One last tour

Okay everyone, sorry for making you wait so long. So, the house is even more settled now, but you'll get the idea. And, as changes happen in certain rooms (like if we ever put anything besides books and DVDs in the formal living room), I will, of course, post an update here. (Although it might not be in a timely fashion.) I should also apologize in advance that these are not the best photos - I had a really hard time finding vantage points from which to take the most complete shot of a room. Hopefully they still work though.

So, let's begin, shall we? This is the view from our front door, you can see up the stairs and through the kitchen into the main room. Not very exciting, but it gives you a sense of perspective, I think.

If you turn left at the front door, you'd be headed out to our laundry room (which needs some updating) and then the garage. But, on the way, you'd pass our pantry (and the only substantial cabinet space in the house. I should note that the hallway is pretty narrow - to get this photo, I had to stand in the half bathroom located across the hall from the pantry. The top shelves hold our serving dishes and less frequently used cooking tools. The middle three shelves hold mostly dry goods, but also cooking tools (like Brian's deep fryer and my ceramic baking dishes). And then, on the floor, are more serving items, dishes for entertaining, and two tupperware bins: one full of wedding things I don't know what to do with and the other full of my baking stuff (pans and rolling pins and sil-pats, etc). Thank goodness for this pantry!


Head back out towards the door and go right to enter the kitchen, which, trust me, is filled to capacity with all of our cooking/baking stuff.

And, have you wondered about that island and its practicality in what is already not a very big kitchen space? Well, it makes a fantastic food prep area and also houses more storage (thank goodness). Top shelf holds baking dishes that don't fit anywhere else and are used too often to keep in the pantry, mixing bowls, and cutting boards; bottom shelf holds my stand mixer, our food processor, Brian's mandoline, our waffle iron, a cheese grater (which also doesn't fit anywhere else) and more mixing bowls.


Exiting our kitchen past the island leads you into the dining/family room area. Let's start with the dining room. For the first time in our time living together, Brian and I have a dining room table. It has a leaf so it can comfortably seat six, but we have that stored in a hall closet because it's usually just us. And yes, we eat here far more often than we eat on the couch in front of the tv. It's pretty nice.


In that picture you can see the corner of the pass-through I've mentioned before, but that doesn't do it justice. Have a look at my favorite part of the house (SO glad we paid to have this done immediately):


And, in the dining room photo, you could also see the family room. We will definitely need to buy new furniture that better fits the space, but that's a shopping trip for down the road. For now, we're making do with not a lot of space and a weird layout for the couch and chair. Brian also needs to finish setting up the new sound system we purchased (the receiver for which is housed in the corner next to the tv) and I need to hang photos on the wall over the console table (which is now much cleaner), but we're getting there.


The doorway visible in the photo above, which we had widened to allow for more light to enter the space and to create a more open flow to the house, leads into the formal living room. This room took the longest to unpack and organize and while it is finished now, it was not finished when I took these photos. Still, you will quickly see that we deemed this room our media room/library. The first shot is taken from the aforementioned doorway. The second shot is taken from the front of the house entrance, looking back towards the family room. Between the two, you see the shape the room is taking.



That concludes our tour of the first floor. Let's head upstairs, which houses three bedrooms, an office, and two bathrooms. When you get to the top of the stairs there really is just a landing off of which are four doorways: the guest bedroom, the hall bath, the other bedroom, and the master (which holds its own bath and the office).

First up, the guest room, which was probably the first room to be unpacked since it was my sister Lindsey's space while she helped us move. We have art to hang up on the walls, but everything else stays pretty much as is. (For the record, I'm standing between two dressers which sit in the corner opposite that lamp. And that big blue pillow has since been donated.)


And, the hall bath. This is our main bathroom right now since our master bath leaves a lot to be desired at the moment. I put up two photos, one from the door and one from inside, to give you a sense of the space.



The green room looks mostly the same. As I have mentioned before, we don't yet have a purpose for this room, but we sure are putting it's closet to good use!




And finally, our master suite, as it were. When we walk in you're in the main bedroom part of the space. We will probably look to buy another dresser or something to put on the far wall to house Brian's workout clothes, but for now those live in the guest room closet. Otherwise, things in this space are pretty set.



The second master bedroom photo is taken from the doorway to what we are using as an office. We took down the doors because they seemed unnecessary and have filled that space to capacity with clothes and the computer and Brian's CD collection.



