A new level of commitment

I'm not big on commitment, which is why we don't have a dog, but we finally took a big step toward a long-term relationship. 

Wallpaper. 

In the dining room.

It's feels like a grown-up lives here now!

My Favorite Things. A Christmas Post

Two years ago I drastically changed the way the adults in my family exchange gifts. It removes the stress of the season, and this new way seems more in line with the Christmas Spirit. We had tried myriad ways to do a gift exchange: Pick a name from a hat and give to just that person, Give a little something to everyone, Don't give any gifts. I had grown weary of gift giving and of providing "my christmas list" to my family. It didn't seem like what Christmas was really about even though there was plenty of giving and receiving.

Then my friend Sharon proposed a gift exchange for the office party that changed my life. It wasn't her idea originally, she had gotten the idea from Oprah.

You know when Oprah finds a great product, she buys one for everyone in her audience? Well, that year my office did a gift giving party where everyone brought "their favorite thing" and shared one with everyone. We had a $2 limit, per person. There were 22 people in the office, so I wrapped 22 of the same item and distributed 1 into each stocking.

We had a party and opened each item and tried to guess who it came from. It was fun and we received unexpected things.

I bought everyone a k-cup of "chocolate donut flavored" coffee. Other items gifted were small book of sudoku puzzles, a ball point pen, a candy bar, a laser pointer... The point is, whenever I do a sudoku, or the kids play w the laser pointer, it makes me think of the person who gave it to me.

I proposed this plan to Jeff's family. It was simple. Think of what your favorite thing is, and buy one for everyone. The recommended range for the gift is $25, per item. This could be anything that YOU think is cool, maybe you found great wool socks, a flashlight, an US weekly subscription.... You would just buy 6 of that item and be done w Xmas shopping for the grown ups. It doesn't matter as long as YOU like it, don't worry if I will like it.

We would still give individual gifts to the Beechnuts and the Beechnut's cousins.

I was a little nervous, since there was a chance I could ruin Christmas for my husbands family. 

On Christmas day, it was a hit! We received an assortment of gifts that really are more personal to the giver. My mother-in-law, who thinks coffee that isn't hot enough to give a 3rd degree burn is too cold, gave travel mugs that keep coffee piping hot for hours. I gave a wall-charger that has 4 outlets and 2 USB ports, which stopped the constant unplugging of each others cell phones in our kitchen. 

And now, whenever I use the travel mug, I think of my Mother-in-law. When I travel and need an extra charge for my cell phone, I think of my Father-in-law when I use the solar-powered external battery he gave me. 

The next year I sold it to my family and it went just as well. I think of my brother whenever I wear an Under Armor shirt for a run. I think of my sister when I put truffle salt on, well lets be honest, everything.

Its fun to see what others have found for their favorite thing for the year.

We also brought the Beechnuts into it. They gave their favorite things last year. And they spent a lot of time thinking of their favorite thing this year. The big Beechnut even used her allowance to buy her gifts this year. Which is what I wanted in the first place, to have a meaningful gift giving experience, and not just ask people "What do you want for Christmas"

I know its a little late in the year for this post, I'm sure it would have been more helpful to have this in September so you can sell it to your own family, but now you can be ahead of the game for next year.

Dining room chair rail

Right before you have 6 house guests coming is the correct time to start a project right??

This was our dining room on Sunday. The chair rail has always been highly annoying, its basically a window molding and its so low my chairs leave marks on the walls. Its bugged us for 10 years.

Dining Room before

We pulled off the chair rail and discovered this craziness. Bright pink paint and dark pink, gray, blue wallpaper.

Left wall of DR

The other side of the wall had a different wallpaper. Who used to own this house anyway? Romper room? I'm ignoring the signs of water damage. 

Right side of DR

Now after many, many pencil marks, a compound miter saw that was used for something other than collecting dust, a laser level, and lots of finishing nails, we have a paint-ready product!

The new chair rail is 4 inches higher and prettier.

We used 2 pieces of trim - a baseboard and a chair rail - to make it a little beefier. Jeff cut the exposed ends to 45 degrees.

Close-up of the chair rail

And of course we had to upgrade the thermostat to this fancy model, the Nest. When the light is off, I pretend its HAL and that its watching me.

Just needs wood putty, paint, and I have to decide if I'm going to really upgrade the whole thing with navy blue wallpaper. I'm sure HAL will tell me what to do...

Walk right up!

In an ongoing effort to improve our curb appeal, we decided to have a lawn that was alive and a new walkway to entice people to knock on our pretty front door. The old concrete walk was replaced with a wider bluestone path.

The entire lawn was torn up and reseeded.

This will hopefully grow into grass and be lush in 21 days!

But one more look at the bluestone...

Makes you want to visit, right?

Death of a Beech Tree

Our Beech Tree has been dying for a while. We didn't want to face it. The tree was the reason we bought this house in the first place. We've had hot, dry summers the past few years, combined with some construction on the street and rebuilding the deck. The arborist came out today and looked at the tree and delivered the bad news: Take it down.
This is what it used to look like, large and majestic, towering over the house:

Here's what it looks like now:

It feels like we are losing a friend.

Stump. Ground.

We had a dead maple tree taken down from the front yard over 4 years ago. They left the stump. We couldn't figure out what to do about it. Then this morning, I heard a commotion outside. The neighbors across the street were having their stump ground by a landscaping company that had a remote controlled stump grinding machine. I talked to the landscapers, and he agreed to grind the stump in our yard, and literally 4 minutes later it was gone.


Now what should I plant?

Little by little, it's coming together

Last year we replaced a slider with a window in the kitchen. In order to save money, we decided to paint it ourselves.

So it sat unpainted for almost a year. 

But we decided to buckle down and paint it over the past 2 weeks. 

I'm happy to report it's done!

