So I had a kind of crazy idea...

Hey All,

Well, in case you all didn't already know it, it's important to start this off by stating: Kurt is a saint for dealing with me.  There's really no denying his saintliness...sainthood...sainthood?  Surely you know what I mean! Now here's why:

I've been looking at wallpaper again.  That's right--I heard you groan from here!   I've been looking at wallpaper, and suddenly an idea came to me.  And I thought to myself, "Self, what if you used wallpaper like artwork, instead of like, well, wallpaper."  Boom.  That totally changed my search criteria, and I was almost immediately able to pick a pattern!  Who the heck ever thought I'd be able to say that?!?!  So, here's the pattern that I love.  Every time I look at this, I love it even more!

http://www.spoonflower.com/fabric/2856234-valiant-ogee-6in-rpt-by-wrapartist

So then the question becomes--where do you put it? Well, since we hung the pegboard in the laundry room, to hide the weird wall imperfections (pictures to come!), that room was out.  The wall space in the living room is pretty limited now that we hung up those sweet old 78's.  I thought about the bedroom, but this pattern doesn't really match...who else hates it when you have an idea that just wont work?

Well as I was sitting in my comfy chair at home, I started looking at the dining room walls.  I hadn't really considered them, because the rug in the record room is colorful--but maybe that means the dining room needs some color to balance it all out???   So I got out my painter's tape.



If a roll is 2' by 12', that means two to three 2x4 pieces....so here's what I'm thinking!

I started with just two rectangles on one wall, and then thought "what the hell ::shrugs::" and threw up another rectangle on the next wall.  

The more I look at this, the more excited I get!  SO, unless any of you have any extreme objections, or Kurt runs out of saintleness, I think I'm going to pull the trigger on a roll of this stuff this weekend!  What do you think?  Can I pull it off?  I can't help but dig the retro vibe of this wallpaper.  And the colors have totally grown on me.  If i paste the paper to the wall, and then put a simple white trim frame around the pieces, to make it look more finished?  I'm so pumped.  This is one of the first times I've felt confident with a design decision for the house!  Maybe black frames would pull in the table?  I think this is happening--this is finally really becoming our house, and I am really excited.

Happy weekend!  

K 

Where does the time go?!

Hey there everyone,

Does anyone else feel like time is flying by in 2017?  I can't believe it when I look at the calendar, and it's only the 17th.  It feels like it must be February already!   Maybe part of why I feel that way is because we're still so dang busy?  But, the good news is, it's all paying off.

Apart from a few small projects, and basic decorating, the downstairs is pretty much done.  Can you believe it?  Did you ever think this day would come?  Cause I certainly didn't!  It's pretty amazing how many things we've been able to cross off the list, and to see how few things are left.

Here's what's left downstairs:

> Replace the kitchen floor
> Reattach lazy susan door to cabinet frame
> Rehang laundry room door
> Hang pegboard in laundry room
> Replace the bathroom floor (already have all these supplies)
> Cut, paint, install quarter-round in all rooms


That's it!  I know, I know, that's still a fair amount of work, but it feels really manageable--especially when you consider where we started, and what we've been through!!  And I have to say, the progress that we've made looks so good!  You've already seen most of the progress, but here are a few final update photos of the living/dining rooms.

Looking into the dining room from the living/record/parlor

Dining room looking towards back hallway. (That cute bar is still filled with tools lol)

Dining room looking towards laundry room.
You  can see a little bit of the laundry room floor that Kurt updated--it looks so good!! 

Dining room looking into living room/record room/parlor. 

 So this weekend, we went out to my parents' house, and picked up this chaise lounge.  I've been looking for one, but couldn't find one, so mom said I could have hers.  She's had it for years, and was just sick of it.  I think she's crazy!  Plus, the cats are big fans of this chair--and that's a win in my book!  This is also the new rug I ordered a few weeks ago.  I was worried it might be too bright for the space, but since there's really not much color between the living and dining rooms, I think the space can take a bright rug!


