Lipstick on a pig...

Back at the end of July I decided I couldn't live with our kitchen any longer. I'm not entirely sure what changed, but I think the breaking point was the day that the sprayer broke for the third time in less than a year, the drainpipes completely gave up draining any water into the sewer in favor of our lower cabinets, and the second piece of peel and stick tile cracked, broke free of the un-primed sub floor and revealed yet another issue with our long suffering kitchen.

Whatever it was, I cracked. I actually threatened J that if one more thing in the kitchen broke I was going to light a match, throw it over my shoulder, and walk away. (Not really. The bathroom we spent nearly a year remodeling is next to the kitchen and apparently it's poor form to run out of your burning house not with your dreamed-of, prayed-for, and much-loved baby but with your dreamed-of, prayed-for, and much-loved bathroom vanity in your arms.)

So I started dreaming and sketching, imagining the kitchen I would love instead of the kitchen I live with. Believe me, it is fabulous!  It is also, if my initial calculations are even close to correct, fabulously expensive.  Even pared down, that kitchen is outside our budget. Rather than mope about the kitchen we can't afford I sat down an made a list of the five things I like well enough about our kitchen and the five things I couldn't stand.  The list of the things I like got me out of the kitchen doldrums. The list of things I hated helped create a budget-friendly remodel I've taken to calling the "lipstick on a pig" plan.

The what?!?

You know the saying that you can put lipstick on a pig, but that it is still a pig?  Well, in our case, we are applying some pretty finishes on our least favorite parts of our pig of a kitchen. At the end of the day, it will still be a pig, a kitchen we dream of replacing. But it will be a pig we can live with for a few more years.

So what's the plan?  I started with a list of five things I couldn't live with:

The back door looks awful.  Zep used to scratch at it, and his nails did a number on the soft wood.
The sink drains into the base cabinet.  That's a problem.  And the faucet sprayer keeps breaking.
I strongly dislike the four-inch ceramic tile counter.  And I hate the grout lines in between those tiles.  Seriously.  No one should ever use tile for a kitchen counter, as there's no way to keep the grout clean.  Ever.  Even if you are great about cleaning it every day.  Which we aren't.
The cabinets.  Ugh.  The doors are weird off-white laminate. Trimmed in yellowing oak.  Which matches the cabinet frames, but little else.
The peel & stick tile is not my favorite to start with.  The fact that it's cracking and popping off makes it worse.  The thought of our baby crawling on the floor makes my skin crawl.  (The thought of our baby crawling period makes my skin crawl, but apparently that's going to happen whether I like it or not.)

...and using that list of problems, I created my lipstick solution:

Skim coat the hideous ceramic tile counters with concrete and seal
Replace the back-splash which, also made of that four inch ceramic tile, won't match the new counter
Fill the scratched up back door with wood filler, sand and paint
Fix the faulty plumbing under the sink
Prime and paint those awful laminated cabinet doors (and frames)
Replace the cracked peel & stick laminate floor

That's the plan.  Stay tuned for progress updates!

Productive Weekend

The one thing I love most about summer is the empty weekends.  The activities that keep us busy throughout the year tend to take summers off, which leads to quiet and unscheduled weekends like this most recent one.  This one in particular started off when J got home from work and practically tripped over the extension cord and drill that I'd strategically left right in the path from the front door through the living room.  Turns out, as handy as I like to think I am, I simply don't have the muscle power to wield the big drill while simultaneously holding a screw and a mailbox number plaque.  So he changed clothes and ran out front to install our numbers--the last step to calling that project complete!

Then, after he cooked me dinner, I convinced the poor guy to accompany me to Home Depot to look at flooring options for the kitchen (lucky him, I know!).  We came home with a bunch of samples and started crafting our weekend to-do list.  Chief on the list?

My clothesline!  When we started talking about adding a pergola to the deck plan, I got excited about adding a retractable clothesline to make it easier to sun Kate's cloth diapers (among other things).  We bought a 50' line that easily wraps all the way around the pergola when we need that much line, then conveniently coils away (and even comes down completely if we want) when we don't!

