tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20315158935872816732023-12-15T06:09:02.367-05:00Revive. Restore. Renew.Follow the renovation of a mid-1700's colonial in New EnglandUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger135125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2031515893587281673.post-45389097918251985742013-07-10T17:53:00.000-04:002013-08-04T17:54:31.537-04:00Blue and Yellow Curtains: A Recycling Project<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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When we first moved into our apartment, I made curtains for every room. Our Guest Room/Random Everything Room was painted light yellow (the same color as the Back Bedroom in our current house). My two favorite colors are yellow and blue, and I chose a cute yellow, blue, and white striped material for the curtains. The valance I made out of a solid blue fabric.<br />
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<a href="https://fbcdn-sphotos-h-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/r270/578372_949231675277_1719233042_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://fbcdn-sphotos-h-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/r270/578372_949231675277_1719233042_n.jpg" width="266" /></a>When it came time to make the Back Bedroom into B's Bedroom, I decided to save a little money and re-use the striped curtains. I hate to waste things, and those curtains were only used for the 2 years we lived in that apartment. Since then, they'd been sitting in a box (yes, we still have unpacked boxes).<br />
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I wanted to change things up for the new curtains, so they weren't exactly the same. Plus, in our apartment, the windows were two very large windows side by side, whereas B's Room has two smaller, separate windows. After a lot of Pinterest-ing and drawing on graph paper, I finally decided on a valance with two straight hanging curtains on the sides. Rather than having a solid blue valance, I decided to make the valance and the curtains both out of the striped material, with stripes of the solid blue. I used up every single last piece of the old curtains!<br />
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It took me 3 days to take apart the old curtains, but it was totally worth it! Plus, I didn't have to buy anything new! I even reused curtain rods from another room!<br />
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I love love love how the came out! It makes the room feel so much more homely. And B, of course, loves them!Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2031515893587281673.post-16716975764907307532013-03-24T17:44:00.000-04:002013-08-04T17:44:25.887-04:00The Baby's Room<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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At the beginning of March, we added a new occupant to our home... our son B. Luckily for us, the carpet was installed in his room a mere 3 days before he was born, and his crib and other furniture were put together and set up only 2 days before. Talk about cutting it close!!<br />
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The last week before he was born was a whirlwind of renovating. Here I was, 9 months pregnant, and <strike>tired</strike> exhausted all the time. Add on to that two soon-to-be first time parents who were going crazy trying to make sure everything in the house was perfect and that we had every single thing we needed, and it was a crazy week. I had a list of everything that had to be done before the carpet installers came on Friday. Paint touch up, caulking, cleaning, paint the ceiling, new electrical outlets, etc. As long as I managed to get one thing done during the day, and R got one thing done at night, we would be ok. And what do you know! We made it! Friday came along and everything was perfect and ready for the carpet.<br />
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The carpet went in without any problems and looks great! As soon as the installers were out the door, I was starting to move baby stuff in! The planner in me had been freaking out! The baby could come any day now, so I had all of his clothes and blankets washed and folded in the Guest Room. His changing table was put together. The dresser was painted. All I needed to do was move everything in. That Friday night was so fulfilling! I was waiting until after he was born to do some decorating, but my plan was to sew the curtains the following Tuesday (although, then he decided to change things up on us and I ended up in the hospital on Tuesday, and he was born that night!).<br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2031515893587281673.post-54579036988920983522013-01-02T09:57:00.001-05:002013-01-02T10:20:34.952-05:002012 in ReviewIt has been over 6 months since my last post here and you may be wondering why. We found out earlier this year that we were going to be having a baby in 2013! I spent the first couple months exhausted, and between that and work, there just wasn't much time for house renovations. Once I got a tiny shred of my energy back, things got crazy with family and then the holidays, so sadly, 2012 wasn't a very busy year for us house wise (for everything other than the house though, it was insane!).<br />
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We did manage to get a couple things done though, which I hope to update on here with individual posts soon. We removed the lead paint in the Living Room (and by us, I mean not pregnant me). We got a lot of new furniture/rugs. We made progress on organizing the house slightly. We updated the radiators in the Living Room. We put up some window trim in the Kitchen. We ended up not getting the fence because the quote came in at twice what we had originally been told. We installed undercabinet lighting in the Kitchen (what a difference this makes!) We tore up the rug in the Twilight Room (soon to be baby's room) and the plywood/wood flooring underneath. We got 3 more chickens. We caulked around all the windows (again, what a difference!!).<br />
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We have a couple things planned for January and February that we want to get done before the baby comes in the beginning of March. Hopefully we have enough time to get them done! Our plans for the next two months are to FINALLY put up the crown and base trim in the Kitchen, finish removing the paint in the Living Room (R has to remove the paint from the doors) and then paint the corner cabinet and doors, put up the curtains in the Living Room, refinish the original flooring in the Twilight Room and do some small renovations in there to get it ready for the baby (build a cover for the radiator, install a wall switch, replace the door hardware, buy a rug, make new curtains).<br />
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R is also hoping that 2013 will be the year he finally cleans out and organizes the basement. Right now, it's pretty much useless because there is so much stuff down there (some is ours, but most of it was left behind and we never had a chance to go through it all). 90% of his tools and supplies are still in the "Dining Room" because it's easier to find them there, but it's becoming a pain and it isn't very baby-friendly. He's planning on installing some lights, additional outlets, shelving and hopes to install some walls to close off half of the basement as a workshop. We're also buying a new freezer in the next month or so that will be going down here.<br />
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As for other 2013 goals, something needs to be done about the garage, which is <i>this</i> close to falling down, we need to build an outdoor play area for the chickens, work on the downstairs bathroom (baby will need a bathtub to take baths in!), and hopefully upgrade the back staircase/hallway. We're trying not to get too optimistic about it because we will most likely be super busy and super tired, but it would be nice to at least get some of these projects started!Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2031515893587281673.post-59921419375788681022012-12-29T19:34:00.000-05:002013-01-02T10:35:18.284-05:00A "New" Floor and a Fun Discovery!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Tonight we ripped up the ugly blue wall-to-wall carpeting in the Twilight Room. Yuck. Good riddance! Blue is one of my favorite colors, but this rug had to be one of the most obnoxious things in the world! Especially when combined with the maroon, pink, and black that was on the walls when we bought it. Ick.<br />
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Our original plan for the room was to rip up the blue carpet and have someone come in and install new wall-to-wall carpeting, in a much more neutral color... off-white or a light tan or something. A couple years ago, R peeled up the carpet in the closet and discovered (sadly) that there was plywood underneath. It's a little strange that this is the one room in the house with wall-to-wall carpet, but we've found evidence that part of the room used to be a bathroom, so we assumed that the original floor must have been damaged by water or something.</div>
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Tonight we went through a wide range of emotions. When R started ripping up the carpet, he discovered that underneath 3/4 of the room was 2" wide maple flooring. It is in dire need of refinishing, but hey, it's better than carpeting! It'll look so much nicer than carpeting, in that it will somewhat match the rest of the house.<br />