Welcome and please come in!

The new front door is installed! This is a huge improvement over the old door that was drafty, sagging, and never opened when the weather was humid.

It took years of planning and research. I really wanted a double door, but finally had to admit it wouldn't work, the space was too small. 

This door is a generous consolation prize. In addition to being 2 inches thick, it's 42 inches wide and almost 8 feet tall. So instead of 2 small doors, I have one massive door!

In the end, I'm very happy with it. Just waiting for a nice big knocker (go ahead and giggle)!

New front door, in progress!

Front door being installed. It's only taken 3 years to find the right one!

Updated garage

Although we have lived in the house for over 8 years, we just now realized we had 2 different garage doors.

Now we have 2 new doors, equipped with garage openers and keyless entry!

We painted the garage Benjamin Moore Steel Wool. 

It's a big improvement.

Back deck

We "cut twice and measured once" a few times, but managed to piece together a cover for the hole in the deck

Then the rest of the deck was powerwashed and you can't even tell where we made the changes! Ha! No one will notice the mismatched seams and different pattern by next year when the new wood has aged.

Now that its done, we can use this part of the deck again. Until the mosquitoes come along, then I'm going back into the screened section.

The back deck wreck

This tree and this deck are the reason we own this house. When Jeff saw it online, he begged me to go look at the house even though it was so far away from our city life. We bought the house and the 200 year old Copper Beech tree came with it.

We learned these trees are very susceptible to drought, one of which we had a few years ago and it stressed the tree. So, we took care of the tree and also removed some of the decking that was choking the tree.

Then we had a nice deck with a huge hole in it.

Once the tree rebounded, we started to think about the best way to replace the deck. You can see the way the boards are warped where the tree;s growth has pushed the planks.

We are going to carefully replace the boards in a way that will make it easier to adjust when the tree grows.

But we aren't going to fully rebuild the deck this year, I'm sure in a few years we will have to revisit this, as you can see the tree is totally touching and growing over parts of the deck beams.

Summer of the Exterior: New windows

We are making lots of changes to the exterior of the house this summer. The first big project is replacing the bay window in the family room with 2 double-hung windows.

The bay was a more recent addition to the house, and isn't a style consistent with the exterior. Plus, it is very drafty.

Here's the view from the exterior. Removing the bay will also gain a few inches of space on our side patio, off of the kitchen. The slider to the left is also coming out, details coming in a later post.

The goal is to add some energy efficiency and make the side patio usable as a place to sit and watch the neighbors walk by.

Like the back of my hand...

We've lived in this house for over 8 years and just realized the garage has 2 different doors. Good thing we are calling 2013 the "Year of the Exterior".

After: Master Bath

I realized I never shared the real "After" photos of the bathroom.
I wanted a 1920's feel and Shelly Van Rozeboom helped make my vision come to life. I love the antique brass medicine cabinets, lights, faucets, and cabinet hardware.

Here's what you see from the hall/closet area. The toilet is behind the wall to the right.

Double vanity! Antique brass campaign style pulls and handles, and brass faucets. The vanity has tons of storage. We each have 8 drawers and a cabinet. Most of Jeff's drawers are empty.

We went with rectangular sinks and faucets with the cross-handles. the medicine cabinets are HUGE. We each have 2 sconces giving plenty of light.

We added an outlet to the inside of the cabinets to keep things like hair-dryers, razors, and toothbrushes out of sight.

The wall tile was simple subway tiles, with a thin black pencil line, and a beautiful piece of tile trim at the top. I think that's my favorite part.

The floors have radiant heating (which is truly luxurious right now in winter) under the carerra marble tiles.

And, last but not least, the SHOWER! Here is where we really went nuts. We have a pretty carerra basket-weave tile with a border on the floor and white subway tile around the entire area. We went with the usual wall-mounted shower head, then added 2 body sprays, a waterfall on the ceiling, and a hand-held. We also upgraded the glass to starfire glass so it wouldn't have a blue/green tint. I wanted the tile to look white. There is a little seat/shelf in the corner too.

The walls are painted BM Stonington Gray.

It was a rough summer filled with construction, but it was worth it.

Front Hall Upgrade

The front hall is finally getting a new coat of paint. It was painted a blah yellow color by the Previous Owners.

After the floors were finished, I realized it was time to finish the area. Here are the before shots, notice the pretty floors!

I painted it Benjamin Moore Gray Mirage. Its a nice color with sage and a little blue in it.  I am going to paint the upstairs hall a lighter color. Eventually.

I painted the trim BM Decorator's White. I love crisp white trim. I also bought a new rug from Overstock.

Now all that's left is to pull up the carpet on the stairs, paint the treads, and replace the front door!

You can never have too much closet space

As part of the ever-creeping scope of the master bath project, we bought a closet system.
We talked to almost every company out there. The space is odd, with the low ceilings and the fact that this is really a hallway. We ended up going with California Closets. Since we walk through this hall several times a day, I realized these closets would be more like furniture and I wanted something nice that would stand the test of time. We chose the dark wood finish b/c 1) it matches the bathroom vanity and 2) it was on sale!

It was installed yesterday, and I wanted to post pictures before it was cluttered up by our clothes.

 

Above is my new set of shelving and drawers,

hanging space,

And Jeff's set of drawers and hanging space. I still need to order handles for the drawers, but now the master bathroom renovation is finally complete!

The paint color in the hall is Benjamin Moore November rain, #2142-60.

New hardwood floor

We now have hardwood flooring in the bedroom and master bath hall!

We pulled up the old blue carpet left by previous owners and added 2 1/4 inch maple to match the rest of the upstairs hall and bedrooms.

Of course, seeing the new floors makes me want to refinish the rest of the floors in the house. If we ever buy a new house, remind me to have the floors done before we move in.