starting (I know, I know...I haven't posted pictures yet from our earlier super big, OMG, house-changing project...I'm on it. No worries). We were on our way to the register, when we noticed a large cart belonging to someone else with some beautiful wood chairs and benches on it and a sign saying something like "really cheap, must go, you're a fool not to buy me" (ok, not in those words, but close enough). So Duff and I looked at each other and made meaningful eyebrow raises. "Maybe we should check out the patio furniture" Duff said. I agreed so we meandered over to the patio furniture section, not expecting much since we've looked at Lowe's before and never found anything that we liked. After perusing their front display, we wandered into the back where we found them. The two perfect patio chairs. Only one had a rip in the fabric. But at 75% off, we were willing to take the plunge. "Let's see if they have any in boxes, first," Duff told me. So while I sat in the chairs and staked our claim, Duff went in search of a sales associate. 20 minutes later he found one and they informed us that yes, there were two sets of chairs still boxed. Oh, and what is that sitting hidden on that cart. Matching chairs that swivel? Swivel! So those had to come home too. As did the travertine-topped side tables. All for ridiculously cheap prices. Of course, we had to rent a truck from Lowe's to get all of our boxes home, but even with the $20 rental cost of getting the truck, we still only paid about half the full cost of the original set of chairs. Now, I'm just have to convince Duff that we should go back for the bench... (Update: we went back for the bench tonight and it was already gone. :( )

Add a little puppy to your day

It occurred to me that its been a while since we posted pictures of the puppy. She's grown up to be quite the little lady (or hellion, depending on which minute of the day it is) over the past month. Duff and I were discussing the other day how she has finally developed her "adult" head. Her head no longer looks like that of a puppy. Rather, it now resembles the head of an adult field spaniel. Its a darn pretty head, too. Duff and I were watching the Miss Universe pageant the other day (ok, he will kill me for saying that so I must explain that we only had it on in the background while we were cooking dinner) and I have to say, if Riley had been in the competition, she would easily have beaten out Venezuela. Our baby girl is gorgeous. Well, enough bragging, you can just see that for yourself below...

Riley's new favorite place: Mom and Dad's bed (she thinks she's so special when she gets to go up there)





Riley, playing in the backyard.

Look at that tongue! I swear, her tongue is at least 6 inches long because she can easily lick things that are a half a foot away from her.

She is also quite the jumper. We definitely need to get her into agility when she's older.

What Riley does when she still wants to play but she's too tired to try...

Me, trying to take a picture of Riley in action...yeah, it's not as easy as it looks.

Darn it! I had a great picture of Riley running with her frisbee but Blogger seems to be having technical difficulties. I'll try to remember to post it later.

And one last photo of that adorable face!

Our super big, OMG, house-changing project is almost finished...

And I can't wait to share pictures and tell you all about it!

Who knew?

I have never liked the word sconce. It just sounds so...hoighty-toighty. And I can honestly say that I have never owned a sconce.

Until now.

While Duff and I were short-cutting our way through JcPenneys the other week, we came across a bed and bath sale. Of course, the clearance signs drew my eye. We wandered over and were immediately drawn to a box of black candle sconces, 75% off. After a little debate about whether we really needed sconces, we decided that our overall need for wall decoration warranted the minimal purchase.

Once we got home, I immediately thought of the perfect location for them. I don't know--it just came to me.

So the blank corner wall next to the bed...


is now all hoighty-toighty with a pair of candle sconces.


They actually look a lot better than we even expected. Who knew?

Starting from scratch

When Duff and I bought our house, we knew that the yard was something of a jungle. Over the last year, we've trimmed and pruned in an attempt to keep things under control. But this past weekend, we decided that the numerous flower beds, bushes and trees were just too much maintenance for two young working professionals. So we decided to scale back.

Our main targets were the bushes. Our yard has several large bushes that have probably never been trimmed in their at least twenty years of existence. They have have bases the size of tree trunks. They tower over my head. And they just had to go.

So to reach our goal to simplify and beautify, the bushes were not so peacefully laid to rest.

This was the bush from the front of the house. This picture is from February and the bush grew probably two feet since then. It was so large, it was starting to dwarf the front windows and was beginning to tower over us on our way to and from the cars. After trimming back the branches, we found that this bush is actually three bushes that grew together over the years. Now, they are back to being three normal sized bushes.

They obviously still need to grow in a bit.

Next, we attacked the bushes around the side of the house. This area is the overgrown jungle of the yard. That hasn't changed too much, except now its a much shorter and more contained overgrown jungle. For example:

Here is the side of the house with bushes.

And here is what it looks like now, sans bushes.


We also shortened this flower bed--sorry, Beemie.

And the other side of the house went from over-crowded to nice and airy.

Crowded:


Airy:

So our simplify and beautify plan is now in place. The plan will continue next spring when we begin the new planting and mulching phase.

Our work was also partially inspired by necessity--it was needed in a few places to help with our next super big, OMG, house-changing project. But I can't tell you about that yet...