Firs two rooms - done!!

Well, we have two parts of our house pretty much done. First up is the hallway.

Before:

After:

 

As you can see, we've replaced the faux-cantina colors with a warmer sandpiper - tan all around, and painted the ceiling to match.

Next, the kitchen:

 

And after...

The Sandpiper pretty much wraps around here to the wall on  the right in the second "after" photo here, where we decided upon a darker brown with orange highlights in it.  I liked the color scheme before; I love it now, since it's much more "us".

Pretty amazing friends have we

As many of you know, we've spent a lot of time over the past couple of months attempting to paint the majority of our house. We started on Memorial Day weekend with the rather over-eager expectation that we would be able to paint the kitchen, hallway, kids' room and living room over the course of three days. Even if Carrie hadn't needed an emergency appendectomy on that Saturday, just the process of taking down all of the (badly installed) hardware was enough to convince us that we were in for the long haul.

Amidst all of this, I drove down to Eugene, Oregon for training one weekend, and then drove all the way back up from Roseburg (which is a small town about an hour south of Eugene) (don't ask) all pretty much in one shot and royally messed up my back in the process (note to self: when driving long distances, take plenty of breaks to stretch out, and set the seat back a bit so that you're not driving in a ramrod-stiff position for hours on in!). That combined with the insane amount of reaching up that I had to do in order to paint the ceiling pretty much did me in this past weekend. On Saturday afternoon, Carrie and I had to go to U.S. Healthcare so that I could get a prescription for muscle relaxers, pain meds, and anti-inflammatory medications.

U.S. Healthcare – remind me to tell you about that place...

Anyhow....

This is where my pretty amazing friends come in. One weekend, Carrie's friend Alex (who served as one pretty kick-ass DJ for our wedding) helped us paint, and for two weekends, her friend Refugio and ex, John, chipped in as well. Recently, Carrie's sister, Carla, came up for nine days to help us out. Not only did she help me get virtually all of the painting done in the aforementioned areas, she also caulked the trim, cleaned up the major messes, helped Carrie put a tarp over our leaky shed, and helped Carrie clean out and organize the studio space, freeing up 400 square feet for exercise, crafts, and guest quarters. This is the same woman who, during our wedding a year ago, wrangled the caterers and cafe employees so that our guests would get fed and had plenty of drinks to quench their thirst – so that Carrie and I could enjoy that wonderful evening without a worry in the world.

I'm personally grateful to Alex, Ref, John and Carla for her help, and Carrie and I are breathing much easier in our newly painted residence (pics to come soon), knowing that, at least for now, the big projects are out of the way. I've a list about a mile long (and growing) of items that I need to do, but those are all smaller projects that I can tackle on nights and weekends.

...and the painting continues...

It seems as if the painting will never end...

I went into this weekend with the intention of fully finishing both the trim in the living room and the entire hallway; however, after having spent most of the day putting two coats of primer and finishing 3/4 of the hallway prior to running out of paint, I had to concede (yet again) that this entire endeavor was going to take a while.  Things are getting done, though, and I should feel grateful for that.

This morning (Sunday), after my run around Greenlake, Carrie and I went to Cyndy's along Aurora for breakfast with her long-time friend, John. We then went shopping for maternity clothes, and became grreatly preturbed that two of the three major department stores in Northgate - Macy's and Nordstrom - didn't even have a maternity section (the young lady at Macy's that we asked didn't even know what "Maternity" meant!!!), leaving JC Penny's the only department store there that did indeed have a section.  Of course, we went to Target and Motherhood, but there selections seem to be limiting after a while.

Oh - and my run...

One of my goals for this year has been to do the entire inner Greenlake run without stopping. It wasn't the easiest thing to do, but I did it! Seeing as how I ran 2.15 miles a couple of days ago, and 2/74 today without stopping, I'm thinking that running  the 2 miles from the light rail station to my house should be no problem whatsoever at this point.

Life as it is...

