Half Bath Facelift

We know that our free time is about to get a whole lot more precious in terms of what we can and cannot do or have the ability to do come April, so we are trying to check things off our list as best we can now.  One of these things was adding a fresh coat of paint to the main level half bathroom.  It's probably one of the most used bathrooms in the house and we just hadn't done anything with it. 

For the most part it was ok, but the flat beige paint was really starting to wear on us.  That and the brushed brass fixtures, crappy light switches and plugs.  We also figured since it was one of the smallest rooms in the house we would paint, it's the perfect size job for a weekend project. 

After about 3-4 coats of this yellow paint (same as the color in our bedroom), we were looking good!  I have to say, painting in a small space while pregnant can be challenging.  Don't worry, I had the fan on and the door open, but maneuvering around the back side of the toilet was pretty tricky. 

Please enjoy the still frame, 360 tour.  :)

In addition to the paint, we swapped out the vent cover, light switches, towel bar, toilet paper holder, and installed a towel ring and a GFCI plug.  The plug is probably what I am most proud of.  We read the instructions, figured out which were the load wires and which were the line wires and installed correctly on the first try!  As Rob said, "Now our house is slightly less dangerous!"  We didn't have any GFCI plugs anywhere in our house.  It was noted in our home inspection that we should do something about that.  One done, probably 3-4more to go!

The only things we have left to do are the change the sink faucet (had to locate the basin wrench we borrowed and thought we gave back, but found we still had it) and add a couple of pieces of art.  We will eventually replace the lights with brushed nickel to complete the look, but we can't find ones we like that don't cost $60 a piece which I think it too much for lights right now.  These are still functional, although they are dated looking. 

For those keeping track at home, there are now only 5 rooms (3 of which are bathrooms) and our upstairs stairwell and hallway that remain unpainted from when we moved in.  With any luck, 2 of those bathrooms and one of those rooms will be painted very soon! 

Life in Suburbia

I now understand what it really means to "Keep up with the Jones''".  I always understood what the phrase meant, at least as a concept, but never had I felt like I needed to keep up with OR at least be on par with neighbors.  This is mostly because previously they were all nit twit renters who smoked on their balconies or practiced their organ at 7am.  However owning a home seems to flip the switch and suddenly there's so much more to your neighbors than before.  I am going to go out on a limb here and say this is probably because you will live next to one another for many years and you can't help but become aware of their habits and behaviors. 

We definitely take notice of what our neighbors do and it generally does inspire us to make changes or at least not be "that" house.  For instance, our neighbors re-leveled their lawn and put in a new sidewalk to their house.  In comparison our lawn now looks like the neglected mangy mutt on the block.  We thought the lawn was fine when we bought the place, but we have since learned it needs some love and our neighbors, through their lawn care, have shown us that.  Not on purpose, but I would like to think Rob and I are perceptive people and we can tell our lawn is not the star around here.  It's kind of the same way that I felt when I came home one May day and found everyone else's lawns were miraculously mowed and ours was looking forlorn and unattended to.  That night we bought the mower to remedy that problem.

On the flip side we also pay attention to our neighbors behaviors.  Most notable has been who parks where, when they leave for work, how they behave with others, who decorates for the holidays, and when they are gone.  Thanks to being in a town home, most of this is observed through our windows and doors and we pass in and out of our home.  We are especially interested in the behavior regarding the parking habits of one neighbor which seems to offer a lot to talk about.  Probably more than it should except, that's what we do now.  "Did you see where neighbor so and so parked again?  The nerve!"  Or some such phrase comes out.  I could get into why this is so fascinating to us, but I would bore you to tears. 