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This new discovery was exciting for oh, about 5 minutes, until R got to the door and the 2" flooring ended and plywood began. The 2" flooring ran the whole length of the room except for 18" in front of the door. Still trying to be optimistic, we decided we'd just buy new 2" flooring, weave it in there and stain it all to match. Problem solved. Until we kept going and the plywood went all in front of the closet and into the closet and all along the back wall, about 3' into the room. Ugh. There was too much plywood for it to make sense to take it all up and install new 2" flooring. So we're back to let's just leave it and get new wall-to-wall carpeting.<br />
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While R was rolling up the carpet, I realized that the plywood/2" flooring was still about 3/4" taller than the floor in my office. So the plywood was on top of something that was level with the original flooring in the rest of the upstairs. So out came the crowbars. Underneath the plywood was flooring that matched and lined up with the flooring in my office. We got so excited! Who wants 2" flooring when the original wide board flooring is underneath!?! We kept going, tearing up a couple strips of the 2" flooring, to make sure the wide board flooring kept going. It did. That's also when we discovered this:<br />
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Between the 2" flooring and the original flooring are old newspapers from December 1942! So far we've found The New Britain Herald and The Hartford Courant. Some parts of the papers are really fragile and thin, and since we didn't know they were there, they got ripped. We're planning on being really careful in the rest of the room so we can keep it all.<br />
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There was also a hole in the floor, which we're planning on patching using some flooring from the attic. It's about the same size as the patched hole in the Guest Room floor, which we've guessed used to be a vent that brought heat into the Guest Room from the Dining Room after the GR fireplace was removed. Since the Twilight Room doesn't have a fireplace, we're assuming that there was another vent in here to bring heat into the room.<br />
<br />Another weird coincidence.... we were discussing the blue carpeting while R was tearing it up. When we moved in and I vacuumed it, it reacted like a brand new carpet would. I commented that it was like it had never been vacuumed before... like it had just been put in. When we were tearing it up tonight, I told R to be on the lookout for a sticker with an install date on it. My guess was 2008. Turns out I was right. Not only was it 2008, but creepily, it was March 6, 2008. Our baby's due date is March 6, 2013, exactly 5 years later. Creepy :)<br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2031515893587281673.post-70239553250941438442012-11-23T10:05:00.000-05:002013-08-04T16:34:08.362-04:00Emptying out the Twilight RoomThe Twilight Room is soon to be renamed "?'s Room". We decided to keep the Guest Room as a guest room and turn the back bedroom into the baby's room. When I painted the room almost two years ago, I painted it a light yellow. Yellow's my favorite color, but I also figured it would be perfect for this room because it's the smallest of the bedrooms and I intended it to the a future baby's room, and yellow goes with either a boy or a girl. It's a little bit of a stress reliever now to not have to worry about choosing a paint color and painting a whole room! Especially this room which was such a pain in the butt!!<br />
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In the fall I started slowly emptying the room. I hate piles and stuff just thrown places, so I wanted to relocate everything slowly, finding a place for each thing, not just piling it all in another room. I moved Madison's chair, my bookcase full of sewing supplies and some other small things into the Guest Room. I had to rearrange all of the furniture in order to do this, but I actually prefer how the room looks now. It looks so much bigger now that it has all of this extra furniture/stuff in it! All of R's books for work got moved into my office, along with a bookcase, and a neighbor of my parents' gave us this desk, which I put in the Dining Room and filled with all of the office supplies which had taken over the Twilight Room's closet. R's computer got moved into the Guest Room, but it won't be there for long because he's planning on getting a laptop soon.<br />
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It's crazy how much stuff ended up in this room that we hardly ever used!Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2031515893587281673.post-79441781723187622582012-06-13T13:51:00.000-04:002012-06-13T13:51:00.438-04:00A FenceWhen we were house hunting we always said our first house project would be to install a fence for our dog Madison. Here we are, 1 1/2 years after buying the house, and we are <u>finally</u> putting in that fence! The fence delay has really been for many reasons. One, our yard is huge, so fencing it in is very costly. A solution to that would be to not fence in the whole yard, but we both felt like that would be stupid. We want to enjoy our whole yard, not only a small part of it. We've decided to fence in the whole backyard plus half of the woods behind our house. Another reason is that I really really don't like fences! Especially privacy fences. Especially when they go on for long stretches. And our fence will be all of those things. But we need the fence to keep Madison in, so she can run around, which is one of her favorite things to do. We also need the privacy in our backyard. Our house is pushed off to the corner of our property, so we have a huge side yard, which gives absolutely no privacy at all in our backyard. My solution is this fence:<br />
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It's 6' tall, but the top 18" or so is open, with a colonial picket. I feel like this will help break up the huge big white wall going all along our property. I'm planning on doing a lot of landscaping in front (and behind) the fence, so it will essentially be blocked by bushes, trees, and flowers most of the time.</div>
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To cut back on costs, we're planning on installing the white fence on only two sides of our property.. along the front and one side. The back and other side are woods, so you won't even see the fence, and we already have complete privacy, so we're just going to install black chain link fencing.<br />
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We had someone come last week and measure the yard, so hopefully Madison will be enjoying her new fenced in yard soon.<br />
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</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2031515893587281673.post-43412044763262450982012-06-11T11:18:00.000-04:002012-06-11T11:18:00.579-04:00Under-cabinet LightingWe had an electrician come in before we renovated the kitchen, to update some of the wiring and add some additional outlets. We also had him wire for future under-cabinet lighting. For the past year and a half we have had wires hanging down underneath our cabinets because I was having a hard time finding slimline hardwired under-cabinet lighting. Last night I finally found some.<br />
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After all of my searches online and in stores, I finally decided on the UtiliTech Pro LED Direct-wire Under-cabinet Lighting, which I found at Lowe's. We bought a light for each cabinet... two 30", two 12", and a 24". When we got home, we realized that we had used common sense, and assumed that a 30" (or 12" or 24") under-cabinet light would be for a 30" cabinet. But the 30" was the actual dimension of the light, so it was about 2" too wide for the cabinet. We ended up having to use the 24" on the 30", 18" on the 24", etc. The only problem was that they didn't sell a size smaller than 12", but we'll need a 9" one for the cabinets on either side of the stove. We'll deal with that later I guess.<br />
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We had a wicked busy day today, but R installed the light above the dishwasher. It looks awesome. We have been turning it on every time we walk in the kitchen! It's so nice to have the extra light on the countertop!<br />
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We're planning on buying a dimmer switch for the under-cabinet lights. I'm not sure why I didn't have the electrician install one right from the start. I can't wait until our next party.. it'll be so nice to have some nice mood lighting in the kitchen :)Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2031515893587281673.post-72000126676277710532012-03-16T11:07:00.000-04:002012-03-16T11:07:00.090-04:00First Floor Bathroom PlansOur downstairs bathroom qualifies as one of the most unpleasant rooms in the house. I will go upstairs to use the bathroom, even if I am in the living room right next to the downstairs bathroom.<br />