A couple of weeks ago, Carrie and I finally took the plunge, made the trip to Lowes, and bought a plethora of painting supplies in the vainglorious assumption that we would be able to prime and paint over 1000 square feet of wall space in a single three-day weekend. Expansion bolts, cheap hardware, generally shoddy shelving and curtain rod installation and time spent on masking and edging said 1000 square feet of wall space quickly brought our rather high hopes skidding earthwards,  and that was before a scary and tense night in the hospital brought on by Carrie going into the initial stages of appendicitis and her recovery from such.

We had spent the next week laying low while Carrie recovered from her surgery, and, as she took her tentative first steps to a life which is for now normal (meaning that she, as the mother of twins, can only be expected to not feel sick or unwell roughly the same percentage of the time as  Carrie-the-not-expectant-mother-of-twins could be expected to feel sick or unwell), we enlisted the aid of friends to help us in our endeavours.

Thankfully, many of them came through for us, and for the past couple of weeks at least two of them have been helping us prime and paint our living room, and prime (at least the high-hiding prime, since the previous owners chose a rather bold colour palette that I can best describe as "Mexican Taqueria"). However, we had to once again readjust our expectations of many things downwards. We were able to get a single coat of paint on the living room walls, we didn't get any trim work done, and the hallway and kitchen are still crying out for attention. Meanwhile, we've decided to re-paint the kids room a slightly less aggressive shade of green (one that does not induce epileptic seizures in otherwise un-challenged individuals), and we've come to the conclusion that, since neither one of us does this for a living, we should opt on the side of sanity and cut ourselves some slack when it comes to how the paint looks on the walls.

So - add a slowly progressing painting project into the many things that we as new homeowners need to get done.  I was going to seal the deck and prune the trees, but the former can wait while it's too late for the latter. I've got to put my personal efforts into "acquiring" a set of sawhorses (Lowes or that nicely-placed set in the common alleyway behind our house will suffice), taking the doors down, resanding them both, refinishing one while repainting the other, and  - oh - the Baby Project awaits.

But it's all good. I mean, I feel much more satisfaction doing these things as a homeowner and knowing that we're investing our time and hearts into something that we'll get the emotional benefit of for as long as we choose to have it rather than doing the same in an apartment and having to get the owner's permission to effect our desires upon our living space. Regardless of how long this process takes - I'll be holding that thought in my heart.

In other news...

A couple of weekends ago, I injured my foot while gallivanting about our backyard sans footwear (a folly I normally from which I normally refrain). I spent the next week or so healing, and then after my drive down to Oregon to attend a training seminar, I spent the next couple of weeks knee-deep in housework. This morning, for the very first time in three weeks, I ran my usual route.


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I made it from Orcas to Mrytle to Graham - 1.5 miles - without stopping,but the uphill grade on the way northwards from Myrtle back to Orcas, proved just a bit much for me, and I had to walk for a couple of blocks before running the rest of the way back to Orcas. Still, I think that I did rather well for not having ran for the past three weeks.

Concerning running:

I've a couple of personal challenges that I'd like to take on before the year lets out:

• A lap around Greenlake (Inner): About 3 miles
• A lap around Seward Park: I think that this is around 2 miles
• Going Northward on Queen Anne Ave.: Not very far (maybe a mile), but all uphill.
  

Labor Day weekend

The long weekend started out innocuously enough. Saturday morning, we arose to a meal of buttermilk pancakes and scrambled eggs, then we went about prepping the baby's room for painting.

Along with removing all of the doors and light fixtures, we had to remove the blinds, curtain rods, and shelves that the previous owners had left behind.  Around this time came my first point of contention with them: not only did they use a system that was a bear to remove, but they used cheap hardware in the form of brass flathead screws that was a pain to remove. I ended up having to tear the shelf rods from the walls, leaving behind hugte holes and tears in the drywall that required the generous application of spackle.