Tonight we came home to find our recycling bin had "disappeared".  Rob and I are religious recyclers with a full bin out every week.  We have some neighbors that don't bother (how rude!) and others that are on par with us.  Each house was assigned a recycling bin at some point in time.  What people have done with them over time is not my concern.  All I know is we have had one since we got here and we intend to keep it that way.  There was a week sometime over the summer where it was taken, but we were able to snatch it back the next week.  It is my personal feeling if you didn't put one out, you don't get to take one.  If you are missing yours, call the recycling people and get a new one.  Anywho, I went on a rant about who might have theoretically taken ours (again, providing much topic for conversation).  As Rob and I were on our way out for dinner tonight, I saw our recycling bin down on a neighbors lawn.  It wasn't taken into their home and Rob mentioned they didn't set out a bin that morning, just a giant cardboard box.  He went and retrieved it and placed it in our house before we left. Now it will fuel more discussion about these neighbors as they happen to be the same ones with the parking issues.

I think he said it best with, "If you had asked me ten years ago what kind of adventures I expected to having as an adult, 'stealing the recycling bin back from the neighbors' probably would not have made the list."  We have officially been assimilated into life in Suburbia.

Snagging a Great Deal

As many of you know, we are making room for one more in our lives come April and with that means needing a LOT of new stuff we don't currently have.  Thankfully my parents have taken care of the crib, but that's unfortunately one small piece of the pie.  But also thankfully, there are people on Craigslist that have plenty of nice stuff they want to sell for cheap.  :)

Last Friday I happened to be goofing off and doing a "I wonder what's on here today" search and stumbled across a posting for a used BOB Stroller.  Friends of ours bought one for their daughter and love it.  They were demoing it at the reunion over the summer and how fabulous it is.  I have heard great things about them from other sources as well and so I emailed the lady.  She said I was the first one to respond, so I got dibs.  We went to take a look at it and ended up buying it.  They retail for $300-$400 (MSRP on this model is actually $469, but I doubt people pay that) and we snagged it for $65.  It's been used and you can tell with some sun slight sun fading and worn spots where little feet go, but overall it's still in great shape.  I think she thought I was nuts when I said, oh I bet I can put it in the wash, but haha, jokes on her!  I got it in there about 30 minutes after I got it home. 

Leave an engineer alone with a screwdriver and curiosity and you'll find yourself with pieces of whatever used to be assembled.  :)

This was actually remarkably easy to take apart and get all the fabric off of it to wash.  The hardest part was looping the pull cord through the backside of the fabric.  

A few times in the washing machine and BAM!  Looks like new!  The cats have sniffed it a few times, but largely ignored it.  Guess it will sit and wait until this spring, but at least it's one more thing off our prep list. :)

One Last Paint Job

Projects around our house had slowed considerable since our gung-ho rush the first few months we were in the house.  We knew this would happen, so we gave it everything we had while we could sustain it to get as much done as possible.  We did pretty well, but we still had a glaring project that was still looming over us, painting the living room. 

It's not that we didn't want to paint it, we did, its just its easy to get used to status quo and get comfortable with how things just are.  This is especially true when it's neutral and more of less background noise.  With the help of family and some encouragement, we tackled the living room after Thanksgiving.  We actually got a lot done the day after Thanksgiving or right around then with their help.  We were able to get everything moved to paint, insulation in about half of our attic and even a gutter check (which btw, we found out we have guards on ours - hooray!). 

As a reminder, this is what we were working with for a "before" photo or two.

And hey look at that, a nice reminder of the stair lifts we took out as well.  Sometimes I forget all we have really done around here.  Anywho, here's some of the "after" photos:

While these photos may not really show it, the blue makes the room seem infinitely brighter.  You would think beige wouldn't be so dark, but when it's a flat paint, it really just kind of sucks in all the light in and holds it.  We also changed out all the plugs and switches in this room as well.  They don't show in the photos, but as I have mentioned before, changing out painted over pieces of junk with clean white functioning new parts is quite nice and adds so much to the finished look.

With this project complete, the only other immediate paint project is the space behind the kitchen stove that still needs some attention from where the old stove was.  Feels nice to have another project off the list!

Thanksgiving Prep

This year Rob and I were hosting an additional 6 people for our Thanksgiving meal.  Rob's family and a couple we are friends with and actually did Thanksgiving last year with.  The good news was this year, the food was more proportionate to the amount of people we had than last year. 

