Installing our first door

We had a several week long break from home improvement projects over the holidays. We spent Christmas up in Roscoe with our parents, and traveled to Michigan's Upper Peninsula over New Years weekend to go skiing with a group of friends, which was fabulous.

We jumped back into the swing of things this weekend with a bigger-than-usual project: replacing our bathroom door. Let me explain why:


This is our cat Jack. He is soaking wet. Because he just took a shower with me.

Our bathroom door has never closed correctly, and the cats recently discovered that they can get in while it's closed. They LOVE water, so this is a bad idea. Also, the doors are really old and ugly, so I was ready to upgrade. Here's the old door, taken off of its hinges:


Adam and I took the old door, trim, and frame off first. We bought a pre-hung door, so we had to take the opening down to the studs. Here's Adam in action with the reciprocating saw:


Then we did lots of shimming, including help from my dad, who stopped by after my parents had dropped my brother off at U of I. After my parents left, we finished putting in the doorknob, and ta-da!


A finished door! (Well, mostly--it still needs trim, but that part's easy.) We're planning to replace all the doors in the house, which will really brighten up our dark hallway.

No more orange!

This week, we finally got rid of the last of the orange by painting over the final wall in our family room. It was so much easier than painting in the kitchen, because there were no cabinets or appliances to have to paint around.

Here is the before picture of the room, again from the realty listing (with the former owners' furnishings, etc.):


Here is our repainted wall (we left the green wall as-is; it's not a bad color, when it isn't paired with orange...):


And another view, including the Christmas tree:


And, of course, Marble is in both pictures. They are both constantly either running around like crazy or lazing around on the coffee table:

Kitchen updates

After what feels like forever, we've finally finished painting the kitchen!! We even had some help from Lynn one weekend. Here's Adam, hard at work and wearing Lynn's sunglasses in place of safety goggles:

Note the brown and orange walls, which are now gone. Ten points if you know where this T-shirt is from... ten more if you also own one, and also only wear it while painting, to bed, somewhere you won't be seen in public, etc.:


As you can see, we went with a red and tan color scheme for a more updated look. Here is a picture (from the realty listing, before we bought it) with the original paint and appliances:

And here is our newly painted kitchen with new stove:


It's still in need of a few things (like a new countertop and a range hood to match the new oven), but it's sooo much better!

Starting Small

We're just getting started on all of the house projects we need to do. (And no, everything is not put away yet... But, it does look much better!)

We decided to start small and hopefully learn from our first project. We wanted to redo a small closet off the kitchen, which the former owners had used for storing old paint cans. They helpfully left us the paint cans, as well (three cans of orange paint, anyone?). I really wanted to use the closet as a pantry, but since it was so gross, I knew we'd have to start over completely. The original closet shelves basically were some pieces of wood nailed into the wall with particle board placed on top:

The walls were also very beat up, stained, and just overall disgusting. So, we tore out the shelves, patched all the holes, gave it two coats of paints, and put all new shelving up:

New! Clean! Suitable for food! ;)

Up next is painting every other wall in the house...

House!!

Sorry for the lack of posts. We've been busy moving!!

It's so awesome to finally be out of an apartment and into our own place. Of course, it's already come with some challenges (fixing the sump pump, replacing the doorbell, mowing, etc.), but it's soooo great to be here. And it's shaved off quite a bit of my commute, so I'm happy!

When other people I know have bought houses recently, I've gotten frustrated that they didn't put up pictures right away on facebook, blogs, etc. Now I know why. Our house is a MESS. Everything we own--which never has been in one place before--suddenly is. We are finally making headway on unpacking, but it has taken longer than I expected. So, no pictures for now; photos of the house when it was up for sale are below, and it still looks the same... we've only had it for two weeks! But, as we get the chance to update things (for example, painting the kitchen a color other than orange...) I will post "before" and "after" photos.

Two exciting changes we've made: a new washer and dryer, and a new stove! The house didn't come with a washer and dryer, so we knew we'd have to buy those right away. And the stove it had when we moved in was a crappy, 20-year-old no-name deal whose burners didn't light by themselves anymore. The previous owners conveniently left us a lighter on top of it just for this purpose. Thanks. We had the new (stainless steel!) one installed the day after we moved in. We're planning on rounding out the new appliances with a refrigerator and dishwasher, once our tax credit money shows up :)

So, for now, more kitty pictures:

Being cute and cuddly, unlike normal (they are quite wild!).

Marble, laying on Adam.

Jack, destroying his toys.

So close to having our house!

So, I just posted this in a reply to Becky's last comment, but figured I should put it here too. We did get the closing date moved up for our house, and it is Tuesday! We're super excited to move in and get all of our stuff down here.

Also, some kitten pictures:

Jack, on the couch.

Marble (and Jack, lost in the cushions...)

Late, late update!

I know it's been almost a month since I've updated this --sorry! I kinda forgot until Lynn reminded me today... Anyhow, tons of things have happened in the last few weeks, so here goes.

First, Becky and Sam GOT MARRIED over Labor Day weekend!! It was such an awesome wedding. The ceremony was at 11 a.m. at Becky's childhood church. The bridesmaids all wore their own black dresses and had beautiful orange wraps that Becky bought for them that really went with the autumn theme. See Anne below:

After the ceremony, we all headed over to Arlington Racetrack for the reception. We had the top floor of the facility, which was gorgeous! And, we hung out for 10 horse races. Adam and I, unfortunately, lost $10; some people did make money though! The beautiful reception facility:


Pictures of the bride and groom! (I am becoming sort of a wedding paparazzo.... )

And here with Adam and I:


We had our final wedding of the year last weekend, when Adam's cousin Paul got married. His new wife's name is Sara Julian... kind of funny!

Also, our house woes are hopefully over. Late last month, we put an offer on another house (also in Le Roy, Ill. -- halfway in between Bloomington and Champaign). We got through the home inspection on Wednesday with a few problems (not unexpected) and are working with them to get them solved to our satisfaction before we close. Our closing date is set for Oct. 9, but if things go well it's possible it could get moved up -- we're hoping so! Photos of the new house are here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/36904841@N08/sets/72157622065297931/ (these are just the ones that were listed with the real estate listing; more will come once it's officially ours!) It's smaller than we had originally thought we wanted, but it's also cheaper and in much better shape than the first one we put an offer on. So, we are excited!!

Finally, a friend of ours took in a Bengal cat that ended up being pregnant, and she had six kittens. So, we agreed to take in one... and ended up deciding we actually wanted two. They're both boys, and we get them this weekend when we visit Art in Rockford!


Sorry for the long post... We just had sooo many things to update!