So- stuff removed, bare wood surfaces sanded (they are getting painted as well), and walls washed. Time for the primer - and point of contention #2: the ceiling in both the kids' room and our bedroom has this rather unsightly popcorn texture to it; that means that I'll have to put not one, but two generous coats of primer just to fill in the uneven parts.

Despite all this, things were swimming along smoothly enough until Carrie started having severe abdominal pains during the afternoon.  It turns out that she was in the early stages of appendicitis, and needed to be taken to the ER so that she could get an appendectomy. We were both very fearful, not just because of the fact that she needed surgery, but also because we were unsure of the effect that the anesthesia and any subsequent pain medication would have on the twins. All three individuals made it past the surgery okay, though, and they are back home resting and recovering. Today (Tuesday), she's up and walking around, although with a bit of difficulty alternating between standing up and sitting  / laying down. Still, she's in considerably less discomfort than she was, and that's saying a lot, I think!

In other news:

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I had made an abbreviated version of this run earlier,but I hadn't realized that, by cutting out the run from Orcas to Dawson, I was cheating myself out of .3 mile. The extra distance didn't take that much longer to do, and I felt a lot better once I got to Columbia City Bakery. Lest ye wonder why I take the time to run down there, Carrie and I love thier pastries., breads and sandwiches, and their Torta Rustica is a treat that, if you can get a hold of it, is something to be treasured alongside a fine wine. If Carrie can't come with me, then I'l run to the bakery, get a espresso and pastry, pick up something for Carrie, and walk back. Why walk? Well, I do live on Beacon Hill!

Ghetto AC

Upon hearing that it would be getting into the upper eighties - upper nineties over the next few days, Carrie and I splurged a bit and bought an window AC unit. since we live in an older house, and only a few of  the windows are wider than 21", we had to settle on the most powerful smaller unit that we could find.

We went scouring Lowes, Target and Best Buy late last evening in  the hopes of finding an AC unit that wasn't too expensive, yet would suit our needs. We finally found one at Home Depot - one of  the last ones available. Most homes in Seattle aren't equipped with AC units, so there was a rush on them upon notice of hotter weather.

We finally installed it today, but had to make several modifications in order to make sure that little of the precious conditioned air would leak to the outside. We'll be upgrading to corrugated plastic sheeting!

From [~neverland~]

We also had to make sure that the unit itself would stay in the window. We will be upgrading to a 2x4 in the near future :)

From [~neverland~]

It works - kinda. After about an hour of operation, we noticed that the back rooms were cooler, while the front rooms were simply tolerable. A marked improvement over the sweltering days in the past that we spent in our living room!

Enjoy.

Where talents lie

My very first home project was making a worm composting bin. My father in law and I went to Lowes to get the lumber cut (most of it was gut 1/2 inch short) and tools, and I put it together last night.

Some people's talents lay in carpentry and woodworking - mine does not. Mine lies in putting together bits of ones and zeroes, and tossing them into the ether. Mine also lies in making sure that other peoples bundles of ones and zeroes do what they are supposed to do before they get tossed into the ether.

*sigh*

At Last!

It almost didn’t seem like it would happen. Our initial lender fell through at the last moment, and our mortgage company stepped up and scrambled trying to get a replacement. The replacement lenders didn’t offer the nice slim interest rate of the first lender (the later was half a percent higher), and demanded that we carry more insurance on our property – but we ended up getting things done in the long run.
On what was supposed to be closing day, we discovered that, due to a miscommunication between the lenders and our escrow company, a single document hadn’t been signed! That held closing up for a day, which meant that we had to close and move pretty much on the same day. We had to wait until 3:30 before we could get the keys and step foot inside our own house. Oh – and note to self – never rent a U-Haul from the location on Ranier. The people there are very poorly trained, and the “manager” has a major attitude problem.
But I digressed. It took us six hours over two trips to move out of our old place and into our new one. We’re still unpacking and cleaning to this day, but it’s well worth it. We have a beautiful place that we are in the process of truly making our own.