The rest of the weekend included a shopping trip to Sam's, prepping the week's lunches, baking cookies and muffins, walks and watching movies.  Oh, and a fair amount of staring at this little angel, seen here snoozing through church.

In all, a rather productive and especially enjoyable weekend.

Around the point

Shock and amazement, I'm actually writing a non-baby post!  The last few (four?) months have been a bit of a blur, but we've actually been getting a few things accomplished around the MP, too!  Today seemed like as good a time as any to take a look back at our goals for 2013 and see how we're doing at the half-way point.

Inside the house:

• Get the library all put together Done!  Thanks to help from J's dad, the cabinet doors were installed the morning of March 9th (aka, less than twelve hours before Little Miss made her arrival!).  My mom did a huge amount of organizing in there as well, both before and after the doors were installed, and she rocked Kate while we sorted and placed books in the built-ins!  The room is quite workable now, and we are really pleased with it!
• Clear the pool table out of the family room and create kid-world:  So the pool table is cleared off (that mostly because we moved the books to the library shelves where they belonged), but we haven't Craiglisted it yet.  Luckily, the little one isn't really demanding her own place space yet.
• Create a nursery: Sort of.  I mean, we have a lovely room filled with furniture for baby all tucked away and waiting for her.  So...yeah, I guess I could mark that one off.  Except.  I've not put much thought into finishing the mural.  And I've not worked on my lighting concerns.  And Miss Kate has been sleeping in our room and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. So.  Work to be done there.
• Maybe do a little work to the living room (like tear down a wall!): Hahahaha!

Outside the house:
New deck! Yaaayyyy!

Move the storage building to a less in-the-way spot in the yard:  Um...no.  Not yet.  But really, we should get on that...
Planting bed out front:  See comment about the storage building...
New mailbox:  Yes!  This was another nesting project that we were sure would send me into labor (it didn't.).  Many thanks to Mom and J for putting up with me on this project!  Oh, but we totally want to redo it.  Be warned.

Our word for 2013:  Patience  Hmmm...  I think the fact that I'd completely forgotten this was our word for the year doesn't say too much for it.  I think we did a great job of patiently waiting for Miss Kate's arrival, even pressuring the OB to be patient with us and allow her to come in her own time.  J was an amazingly patient husband getting me through those last couple months and really through the first couple, too.  I think we've both become less patient with each other as time has passed.  We start to settle into routine, then something (my going out of town, Kate changing her sleep schedule, etc) changes things up and we struggle to adjust to yet another new 'normal'.  We are working on it, though, and this check-in is a good time to remind ourselves and regroup.

A much longed for addition...

Yes, it's been nearly a month again, and once again I've had several posts in mind but have failed to actually type them up.  I'll continue to think about them and might even get some written and posted!

Anyhow, on to the much longed for addition I mentioned in the title.  No, I don't mean Kate this time.  I mean this addition:

Remember when J and I painted our deck and had a miserable time with it?  Well, the following year, when we should have repainted it (apparently once you've made the horrible choice to paint your deck (thanks, PO), you have to do so every year to keep it looking nice), we decided not to.  Quite frankly, I don't remember why.  Maybe because I was in the middle of a career crisis?  Or because the bathroom remodel was too time-consuming?  Whatever the reason, by 2011 we realized that a new deck (one that we wouldn't paint) was needed.  That April, we started sketching ideas and talking about what we had in mind.  Those discussions and sketches continued for months. I had folks out periodically to give us a quote, but I was never happy with the number (or the service, for that matter).

Last fall, when we had the gutters done, I asked the contractor for yet another quote.  We discussed what I had in mind and he said he'd give me a call.  Well, he didn't.  I didn't mind, as we had other things on our minds, but as spring (and the baby) rolled around, we realized that we couldn't put a little one out on the old, splintered deck to learn to crawl and walk.  I started asking around for recommendations and came across Deckadent Designs, a local company who built a deck for some friends of ours.  After nearly two years of waiting, these guys gave me a decent quote and could start quickly.  (By "decent" I mean I completely choked, but acknowledged that in the years of dreaming my plans had grown grander and the quote still came in less than some of our earlier quotes.)

