out with the ugly

We've always said new floors and some fresh paint would go a long way in this house, and after this weekend, we're happy to say we have have one room, and the most important room, completed (sort of).  Our living room now looks like this, but we still have to install the TV, artwork, and some quarter-rounds along the baseboard.  It's about 95% complete I guess.

Living room with new paint and trim

My parents offered to come up to Portland for the weekend and help us get some home improvement projects out of the way.  Most importantly, we wanted to build a temporary fencing system to keep Basil in our back yard and out of the neighbors, and finish painting the livingroom, breakfast room, and downstairs 'office'.  We had painted the walls in those rooms before we moved in, but the wall trim and windows were so dingy and yellowish, the rooms still felt kind of wierd. 

On the walls in the living and breakfast rooms, we chose a light, warm gray from Olympic Paints called 'Whispering Wind'.  We chose a darker paint in the same family called 'Quill' for the office area.  And for the wall trim, doors, and windows, we chose a bright white color called 'Delicate White'.  The old dirty wall trim was so yellow, that it was making our wall paint look very pale blue.  It wasn't bad, but it was a little too blue for my tastes.

Completed breakfast room with vintage table.

Mom and Dad showed up around noon on Saturday and we immediately began finishing painting the office, and Dad and I built the fence.  Then after a quick break, we began painting the second upstairs bedroom the 'Alpine Shadow' color....kind of a muted seafoam green.  We ended the night by cleaning all the downstairs trim and windows with Spic n' Span.

Living room from entry hall.

Sunday began with taping the floors and walls, and lightly sanding all the wall and window trim.  Then we wiped the trim down with a wet rag and painted two coats of our 'Delicate White' in semi-gloss trim paint.  There was a lot of trim in those rooms, particularly around the windows, but we managed to finish all the painting and remove the tape and rearrange the furniture before meeting some friends at a neighborhood bar and grill that evening. 

We've still got a lot of work to do, but I'll be glad to have the living areas completed.  Andrea is still insisting we paint the kitchen cabinets, but I like them as they are. 

Old kitchen looking into updated breafast room.

We should have some electrical work done this week, and then have cable and internet service installed Friday.  By Saturday all initial work downstairs should be complete!

We finally moved in on Sunday!

Many thanks to our incredible friends who helped us move, clean, pack, and take stuff to the dump! 

I'd say we're about halfway to getting settled - meaning we're halfway unpacked, halfway painted, halfway feeling comfortable in a new house, etc. 

Basil is having a hard time adjusting to his new digs.  He's not quite sure of the whole situation and we suspect that he thinks we'll be leaving him alone for good every time we put him in his crate.  He's been pretty clingy the past few days.  He spends most of the night looking at us like this:

Anyways, here's some pictures of the house so far.  These were taken before we brought the last of our stuff over from the old house - there's a lot more unpacked boxes in the house now.  Mom & Dad Hodney are coming up this weekend to help us get settlted - we could use the help, so we're very grateful to them for volunteering their services!

What we're loving:

• Large master bedroom - our last home had barely enough room to walk around the bed.
• Closets! - I'm talking linen, under the stairs, coat closet, plus large closets in all three bedrooms. 
• Windows - downstairs has a lot of windows and natural light...something the previous owner kept covered up with heavy orange curtains.

What we're hating:

• Outdated electric - the bathroom has the old two-prong sockets, so I'm currently blow drying and straightening my hair in the kitchen.
• Tiny utility room - the furnace takes up a large part of the space so there's no good place to keep Basil's crate that's not in the way.  We may have to downgrade him to a smaller one :(
• Water heater - we have to take super quick showers or else we run out of hot water.  I've resorted to showering at night so that we're not fighting for hot water in the morning.  The water heater looks newer, so hopefully there's just an adjustment that needs to be made or that it needs to get used to being back in service over four years of non-use.  

Overall, we're really enjoying our time in the home so far.  It doesn't feel like "ours" yet but it's getting there!

Thelma is the name of the little old lady who owned the house before us.  She's the original owner and lived in the house for over 50 years.  I've dubbed her, "The Lady Who Likes to Hang Things From Things." 

Hanging from every door and cabinet is a contraption of which the sole purpose of it is to hang other things on.  Take a look...

Apparently, she even liked to hang her soap.

I started removing most of these "hangy" things last night.  It's going to take a little bit longer to get rid of the old woman smell. 

We got our first housewarming gift! 

Our friends Charlie & Stephanie stopped by the house as we were working on it this weekend and dropped off this beauty:

We are most impressed by the rattlesnake on the hat. 

Like every crap gift, this picture has a story and the story ends at our house - it now sits on our mantle as we figure out where best to display this gloriousness. 

It's okay to be jealous.  We understand.