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This room has resulted in a lot of discussion, confusion, ideas, and changes. If you asked me a year ago what we were doing with this bathroom, I would have said we're cutting it in half.. half will be part of the pantry and the other half will be a half bathroom. We'd get rid of the tub and shower (hey, they are ugly and don't work anyways!) because we had plans to expand the bathroom upstairs and add another upstairs bathroom. But all of that will be in the future. A year later, we're now at the point where we're thinking it might be a good idea to not only have a bathtub but also have the option of a second shower.<br />
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It is a known fact that I hate the layout of this bathroom. It is awkward. It's a large room, but everything is squished in one corner, leaving more than half of the room unused. It has a massive closet that is about 1/4 the size of the room. More wasted space.. there are a lot of pipes in here and it's too deep to be of any use.<br />
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Now we're at the point where we just need to do something in this room. R is really set on keeping the tub. He also mentioned maybe keeping everything where it is and just updating the plumbing and light fixtures and repairing the walls. I let that sit for a couple days. Finally, I realized that maybe he had a good point. Someday, I plan on relocating the downstairs bathroom to the other side of the house. Where the garage and mudroom will be. So why spend the time and money now relocating the plumbing in this room? And why spend the time and money putting in new walls? What use will a small room be once I relocate the bathroom?<br />
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The answer came to me while looking at some plans I did for a house we lost before we found this house. It was the same style with a similar layout. In that house, the room where our bathroom is was a bedroom, but when I saw it I immediately said it would be my library. So I got to thinking. By the time we put on the big addition and relocate the bathroom we will hopefully have one or two kids, and that means that at least Ryan's office will be gone. Wouldn't it be nice to have a room off the Living Room where we could have a computer and desk set up plus lots of bookcases? Yes. Yes it would. So if we do that, why make the room smaller now and then expand it in the future. That would require changing the layout of my pantry, which I will hopefully have by then. It just all of a sudden seemed pointless to me.<br />
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So I spent a couple hours and came up with this layout. I love it! Now whenever I walk by the bathroom I stop for a minute and imagine the new plan in my head. Love love love!</div>
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<b>Tub: </b>We'll remove the tile surround, but the actual tub is in good shape. It's just a nasty color. We plan on getting a Bathfitter cover for it. The new tile surround will be white subway tile with a square blue glass tile accent strip. We'll also get a new shower head and faucet. The existing shower head doesn't work (diverter is broken).<br />
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<b>Toilet:</b> New toilet, but in basically the exact same spot as the existing toilet. I think we will need to put in some extra support in the basement. The floor beneath the current toilet is sloping.. perhaps partly due to the weight of the toilet, some holes in the floor for previous plumbing and maybe some water damage.<br />
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<b>Closet:</b> The new closet is still deeper than your average 24" closet (it's about 36" deep), but it is positioned so that the window is centered on that wall and all of the plumbing going to the second floor bathroom will be concealed inside the closet. The inside will be all shelves, for towels and extra supplies.<br />
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<b>Radiator and Window: </b>Don't move at all. We'll just give them a new coat of paint.<br />
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<b>Vanity and Tall Cabinet:</b> I love the look of furniture in the bathroom. Pottery Barn and Restoration Hardware make some vanities that are made to look like a piece of furniture, not just cabinetry. I've seen a lot of pictures of refurbished dressers being used as vanities. This is something I might consider. Otherwise, it will be something we'll build ourselves, with a granite or marble countertop and under-mount sink. The tall cabinet next to the toilet will have the toilet paper holder attached to it, plus lots of open shelving for baskets and other knick-knacks. It will be made by us.. either to match the vanity we built, or built to match a piece of furniture we buy and re-purpose.</div>
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<b>Walls:</b> The walls will be tall (5') beadboard with a shelf on the top. The shelf will only be about 3 or 4" wide, but deep enough to display small things. I love the look of this. It's the one thing that has never changed in my vision for this room. I'm thinking a blueish green for the walls.<br />
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<b>Floor:</b> The existing wood floor will stay. It is currently painted and I don't think we'd be able to remove the paint without destroying the floor, so most likely we will be repainting it, despite my dislike for painted wood floors. A large rug will go in the center of the room.<br />
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By relocating the sink, we are pulling that side of the room together with the tub/toilet area. Now it is just a big empty space, but by having the center of the room be large and empty, it'll help make the room seem smaller.. more to scale with a bathroom.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2031515893587281673.post-615310632752989352012-03-15T10:34:00.003-04:002012-03-15T10:36:13.991-04:00Living Room Cabinet<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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We have two amazing corner cabinets in our house. One in the Living Room and one in the Dining Room. Before R's birthday party in November, I cleaned off the Dining Room cabinet and put some dishes on the shelves, so that I could get rid of some boxes and set up a table in there. It's not finished or acceptable in my terms, but it's better than nothing! At least it got rid of boxes!<br />
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The cabinet in the Living Room has basically been ignored since we moved in though. The paint is peeling really bad on the back (curved back) and I shudder to think about the super big project of removing all of that paint. Ugh. I don't even want to think about it!! The shelves were basically empty, with a couple random things thrown on there from time to time (papers, boxes, etc.). It didn't look nice. When I was removing paint this weekend, I had to clean out the little corner between the end table and corner cabinet. Once I start cleaning something I go crazy. I found two boxes shoved in the corner. One of them was filled with picture frames that I had forgotten we even had! I needed somewhere to put them. I decided to clean off the shelves and put the pictures up. It's not done, but it will at least make the room look lived in a little. I ended up putting some books on the bottom shelf and realized that it helped cover up the horrible looking peeling paint on the curved back. I need to find more books (never thought I'd say that!!) to fill the top shelf as well. It's the only shelf I don't like how it came out.<br />
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Nothing fancy, just better than what was there. And it really helps make the room feel more lived in and less of a 3/4 finished room. We're slowly getting there.. As soon as I finish removing the paint from the windows and paint them we're getting a rug and possibly some new couches. And curtains. And hanging stuff on the wall.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2031515893587281673.post-8548900385487530112012-03-14T10:11:00.000-04:002012-03-15T10:36:31.681-04:00Goodbye Paint!Our Living Room is still 3/4 done. There's just that little 25% of the room left keeping me from officially finishing the room. That 25% is the reason there's nothing on the shelves. No rug. No curtains. Nothing on the walls.<br />
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Well, I've had enough. I want a rug. I want curtains. I want a pretty Living Room that I'm not embarrassed by.<br />
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First things first, lead paint needs to be removed. I went to Home Depot to buy another gallon of Peel-Away, only to be told that they don't sell it anymore. Thought I was going to break down and cry in the middle of Home Depot. Some quick research on my phone brought me to a Sherwin Williams store. They had my Peel-Away. For twice as much as I had paid at Home Depot. Ouch. But, I needed it. I swore to myself that I'd be more careful and not waste any this time.<br />
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As I'm reading the directions, I see that "1 gallon is enough to remove the paint on approximately one side of one average sized door". Uh.. I have three windows, three doors and one large corner cabinet. This is going to get expensive. And fast! But. It's cheaper than $32,000 to have a contractor do it.<br />
