Drowning in a Paisley Sea

So while Chris started work on the Kitchen I thought this would be an awesome time to start removing the black paisley wallpaper:

Oh yea, not sorry to see this go. Not one bit, not even the impressively camouflaged light switches and outlets:

Props to the wallpaperer and all, but this needs to go. That being said, I am in way over my head on this one. Rather than it being an easy job for one or two weekends, I am in double trouble, because guess what was under the first layer of paisley wall paper?

That is right, a second layer of paisley wallpaper. Ugh! The worse part is that this second layer of wallpaper is so old that it doesn't peel, it disintegrates,  which is why after about an hour and a half this is all I had:

Whomp, whomp. They did start out with a nice blue color at some point tho...some some consolation. 

More Flooring...in the Kitchen!

So Chris has done a stellar job finishing up the flooring in the Family Room. This past week he got ambitious and started in the kitchen! Here is a picture of the continuous floor from the Family Room into the Kitchen. 

And now a picture going the other direction:

This does require us to have our fridge a couple of feet from the wall though...but it will be worth it when it is all done. Also, he is committed to doing all three rooms (Family Room, Kitchen, and Dining Room) as one, so he technically has started in the Dining Room too.

I am especially excited to see the nasty carpet in the kitchen go. Hopefully by the end of the year, the only carpet left in the house will be the stuff in the master bedroom. A tall order for a Christmas gift, no?

Happy Thanksgiving!

There is so much to be thankful this year. So far 2012 has been an exciting year of changes for us. Medical school has been time consuming, but actually really enjoyable. The house is coming along and has provided so much more joy than frustration. We survived a hurricane. My family has stayed healthy and happy. Lucy survived her first dental cleaning. Chris is enjoying his new job a great deal more than the old one. I am thankful that after class today, the three of us can hop in the car to visit my family for Thanksgiving. There certainly is a great deal to be thankful for this year. 

Oh, and Chris made it through his first deep frying of a turkey last night. Yep, that is at the top of my thankful list. 

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! May you stay safe, satisfied, and thankful. 

Bedroom Furniture! Woo !

So as I hinted in my last post, we finally picked up some bedroom furniture. Although Chris has been committed to not filling the house with crappy cheap looking furniture, he did finally decide that a certain line at Ikea was worth it. He also compromised to white furniture. He was all about a dark, cherry wood look, but I warned him it would take the edge off the bold wall color. We picked up two nightstands and two dressers. Here is the short wide dresser that we placed between my closet and the bathroom. It fit perfectly. 

It is a huge improvement over the nothing that was there, both aesthetically  but more importantly functionally. Hell, I finally unpacked two more boxes. But one dresser isn't close to enough space for the two of us. So here is the first dresser's taller, skinnier brother (yes, the dressers are male - it has been decided). 

And lastly we got two matching nightstands for either side of the bed (we had the matching lamps through a lighting set we picked up on sale at the home depot):

I love the monochrome thing we have going on in the bedroom - it looks awesome and makes it really easy to pick out things I think will match, lol. We also picked up much-needed new blinds in a matching white:

Still need to pick out some window dressings, but this was a huge step for us. No regrets on the furniture - it was perfect, and on budget. Feeling so much more like a grown up - can almost overlook that it will be more than half a decade before I get my next 'real' job. 

Ikea Upgrade: Mirrored Headboard

So as many of you know, Chris and I have been really slow about buying bedroom furniture (and honestly, furniture in general). I have just been really stubborn about only getting things we really love. I have passed by many an alright coffee table certain that the perfect one will cross my path in the future. One of the areas of greatest contention had been the bed. I don't know if you remember, but when we first moved in, we almost bought a bedroom set from Bob's (read about it here), but I wasn't in love with it...so we didn't. 

(Picture Credit: mybobs.com)

After the mattress was delivered  I decided that I didn't want a framed bed, but rather just a headboard hung on the wall. I thought this would prevent the very large bed from looking too large for the room (I am simply demonstrating how large the bed really is):

Also, that picture does a good job of showing the empty wall behind the bed (yea, focus on the wall). I had the crazy idea of making the headboard out of square thick black picture frames, with a variety of black and white photos in them. A play off the bedspread and to add a bit more of us into the room. But, on our trip to Ikea to pick up the furniture that we liked (finally - but you will have to wait until the next post). I got the inspiration for a mirrored headboard. After a quick call to Jenna to test the ridiculousness of this idea, we picked up the mirrors. Chris was happy because, although this was a lot of work, it was less work than the picture frame idea I had before. And tah-dah (also a little peak at the new bedside tables & dressers):

It is very difficult to take a photo of a mirror without the flash washing it out, but here is another try:

The mirrors help to make the room brighter and are a perfect contrast to the dark blue of the walls. Overall, I am really happy with how it turned out. It is different, unique, but also clean and modern. 

Finally, a Flooring Update!

So with the loss of electricity after Sandy, Chris' progress on the hardwood floor had stalled...about half way through:

He was also unsure of the molding he wanted to use and therefore wasn't sure how much of a gap to leave. Well, he made up his mind (a surprise for a future post) and got to work over the weekend.

The room looks awesome and he is so close to being done (such a tease, isn't he). Here is another angle (sorry for the glare - the floor is more reflective than I thought):

So all that is required is a few finishing touches and a couple square feet. Then he wants to move on to the kitchen. I had high hopes of taking down the  wall paper and painting before he got there, but with the amount of progress he has made, and the amount of time I spend studying (another two tests this Friday - bleh), I don't think that is going to happen. Who knows though, maybe I will be super productive after my last exam this block (Monday)! *crosses fingers*

Sandy, Good Riddance!

As I am sure most of you know, roughly two weeks ago hurricane Sandy hit the east coast. We fared better than our neighbors but we were not without damage. We lost power for about a week and a half (hence the lack of blog posts...sorry folks). Thought I would make it up to all of you by showing you some of the pictures I took of the damage. First let me give you an idea of how windy it really was. This is a picture of a stick, about an inch in diameter, that is firmly wedged in the deck.

Luckily, those types of flying missiles missed the windows, but one or two did go straight through the tarp pool cover. The only real damaged we suffered was to the back fence when our neighbors trees fell and uprooted the fence. The pictures are more impressive than my explanation:

And from another angle:

In that last picture you can see the tree resting on the neighbors house. Here is a better shot:

They lost three trees, but the other two feel along the fence, so they did not cause any more damage to either their house or our fence:

They have had the trees cut and are still waiting on stump removal before we can really put the fence back together. No worries though, Lucy has no desire to go near that part of the fence. As I mentioned before we did a lot better than some of our neighbors. Here is a shot from the house in the back cul-de-sac:

The next street over (a grouping of small ranch style homes) was much harder hit than our section. I thought it rude to take a photo, but there was one home that had a large tree fall right down the center of it, essentially crushing the one story home. Luckily, the family was able to be evacuated even after the tree had fallen. 

All and in all we got really lucky. The property damage was not that bad, and frankly, the worst part was the loss of power. Even that had a silver lining, I got a surprise visit back to Pittsburgh (where we picked up a generator) and I was given a perfect chance to really clean out the fridge and freezer.