I took the day off on Wednesday to prepare a bunch of food for everyone and if I am being honest, avoid the traffic around the beltway.  I wanted to make a lot of this meal from scratch this year.  Call me nuts, but it sounded like fun.  I was able to make everything I wanted to without too much trouble.  My biggest challenge was to try to re-create my grandmother's bread.  I received a lesson with my sister last year from my older brother who makes it at Christmas for us, but it had been almost 11 months, it took a bit of recall to remember what I was supposed to do.  A couple of phone calls to my sister and a lot of kneading later produced this:

 

I thought 3 out of 4 loaves wasn't too bad.  It's not perfection, but it was a really good first attempt.  The best news was it all still tasted amazing and that part made me happy.

Of course, I had a great helper that supervised the whole process.  

Overall I was able to make the 4 loaves of bread, an apple pie, a pumpkin pecan caramel cake, home bread for stuffing, then the stuffing, some corn pudding, broccoli cheese casserole, sweet potato pie, mashed potatoes, turkey and even pan gravy.  It was absolutely delicious but probably a bit much work for next year.  I'll let anyone else volunteer to do it all next time. :)

Ryan and Alina Get Married

In September my high school friend Ryan got married to a lovely lady named Alina and they invited Rob and me to partake in their day (along we a lot of other friends and family).  It was a wedding of a few firsts, one being the distance to it.  It wins for closest wedding I have attended and it was nice to just pop up to PA for a day and come back to my own bed at night.  It's also the first wedding I have attended where I knew a lot of people (from pre-Rob days) and got a chance to catch up with some I haven't seen in a long time.

The ceremony was and reception were both really nice.  You could tell the two of them put a lot of thought into it and it reflected them. And they were in the same location so that eliminated the chance to get lost on our way to the party.  Bonus.

They had lots of cake.  All different kinds and they also put donut holes on sticks and dipped them in chocolate.  They were tasty!

The guys, Shawn, Josh, and Adam.  Between them and Ryan, they were the gang I hung around in high school and when I was home from college.  I will never forget the ride back from the Carousel Mall where Shawn was begging me to go to Denny's (or Perkins) I can't remember which.  I said no because I was tired and I was driving.  We had stopped at a red light next to it and Shawn got out of the car and made a run for it.  Needless to say I was too shocked and had to pull in to at least retrieve him, so we stopped and had snacks before returning everyone home.  Lots of fun memories.

I also got a chance to finally meet Sterling, Shawn and Bonita's baby.  I have seen him in lots of photos, so it was nice to him for real.   He's a very well behaved baby.  And cute too. :)

Of course, the night wouldn't have been complete without some awesome dancing.  My husband and Josh and Shawn getting down with their bad selves.

It was a great chance to reunite with a number of people I truly miss.  They are like the extended family you only get to see every now and again with a huge family reunion (or wedding).  I know they will be a part of my life always. :)

New Stove!

*Disclaimer: I know it's been a while so let's all pretend like nothing happened and I just have a lot to share now.  :)

Some of you may recall our kitchen when we bought the place. 

Pretty drab and boring, but also kind of like a blank canvas.  We have since done a lot of work in the kitchen.  We painted the walls (twice) and ceiling and even replaced the lights.  However, we still had our old stove. 

Our old stove was no looker, but more than that, it was terrible to use.  It's really a double oven stove (the big black part up top is the second oven, not a microwave like I first thought) which sounds like it could be a great thing.  I tried to love it, but it burned everything I made in the top oven (aside from tater tots).  Not to mention the door swung out and would burn you if you touched anything other than the itty bitty handle on the bottom.  The stove top was not level and you couldn't really maneuver pots in the back very well because of the second oven.  So with much giddiness I said good bye to the old stove.

 The old sitting next to the new.  What a huge difference.

And finally we have our new stove sitting where the old one used to be.  I don't miss the old one at all.  The wall behind this one definitely needs some paint, but I couldn't very well tell the installers to wait while I busted our brushes and paint. :P  This one cooks way better and made the best cookies I have baked in a long time.  Let's hear it for new working appliances!!