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It appears that Peel-Away has improved a bit in the last year and half since I bought my first gallon. The cover is child/tamper proof and literally took me a half hour to open. You need 4 hands to open it. No easy task when you're home alone. After rigging something with string, tape and a nail, I got the cover off. I remembered from the never-ending project that is the Living Room fireplace, that the more PA you put on, the easier the paint comes off (it's a trade off.. you're using more PA, so you're going through the gallon faster, but it removes better...), so I glopped on the stuff and put the paper on. I had also grabbed a roll of duct tape, so I taped the edges to the wall so that it wouldn't slide down (a HUGE issue I had with the fireplace... no matter how thick or thin I spread it... no matter the temperature in the house... no matter if I let it sit a couple minutes before putting the paper on, it always slid!). I also went around with a pin and popped any air bubbles I saw, about a half hour after applying the paper.<br />
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The duct tape worked. When I came back the next day, it worked amazingly! When I did the fireplace, I had a lot of areas where the paint just didn't come off, due to me not putting the paper flat enough, air bubbles or sliding. I've been able to correct this on the windows and had no issues. It came off clean and beautiful! I wasn't able to get all the paint in the crevice on the edge of the trim, but who cares. It came off enough that when I paint over it, you'll never notice.<br />
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On the second window, I put up the PA, but then was too busy with work the next day and couldn't remove it. I prayed that it wouldn't ruin the windows and I wouldn't need to re-apply and waste more PA. So, 48 hours after application, I removed one side of the casing. It came off pretty well. However, it still took about 45 minutes, and was only half of the side. The other side of the window I had put the PA on the whole side and I had tons of work that needed to get done. I once again prayed that it wouldn't be ruined and put it off until the next day.</div>
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So now we're 72 hours post-application. Oh my God. I need to wait this long always! I removed and cleaned the whole side of the window in about a half hour. Less than half the time it should have taken me. And it came off perfectly! That section of casing is the best looking out of all my PA projects so far!<br />
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I thought it was interesting because in the pamphlet that came with the PA it said to leave it on for 12-24 hours.. basically don't leave it on for more than 48. With the fireplace I found that if I left it on for about 20 hours, it worked the best (though comparing the fireplace to the windows, I did a horrible job on the fireplace!!). With window #1, I left it for about 24 hours. The section left for 72 hours wasn't messy coming down (my one concern is that because it wasn't messy, the chemicals(? whatever changes the toxicity of the lead paint) weren't working anymore and it had reverted back to it's bad self) and quicker to clean up.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2031515893587281673.post-69075602331797549602012-01-16T11:00:00.000-05:002012-01-16T11:00:51.591-05:00Not So Scary Anymore..This is actually a project I finished over the summer, but I finally just took pictures of it this week. Between work, other projects and a LOT of cloudy days, I had an excuse every day for months.<br />
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You'll remember from earlier posts that this is the room we've dubbed <a href="http://revive-restore-renew.blogspot.com/search/label/Back%20Bedroom">The Twilight Room</a>. When we first viewed the house it was completely empty, except for two Twilight posters. And the walls were a beautiful striped montage of black, magenta, and purple, with a lovely bright blue carpet. Just delightful.<br />
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R claimed this room as his soon after we moved in. He took the desk that the previous owner had left and that's where he had his computer. He doesn't use it much.. maybe once or twice a week. The room wasn't really a priority. We have the guest beds set up in the Guest Bedroom, and R didn't really care about the scary walls (which by this point were primed, but you could still see the stripes peeking through).<br />
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However, this spring, I was attempting to organize all of the remaining boxes upstairs and realized that I could empty the majority of them if only I had somewhere to put my excess office supplies. I had boxes and boxes full of art and craft supplies, pens and pencils, notebooks.. etc. Plus a bunch of random stuff like our winter coats (downstairs coat closet isn't very high on our to-do list), all of my gift wrap, and what I call my memory boxes (basically plastic boxes filled with mementos). As I was sitting on the floor amid all of this stuff, I realized that I had a huge closet in the Twilight Room, sitting there basically empty.<br />
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In April and May I got to work on the closet.. not as easy as you'd think, seeing as it was covered in hand prints.<br />
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Once that was done, I started filling it up. That didn't take long. But I managed to unpack almost every box left in the Guest Room! Plus all of the boxes that I had accumulated in the Twilight Room.<br />
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The walls weren't that bad. Two coats of the light yellow paint, over two coats of Kilz covered all of the stripes. There are still a couple spots where you can see a little raised line (whoever painted the stripes taped off the lines and there are some spots where there's a raised line of paint along where the tape was), but only if you look really really close. The trim and windows were a pain because the paint was so dark and I was painting it white. I'm still not 100% done with the doors... they're taking an obnoxious amount of paint!!<br />
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Over the summer I moved in some furniture I had in the Guest Room. We got R's childhood bed and I had to rearrange the Guest Room, and all of the furniture didn't fit any more. I moved in his old bookcase and Madison's papasan chair. We also have an old filing cabinet in here that was left in the house. It's broken and not very eye-pleasing, but it's too heavy for me to move out of the room, let alone down the stairs, so it's staying in here until it bothers R enough to move it (it'll be here for awhile).<br />
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In the fall I bought some Ikea curtains for the room. The next time R went to use his computer, he was like "What is all of this? What happened to my office? There are flowery curtains and stuffed animals in here!" It had definitely gone from being his room to mine.. My craft supplies take up one whole wall, there are stuffed animals on the shelves there and on the puppy's papasan chair.. there are flowers on the walls and curtains and there are pink stripped tie-backs on the curtains. His wall does have a nice panoramic view of Fenway (I said, if this was my room I definitely wouldn't have hung THAT up!) and all of his books and CDs and This Old House magazines, etc. by his computer still :)<br />
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The room still isn't completely finished (what is in this house?). I haven't painted the ceiling yet and we're planning on getting a new carpet soon. I plan on painting the ceiling and touching up the base trim when we get the new carpet. I also need to finish the doors and install the re-painted hardware.<br />
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**Picture disclaimer** I broke our camera. Our good, fancy camera. So these pictures are blurry and not the best (after waiting so long to take them you'd think they'd at least be good!). Sorry.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Madison's corner of the room. It's her favorite spot to sleep.</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">All that's left of R's space in the room</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bought these frames and pictures at Ikea for a total of $3. I spray painted the frames black to match everything else in the room.</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Curtains from Ikea with ribbon tie-backs. I spray painted the existing curtain rods black.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2031515893587281673.post-70143106969343541362012-01-06T09:21:00.001-05:002012-01-16T11:04:39.390-05:00Our 2011 Goals... How'd We Do??First off, here's the list. Most of the finished tasks link to my progress posts.<br />
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*Finish the Kitchen <span style="color: #cc0000;">I'd say it's 90% done.. we're almost there!</span><br />
*Landscaping the front yard <span style="color: #cc0000;">Instead of doing this, I did a little landscaping in the backyard (my sidewalk)</span><br />
*Cleaning up the front entrance/porch<br />
<strike>*Get the rest of our boxes from our parents' houses</strike><br />