I'll finish with a look into our master bath. I don't know what design aesthetics were popular in the early 1980s, when our house was built, but I'm not sure why the master suite was created in such a way as to give the homeowners a big bedroom, a big bonus space and a narrow, cramped bathroom. To give you a sense of what you're looking at - the counter is flanked on the far end by a walk-in shower (not even big enough for me, let alone Brian) and on the other side by the toilet (which is also where the doorway is - the door almost hits the toilet when being opened). There is a little more than three feet between the wall of the bathroom and the vanity and the floor, which you can barely see, is stick on tile placed poorly on top of green linoleum. Both of our old bath mats are in use in this space to create clean places on which to stand. Needless to say, this room needs a lot of work, but we're not even sure where to begin or how to pay for it, so for now it's just a place where we get ready for bed and for work.


The big thing not pictured in this post is our yard. That has pretty much become Brian's project and I might even ask him to do a post about it in the future. Lately it has been much too hot here to enjoy any time outside so he just cuts the grass every week and we sort of ignore the space. But there are plans to make it a more functional, manageable, outdoor living area soon enough. Promise.

Also, tomorrow we are getting new windows installed throughout the house. I am SO excited by this I can't even explain. I promise to take some photos and share the results with you soon!

Post in progress

Sorry to have been MIA for soon long. I am still looking for my camera cable (remembered to keep the charger out, but not the cable) in boxes, so no pictures in this one, but I thought I'd post so no one thought I'd abandoned the blog again.

I last posted on the 22nd and the house was a major work in progress. Between then and July 1st, we managed to finish most of the projects. The construction was finished, the master bedroom got its last coats of paint, and the downstairs got painted in crisp new colors. The only outstanding project? A giant hole in our exterior back wall, behind which we found substantial water damage and mold. Our contractor's just about finished with the work - moldy fiberboard and waterlogged insulation has been replaced, the exterior's been resealed - and now we're waiting for the interior drywall and baseboard to be replaced. It poured here on Friday (the exterior was resealed on Thursday) so we have our fingers crossed that everything looks dry when the contractor comes on Tuesday and opens up the interior wall.

Anyway, on July 1st my sister flew into town to help with the move. Brian's friends Frank and Dave helped out too, as did Erin. I don't know how we would have done it without them. So, on the 2nd and 3rd all we did was clean and move and unpack. On the 4th we unpacked some more and then went to a cookout (because everyone needs a break). And now, on the 10th, we're almost all the way unpacked.

Once I find that camera cable I'll post a whole bunch of pics. Promise.

An update

I know I promised an update for the middle of last week and now it is the middle of this week, but since Brian and I are both working right now there just isn't a lot of free time. Usually, our nights look something like this: get home, change, drive to house, work until it's too dark to see (usually about 8:30pm - we have electricity now, but no lamps), pick up some sort of dinner, go home, shower, eat, watch a little tv (or, in my case, listen to tv while making breakfast/lunch for the next day), collapse into bed around 11pm. Anyway, sorry for not posting these sooner, but, on the plus side, now you can see more complete pictures since we're further along.

Most of the progress has been made upstairs in the bedrooms. We knew all along we'd be getting new carpet throughout the whole house, so we decided to get as much painting done as possible before that happened (no worries about dripping on the carpet that way). As you know, there are three bedrooms in the house.

The front bedroom, which will be the guest room, got the most dramatic treatment. Below are pictures of it after one coat of paint (and with the old carpet) and how it looks now (with 2 coats of paint and new carpeting).

The back bedroom, which we currently have no real use for, also got painted. We picked a more subtle color for this room, but we love it just as much as the bold front bedroom. Again, below are pictures of it after one coat of paint (with the old carpet) and how it looks now (with 2 coats of paint and new carpeting).

The final bedroom is the master, which includes an office. In here, we took down the french doors separating the bedroom from the office and then painted. These walls were not in the best shape so it took a much longer time to paint. I'm still working on the trim in these rooms, but here is a picture of it during the first painting and a picture of it after the walls got THREE (!) coats of paint and the room got new carpeting.

And, in case you're interested, here's a better look at the wall color for the master. (That's in the office, by the way.)

Finally, I'll leave you with pictures of our most recent projects - which mostly revolve around destruction. On Sunday, Brian spent an hour and an half clearing this area of the yard so we could get rid of the trees and decorative grasses the previous owners had planted right up against the house (awesome since the roots of said tree have grown under the sunroom and possibly into the foundation of the house).

And yesterday, our contractor came and put some holes in our walls. They are clearly nowhere near done, but I'm already so happy with how much they open up and modernize the space.