So now, two years after we first discussed rebuilding the deck, we're enjoying this new addition to our home.  The addition prompted J to power wash and seal the fence and me to repaint the entry to the basement.  There are still things to do to the exterior of the house (move/paint/destroy? the storage building and finish the other planting bed out front to name two), but we are feeling pretty good about our progress on the house.

P.S.  I really need to write a complete deck building post, complete with pictures and the obligatory "PO's crazy contributions to the old deck" story.

2013 Goals

Okay, so I'm finally getting some goals posted for the MP this year.  If they sound a little repetitive, well, they are.  I'm nothing if not dedicated to accomplishing goals, even if it takes years of talking about them to make them happen...

Inside the house:

• Get the library all put together
• Clear the pool table out of the family room and create kid-world
• Create a nursery
• Maybe do a little work to the living room (like tear down a wall!)

Outside the house:

• New deck!
• Move the storage building to a less in-the-way spot in the yard
• Planting bed out front
• New mailbox

Our word for 2013:  Patience

• First, we figure these last two months of waiting for our baby girl will certainly require some patience, particularly at the end as we balance impatience with a desire to let her 'bake' as long as she needs.
• Second, J needs a healthy helping of patience to survive two more months of me with 'pregnancy brain'.
• Finally, and perhaps most obviously, as we enter the world of parenthood, we know that a reminder to ourselves to be patient--with the little one, with ourselves, with each other, and with well-meaning family and friends--will be much needed.

So there you go--our Melton Point goals for 2013!  Check back in a year or so to see how we do!

Blank slate

Back in 2008, when J first bought the MP, we knew that the smaller of the two rooms upstairs would be my office/eventual craft room.  We didn't really have a purpose for the other room.  When J received a bunch of UK-related framed art, I hung those on the walls.  Over time, it became an 'overflow guest room', with an air mattress or two ready to blow up as needed.  Finally, at some point, I started to think of the room as the future nursery, and eventually I pulled together an idea (a picture in my head) of what it might look like.

As time continued to pass, I finally broke down and started to fill the mostly empty room.  Left my 'real job'?  Well, those boxes from the office need to go somewhere...  New part time job comes with boxes and catalogs?  Well, there's room upstairs for that...  Don't feel like sorting through Christmas decorations to make new for the new ones?  Just store the new ones upstairs and pretend the old ones don't exist anymore!

You can imagine what the 'nursery' looked like once it was actually time to use it for real.  Lucky for me, my mom was in town this weekend and offered to stay over an extra day to help me sort through things.  Actually, she ended up serving as a runner while I touched each and every object in the room.  Do you remember that old show on TLC where they set up a Toss, Keep, Sell/Donate pile?  It was kind of like that, except I had a donate box, a trash bag, a box to send to my new office, a box to send home to mom and dad, and boxes for each level of the house.  Other than a break to run to Goodwill and the county electronics recycling facility, we spent most of the day sorting and cleaning.  By the end of the day, this is what we had:

Actually, at the very end of the day, this is what we had:

I'm kind of excited to have baby things in the baby room, and nothing else!!

Thanks, mom!

Another library progress report...

I would imagine that when I shared last week about my trip to the "laminate-yard" that you imagined it would be weeks before it I would be back with an update.  That's kind of the rate of progress around here.  Apparently, that's far from the rate of progress for the guy I worked with there.  He called Tuesday with a quote, I called back Wednesday with a laminate choice, he came out Thursday to measure, and then called me Saturday to let me know he was ready to install.  If you think my head was spinning, you're right!  Luckily, J was working from home Saturday afternoon and was able to assist with clearing that end of the room and carrying in the new counter.  It's about as close to perfect as I could have hoped for material choice!

While here, the fabricator/installer went ahead and installed the base cabinets, screwing them together and to the wall.  He also made some oak pieces to help us attach the bookshelves to the wall when we're ready. I think J was relieved when he suggested we wait a week or so to put those on top of the counter.

