2010's Been Good To Us

Hard to believe that we haven't posted an update since last December. Lots has happened since then, but I guess we've been doing and enjoying at the expense of blogging.

Here are some of the highlights...

1) Slow and steady progress on the bedroom. We finally bought some end tables for the side of the bed. And then Seth and his dad, Frank, did some awesome crown molding work.

They make a good team (along with Seth's fancy new brad nailer) and are especially proud of the "corner work" they did by the closet.

It's now on me to caulk and touch-up the paint job -- soon, soon...

2) With some help from our new friend, Bristol, we painted the hallway, stairway, and upstairs doors. Little by little, we are wiping out the 1970s and bringing this place into the 21st Century. It truly is amazing the difference a fresh coat of paint makes.



















3) The mother of all home improvements: new flooring! We can't take much DIY credit for this one. We pooled all of our wedding gifts (thank you, thank you, everybody!) and, with huge grins on our faces, actually hired someone to pull up our old ratty, stained, cat-puked-upon carpet and put down beautiful bamboo flooring. Special thanks to Linnette Edwards, realtor extraordinaire, for giving us some great advice on what to get (and what not to get) and Danny Fox at the Floor Store for getting us a great price on the bamboo.


Note that the before photos don't adequately convey just how bad it was. Trust us. It was bad.

Sometimes we get a little sad seeing the old stuff go. Not this time.

Here's a side-by-side shot:

The finished product. We still like to sit around and bask in the glory of these floors. Seriously.

Moving on Up

The kitchen was done.

The living room was done.

The backyard was done.

So what was left? Or, rather, what was next? Apparently, it was time to move upstairs.

Yes, upstairs, the land of three severely neglected rooms. The land with one wall that is still unfinished (at least we put the sheetrock back up; not seen here). We did not choose to start in that room. Instead, we started with the bedroom.

One thing we've learned is that we're terrible at "before" shots. This is the best we've got:

In it you'll notice three things: 1) a 4 drawer dresser; 2) a shelf that was lower than we wanted; and 3) very light-colored and shiny walls. In order to be able to get both of our clothes to fit in this closet, we needed to raise the shelf (and the clothes bar that sat beneath it) and lower the height of the dresser. Did you know that you can cut the bottom drawer off an IKEA dresser?

You can. Step #2, raising the shelf and bar (pun intented), was fairly easy:

And voila:

Next up was the wall. First we tested colors:

After deciding on 173 (upper right), we thought that as long we were going to paint the wall, that this might be a good time to add a little sound-proofing, since we share the wall with a three-year-old who likes to wake up early and cry. We brought in our new contractor friend Roger to add a layer of QuietRock:

It was then spackled and (unfortunately) textured to match the rest of the room. And then it was time to paint. Seth painted the ceiling:

Ilana painted the walls and removed the old yucky blinds:

And Leone (Seth's mom) came in to continue her streak of being a part of every room-painting project we've done so far:

And now, with the addition of the new headboard, some new bedding, and the new wall color, we have a much more attractive bedroom:

We're currently working on our curtain options for both the closet and the window, and Seth is preparing for another turn at crown moulding.

Here is a bonus picture of Seymour, once again, not helping: