All the Updates

Still plugging along in house-update-land over here. I thought I'd give you a summary of some of the things since Jeff trimmed the lip off the kitchen shelf (I still get excited when I see that) and we did our last roundup.

Caulking the upstairs tub

The tub upstairs (which is our family bathroom) needed some serious love. The caulk was not in good shape and we'll just leave it at that. We bleached it, dug all the old stuff out, bleached again, and re-caulked the whole thing. It's one of those things that no one else will notice (since we tried not to show it off in its icky before condition) but that gleaming white edge makes me so happy every time I walk in there.

Railing Begone

Along our front walk, the previous owners had installed black metal railing from the street to the front steps. It was nice looking, and I'm sure it was very helpful to them for stability, but our little front yard is small and the black fence cutting it in half wasn't helping. Interestingly, the Google Streetview images of the house from 2009 showed it without the railing and we thought it helped open things up a lot. So Kyle took them out. They were sunk in concrete, so it was NOT an easy task but he got all of them save the one in the steps by the front door. 

Drapes

These are huge. After the house was under contract, when I was decorating in my head, I wandered into a fabric store and fell in LOVE with some fabric. Like, more than one should care about fabric. The pattern is almost an Asian toile, cheerful colors on a blue field. It was the starting point for all my thoughts on colors. I splurged on the fabric for drapery panels in the living room and they are finally here! (Thanks to Nana who originally said she'd make them, and then decided that 6 6-foot panels were maybe better outsourced.) I love them so much. Again more than one should love drapes.

Patching, patching

The house has settled a bit since it was built and so before we paint we need to do some drywall repair. I don't really care to paint over flaws that we could and should fix. Some drywall stuff we could do, but there are a few larger fixes (re-taping, some corner work) that require more skill, so we had a recommended painter some and do wall prep for us. We would really love to be able to have him do it all, but in terms of ROI, it makes sense for him to do the prep, and let us roll on the paint. He did the living room and dining room and it looked lovely.

When he was done, he'd taped off everything and drop-clothed everything. We hadn't actually planned on painting right away, but it seemed a shame to waste that effort and plastic drop cloth, so Kyle (MY HERO) went and bought paint on Wednesday night and painted the living room after church! In the next phase (of which there will be several) we'll schedule so that we will be prepared to paint as soon as he's done.

Doors trimmed

When we bought this house, there were two types of carpet upstairs. The hallway and one bedroom had blue carpet that matched downstairs. But Hamish's bedroom (which had been converted from attic space probably) had a much tighter, more industrial feeling berber. You can catch a glimpse of the two carpets in our very first house tour. When we redid the carpet, of course, we got one carpet throughout. The thing was, the door and closet door in Hamish's room were hung for that low pile berber, not for the plush carpet we had laid. So they drug HORRIBLY every time you tried to open and close them. I mean, it took actual strength to open and close the doors. Not to mention what it was doing to the carpet. Once again, Jeff to the rescue!! Before our Christmas dinner, he set up saw horses in the driveway and trimmed the doors right down. In no time at all! It is SO SO much nicer to have doors that open and close fluidly. 

Art (via Art.com)

When we bought the house we got a ton of coupons and deals in the mail. Some were just 10% coupons to Lowes and Home Depot, but others were more substantial. One was 40% off custom printing/framing of your own photos at Art.com. We took advantage of the deal to print a couple of our favorite pictures from our travels: a street shot from Hong Kong, and a shot we took in a temple complex in Beijing. I chose to print them on board because I like the thin profile and the sheen of the board. I was so, so impressed with the quality and the speed of shipping. We used a Hong Kong street view and a shot from Beijing and they look beautiful. We'll get pics of those soon. 

Flag hung
We've had a flag on our house wishlist since the beginning and thanks to some store credit at Lowes, we now have a flag pole and flag! We look so patriotic!