So what's left?

• Attach the doors (the dark piece you see in the bottom of each cabinet)
• Come up with some sort of interior shelving for each cabinet
• Finish the bookshelves
• Place the bookshelves on the counter-top (and attach to the wall for safety)
• Add hardware?
• Find a chair/stool for the desk space we created between the cabinets

Library Built-ins

I'm back with another update on the library built-ins.  In case you're wondering what we're up to, this is a mock-up I did nearly five years ago when we first started talking about this project.  Shockingly, the finished product is going to look pretty much like this, too!

I showed you the bookshelf progress last week, but I realized at some point that finishing the bookshelves will do us no good if we don't have a counter top to place them on.  The counter top issue has been quite a problem.  First, the width of this room is basically 10'8".  Guess what 'standard' lengths generally stop at?  Ten feet. Argh.  Also, you'll notice that I put in a black top--thinking something like soapstone or black granite would look nice.  I still think it would look nice, but I've never been able to convince myself that we needed to spend $1000 on a counter top in this not-too-frequently-used room.
Having given up on a high end counter, I decided that we should just use oak, which would blend nicely with the rest of the built-ins.  Unfortunately, I've been picky and didn't want to have visible seams (so putting two or three planks together was out).  For a while I thought oak plywood would work (it's what we used for the window sill, after all and that looks nice).  It turns out that 12 foot long pieces of oak plywood are nigh on impossible for a regular person to get their hands on  and anything shorter would result in unseemly seams.  After months of trying to make that work in my head, I've given up.
This brings me to today's field trip, to a cabinet supply shop down in Nicholasville.  Remember my trip to the stone yard in Louisville when we were working on the main bath?  This is sort of the same, except that this facility has aisles of laminate!

I took in one of the cabinet doors we finished and held it up next to dozens of sheets of laminate.  I picked two to get samples of to bring home to J, and then I'll be having someone make a counter for me.

Option 1: a faux stone "HD" laminate

Option 2: more of a matte, leather-like finish

Is this exactly what I had in mind initially?  No, it isn't.  Am I okay with that?  Eh, I'm okay with a finished product and being happy enough to move on to something else.  Seriously, I think that it is going to be very serviceable, it's going to look better than something I could cobble together myself, there aren't going to be any visible seams, and we're not going to bankrupt ourselves using materials that aren't necessary in our neighborhood.  And did I mention that it's going to be done?
So what do you think?  Is laminate the way to go?  If so, which of these options would you choose?

A glimpse of the library built-ins progress

So last week I told you we're working on the library built-ins, and I thought I'd show a picture of the progress today!

This is just one of the shelves, and it needs to be poly'd before we can call it done, but I'm really pleased with it!  Forgive the blotchy look of it; I think that's the lighting, because it doesn't look like that at all in person.  Forgive, too, our messy laundry/work room!  Our new (to us!) washer is in the foreground taking up entirely too much space, and I'm realizing from looking at the picture that those bar stools really need to go, too. The tree will head upstairs next weekend and free up quite a bit of floor space for the next month!

Progress! Seriously!

I don't even know when I last mentioned the built-ins in the library (even as a one line mention on a to-do list), but needless to say, it's been a long while.  Well, this weekend we started making progress on that project!  The current (Make the MP Baby Friendly) to-do list runs something like this:

• Finish the built-ins
• Move all the books off the pool table onto the built-ins
• Sell the pool table (sniff!)
• Clear out the nursery-to-be
• Paint the nursery-to-be
• Buy nursery furniture

You'll notice that finishing the built-ins is key to the next few steps, so we finally seem to have the motivation necessary to cross this project off our list.  While I was out of town this weekend J bought all the supplies and started sanding the book shelves.  I did a finish sand today, and later this week J will spend an evening with smelly wood stain.  Maybe, just maybe, we'll actually finish this project before the need for a nursery actually arrives!

Around the MP

Happy Monday!

