Category Archives: The House

Friends Thanksgiving

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Our basement is unfinished. When we first moved in I would sprint from the stairs to the washer/dryer and sprint back again in case it was haunted or the furnace started talking to me a la Home Alone. In a nutshell, it was creepy. We’ve moved some things around and made it as un-creepy as possible while still being an unfinished basement. (For the record, I can say with confidence that it’s not haunted. Phew.) It’s sad that it’s mostly unused space down there, but finishing a basement costs a lot of dollars. It will happen eventually, but for right now we’ll just have take up rollerblading or take advantage of the darkness and learn to cure meat, as my brother suggested. The good news is that I had a genius idea recently, probably one of my best, to host a Friends Thanksgiving. The basement ended up being perfect because there was more than enough space, and if anything spilled it didn’t matter.

This is the basement before we moved in. Eek.

This is what it looks like as a magical Fall wonderland.

I mean it’s soooort of like putting lipstick on a pig since the walls are still yellow, and the cement floors are still exposed, but it’s a vast improvement if you ask me. And those twinkle lights are definitely staying up until we remodel the whole thing.

“Be Thankful” plasticware holder idea taken from here (tutorial on them tomorrow).

Candles, napkins and table cloths purchased from Joann Fabric & Crafts (40% off, with an additional 25% off my entire purchase! Love that place.).

Old Fashioned Recipe taken from here.

Jackson, my second favorite guy in the whole world after 9 days of owning him (Steve’s #1, obvi.), gets MVP for the night. With 30 people in the house, food everywhere, kids running around, he was calm the entire time. Steve and I had no idea what to expect, but we know now that we got really lucky to adopt such a great dog. In the photo below he’s staring intently at everyone’s plates in the garbage. He knew he wanted to get in there, but also knew he wasn’t allowed. that’sagoodboyyesitisthat’sagoodboy.

Crazy paint

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The people who lived in our house before us had a thing with bright, saturated paint colors. Specifically pink, green and yellow. Half the basement is bright yellow, the trim in the kitchen is bright magenta-purple, and the trim in the bathroom was dark green. Nightmare. Night. Mare. Thankfully we’re slowly but surely covering it all up.

Not only was the trim in the bathroom dark green (see the before and after here), there was also a matching green mirror on the wall. I decided to paint it white and keep it around for a little while longer.

Before.

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Something’s not right here

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Our backyard came with rhubarb, strawberries, potatoes and carrots that had all been planted before we moved in. I discovered what potatoes look like above ground because I accidentally pulled one up thinking it was a weed. It was about the size of a peanut. Have you ever seen a potato that small? So cute.

These, are the carrots.

I’m no botanist, but based on the fact that the carrots look like this, I’m guessing the soil was too hard.

I’m hoping next year we can grow carrots that are bigger than my thumb, with stems that are shorter than I am. What can I say, I dream big.

Guest bedroom (window) update

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We’re about two items on the to-do list away from being able to show photos of the entire guest room, but for now I thought I’d show where the bedside tables from Monday’s post ended up.

Here’s what the room looked like before we moved in. You can’t see the top of the curtains in the photo, but they started at the very top of the wall. Awkward.

Here’s what the room currently looks like:

1. Paint color: Hot Springs CI 186 by valspar, purchased at Lowe’s
2. Curtains, self-made.
3. Artwork by Derek Sullivan.
4. New to us old bedside tables.

Full room photos to follow shortly, I’m sure.

Curtain update

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The master bedroom curtains that came with the house were just too special not to share.

Before:

After:

The curtains are from Ikea. I hemmed them a lot shorter than the original curtains so that they don’t look quite so formal. Plus the bottom portion I cut off was big enough that I was able to make two additional curtains for smaller windows we have in the basement.

That little guy below is my brother’s cat Hazel who we’re cat-sitting for a little while. I’m jealous of his pod.

Bathroom Makeover

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I don’t want to say that these are before and “after” photos, because I’ve learned already that there will always be something I want to update or change. But I feel comfortable saying that we’ve very much improved the bathroom from where it started.

If you notice in the photos below, the wood mirror, toilet seat and toilet paper holder/magazine rack all matched each other, and the green window frame matched the green mirror that was above the sink. Nice, right?

(This was above the sink, but I never got a ‘before’ photo of it when it was on the wall.)

We painted the walls, added some curtains, and replaced a few items. In this case, a small amount of effort went a long way.

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Old house, new tricks.

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Last week I googled, “How to get paint off door hinges”, and expected the requirement to be some toxic combination of paint thinner, rubbing alcohol and goof off. It turns out all you need is baking soda and water. I had no idea.

To give you a visual of how thick the paint was, this is what it looked life after we tore the hinge from the shellacked door jamb:

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