Goings on

Another long period of time has flown by without a blog entry. We have been really busy, which leaves little time for blogging. We have been working hard on the house and at our jobs, and my summer classes for school took up the rest of the time. We took a nice vacation to Rehoboth Beach a few weeks ago, even though it seems like forever ago, and we lived through Hurricane Irene last weekend without a power outage or water in the basement.

Labor Day weekend has been nice, although I can't believe it's already almost over. On Saturday we did some work around the house before going over to a party thrown by one of our neighbors. Yesterday we spent the entire day in the front yard trimming bushes, pulling out old and planting new flowers, raking and mowing. Hopefully that is the last full day of working out there before fall. Today has been spent cleaning, washing cars and doing laundry. I was thinking last night that it certainly has been a momentous and extremely busy summer for us. It is hard to believe that we have been living in the house for 2 1/2 months already and have done so many things since we've been here. We're so proud of our home and have had a wonderful time putting our stamp on it.

Since it's been awhile since I've shown one of the rooms, here is the powder room, which has made a huge transformation from the cracked tile floor and lime green walls.

Before:



And After:

Master Bedroom

When we first looked at the house, we thought the master bedroom would be one of the first rooms we'd want to paint. However, after learning what a pain in the butt painting is, the color in there mysteriously began to grow on me. Now, I figure painting that room can wait for a year or two.




Please excuse the quality of the picture. We call the room "the cave" because it's pretty dark. Good for sleeping...not too great for picture taking.

Life is Good

Yesterday was beautiful...like the kind of day that makes you want to call in sick to work and sit on the back porch with a drink and a book (fun book, not textbook) all day.

Instead, I got up and went to work. When I got home, Adam and I went for a walk, and then he ran up to the store to get something to grill for dinner. When he got back, he proceded to make the most amazingly fresh, summer dinner. We had watermelon, grilled shrimp skewers and a vegetable salad with tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers and celery.

We went out onto the porch, put up the umbrella, lit a candle and ate our dinner, then his parents stopped in on their way to the beach to say hi. We sat out on the porch enjoying good conversation, the cool temperatures and the breeze until well after it was dark.

After they were gone and we were getting ready for bed, Adam said to me, "Nights like this are what I was most looking forward to when we bought this house together, it was perfect".

I would have to agree.

Your Opinion

Next week, we are getting almost the entire downstairs of the house painted. The colors now include a grayish base coat that is a little bit too modern for my taste, dark red and sage green. Next week, the office and laundry room will remain green but everything else is getting painted a nice, fresh cream color. The only thing I can't decide on is the powder room.

I feel like I can do something a little bit different in there, but I don't want to go too over the top. After much consideration, we've narrowed it down to these two colors:

Revel Blue

Anjou Pear

I'm leaning toward the yellow because it's on the same color card as the cream color we're getting everywhere else, but I don't want it to be too loud in such a little room. I feel like the blue is more conservative.

So, what do you think? I only have until Thursday to decide!

House Tour 1

We've been busy around here! I thought I'd take you on a tour of the house room by room, starting this week with the deck.

The deck was a huge feature for us when we bought the house. Who wouldn't want a huge 10 x 20 Trex deck? The weekend we moved in, Adam and his dad power washed the whole thing and it turned from an ugly gray to a nice brown. We started out with a little bistro table and a separate chair and lounger from the apartment, but upgraded last weekend to a bigger table and chairs. Today we hit up the Pottery Barn outlet and found a really nice umbrella for a third of it's original price. We added some Tiki torches for fun and no deck would be complete without an amazing grill. We have already used the deck lots for dinners on nice evenings.



Of course every deck needs a fierce watchdog!

Curb Appeal

Over the weekend, Adam and I decided to take on painting the front door. It was a faded burgundy color with ugly numbers, so I was eager to change it. I picked a brighter red color and last Thursday, we headed over to Home Depot to get the paint. When we got there, the guy at the paint counter explained to us that it is hard to match a red Martha Stewart paint like the one I had chosen to a Behr exterior paint, which was the brand we wanted. He suggested that we pick a Behr color that was similar to the original red. We picked one, he mixed it and off we went with our paint and various painting supplies.

On Saturday morning, we woke up bright and early (8:00) to get started because I knew it would need time to dry before we could close the door. We taped plastic up over the open doorway and Adam got to work removing all of the old hardware. He hit a snag when he got to the deadbolt and had a difficult time removing it. An hour later, all of the hardware was off and we were ready for the next step. I sanded and cleaned the door while he worked on patching the holes left behind by those ugly numbers. Unfortunately, the patching material we used required one to five hours to dry….cue Adam standing in front of the door with a hair dryer.

Finally, we were ready to paint. I opened the can and to my surprise, the paint was not barn red, but hot pink. I began to paint it on the door, thinking the color might change once it started to dry, but no such luck. Off Adam went to a different Home Depot to get another color of paint. Luckily, the paint desk at that Home Depot was able to match the original Martha Stewart color. Once he returned, we got to painting. Three coats later, the door was a beautiful barn red.

After about three hours of drying, we decided that the door was ready for the new hardware. Unfortunately, we forgot to get a kick plate that matched everything else. Trip number three to Home Depot to pick up a new kick plate. Once back, we installed the kick plate and the deadbolt. When it came time to install the handle however, we realized that the lock was not configured for our door. After two hours of taking the handle apart and putting it back together again, Adam was able to install the doorknob.

Twelve hours later, we closed the door and walked out into the front yard to admire our handy work. After all of those hours, three trips to Home Depot, alot of frustration, some red paint on the carpet after Adam got it on his shoe and quite a few profanities, we are going to admire that front door every.single.day.

So, if you’ve made it to the bottom of this extremely long post, here is the before and after of our beautiful front door…

Before:



After:

The Move

Whew, life has been extremely busy lately, but we are now in the phase of settling into home ownership and residency in Delaware. Last Tuesday was my last day of work in Baltimore, Wednesday we closed on the house, Thursday we moved all of our stuff and Friday, Saturday and Sunday were spent working like crazy to get lots of little jobs done around the house. Luckily, we both have amazing families that helped with all of those little jobs. We couldn't have done it without their help. Now, all of the boxes are unpacked and the house is already looking much, much better! I'm hoping I can take you all on a tour room by room as we make them our own.

We have already made some changes to the outside....can you tell?

Before:


After:

Monkeying Around

Yesterday we celebrated my nephew Jacob's first birthday! My sister did an awesome job throwing the party and everyone seemed to have a great time. The place was full of kids, including my other sister and brother-in-law and their two kids from Atlanta who flew up as a surprise. I'm not really sure he knew what was going on, but he definitely did a good job looking cute on his big day.

I can't believe that he's already one and I'm so thankful that I got to see him grow up throughout his first year. Here's to year number two!!

The House

Our search for a house began in late February and just ended last weekend. It was a really difficult and really stressful, especially because we didn't agree on a house at first. After seeing many houses, we ended up debating between two...one that Adam loved, and one that I loved. Of course, we both REALLY LIKED the other person's house too. In the end however, the price solved the problem for us and we ended up putting an offer in on the house that I liked most. We feel as though it has the most potential and we can really put our mark on it and make it our own. The couple moving out is divorcing, so we are hoping to bring a little bit of love back into our new home.

We are planning on moving in June 16th so that I can start my job on June 20th. I know the next month is going to be extremely stressful, but I know that it will all be worth it in the end!

A big announcement...

Something big has happened in Cianfichi land, but I have no time to post about it now.

Until I have time to blog, here is a hint: