The Home Improvement Snowball Effect

It all started when our kitchen faucet snapped in half. We stopped at Lowes to pick out a new one, and the next thing you know we have changed pretty much the entire kitchen.

This is what our kitchen used to look like (realtor photo):

Since then we have replaced the faucet, painted the cabinets white (using Rust-Oleum Kitchen Transformations), bought new hardware, installed under the counter lights, and replaced the light fixture over the sink. After painting the cabinets we realized the ivory wall color doesn't look so hot, so now we need to paint the kitchen walls too.
Here are some pictures of the work in progress:

The cabinets are back on, but we still have to paint the walls, touch up the ceiling where the previous light fixture was hanging (yuck, do you see that?!), and paint the pantry white. Did I mention we started this project at the end of July? Oh yes. Luckily, we finished all that stuff in early August, but the rest that needs to be done has been on our to-do list for two months.

Any paint color suggestions?

Cleaning Spree

As you've probably heard, DC was hit with some pretty serious snow last night. It wasn't as epic as the Dec '09 or Feb '10 snowfall, but it was enough for a snow day. I would have loved to stay in bed and watch Intervention or The First 48 all day, but I got my booty out of bed and went on a cleaning spree. I despise cleaning, so our house was in need of some TLC.

I started by dusting our living and dining rooms. I don't know what it is about old houses (ours was built in 1890), but they collect dust like CRAZY. I should do some serious dusting every day, but I just don't. I have no good excuse other than it is too much dusting to keep up with. I then vacuumed our bedroom, which basically entails sucking up all the dust bunnies that have accumulated between furniture and in the corners. I love having hardwood floors, but again...the dust! Okay, enough about that.

I also stripped the beds and started a marathon laundry session. I am even washing the down comforters today. Do you wash and dry your comforters at home? Last year I tried taking them to the dry cleaner, but they wanted $129 for two queen comforters. Umm no. I put tennis balls in the dryer with each comforter and the feathers separate pretty well.

I then decided that it was time to organize the linen closet in our bathroom. I forgot to take a before picture, but believe me...it was in disarray. Here are some after shots:



The top shelf holds extra stuff that I've stocked up on, the second shelf holds our towels, the third shelf holds all our hair products and tools (and a few extra Clinique make-up items I wouldn't be able to see, and then would likely forget about, if they were on the top shelf), the fourth shelf holds bath and body products, face products, and dental hygiene items. The bottom has wire racks that hold a lot of miscellaneous stuff, and our old towels. I love being organized! (Interesting isn't it? I like being organized, but don't like cleaning. Hmm.)

Speaking of towels, how do my towels get bleached? I don't use bleach!

I did use proactiv for a couple months and know that it can stain towels, but this is the guest towel for the half bath. It did not come into contact with proactiv! Does this happen to other people? We go through towels so quickly because they get stained and I don't want to use them anymore. I would love some tips on prevention!

Now...as you can probably tell, my cleaning issue is that I never attack a whole room. I dusted the living room, but didn't vacuum. Same for the dining room. I vacuumed our bedroom, but didn't dust. I organized the bathroom, but didn't clean it. I didn't even start tackling the guest bedroom (besides the bedding) or the kitchen. I don't know why I do this. Maybe this is why I hate cleaning so much. It's like it is never ending because I basically still have to clean the whole house, even though I did finish a few tasks. It would be so much easier to just clean one room at a time. Maybe I will force myself to do that next time....

Renovation Complete!

As I mentioned in my last post.....the renovation is FINALLY complete! The cleaners came on Friday and my husband moved all of our stuff back downstairs so that we could officially start using the new kitchen and dining room.

Here are the before pictures:

The wall to the right of window is now gone. A new window was put in.

The drywall covering the brick on the left and the bathroom on the right are gone. The new bathroom is in the closet straight ahead.

New hardwood floors, cabinets, appliances (except the dishwasher), and two big windows replaced the old kitchen.

The washer and dryer are now in cabinets and are side by side. And as I said before, the wall where they were housed is now gone.

After pictures:

As you can see from the first "after" picture, the exposed brick is two different colors. That is because the wall in the dining room used to be covered with drywall. Our landlords and the contractor said there was nothing they could do to fix it. It is more pronounced in the picture, but it still looks pretty bad in person. Oh well....we are moving in 9-10 months!

Anyway, I am so glad it is over. It is nice having a more open space and a brand new kitchen, but man...what a process!

Renovation Rant

Great ready for some complaining.....

One of the advantages of being in NY for the summer was that we would not have to live through the renovation our landlords planned to do in the kitchen, dining room, and half bath. The renovation began the day after I left and was supposed to be finished the last week of July. Wishful thinking, right? Of course, it took longer than expected and we are currently living in a construction zone. When I showed up at the house two weeks ago to drop off some stuff, I started crying right in front of the workers. Construction dust covered every surface and I knew there was no way the work would be completed in a little over a week.

When we showed up this past Sunday the house was clean-ish (as in most of the dust had been removed), but there were no appliances and there was still a laundry list of things that needed to be completed (painting, installing the bathroom, granite, lighting, etc.). We headed out to the store, bought ice, water, beer, Easy Mac, and microwavable soup and set up a cooler in the living room. We have basically been squatting in our house for the last 4 days. Luckily it is restaurant week in DC, so we aren't too sad that we have to eat out every night. Still though, it is annoying to not be able to cook ANYTHING.

The other issue is that we moved all of our stuff from those three rooms into our second bedroom. And because we had nowhere else to put the stuff from NY, our bedroom is also a cluttered mess. The downstairs is a construction zone and the upstairs is a war zone. UGH.

I know I shouldn't complain too much because we haven't payed rent all summer thanks to the renovation and I know it will be beautiful once it is FINALLY completed, but for now I am stressed and upset and just want it to be finished!! Today the granite is going in and the sink should be put in tomorrow. After that they just need to do cabinet hardware and outlet covers. Fingers are crossed that tomorrow will be the last full day of construction.


Thanks for listening. I feel better :)

A Peak into Our Home

Last week Lacey participated in a Holiday Homes Tour, and although I missed the chance to formally participate, I thought I would still give you a glimpse into our home.

Here is the holiday wreath that I made a few weeks ago. When I bought the ribbon I didn't realize that it was so narrow and it was really difficult making a big bow. I don't love how the wreath turned out, but it still looked pretty enough to hang on the door. I still have ribbon left over so I may redo the bow next year.


Here is our living room. This was the first year we bought a real tree, and as I mentioned here, it was quite an adventure getting it home. We also ordered swag for our fireplace from the Boy Scout troop at our church. I changed out the generic red bow with the polka dot ribbon to tie into my polka dot Christmas theme.




I bought these flowers two weeks ago at Safeway and can't believe they are still alive. There originally were red roses in the bunch, but they died after a few days, so I just pulled them out since the other stuff still looked pretty!


We also have a fireplace in the second bedroom so we hung our first stockings (created with glitter glue just like Lacey!) and put lights on our decorative tree.


I hope you enjoyed a peak into our home! My district canceled school for today and Wednesday so we are headed back to NY today instead of Christmas Eve. Yay!

So Stressed

It has been one of those weeks where I am so stressed I can't handle anything. I am once again on the verge of tears.

Why?

Comcast didn't install the right kind of land line for our alarm system. Today was their fourth visit since moving day. AJ had to leave work early to meet them because otherwise they wouldn't come out until next week. They finally got the system hardwired so it could be activated.

However, ADT could not activate our system and couldn't figure out why. A few phone calls later and a raised voice from AJ and they realized they had five accounts for our address and were looking at the wrong one. They finally figured it out and now the system is working.

I am officially back to work and am currently going through orientation. The same orientation I went through last year as an intern. I am talking the same handouts, same powerpoint slides, and same lectures. For 7 hours a day. To make matters worse, I have been working there for a year and have been DOING everything they are teaching us for the last year.

I'm PMSing and am an emotional wreck.

I am so stressed about boarding Kona. We have a wedding to go to next weekend and will have to board her for a night and then AJ's sister's wedding in CA in three weeks, for which we will have to board her for five days. I wouldn't be freaking out if I could find a place I feel comfortable with, but every place I've researched seems to have horror stories attached to it and they freak me out. I miss the place we used to board her in NC. She loved going there and I know they treated her well!

AJ is beginning to interview for summer associate positions. He scheduled his first interview today for early next week. I'm stressed about buying a plane ticket and/or figuring out how two of us will use one car in different parts of the northeast (did I mention the interview is in my hometown in NY?). Plus I'm freaking out about being alone (for the night and potentially for next summer). I should be happy about his first interview, but the stress of it all is just making me crazy.

I hate being sad and grumpy. Hopefully I will snap out of it soon. Luckily I went on a power walk with Landlocked Mermaid at 6 am this morning, and that made me happy for a few hours. Speaking of LM, she has decided to go private, so if you want an invite email her. If you need her address leave me a note in the comments.

Scaredy Cat

My parents came to DC last Wednesday to help us pack up and move to our new place. They left yesterday and I would be lying if I said I was sad to see them go. I hate to sound mean and inconsiderate, but they were staying with us and after 7 days with my mom I was going insane. I love her to death and I am so appreciative of everything her and my dad did for us during this difficult transition, but I was ready for things to get back to normal.

Well, now I am eating my words. Last night was the first night in our place with just the three of us, and I was up the entire night worrying about someone breaking into our house. I don't know what it was about having my parents and their dog in the next room the previous nights, but it made me feel safe and I had no trouble sleeping. I hate to write this, because it sounds like I don't feel safe with my husband and dog, because I do. I know that my husband would be up in a second if something actually happened and that our dog would freak out if she heard something serious. It's just that our new house is old, so big, and is in a pretty quiet neighborhood, so I hear EVERY little creak and crack, yet don't think I could hear if someone was in the back of the house because it is so far away. Our old place was much, much smaller, and I felt confident that I could hear if someone was trying to break in. Also, we had bars on all our windows and had a double entrance; one into the building and one into our apartment. Our new place is basically the exact opposite.

We do, however, have an alarm system, but we don't have a land line yet, so it doesn't work properly. After lying in bed for an hour last night, I decided we had to turn on the alarm system, just in case. It appeared to arm fine, but then a little while later it started beeping and I about had a heart attack. Once we checked the house to see that no windows or doors had been opened, we finally realized it was an alert that the system wasn't functioning properly because it is not connected to a phone line. We turned it off and went back to bed, but instead of sleeping I stayed up reading blogs and watching TV because I was feeling so anxious.

Today I am exhausted because I didn't fall asleep until 5:30, when it finally started to get light out. I have always struggled with night time and being afraid of the dark and intruders, but last night was crippling. I felt short of breath and had the worst feeling in the pit of my stomach.

It doesn't help that I watched Captured, NCIS, CSI, and Law & Order yesterday. When we first moved to DC, AJ implemented a no crime show policy to help curb my fears. It definitely helped, so it looks like this policy is back in action. Also, I like being informed about what is happening in the neighborhood, but maybe reading all the blogs that report every crime ever committed is making me a little too anxious.

And I am fully aware that we chose to live in a city, we knew what we were getting into with the house/neighborhood, crime does exist, yada yada yada..... I did not, however, think I would react so negatively and now must find a way to handle this.

Sorry if this is jumbled and incoherent. I just wanted to get it off my chest and maybe see if anyone else deals with something similar.

We are getting the land line installed Monday and then we can use the alarm system properly. Hopefully that will help me relax and sleep, because I cannot be dealing with insomnia and anxiety once I start working full time again. This is really hard for me to admit because I have always felt that someone who works with people that have psychological issues SHOULD NOT have their own issues. I know that this is flawed thinking, but I can't help but feel like a fraud/failure.

Sigh....