We still have some tidying up to do around the house, but things are slowly making their way to their final homes.   Clearly, the walls still need some decoration/personalization, but those things will come in time...and when other people pick things out for me.  :)  You know I just don't find much joy in those sorts of things.

Until then, we're going to spend a little more time relaxing in the evenings, and keep chipping away at the remaining work.  Now that we both have chairs in the record room/parlor (I'm clearly not sure what to call this room lol), we can hang out, listen to music, and get some cat snuggles!  What could be better than that?!

K

Living Room Update

Hey there everyone!

Alright, things are finally starting to settle down, and we're starting to get into a routine!  In a weird way, being back to work is good, because it limits how much time we can spend working on stuff around the house...and after rushing to move, refinishing the floors, and the holiday, I feel really tired.

I think we're finally at a point where all the furniture has been put in place, and there shouldn't be any more heavy lifting! You have no idea what a relief that is.  Moving one or two things across the room isn't that bad...moving a whole house three times in one week is pretty terrible.

Anyway, we're settling in, and things are (for the most part) unpacked, and even put away (in some cases).  Apart from having one bedroom filled with stuff I don't know where to put, and one bedroom filled with suitcases full of clothes we haven't put away--this house looks like people actually live in it!

At this point, I'd say we're like, almost 90% done with painting---which is awesome!  The built ins in the living/dining room just need one coat of finishing paint, and then we're totally done painting those two rooms!  Holy hell, I can't believe how close we are!  So, with that in mind, I think it's time to do a quick flashback to just how bad these rooms looked when we started, ya know, so you can fully appreciate where we are today!

Ooooh that brown paint and blue carpet...is it just me, or does that feel like literally forever ago?! 

Ahh yes, the "blow my brains out red"--I forgot all about that (thankfully).

Check out how good the living room looks now!

A nice subdued paint color (that doesn't look like it's been secreted or extracted from a human body), all the trim and shelves have been stripped, and repainted with nice bright, clean white paint.  And best of all, the carpet is gone, and the floors look beautiful. Oh, and the light fixtures have all been updated to this decade.  

This doorway is white now, but even here, it looks waaaaay better than that brown and orange combo.  

Kurt has his jumbo chair set up under the reading lamp, and I'm officially in search of my own perfect chair.  For some reason, we've had the hardest time finding a chaise lounge for me.  I had no idea the were so hard to find?!  If anyone has any suggestions for where I can find one--I'm all ears!!

We've been spending a TON of time in this room, finishing up the trim painting, and listening to records.  It is SO nice to have a high quality record setup, and we are just SO please!  :D  Plus, it's incredibly nice to have all of our albums in one place, organized, and properly displayed.

I think a chair for me, and some curtains are the only things really left to find for this room.  I ordered a larger rug this morning, and it should be arriving shortly.  Once it's here, I think curtains will be the next order of business!  In the mean time, I think we'll be taking it a little bit easier, knowing that we have at least four rooms (almost five!) rooms that are totally done!  Now that I think about it, I need to take some final pictures of the long room, bedroom, and laundry room!  I didn't even realize how much progress we'd made! Now I definitely think we deserve a little break!

K


The Eagles - Take it Easy

Rolling Stones- Sympathy for the Devil Lyrics

Happy Belated Christmas, and Have Some House Updates!

Hey Everyone!

Wow, I know I say this like, every time I write, but time has really flown!  Here we are in 2017--I can hardly believe it!

We officially moved home to the house on December 22nd.  Since then we've had four Christmas celebrations, packed, unpacked, painted, moved crap an endless number of times, and ordered pizza.

Here are a few pictures from our Christmas celebrations!  :)


For some reason I don't have any pictures at all from when we were with Kurt's family.  It must be because his mom made so much awesome food, I was single minded-ly focused...sorry Scott family.

Kurt and I at Uncle John's in front of the tree.

My mom and Kurt finishing the annual puzzle.  Poor Kurt didn't even stop to eat all day!  We just sat at that table and worked on the puzzle.  This was the first time ever (we think) that we started and finished a puzzle in one day! 