<strike><a href="http://revive-restore-renew.blogspot.com/search/label/chicks">*Buy chickens and build a coop</a></strike><br />
*Fence in the backyard <span style="color: #cc0000;">This is going to be our #1 large project of 2012.. as soon as the ground thaws</span><br />
*Install new exterior light fixtures by back door <span style="color: #cc0000;">They're purchased. That's something, right?</span><br />
*Install new motion detecting flood light <span style="color: #cc0000;">Same here.</span><br />
*Renovate downstairs bathroom <span style="color: #cc0000;">Our plans have changed here. We're now leaning toward just replacing the fixtures and leaving the layout the same. For now.</span><br />
*Re-work/re-build the back staircase <span style="color: #cc0000;">The back stairs/lean-to are a project we may tackle this summer.. it's a big one because we're going to be completely re-building the lean-to and putting in a foundation, so it may get put off for another year...</span><br />
*Finish off closet under back staircase<br />
<strike>*Figure out what to do with my pantry</strike><br />
*Install shelving in Living Room closet <span style="color: #cc0000;">It's painted, just not installed. The walls need a lot of repair.</span><br />
<strike><a href="http://revive-restore-renew.blogspot.com/2011/09/another-goal-checked-off.html">*Figure out lighting solution for Living Room</a></strike><br />
*Strip paint in Living Room <span style="color: #cc0000;">Ended up being a lot more time consuming than I had originally thought (and expensive). I'm working on it though!</span><br />
*Re-do front Hall<br />
*Install chandelier in Dining Room<br />
*Get a Dining Room table <span style="color: #cc0000;">We have a folding table with a table cloth on it in there for now. Better than nothing, right?</span><br />
*Organize tools in basement <span style="color: #cc0000;">They're actually in the basement now, which is Step 1 :)</span><br />
<strike>*Buy bookcases/etc for office</strike><br />
<strike><a href="http://revive-restore-renew.blogspot.com/2011/03/fabric-bulletin-board.html">*Make new bulletin boards for office</a></strike><br />
<strike><a href="http://revive-restore-renew.blogspot.com/search/label/Guest%20Room">*Second coat of paint in Guest Room</a></strike><br />
<strike><a href="http://revive-restore-renew.blogspot.com/2012/01/not-so-scary-anymore.html">*Paint Twilight Room</a></strike><br />
*Re-do upstairs back Hall<br />
*Lighting solution for upstairs Bathroom and Laundry<br />
<strike><a href="http://revive-restore-renew.blogspot.com/search/label/Laundry%20Room">*Clean out Laundry cabinet</a></strike><br />
<strike><a href="http://revive-restore-renew.blogspot.com/search/label/Laundry%20Room">*Install permanent dryer vent</a></strike><br />
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Now here's my disclaimer. I never really made it apparent on here, but 2011 was filled with a lot of job changes for me. So there was a lot we had planned to do that we weren't able to do (especially the larger projects), because we were figuring out other things. Things are pretty settled for now, so here's hoping to a very productive 2012!<br />
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I've also realized there were a lot of things that we didn't include on the list.. like a garden and a dishwasher (though I guess I included in the Kitchen task). I still feel like we got a lot done this year. Just having almost the entire second floor be finished feels good. And have I mentioned that there's a floor in the Kitchen???? :) And of course we also had the unexpected projects.. painting/cleaning the other bedroom closet, the need to do some electrical work in both the back Hall and Kitchen, plus the expensive new chimney cap that we desperately needed!Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2031515893587281673.post-8490778353025238712012-01-06T08:44:00.001-05:002012-01-06T08:50:57.386-05:00Our Second Christmas in the House<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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This Christmas was a little different than last year. I decorated more, for one thing. We had more finished (or semi-finished) rooms. It was also nice to be able to do a lot of baking in the kitchen. Having a kitchen table again definitely helped! I think I made over 25 dozen cookies (some of which I brought around to our neighbors).<br />
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And this isn't even all of them! I think I made about twice as many as shown in this picture!<br />
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We (and by we I mean me) decided to change things up this year and put the tree in front of the front windows. I love being able to see the tree from the street (which you couldn't really do.. oh well.. you could see it a little!). I've also been wanting to try out a different furniture layout in the room. We moved the loveseat to in front of the fireplace. I like it. R doesn't. I think it makes the room feel larger. The only downside (according to me) is that the coffee table is a little awkward because of the tree.. it can't be centered on the couch, so it's just kinda hanging out in the middle of the room.<br />
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I especially loved being able to decorate in the kitchen. Last year at an after-Christmas sale we got these two artificial trees for $2 each. The garland was about $1.<br />
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I think this was one of my favorite things in the house this Christmas. I could never seem to get a really good picture of it though.. It looked awesome when all of the rest of the lights in the room were turned off though!<br />
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This year at an after-Christmas sale we bough some night pewter and white candles to put in the windows (for $1 each!). We're considering keeping them up all year long. There's another center chimney house across town that does this and I've loved it ever since I was little.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2031515893587281673.post-47521909072802858832011-12-12T09:56:00.001-05:002011-12-12T09:56:17.754-05:00Party DeadlineIt has now been exactly one month since the big party.. which means that I haven't blogged in over a month.<br />
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In case you're wondering, we did meet our party deadline. Well, kinda. We didn't finish everything on the schedule, but that was partly because we lost a week and a weekend due to the power outage. But I was still pretty pleased with the progress we made.<br />
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The last progress post I made was on day 1 of the floor installation. Since then....<br />
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We finished the floor.<br />
We painted the walls.<br />
We painted the ceiling.<br />
We installed the dishwasher.<br />
We installed the lights.<br />
We installed the door trim.<br />
We installed some window trim.<br />
We had a successful party.<br />
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I'll do posts for all of the work we did, but first... let's talk about the party.<br />
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It was the first time some of R's family had seen the house... and the first time some of my family had seen it in almost a year. So everyone got a tour :) Then everyone got to meet the chickens.<br />
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Then we ate. We had chicken parm (R's favorite dinner), ziti, spaghetti, garlic bread, and salad (plus a million appetizers!). For dessert, I made this cake for Ryan and these cookies.. so so good!! (Remember that the party was <i>suppose</i> to be in October.. hence the pumpkin/Halloween theme!)<br />
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By the end of the night, we were all exhausted... especially the dogs :)<br />
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He got quite a bit done Saturday.. but wasn't able to finish. Sunday, however, was a different story. He had finally gotten the hang of it.. and it was going down incredibly quick!<br />
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He first had to go to Lowe's to buy some more plywood. While he was gone, I put a second coat of paint on the walls (I'd prefer to paint when there's just plywood on the floor) and painted the ceiling. The ceiling looks so much better.. you can't even tell where the old upper cabinets used to be (we also used some spray "popcorn" to cover up that area).<br />
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This is how much he had done by dinnertime on Saturday...<br />
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Barely half of the kitchen.. and about half of that was from the previous Saturday. By dinnertime on Sunday, he was done! We still have to do the little hallway that goes to the Living Room and Bathroom, but we haven't decided what we're doing with the walls in there (lead paint that would take FOREVER to take down.. we might just replace the walls with drywall...). But we'll worry about that after the party.<br />
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Also on Saturday, he unpacked the dishwasher. It's not hooked up (again.. that'll have to wait until after the party. Sadly), but it's in place. Madison enjoyed playing in the dishwasher box for awhile. So much so that we're keeping it for her..<br />