I promised to give an MP garden update today, and I've actually been thinking about writing a general MP update, too.

First, the garden!  Back in May when we planted the garden, we had great hopes for our garden.  Those hopes were half-fulfilled.  The bad news is that this was not a great year for tomatoes.  Not only did the first two plants not make it, we tried and failed with another five plants later in the summer.  Friends with successful tomatoes this summer told me that they only did well with the earliest plants (like, back in April).  That made me feel a little better...

Now, our second container was incredibly successful.  The basil bush (yes, bush!) has provided (and still is) months of pesto, fresh basil, dried basil, etc.  The pepper plants continue to produce peppers, and the other herbs are holding their own, too.

In other MP news, my dad asked the other day what we'd done around the house this year.  Um...  The only thing that came to mind is the new gutters/trim work around the house.  But that just happened, and I felt awful thinking that was it!  So, I scrolled back through our MP Mondays posts from this year (there aren't many, and it didn't take long...).  On the list of things we've accomplished outside this year:

• New gutters!  (longtime readers know this was a longtime project around here!)
• Wrapped the wood trim in vinyl to match the gutters
• Painted shutters and back door black
• Had the phone line into the house cut down and the cable line moved to a less unsightly point
• Added lights to the back deck

We've not done nearly as much inside, though I did make the headboard for our bedroom and add storage to my craft room upstairs.

I figure the reason I couldn't think of most of these things has something to do with the fact that most of them happened before our biggest project of the year--gestating a baby!

So that's what we've been up to this year.  With only two months to go, I'm not sure what other projects are going to be crossed off our list.  You can be sure I'll let you know!

 

Gutters!!

So remember way, way back over a year ago (don't bother looking for the post; I found it for you...sixteen months back...) when I mentioned that the winter of 2010/2011 was rough on our gutters and that we'd have to replace them?  Well, we interviewed folks.  We asked our friends and neighbors.  We thought about, prayed about, forgot about it (except for every time it rained...then we remembered again).  Then, this spring (after spending all that money we'd saved on the refi and new cars), we decided to spring for covering the wood trim on the house in vinyl.  So we went back to saving money for a few months.  Earlier this summer, I got brave and started looking for a new gutter company.  Thanks to Angie's List, I found a guy from Frankfort who had great reviews.  I went out on a limb and called to see if he serviced Lexington.  The good news?  He was willing to!

So long story shorter, we got a quote right before the company owner went on vacation, then once he got back it took a couple weeks to work us into the schedule.  Much to my surprise, he showed up yesterday morning (bright and early!) with a crew of four guys to tackle our job.  It took them less than one day to remove the old gutters (actually, that part alone took less then five minutes...the front gutters basically fell off when they tugged...), replace a rotten bit of fascia, fabricate and install trim, soffit, fascia and gutters, and to install leaf guards on those gutters.  And the best part?  My Frankfort contractor cost us half what a Lexington contractor quoted us for the same work.

So without further ado:

The new color is called "sierra" and I asked for a sample so that we can get some exterior paint color-matched.  Those windows pop in a horrible way now!  Needless to say, I'm pleased!

I can see clearly now!

I'm sure I've complained before about, or at least you've noticed in my exterior pictures, all of the power lines that cross over our deck.  If you don't recall, this is what it looks like:

Well, after several years, I finally found myself irritated enough to call the phone company about cutting down their line(s).  That's the line that you see coming in from the right at the bottom.  A fairly quick phone call and twelve hours later, I had Travis at my front door.  I don't think it took 30 minutes for Travis to clip the line at the pole, clip it at the house, and clean up the box.  Best part?  It was free!  

The deck felt so much more open, that I had to call the cable company to free me of the other low line (the high line is the electric, and I'm not messing with that).

It took several phone calls and about 36 hours to get Pavel (or something like that) from the cable company to come out.  He wasn't nearly as fast or accommodating as Travis.  In fast, at one point, I was ready to tell him to take his things and leave.  It took nearly two hours from actual arrival to finish (oh, did I mention he was late?  And didn't call?).  In the end, the line was moved to the other end of our deck, and it comes in straight from the back yard, so you really can't even see it from this direction, and it blends well with the trees when looking from the house. 

