We've been busy!

Another weekend has come and gone and we're a little bit closer to moving in!

This weekend's projects included:

• shovelling snow off the driveway and sidewalks (!!!)
• painting our bedroom (pictures of the new color coming soon)
• painting the entryway (it's the same color as before, just cleaner)
• installing a programmable thermostat (15 minute installation? Yeah right. Jared persevered, though.)
• installing the pull-out trash and recycling cans in the cabinet
• installing our new pendant lights in the kitchen (another headache for Jared, but they look so much better than the ugly lights before!)

• putting some insulation above the garage space and getting a rough estimate of how much more insulation we'll need for the rest of the house




We over-estimated for the garage, but haven't bought insulation for the rest of the house yet!


• spray painting the ugly ceiling HVAC grates white (they're still drying, but here's the before)

• working on getting the last two bedrooms ready to paint
• cleaning out the entry-way closets (I found a bathing suit and goggles, and a really awesome blue marble, among other items... and lots of spiderwebs.)

We're hopefully getting the carpets in the bedrooms cleaned this week so we can start setting up our bedroom. Our new washer and dryer get delivered on Friday! Slowly, but surely, we'll be able to move in! February 1 is our target date, since that's when our first payment is due (and it just seems rude to have to pay on it and not live there)!

What kinds of projects were you working on this weekend?

Kitchen curiosities

Our house was built in 1966, so as my dad said, it may be slow to give up some of its secrets. We've found a few quirks (no dryer vent in the laundry area, a papered-over electrical outlet, no insulation over the garage...to name a few), but so far our biggest head scratcher has been in the kitchen.

First of all, those lights (by the red arrow): GONE. Thank goodness that Jared hated them as much as I did because he took them down on the second day we owned the house. Once we get the ceiling painted, we have new pendant lights that will go in that spot.

Okay, so the big head scratcher is the tall cabinet on the right side of the kitchen. When we started talking about what would go where, I mentioned that our microwave might fit in the cabinet where the green arrow is. It's a fairly tall cabinet, so there would also be some space for a cook book shelf above. The shelf that is currently in that cabinet is less-than-high-quality: it's basically just a particle board shelf.

There's not really a geat place to put our trashcan (since the space under our sink is pretty small due to the garbage disposal), so then I wondered if we could maybe put the trashcan in the bottom part of that cabinet. See that blue arrow? Yeah, that's a fake drawer. And the space below it (before the lower cabinet)? An enclosed box.

?!?

We took the lower two cabinet doors off and Jared pried/pulled/cut the other pieces out. I haven't been over to the house to see his work, but I'm willing to bet that it makes 100% more sense than it did before! More updates to come soon!