Kurt got my parents tickets to the IU Nebraska game for Christmas.   The pictures I took are pretty terrible, but it was definitely a good time!

They ended up losing the game in the last two minutes, but it was still worth the trip!  In the hour it took for us to get out of the parking lot at Assembly Hall, we got to have our leftover cheesecake from The Cheesecake Factory, where we had lunch.  And luckily we made it home (mostly) without incident.   Did you know that police officers aren't really in uniform without their hats?   We do now! 

Now most of you probably don't care too much about what we did for Christmas, because you were there with us.  So, I hope you just skipped over that part  :P  Here are some updated progress pictures of the house--and there are really a lot of updates!  

They replaced the flooring in the upstairs bathroom, and I really liked it, so I decided I'd order a piece to do the entryway downstairs.  Silly me, I thought that a piece that was 12' x 7' would be rolled on the 7' length....and I was wrong.  This came pretty close to being the only purchase so far that didn't fit in the Fit!  The guy at Menards just shrugged, and told me to roll down the window, that it would be fine.  It was, but I felt like I was car jousting all the way home!  Lucky for me (and everyone else) it's a short drive.  :) 

Getting the actual flooring in was more difficult that we'd anticipated, (take that to mean this took us two hours lol), but in the end, I think that it looks really good!  

Here's a shot of it all installed!  I think that it really goes with the grey paint, and that everything is really starting to come together in here!  

Our next big project wasn't our project at all,...it was totally 100% Kurt's.  We knew we'd want/need to replace the flooring in the kitchen, so Kurt wanted to do a practice run in the laundry room.  

These vinyl tiles are pretty cool, they just snap right together, and seemed to go down pretty quickly. 

Another nice thing about them, is you don't have to take up your old floor if it's pretty clean and level. So, I figure this will be kind of like a time capsule for whoever pulls all the floor up someday--kinda like when we pulled up the carpet in the dining room and found that sweet linoleum.  

You just buy a couple of boxes of this stuff (bonus points if you snag them during the Menards rebate period ;) And then go to town!  

Here's the finished product!  Overall, it only took a few days, working a few hours at a time.  Kurt says now he's ready to take on the kitchen floor!  :D   

In other news, we finally have living room furniture! I mentioned in my last post that the couches were being delivered, and they arrived!  Yay! If you could just ignore the stuff still piled up around the edges of the room, and look at how nice this furniture is, that would be great lol 

But the biggest project of all is, we got the jumbo record shelf my dad bought us moved into the living room, painted, and all stocked with our collection!

Here's a quick reminder of what this room looked like, two weeks ago.  (So we really have made some progress lol), and in the very back, you can see that jumbo record shelf, turned on it's side.

Again, Mom for scale...

All moved into its proper home...

Once we got the shelf into place, and got a few coats of paint on it, it was time to start the most daunting task of all....alphabetizing our album collection.  Now, at this point, it's important to note that Kurt and I have different approaches.  I think approximate alphabetical is good enough--ya know, all the As are together, all the Bs, yadda yadda.  Kurt however is a stickler for exact alphabetical.  I hope it's obvious to everyone how much I love him, because I can't think of anyone else in the world I'd exact alphabetize for...

The cats were big fans of the alphabetizing process. 

It looks like a lot when they're all spread out on the floor...they look much nicer on the shelf! 

Here's the shelf with our records sorted and in place!  It only took us about two hours to alphabetize everything. 

And here's the final product!  There's still trim to be painted, and books to organize, and undoubtedly a hundred other things to do.  But, Kurt got the speakers set up, and they're so loud you can hear them almost everywhere in the house!  I know I say it all the time, but this guy....he just gets me, and I appreciate him so much.  All his hard work here in our house, and his endless support through moving twice, and the fire, a new career, and so many other things--I just couldn't ask for a better partner in all of this.  I just love these guys!

Sorry this post was so long....I still have more updates, but there's a paintbrush calling my name!  I'll be back later with updates from our trip to Ikea, the kitchen, and the bedroom (insert eyebrow wiggle here!)