I've no idea how much this will cost us.  I asked twice and he gave me the runaround both times.  Needless to say, if it seems at all out of hand, the cable company will be receiving a phone call.  The one nice thing (I guess?) is that he installed a cable box and cleaned up the apparently illegal connection that was going on on the back of our house.  Who's surprised something was done incorrectly?  Oh wait, no one. Thanks, PO!

Of course now we have to paint where everything used to be...

Anyhow, that's what happened at the MP last week.  I'm off to DC for our national conference for a week, leaving J and Zep to hold down the fort.  I'll do my best to post, since I actually have some topics in mind, but I expect to get flaky toward the end of the week!

More trim painting

Remember last Monday, when I told you I was done switching all of the trim on the MP over to black?  I lied.  Not on purpose (at all!).  I just forgot about the bathroom window.  The window is just to the right of the back door, and it is set in like the door.  Which means that there was a bit of green trim around the window still.  I noticed it on Monday afternoon when I showed my mom the door.

Here's what it looked like before:

And here's what it looked like in progress:

And here's how it looks now!

So now I think I've swapped all of the house trim out for black!

A New Look...

Remember back in March when I decided that our back door should really match the rest of the doors/shutters at the MP?  I ran to HD on a whim and bought black exterior paint and threw up a first coat on a pretty afternoon.  After the first coat, it pretty much looked like this:

And it stayed that way for a couple of months.  To be fair, it cooled off...and then got really hot...and I got really busy...and really, we all know I don't have the longest attention span when it comes to projects around the MP.  At all.

Well, last week I came up with an awesome new project (for our bedroom...which is its own graveyard of not quite finished projects).  In a moment of restraint, I decided it might please J if I would finish a project before starting a new one.  So Friday afternoon I pulled out the tape so I could do some detail work on the door, as well as give it a second coat.

Rather than tape off the glass, I just painted right onto it.  After everything was nice and dry, I went out Saturday morning with a razor blade to slice a clean line at the edge of the window and scrape everything clean.  It was actually useful because the previous owners left some paint behind on the inside of the glass when they painted the doors to sell the house.  It's nice to know that the glass is actually clean on both sides now.

So previously, the doors were white, and the trim around the doors was green, which matched the back of the house.  When we painted the back of the house off-white a few years ago, I decided not to paint the trim around the door (not just trim, it's a funky four inch inset area).  I didn't know what color the doors would be changed to, but I knew that I wanted them to match the trim/inset so that it would all just blend together.  I really like the way it all turned out.

Ignore the mess on the deck that's reflected in the door.  That's just a preview of tomorrow's blog post!


Have a great week!

Saturday smells like...Elbow grease...and bananas

J and I are enjoying one of those incredibly rare weekends when nothing is on our calendar.  Since J's knee prevents my typical response to this kind of weekend (let's go adventuring!!), we decided to stay home and see what trouble we could get into around the house.
Considering that it is just now mid-afternoon (and that we slept until late morning), we've found a lot to get into!  I finished off the back door project (the one I started back in March), and J did the necessary 'Spring start-up' work to get our container gardens ready for the summer growing season.  J made us banana smoothies for breakfast (brunch? lunch?  It was after 12:30 when we had them...and anyway, Zeppelin had most of J's after he set it down on the deck for a minute.), and I started laundry (currently washing the fourth load of, I'm just guessing here, seven to be done).  We found the smoothie recipe in my new WW Fruits and Veggies cookbook.  Incredibly easy, I've put the recipe at the bottom of this post.  I gave J a much-needed haircut, and he's currently in the kitchen working on stock for something.
Still to do today?  Finish the laundry before it rains (and puts a stop to laundry-doing so the sump pump can do its job) and grocery shopping.  I am absolutely delighted at much we've gotten done today!

Mine is on the left, J's on the right.  Both glasses were filled to the brim with one serving.