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Because the last couple rows were pretty tight (with the wall/hutch there), I got to do them! It was a lot of fun.. and not that hard (especially seeing as everyone told us it would be impossible..torture..worse thing ever to install the floor).<br />
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And look how pretty it is!!<br />
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When we drove up to my parent's house this morning she was excited, but not near as excited as usual (I guess the fun is starting to wear off). Despite the heat and electricity, I still plopped myself down in the living room on the floor. Only this time I had my laptop and cell phone charging next to me.<br />
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Before we both left this morning, we cleaned our refrigerator and freezer. It was killing me, the quintessential Yankee, to throw away all of that "good" food. Ugh. And of course R had stopped at the store on Friday night to get a couple things we'd been out of all week.. orange juice, butter, milk. All of which I had to throw away, completely unused.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Freezer before (please excuse my messy freezer that needed to be cleaned out <u>before</u> the storm!)</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Freezer after (with the ice cream for the party)</td></tr>
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I didn't do a refrigerator "before" picture... but here it is after. By the way... what do you think about condiments? We had 5 days without power... some websites say they're ok, some say to throw them away... I threw away all creamy dressings and marinades, but kept stuff like ketchup, bbq sauce, steak sauce, etc.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Fridge after (basically everything not on the door is all new, for the party)</td></tr>
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Again, trying to be optimistic, my fridge and freezer really did need to be cleaned out. I hadn't cleaned it out since we moved in, so the last time it was cleaned/purged was a year ago. It was due. I just wish we didn't have to throw away so much good food. I also wish all the ice pops on the freezer door didn't melt and create a sticky mess all over everything...<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This was empty before I cleaned out the fridge. I filled it up with all of the plastic/glass bottles full of stuff I had to throw away!</td></tr>
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Around 6:00, I was on facebook, waiting for R to get to my parent's house, when I saw that one of our neighbors posted that our village was back in the 21st century! The entire village had been out for 5 days.. even stoplights (and let me tell you... that was a disaster! If a stoplight isn't working, the intersection becomes a four way stop people. You can not just speed through the intersection going 90!) I called our house, and the phone rang, meaning that she was right! R stopped by on his way home and took this picture, to "prove" it.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My poor cornstalk just did not make it :(</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-se0Xej2YY1g/TrfpZVNOPPI/AAAAAAAAA3c/Z4jWvt2AB34/s1600/IMG_4670.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-se0Xej2YY1g/TrfpZVNOPPI/AAAAAAAAA3c/Z4jWvt2AB34/s400/IMG_4670.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bad picture quality because I was driving, but you can kinda see a tree snapped over, leaning over the road and power lines.</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">So crazy... this street was one of the last to get power in our area..</td></tr>
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Woke up Monday morning still without power (Happy Halloween!). I'm still having fun. I've always loved losing power. Reading by candlelight. Walking around the house with flashlights. It's all fun to me.<br />
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R went to work today (the town he works in is along the shoreline and they only had 1% (so basically like 1 household) without power). I decided I didn't want to stay in the cold house all day by myself, so I drove me and Madison over to my parent's house. My mom and sister were home and we all camped out on the living room floor in front of the fireplace (which had only been lit once before... in 1979). It was fun! Madison loved it! Everyone laying on the floor with tons of blankets and puppy toys? It was her dream come true! And she even got to wear her Halloween costume (she was a bumble bee) all day! My dad came home about an hour later. His work had no power too.. so he had gone over there to talk to any employees who came in. My dad is worse than R when it comes to not having power. He was just walking around aimlessly... not knowing what to do.<br />
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My parents prepared a little better than we did. They got out the big beach coolers and filled them with ice on Saturday night right after they lost power. All perishables (that they could fit) went into the cooler. They were able to save mayonnaise, drinks, meat, eggs, etc. by doing this (our food wasn't so lucky..). My mom made tuna sandwiches and soup (boiled the water on the grill) for lunch. Mmmm...<br />
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My dad and I ventured out in the afternoon to pick up some things from the grocery store (ok, mainly I wanted hot chocolate...). We also tried to get gas... that was just a joke. Most gas stations were closed.. the two we found that were open, one didn't have gas and the other had lines to get in that were over a mile long. The cars at the end were turned off and just parked there they had been waiting for so long!<br />
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All afternoon I read and played with Madison and worked on a Christmas craft I'm making. R came after work for dinner. My dad made kielbasa and baked beans on the grill and my mom made some baked potatoes in the fireplace (soooooo good! a million times better than grill potatoes!). They only got 1 trick-or-treat group. My dad and R were out in the driveway cooking on the grill and the group (and their dad) walked right up to them (the house is up on a hill, on a long driveway) and wanted candy. My dad was like "uhh... Happy Halloween... Want some kielbasa?" (this is apparently Polish Halloween this year). My mom reluctantly gave up some candy (she's a first grade teacher and was mad that kids were out in the unsafe conditions... plus we had kinda been eating the candy all day).<br />
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Around 9:30 R and I left and came back home. Still no power... but we spent weeks last fall without heat, so sleeping here wasn't a problem. Also, it turned out that my parents still had hot water (gas fired, not electric), so we were able to take showers before coming home.. which was nice!<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Tree in parking lot at work.. all of the trees in front of our building were like this. They were cut down by the end of the day :(</td></tr>
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Tuesday I dropped Madison off at my parent's house (and picked up my car, which R insisted I leave there... he didn't want me driving home in the dark) and I went into work. I work from home normally and this was the first time I actually worked in the office. It was weird :) My boss was wicked nice and even said I could bring in Madison and take a shower there. For lunch, the receptionist and I got Chinese food (the only place open in town!).. and it was so nice to be warm all day! And have internet!! After work, I drove home and waited for R to get out of work. Then, back to my parent's house. Tonight we had pizza.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Branches down in my parent's front yard.</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Two houses down from my parents... trees snapped and broke their fence and went into their pool.</td></tr>
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Wednesday was pretty much the same as Monday, without Halloween. R and I stopped at Dunkin Donuts on our way to my parents and got everyone coffee and munchkins! I finished a whole book today, and broke my head (ok, not literally... but Madison and I were playing pretty rough and I smacked my head on a coffee table... I have a huge bump. I'm such a klutz). In the afternoon my mom made baked apples in the fireplace.... sooo much better than ones in the oven!!! Around 5:30 my dad came in from outside (he'd been cleaning up branches and stuff outside all day) and "fixed" the fire in the fireplace (my mom just wasn't able to keep it going today for some reason!). While he was doing that, power came back on!! For dinner my mom made basically everything in the freezer that was about to be no good anymore. We had chicken, hamburgers, kielbasa, two kinds of french fries and three kinds of vegetables. It was crazy. Still no power at our house though..<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mmmm... munchkins and hot cider</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">She loves to snuggle!</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">She also kinda really likes fireplaces... Too bad we don't have one. Oh wait..</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Best baked apple ever!</td></tr>
