Demolition Day

So when Dave and I moved into his parents house, one of the things I was excited about was the laundry on the main living level rather than the basement.  No more forgetting about the laundry--I'd actually be able to hear the buzzer go off!  The laundry is in the family room and is separated by an accordion door. 

I hate that door.

The door was fitted to the room before the current carpet was installed and unfortunately the carpet is either too tall or the door too long.  After over 20 years of dragging across the carpet, it basically decided it didn't want to work properly anymore and started breaking at the top, causing panels to drop down and meet the floor, making it impossible to open the door without lifting the whole thing up while trying to push it across the opening.  Since my in-laws were already away when we moved in, Madaline actually left a post-it on the door with instructions on how to open it. 

Sometimes that worked. 

Often it didn't.

Yup it's crooked.

And then the doorknob started to come off randomly.

Needless to say it was not a good scene.

Just a small section of panels no longer attached to the track and dragging along the carpet.

So Dave and I decided we'd help them out (and save my sanity) by replacing the door.  A few weeks ago we took a trip to Lowe's, ordered a custom-fit door with the proper length, and waited.  Luckily Dave got a call last week that the door was in and since he had a few days of, he picked it up and we planned to install it this weekend.  I made him promise to let me help take out the old door.  He promised, but on the condition that I help him put up the new door.

He sure knows how to suck the fun out of stuff, huh?

But he made it up to me.  He let me use the Sawzall.  You know what that does?  It saws ALL.  Submitted for your amusement:

The finished product:

Dave then had the fun part of cutting the pieces up even more so that we can recycle them.  Luckily, he was able to make them all fit into one recycle bin.

After that, we did put up the new door, which pretty much consisted of me opening all the little packs of hardware and handing things to Dave like a operating room technician to a surgeon, on far less intense and much more pouting on my part.

But in the end we now have a beautiful, working, non-dragging on the carpet door that opens and closes at my whim.

It really is the simple things in life.

Bathroom Renovation

It started with a slight leak in the toilet.

And I kind of hated the clamshell sink, plus it was cracked.

Of course all the fixtures were varied shades of almond, which didn't really go with the light sage green walls.

And the shower door wasn't quite tall enough for Dave to not hit his head at least once a week.

And in a house with one bathroom, we often struggled to share the sink for teeth brushing and face-washing at bed time.

So, yes, we decided a little renovation was necessary.

Before

After

Looks good, no?  (The floor was actually replaced two years ago--we forgot to taken an updated "before" picture.)  Dave spent quite a bit of time working on this project through the month of May, but before we left for North Carolina, it was completed.  Here's what he did:

• Took out the sink and vanity
• Reworked the plumbing to accommodate two sinks and faucets
• Replaced the vanity with a double sink version
• Added matching second faucet and towel bar
• Removed existing cabinet and light fixture
• Rewired the lights to accommodate a second light (as well as correct the mistakes made by the previous owner)
• Repaired the wall behind the existing cabinet
• Installed two new cabinets
• Installed two new light fixtures
• Installed new switches for overhead light, fan, and vanity lights, putting a timer on the fan and dimmer on the vanity lights
• Removed old toilet
• Installed new toilet
• Repaired and painted ceiling
• Removed shower door
• Repaired holes in the fiberglass tub and shower left by the shower door
• Painted the entire shower and tub unit (this was hard work and since he did it the right way with the right product, you'd never know it was painted)
• Repainted baseboard
• Touch ups and caulking throughout

It makes me tired just thinking about it.  You may think it kept him busy, but I like to think it kept him out of trouble. (oh, and the curtain was from Dave's mom--I think she made it with extra fabric she had (or it may have been a curtain she had used before she redecorated her own bathroom.  I can't remember.)

We finished off the entire project with new accessories, some we had gotten off our registry as gifts and others (like the shower curtain) were new acquisitions. We're really pleased with the finished product..  I can wash my face without risking Dave spitting toothpaste on me, so that's a win.  And it just looks so much brighter and polished.  And the best part about it is bathroom renovations like this can often cost several thousand dollars, yet we were able to do it with right around $600 by taking advantage of sales, coupons, discounts and gift certificates.

Thanks for the pretty bathroom, honey!