Pass-through from the kitchen to the dining room

Wider doorway from the family room to the front room - the room with the bookcases and fireplace (obviously, the light switch will get buried in the remaining part of the wall)

Lots done, but lots more to do! Moving day is on July 2nd and by then we hope to have all of the house painted, the carpeting in the laundry room and sunroom ripped up, and, obviously, the construction finished. We're also putting in new windows (ours are original to the house, single pane, metal framed windows that may or may not open), but that won't happen until mid-July.

I realized as I posted these photos, that none of the "before and afters" are taken from the same vantage point. Sorry!

House tour

So, Brian and I have been homeowners for one week. What have we been up to? Mostly, spending money or promising to spend money. I'm sure you can relate. But, as promised, when we did our walk-through Tuesday night (to make a list of projects), I took photos to give you an idea of what we're working with.

Let's start with the entryway - when you walk in our front door and turn left, you see a narrow hallway. This is where our half bath is, as well as an awesome closet/pantry. At the end of the hall is a door to the laundry room/breezeway. The wood door leads to our two-car garage. On the list of projects: tear up this carpet, paint and seal the concrete floor, and paint the door.


Now, if you come in the front door and turn right, you're in the living room. We don't have much need for a formal living room, so we're not sure what this room will be used for, but we love the big bookcases. The top photo is taken from the entryway while the bottom photo is taken from the doorway seen above. Projects for this room include a new light fixture, blinds or curtains for the windows, and paying someone to widen the doorway seen in the top photo.

If you walk through the living room through that small doorway, you'll enter the family/dining room. This room is massive, but we're not planning much. We'll buy window treatments for all of the windows and purchase a dining set (yes, soon you'll have the option of eating somewhere other than our couch/coffee table when you visit us for a meal!), but otherwise we'll work with what we have for now.


The double doors you see in the picture above lead to our sunroom. We're still debating how to use this space, but we know for sure that we'll be taking up the carpet and painting/sealing the concrete floor. And we're probably getting rid of the rope lights and the air conditioner (although we're not sure yet about the latter.)


Since we're in the sunroom, I might as well show you the yard. The yard was what sold us on the house, I think. It's not in the best shape right now, but it has amazing potential. The top picture is taken from our back fenceline. The yard basically runs the whole back and side of the house. The bottom picture, then, is taken from the fence across from the sunroom (my back facing the fence), looking down the side of the house. We have almost no use for the swingset, but we're keeping it. That grill you see in the first picture is going, however. Projects out here include pruning some trees, digging up all the bushes, etc and putting in planting beds. It's really amazing how completely out of my element I feel when it comes to these outdoor projects (this city girl has *nothing* on gardening of any sort!).




Back inside, the last room on the main floor is the kitchen - the photo is taken from the doorway to the family/dining room and the front hallway leads into the kitchen next to the refrigerator. One day we'd like to replace the floors in here (and the entryway/hallway), as well as the dishwasher and fridge, but for now we're just replacing the stove (we're getting one with four functional burners). We are also buying stools for the island and paying a contractor to put a pass-through on the wall that you cannot see, which divides the kitchen and dining area. (Some of you might notice a microwave mounted above the stove - no word yet on whether or not we'll keep that long-term.)


When you head upstairs, you have four choices: master bedroom suite, two other bedrooms, and a bathroom. I didn't take pictures of the bathrooms (although I should - they need a ton of work long-term) or the other bedrooms (they're pretty basic), but here is the master. The top photo is taken from the doorway to the master bath and the bottom photo is the attached study, which you can see at the far end of the top photo. Projects in the bedroom include a new light fixture, window treatments, and a new closet system (including getting rid of those massive closet doors). Projects in the study include new window treatments and setting up an office of sorts.



The two things you might have noticed throughout the pictures are the dingy off-white paint on every wall and the dirty, drab carpeting throughout the house. Needless to say, we put these on the top of our project list. We have new carpet being installed at the end of this week (in 1600 of the 1750 square feet of our house!) and we spent this weekend painting the upstairs. I'll post pictures of the painted bedrooms midweek. That's all for now - I need to get over to the house and work on painting some more!

I'm back with news x2!

Okay, so I know that a seven-month hiatus is a bit unexcusable, but I hope you'll forgive me all the same! I don't really have a good excuse, just that, after the wedding life resettled and I didn't feel like I had a lot to talk about that would be interesting to the outside world. Now, I think a little differently so I'm back with a fresh commitment to this blog.

And I have news! (But not *that* news...there are still just two of us.)