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See all that black? That means that 90-100% of the town doesn't have power. Guess where we live. Yuuup.</div>
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Here in New England we had a major nor-easter. In October. It was crazy. R and I enjoyed it at first. Saturday was a gorgeous day filled with snow (we love snow in this house!). R cut the grass early in the morning (in anticipation for the snow) and I painted the kitchen. Then we set up the miter saw and started installing the floor. By the end of the day we had 10+ inches of snow on the ground and a new floor in 1/4 of our kitchen. We realized that we weren't able to use our stove though (can't walk on the new floor for 12-24 hours while the glue dries), so we went to a local pizza place and got pasta take-out and sat on the couch with our warm food and watched American Horror Story. A fun night.</div>
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1:30 in the morning we were woken up by the volunteer fire department's siren going off. We had just lost power (siren goes off when we lose power). Ok. This is fun. No power. We went back to sleep. Woke up around 7:30. Still no power. Ok... now my eye is starting to twitch. We were suppose to have a long day of working on the floor! We had to finish the floor today!! I decided to look at it positively however. I grabbed It by Stephen King (my book club's October book) and took advantage of my hidden blessing.. I now had time to finish reading it in time for our Halloween discussion on Monday. R said he was going out to fix our SUV's heat, which he had noticed the night before wasn't as warm as it should be. I said ok, bye, without looking up from It.</div>
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2 1/2 hours later, he comes walking back into the house complaining about lines at Dunkin Donuts. Apparently he wasn't fixing the car... he had driven around for 2 1/2 hours looking for an open Dunkin Donuts (a man and his morning coffee... <i>sigh</i>). The closest DD to us was open, but had a mile long line. The other DD down the street had no power. He drove to my hometown (town of 17ish DD). One was closed. One was open. One had a long line. One had no coffee. You get the picture. He drove by my parents house to see if they had power. They didn't.. and there was a HUGE tree down blocking the road that had fallen from one of our neighbor's yards. He gave up and came home. Without his coffee.</div>
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Now, I'm a person who can adjust to no power with no problem. R can't. All of his "fun" consists of TV, computer, power tools.. and it was all taken away. He wandered around for a little bit. He ended up taking a nap upstairs without dog. Meanwhile, I'm plowing through It! This is awesome!! Then it's time for the Patriots game. And we still don't have power... He found an old battery powered radio the previous owner left, hooked up his ear buds and sat on the couch listening to it. While I read (almost done now!). Then it started getting dark. I pulled out some candles from the candle cabinet. It was pretty in here.. and smelled pretty good too! </div>
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Then it was time for dinner. R grabbed some meat out of the freezer (might as well use it while it's still good!) and some potatoes and threw them all on the grill. If you've never had potatoes on the grill, do it. They were so good! Well, except for the bacon bits he threw in there that just got completely charred... other than that... a little olive oil and Sicilian salt... mmm so good!! We ate in the almost dark... with Madison sitting on the end of the couch staring at us trying to figure out what was going on. About an hour later (football game was over by now), R was ready for bed. I said I wanted to finish my book first. Finally, I couldn't take it anymore, so I said fine. We'll go to bed. Then I looked at my phone. It was 8:31. Sigh. Is this what time people in the 1700's went to bed? I felt silly going to bed so early! Then I decided to be stupid. I read the last 50 or so pages of It in bed. In the dark. With a flashlight. Needless to say, I kept seeing and hearing things all night...</div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="text-align: -webkit-auto;">Luckily, we didn't have too much damage in our yard (we had more damage in the hurricane, when we didn't lose power). Our next door neighbor had some really large tree branches fall in her front yard, but luckily none hit her house!</span></div>
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AHHHHHHH... I don't know if we're going to make it!! And on top of all of that, during the week I have to not only get my work-work done, but I need to finish painting the walls and ceiling, paint the trim and beadboard, unpack, bake and cook for the party, and finish everything else on my "party to-do" list (cleaning for our overnight guests, vacuuming, clean up the old plywood from the backyard, etc.). Because have I mentioned that my house is basically just a big disaster area??? I know that as soon as the floor is done and I can move some stuff into the kitchen it'll be a little bit better... but... AHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!<br />
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We really need to get our butts in gear. We're already planning on going to bed really early tonight so we can wake up really early tomorrow morning and get working immediately! It's going to be a long long day! If we can get the floor done and the dishwasher hooked up by Sunday night, I'll be happy. That will leave all of the trim to the following weekend... which shouldn't be too too bad... the windows will probably take the longest, but I've already primed everything, so that's a start!<br />
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Then this upcoming week I can tackle a lot of the cleaning and stuff, and the following week (right before the party), I'll finish up painting all of the new trim.<br />
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We can do it... we can do it... I just need to keep repeating that to myself!!Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2031515893587281673.post-70740733808056086222011-10-27T15:52:00.000-04:002011-10-28T08:55:14.272-04:00Hey! What's That?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2031515893587281673.post-2305182560273808322011-10-26T13:47:00.000-04:002011-10-26T15:29:58.418-04:00Other Weekend Progress...There were some times where I couldn't help R with the plywood this past weekend, so I found other ways to be useful. I worked on the sidewalk a little...<br />
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There's that rock that got in my way... It's kinda hard to see because of all the sand and leaves, but I think I worked it in pretty well..<br />
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Once I literally hit an impasse (asphalt with electrical wires underneath... a job for R), I moved back indoors and tackled the downstairs bathroom.<br />
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The downstairs bathroom is something on my "Things to Get Done Before Party" list. In the past year, this room has become our dumping zone (when we run out of room in the Dining Room.. seriously.. it's bad). We rarely use it, so who cares that it's so full of crap that you can't walk in there! But we have some people coming to the party would would rather not walk all the way upstairs to use the bathroom, so it needed to be done. I spent a couple hours organizing everything in the room into piles, then realized that I had piled myself into the room and couldn't get out, so I had to re-pile everything. Most of the stuff went in the basement, a ton went in the garbage and some got packed up in a box to go in the attic. Now all that's left is the window casing for the kitchen and a couple boxes that will be unpacked when we finish the kitchen. Yay! R's comment was "What? There's a floor in there?" I mean seriously... our Christmas tree stand was in there. And still had some dead needles and branches in it. So embarrassing!!<br />
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This weekend we got all of the new plywood down in the kitchen! It went down pretty well. We started by the cabinets and moved toward the built-in cabinet. We started with full pieces and then cut smaller pieces where needed. Most of the time R would cut the pieces while I was screwing in the previous piece. On some of the larger pieces we had races though, to see who would finish their piece first (gotta make it fun!) (PS I won).<br />
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So you know what this means. Next weekend we're going to start putting down the new floor! I am so so excited!! Monday night R printed off the instructions and read through them, preparing himself. I think I'm going to cry tears of happiness when it's all done!<br />
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This is also means that I need to get my butt in gear and get the room painted before Saturday though. I need at least one coat on the ceiling and two on the walls. I'm not a super messy painter, but I've been known to get a drop or two on the floor and I just can't "ruin" my new floor so soon after we install it, so it needs to get done before the floor goes down! Especially the ceiling...<br />