It's Not Christmas

We don't really have much of a relationship with our neighbors.  On our kitchen side we have a family that we chat with mostly because the husband is a Chatty Cathy and they have two dogs, so they (the people and the dogs) have enjoyed our revolving door home for wayward dogs the past six months. 

Directly across the street we have a family with three grown children all living at home.  We are perplexed by them because it's a small house and at night you never see any lights on in any of the windows.  It's just weird.   Since we have a large picture window that looks right into their large picture window, you'd think you'd see someone go into the kitchen to get a glass of water every once and a while, but no that's not the case.

On one side of them is another extended family that includes grandchildren.  The granddaughter does Irish step-dance and is taught by my friend Erin, but otherwise, we don't really know them.  And on the other side is Boat Guy--named such because he had a boat for two years that he worked on in his yard but never took to water.  Then he got rid of the boat and got a pool and was temporarily renamed Pool Guy, and then he got another boat so he's Boat Guy again.

And on our bedroom side is a house that we think has 2 or 3 apartments.  It's not that they are transient (we think there have only been two tenant changes in 6 years), but they are just weird.  Since it's our bedroom side, we notice them leaving at odd hours of the night.  But not like going to work because they'll be back in 15-20 minutes.  I can only think that they go our for cigarettes or something.  We notice these comings and goings because the cars are old and noisy and the people talk very loudly.  I've been woken up after midnight on more than one occasion.  It's quite obnoxious.

However, they've been driving Dave crazy for the last few months, and now I've started to become annoyed.  Every night, we get a little glimmer into our bedroom from this:

There are so many things wrong with this that I don't know where to begin.

• There is no rhyme or reason to this display.  It is haphazardly cast through the yard, not even remotely outlining the actual building or part of the structure.  Although I will stop there because there used to be a string of multi-colored lights too, but sometime between Valentine's Day and St. Patrick's Day, those disappeared.
• They manually turn on these lights, so it's not like they forget every night until the timer switches them on.  We know this because they don't come on at the same time each night.  But they always come on.
• In addition to the strings of lights, they still turn on their beacon of a porch light each night, making the display that much more of a monstrosity.
• They keep them on all night.  I regularly wake up and find these lights still on at 6 am or later.
• And finally, it's April.  Even people who leave their Christmas lights up all year round have the forethought to stop turning them on sometime in mid-January.  

Dave is trying to figure out if he can cut the strings with hedge clippers or something "accidentally."  Because these people clearly didn't get the memo that Christmas comes but once a year and never in the spring.

Maybe I should be blaming them for the long, cold, snowy winter we've had.

Guest Room Redo

Dave and I have a guest room that over the past year became increasingly unusable.  Between pulling up the carpet due to a little water issue and using it as a catch-all for shipping boxes, wedding gifts and random stuff, it could barely be called a guest room.  While it still contained a fully made bed, there was so much stuff on the bed that it was really useless.  Although our friend Stacy did manage to move enough stuff so she could curl up in a corner and take a nap once.

Old "guest" room.  Love those lilac walls!

So before my family came to visit for Thanksgiving, we decided to not only organize the room, but to also give it some character.  It still had paint from the previous owners.  The terrible part about it is that the walls aren't actually dry walled--they have a flake board/particle board which makes it really difficult to paint.  Using a brush or roller would have used tons of paint.  So Dave had the bright idea to get a paint sprayer.  It's pretty cool and worked amazingly well. He picked it up on Craig's List for a reasonable price and if we ever move or redecorate again, we'll probably do very little painting by hand. In about an hour, after the room had been taped and prepped, all the paint was on the walls.  It dried pretty quickly too.  I have to thank Dave's mom, Madaline, for helping on this painting project. They had it all done one day while I was at work.

So much better!

We also picked up a carpet remnant for a good deal that fits the room rather well. There is a little cut out at the doorway in need of a throw rug, but overall it's complete.

And even better, after taking down the awful lace window treatments, Madaline offered to make us new ones.  So Dave and I hit up Joann Fabrics and found a pattern idea we liked and some fabric that works really well in the room. 

We're really happy with how everything turned out.  We still have a little organizing to do, but at least we can properly host guests now.  Although I'm pleading the 5th on what the guest room's closet looks like.

Some lingering wedding gifts and "stuff"

We can officially say that after 6 years in the house, all the rooms have been done.  I suspect that means we'll probably find a reason to move out of this house soon.