K

Moving is the worst...

Hey All,

I think that all of you will certainly agree: moving is the absolute worst.  It's the worst under the best of circumstances, and we're not exactly under the best circumstances right now--but the move must go on!  

I assume that you already know this, but just in case you hadn't noticed...it's really stinkin' cold outside, it's the week of Christmas, and we're getting ready to move home.  Poor Kurt is off work this week, which means that he had to go to the house today (twice) to put the finishing coats of poly on the floor, and he's having to do the majority of the moving.  Now for those of you that know me--you know that this is basically torture for me!  Ugh!  I just want to be in on the action!

This weekend we moved everything from the entire house into the long room, so that we could knock out the floors.  In Kurt's professional opinion: "They look really good in the dark."

Needless to say, the long room is not a pretty sight right now.  I can't believe that I'm going to post this picture but....this is our life right now.  This is almost everything we own, crammed into one room, and stacked to the ceiling lol

You may not think that it looks that bad, but to me, it definitely looks that bad!  On the plus side, yesterday, Kurt and I bought a couch, a love seat, and a mega chair for him! They're being delivered on Friday morning....so that means we're going to have to shake a leg and start getting things put away!  #nopressureoranything

As I've been sitting here at work, trying to formulate a plan of attack, and making to do lists (don't tell Kurt he's finally rubbed off on me!) I started thinking about the paint colors for the house.  I was looking at the paint swatches in my little notebook, and it made me wonder, "Am I boring? Or am I just consistent?" I'm not sure, and it's entirely possible that it's a little bit of both?

This weekend, the cats really started to get along.  For about 45 minutes they even sat in the same chair (on top of Kurt's jacket lol).  They're so cute.  I hope they adjust to being in the house once we get moved back in. I'm sure Scotch will be fine, but I don't want Mickey to get lost in any nooks or crannies.  Kurt keeps reassuring me that they'll be fine--and he's always right.  But this cat mom can't help but worry a little bit.  They're so cute when the snuggle up!  I just don't want them to hide in different parts of the big house, and never snuggle each other, ya know?  It'll be fine...

Everything will be fine, and we'll be home for Christmas!  

K

Long May You Run

Eight Miles High

It's the Final Countdown!

Hi All,

Oh my heck, has it been over 1000 years since the fire??  Because I feel like it's been well over 1000 years since the fire.  But the good news is, we're getting down to the end of it!

Paul Davis claims that they're at the house today deep cleaning it....we'll see if that's true, but it's what they've said.  On Saturday a guy is (again supposedly) coming to refinish the bathtub, and then that's the end of working with PD!  This whole process with them has just been the opposite of great--but anyone who knows me already knows that.  But I digress.

As we get closer to moving back in, there are more and more things that we keep thinking of for our to do list.  From the beginning Kurt kept telling me that this is  how it would go, and I should've just listened to him--but don't tell him that!  ;)

Tomorrow night we're going to pick up a floor sander (deja vu right?) and we're going to try to knock out refinishing the upstairs floors, and the downstairs back hallway, and back bedroom areas.  We talked about redoing the living and dining rooms while we're at it (Kurt's idea).  But really, I just want to do the bare minimum, and be done with it.  In my mind, by the time we put down some rugs, and furniture, the imperfections in the living/dining room floors won't be that noticeable.  Plus, I want to be able to knock all the steps out (or as many as possible) this weekend, so that we can start moving back into the house early next week!  Technically our lease isn't up until December 26th, but it turns out that the office workers at the apartment don't want to come in on Christmas to check us out and take our key. #weirdright? But if we leave the living/dining room floors as they are, then we have those rooms to put things in while the poly cures upstairs, and we have to actually live at the house.   Whew,  did you follow all of that?  I know it's confusing.  The biggest take away is probably this:  by this time next week, the four of us will be mostly moved back home!

This is Mickey, our new kitten.  They're pretty stinkin' cute.  

He likes to sleep under the dresser.  He's safe from Scotch there. 