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Once there's paint on the walls and a real floor, it'll finally seem like we're almost there. And we are almost there. The party deadline is coming up very quickly... Only this weekend and one more! That's two weekends! We definitely aren't going to be 100% finished, but I think as long as we have the floor done, the dishwasher installed, the walls/ceiling painted, the light fixtures installed, the window and door casing up, base trim and beadboard trim up, we'll be good for the party. The fridge cabinet and crown molding (and fireplace trim) can wait until after the party.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2031515893587281673.post-4241459564778123192011-10-22T22:32:00.000-04:002011-10-24T09:33:03.752-04:00Proud Owners of a New Dishwasher!R called Sears Corporate last week to discuss the issues we had trying to buy our dishwasher. The woman he spoke with was appalled at everything that happened. She said she would contact the manager of the store, who would put us in touch with his best salesperson. The next day we had a call from Al.<br />
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We went in tonight to see Al. As we turned the corner to the appliances section, there's our dear friend Laurie, plus 2 other salesmen. One of them is slightly apart from the other two, and I see that luckily, this is Al. I mention that he called us and we were here to buy our dishwasher. We walked toward the computers. Suddenly, guess who comes running around the corner toward us (but on the other side of the register) and stands right across from us, and starts telling another salesman that we were "those" people. So professional Laurie. So professional.<br />
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Luckily for us, Al was really nice. We walked over to double check that we had the correct dishwasher model number.. then back to the register, where we were happy to see that Laurie had left. Al entered in the model number, our $25 discount from Steve, plus another 5% discount. He then told me that Sears offered free shipping for any appliance over $499 (gee thanks Laurie). We could have it delivered on Monday. Umm.. yes please! He then asked for our phone number, and all of our correct information showed up. When he asked for an email address, I gladly gave it to him. Then it was rewards card time. He knew how to use it (scan it), and even better, asked me if I wanted to use my points. I said that I wasn't exactly sure what the card was, so he explained that you get points every time you use it, and those points translate into money off. So we were able to get an additional $7.86 off our order. May not seem like much, but I was definitely a lot happier than last time!<br />
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In the end, we brought the $799.99 dishwasher down to $546.24. Discount of $253.75. Not bad... not bad. Plus, did I mention the free shipping?? We also bought the installation kit (Al knew exactly what was in it... so we bought it). He also rang it up separately and we got another $5.39 by using our points from the dishwasher!<br />
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When we were all done, he apologized for our bad experience (and Steve came over and apologized too) and asked me who we dealt with last time. I whispered "Laurie" and he was like "ohh.... yea... sorry about that". Like it wasn't the first time he'd heard that.. Ugh.<br />
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We got in the car 15 minutes after we got out of the car. NICE!Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2031515893587281673.post-19233706288013420662011-10-16T22:41:00.000-04:002011-10-24T09:03:13.757-04:00Goodbye Old Floor<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Today was a little bit of a mis-match of work, at least for me. R was in the kitchen removing the last pieces of old plywood while I sanded the walls (still! It's never-ending!). However, I didn't last very long. I have asthma and the dust from sanding from the dust being kicked up from the plywood and the saw R was using were starting to really bother me. I went outside to get some fresh air and ended up working on my sidewalk some more.<br />
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Yes. I'm still not done. I had a good rhythm going when I first started, but then the kitchen schedule took over and I wasn't able to dedicate an entire weekend to the sidewalk anymore. My dad came a couple weeks ago to help me dig out the area between the lean-to and garage, but then it rained one weekend, then it was a rare humid October day... you get the picture.<br />
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This afternoon I was able to get around the corner and past the rock that was giving us a problem (this whole area was filled with buried rocks and buried broken dishes and cups... however, this rock, it turned out, was supporting some of the random rocks that are helping to hold up our lean-to. We're planning on tearing down the lean-to, putting in an actual foundation and rebuilding it next summer). At first I was thinking I'd just go around it for now and next year when we took apart the lean-to, I'd put in the missing bricks. But now I really like how it looks and am considering doing it in a couple other places as well :)<br />
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Then I ran out of bricks. Oh well.. until next weekend...<br />
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While I was doing all of this, R made good progress in the kitchen. You'll remember that we did half of the plywood last Sunday, and this weekend we did the cabinet side of the kitchen. It was not as easy as the other side (hence it taking almost 2 days). The sub-floor on this side of the kitchen wasn't the old, original flooring.. maybe it had too much water damage or something, but it looks like it was removed around the 50's (helping to solidify our idea that that was when the last major work was done on the house) and "new" 6" boards were put in its place.<br />
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Another issue he was having was under the cabinets. He couldn't get the saw in all the way, so we still have old plywood for about 3" under the toe-kick.. and we also left it under the dishwasher (technically it's new there because we had to replace it last fall) and under the stove. Also, because we ran out of time and weren't able to get the new plywood down, our stove was left out in the middle of the kitchen... which means tonight was the first night of a week of take-out (tonight it was pizza. We tried a new place... it wasn't that good).<br />
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Last year on this weekend (the 16th and 17th), my cousin got married on Saturday, so we wanted to find a project that would only take roughly one day. The upstairs bathroom.<br />
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At the time, we were not willing to use the toilet in there, so in the morning, we'd wake up, go downstairs to use the toilet, come back upstairs to take a shower, then go back downstairs to brush teeth, brush hair, etc. Kinda a pain in the butt. Plus the upstairs bathroom was carpeted (seriously.. who thought this would ever be a good idea??) and soaking wet all the time, even when it wasn't being used, which meant that it smelled horrible in here and the mold was not good for my asthma, even though I'd take the quickest showers on record. The sinks and counter had become my paint station and this was where I would store everything and wash out my brushes and rollers while painting upstairs. So it was pretty gross. Plus the previous owners left a bunch of stuff in here.<br />
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We started by removing the carpeting and putting down some inexpensive vinyl tiles (on top of a new 1/4" subfloor). We then painted the walls, trim and ceiling (wallpaper was stripped a month ago) first with a coat or two of Kilz to hide any stains and enclose the mold and then with a coat or two of white on the trim and cabinets and green on the walls (leftover from our guest bathroom in our apartment). New knobs, faucets and a toilet finished out the project.<br />
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Since then I've also refurbished the <a href="http://revive-restore-renew.blogspot.com/2011/04/mirror-refurbished.html">mirror</a>, added temporary curtains, rugs, and organized everything in the cabinets/drawers and decorated a little. It's not a beautiful bathroom that belongs in a magazine, nor is it a bathroom we plan on keeping forever. In a couple years we want to add on to the house, and the upstairs will get rearranged slightly.. laundry will move to where the Twilight Room is and this bathroom and the laundry space will become the new bathroom (the addition will have a master bedroom and bathroom). As a result, we didn't want to spend a lot of money on this.. we just needed something functional and not smelly :)<br />
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Because I was able to re-use a lot (paint, curtains, rugs)... we ended up only spending $250 on the total room makeover.<br />
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