Banana Smoothie--We started with the WW recipe, but y'all know J tweaked it a bit!
Peel & slice a banana; wrap in plastic wrap freeze 30 minutes
Put in blender (J used our food processor) with 1/2 cup fat free milk (J used 2%, which we had on hand), 2 ice cubes (or three...), and a few drops vanilla extract (J used our Nielsen-Massey Madagascar Bourbon Pure Vanilla Extract from Williams-Sonoma--yum!!)  (also, J added a pinch of sea salt)
WW suggested sprinkling with unsweetened cocoa powder, but we don't have any of that on hand, so I drank mine plain.  It tasted like a great banana milkshake.  J added a dollop of peanut butter, a drizzle of honey, and a little nutmeg to his, and it tasted like a peanut butter milkshake.
As printed in the book, this recipe has 4 WW PointsPlus.  The way J made mine added up to 5 WW PointsPlus.  Since I didn't watch him make his smoothie, I'm hesitant to estimate the points in his version, but I'm sure it added at least two or three points to my total.

Keeping with the theme...

With the black door, black light, and black shutters, we should have know this was right around the corner.

This is our back door, which was crying out to be painted.  After we paid a painter to paint the shutters and trim work on the house a couple weeks ago, it dawned on me that I should have asked him to paint the back door, too.  I think it just seemed logical that this door would match the door and shutters on the front of the house, so I mentioned it to J (he may not have been listening, but I took the noncommittal "um...sure" as affirmation that I should go for it).  Last Thursday I ran to Home Depot and picked up a quart of black exterior paint.  I got the first coat on that afternoon.  If you've been following the weather at all in the last few days, you know that I've not gotten the second coat on.  Here's what it looks like today.

I love it.  Especially when the kitchen door is open, the black picks up the other black pieces in the kitchen (our server and the black board wall directly across from the door).  Hopefully it will warm up again later this week and I'll be able to finish it up!

Black Shutters!

One of the holdups to our mortgage refi was a need to paint our exterior woodwork.  J and I were hesitant to spend lots of money painting woodwork that will be replaced this spring, but I was hesitant to put J (or me) on an extension ladder to do the work ourselves.  We got a couple of quotes and had the painter out last Thursday to do the work (and back on Saturday, but that's another story).  Since we'd already agreed to pay someone to paint the trim, it seemed logical to throw the shutters into the job.  You remember the shutters, the green ones that stand out like sore thumbs since we've swapped out everything else to black?

Well, they now match the front door!  And I have to admit that I'm thrilled that we didn't have to paint them ourselves!

Crossing the Threshold

What's this?  Could it be?  Why yes, my favorite social worker, it is! 

I finally installed the threshold between our hardwood in the hallway and the marble tile floor J installed...um...16 months ago.  While I didn't really notice it not being there, I have to confess that I love having it in place.  I've pointed it out to J more times in the past two days than either of us would care to count.  I puposefully change my gait so my foot can step on it as I enter or exit the bathroom.  It's a little out of hand, but I'm wallowing in the blissfulness of it while it lasts.

Oh, worth pointing out that Zep does not like the new threshold.  Turns out it is just the perfect little ramp for tennis balls to roll into the bathroom and most frequently under the vanity.  Zep hates to step onto the tile floor, so the new threshold is not a happy development for him, at all.

Saturday Smells like... Cleaning Products

If you came here today looking for a food post, I'm afraid you're in for a little disappointment.  J is in Bowling Green visiting a friend and I'm hanging out in my craft room while the new cleaning lady and her crew "deep clean" the rest of the MP.  Y'all.  I didn't think I was terribly concerned about the whole "green" vs. "traditional" cleaning products debate, but after two hours of the stuff pemeating the house (and I've been told to expect her to be here for eight), I'm thinking I may get on the "green" wagon.  My head is already starting to bug me, and all I can think is that it will take days for our house to smell clean (as opposed to "clean") again.  Don't get me wrong--I'm thrilled about the deep cleaning; I'm just not thrilled with the chemicals Zep and I are inhaling.