Mickey likes to sleep as close to your face as you'll let him get.  He prefers to keep his paw on your face, but that's a little much sometimes lol plus, he's so warm, that it gets uncomfortable after a while.  

The other exciting piece of news is that my dad found Kurt and I this sweet record shelf!  We've been talking about building one for a few months to hold our constantly expanding record collection.  This shelf will take up most of a wall in the living room (mom for scale), plus, there will be room on the side for a table/shelf/cabinet/something to hold the record player and accessories that Santa may be bringing us!

This time while we're doing the floors, I'll try to take better pictures of the process!  Then, it'll be time for the big reveal of all the work that the PD guys did!  When I walk around the house now, it doesn't feel that different to me than it did before, and I've decided that maybe that's a good thing.  It really makes me appreciate how much work we were able to get done before the fire, and reaffirms that we were doing a good job on that work!

I know I say it every time, but I mean it now!  I'm going to get back into the habit of regular updates--especially now that there should be regular updates to give!!  :D

K

Europe - The Final Countdown

Foreigner - Hot Blooded

Is November Really Over?!

Wow, it is so hard for me to get my head around the fact that November is almost officially over!  It feels like it was just August.  Heck, some days, it feels like it was just April! This year has definitely flown by with remarkable speed.

There hasn't been much to update anyone about with the house.  There are a couple of guys who seem to be there most days, just chipping away at everything.  In a weird way, it makes me feel a little better about all of the work we did there before the fire.  Like, if it takes a pair of professionals a month and a half to do everything, and they're working all day every day--then we really did an amazing amount of work for a few non-professionals, just working nights and weekends!  (That turned into a really long confusing sentence...please just imagine me reading it out loud to you, and hopefully, it makes sense  :P )

The good news is, we're getting down to the last few big ticket jobs at the house.  The roof has been done (twice), they've put up ceilings, mudded, taped, insulated, and painted.  They hung up new lights throughout the upstairs, and replaced all the upstairs windows.  Woo!  The only things left to do are for them to put the bathroom back together (new vanity, medicine cabinet, flooring, lights, tub surround, and sub-floor), refinish the hardwood floors, and clean everything!  I've begun to doubt whether or not they'll actually clean anything....but I'm trying to stay positive.


Since they've been getting pretty close to completing the rest of the house, Kurt and I have been knocking out some work in the kitchen.  Since there was no damage to the kitchen, the contractors wouldn't do any work in there.  And, since we don't have to live there right now, we decided that this was the right time to tear the kitchen apart!

Getting the kitchen painted was a huge relief in and of its self.  This was the last of the previous owner's paint.  Man were we glad to see it go! Here's one last look at what it used to be...

This redish brownish was just not for us...

The paint was such an improvement, that it really made us want to do something about the cabinets.  They were in good shape, but they looked pretty dated.  Again, the existing look just wasn't for us.   We went back and forth about whether we should paint the cabinets, or stain them, or start another fire in the kitchen (just kidding--are you still reading? :)  In the end we decided to stain them!  

I had hoped we wouldn't have to strip them, but as always, Kurt was right, and they had to be stripped.  Luckily that only took a few days!  

Once all the doors were stripped, we tested stains...we set up each door in the long room, and used Solo cups so that they wouldn't be flat on the ground.  Three coats of stain, and two coats of poly took over a week!  But, in the end, they look soooo much better!  I spent so much time staring at the doors once we got them back up, that I never even took a picture of the finished products!  I'll try to do that tonight!  Plus, I want to check the mailbox to see if the  new door pulls arrived!  

So, it's not a ton of updates, but it's something!  Hopefully the guys wrap up at the house soon, and we can get moved back in.  Kurt has already started a honey-do list for himself, and I think he's as excited as I am to move back in.  Now we just have to hope that we can move before a bunch of snow flies!  

I'm trying to get back into the swing of blogging, and regular updates--but I hope that the updates become less and less exciting with time!  Sorry for the radio silence, but it's better than Christmas music, right?  :) 

K