News #1
As of 10:30am yesterday, Brian and I are now the proud owners of this:That's right! After making an offer in late March, the short sale is *finally* complete. The house is a 3 bedroom, 2.5 bathroom colonial in Crofton, MD - seven miles north of where we live now (2 miles from Brian's mom and only a half mile from Brian's sister). There is work to be done and I'm hoping to keep track of our progress via the blog, but we're pretty happy with the potential of the house and are very happy with the neighborhood. Once it's fixed up, we hope to have many visitors!

News #2
As of July 1st, I will no longer be a classroom teacher. Many of you might remember that I was struggling a lot with teaching last school year, but that I decided that I needed one more year without the burden of wedding planning and grad school to see if I was really done with teaching. Turns out, I totally am. I was more in love with my students than ever before this year and yet I was more disinterested in teaching than ever before. In early April, I told my principal that I was not planning to come back to the classroom and explained that I would love to stay at the school, but just in a different role. After a few meetings and some fortituous departures by others, I was offered a new position for the 11-12 school year - Director of High School Programming.

This position has never existed before, but the work I will be doing is not new. The school has eliminated the Asst. Principal position and created two new positions - Directors of Middle and High School Programming. The current AP will become my MS counterpart and her workload is split between us accordingly. I will also take on part of the work that is currently being done by someone not coming back next year - like most schools, mine is not in a financial position to create new f/t jobs, so my role is actually the renaming and reshuffling of an existing role. If that makes sense. In short, my job is to run the high school (my school is a 6-12 school), but, if you're interested, here's what I'll be doing with my time:

• supervising 15 f/t HS teachers and 3 p/t HS teachers
• administering the AP program
• serving as the 10th-12th grade team leader
• tracking and managing HS 504 plans
• tracking and managing HS graduation trajectories and transcipt audits
  
• streamlining and updating HS course catalog
• sitting on various leadership teams

I am really excited about this new opportunity, although I am also slightly overwhelmed by how my professional life is about to change. Still, I think it is a smart move for me and I look forward to seeing where it leads.

So, that's all for now. Brian and I are going to the house tonight to make a projects list - I'll try to remember to take photos to share with y'all.

Just another Friday night...or, reason #98569 why I love my (former) roommate

What? You know you want to know what all the fuss is about too. Turns out, the fuss is about nothing. It was pretty gross. But I'm glad we tried it. And since we work with children and judges, we went with no-face photos.

that's too bad

I really wanted to like my kids today. Really did. But they sure did everything they could in the last 90 minutes to make that basically impossible. ::sigh:: At least it's Friday.

Decision made

Thanks for all the help, ladies! I ended up buying a pair of shoes for Maggie's wedding at DSW this afternoon. They are nothing like what I was looking at online, but I was able to try them on, which is always helpful. And they were a "Big Deal" which meant I got them for less than $50!

Check them out:
They're actually a little less pink and more of a bronze color. And they're about 3.5 inches high. I think they'll be good. Your thoughts?

Grown up sleep

As you know, the bed bugs ruined our old bed. It had been Brian's bed since he finished college. He was sad to see it go. And I was sad because he was sad. But we were *both* sad because, with it gone and our bedroom infested, we had to sleep here:


Some of you have had the privilege of sleeping in our guest room/library/storage space. If you have, you'll recognize what has been our bedroom for the last two-plus months. The bed has been with me since *I* finished college and while it was perfect for single me and okay for guests visiting for one or two nights, it is not so awesome for me and my 6'3" husband. Certainly not for 60+ consecutive nights.

Imagine our happiness, then, to have this delivered today:


Nice, huh? Just wait until you see it dressed! Thanks to the many C&B and Macy's gift cards we received for the wedding - and the flexibility of credit cards - we were able to purchase a very fancy bed (from C&B) - you might not be able to tell, but that's a leather panel inset in the headboard - and a super luxurious mattress (from Macy's).

And thanks to those who bought us the bedding on our registry, our bedroom is now quite grown up. Witness:


Sweet dreams, all!

MOH fashion advice

As most of you know, Maggie is getting married soon and I am the MATRON (!) of honor. The wedding is happening HERE (indoors) on a Saturday evening in November.

I am starting to shop for my shoes and could use your help. My dress - each BM is wearing a different dress - is this beauty from Bill Levkoff (in case you can't tell, it is navy, not black):


I originally hoped to wear something along the lines of an emerald green satin shoe, but I cannot seem to find one in my size that is the shade of green I was hoping for. So, I have rethought my options and have decided that I can be happy with one of the following four options. But, of course, I want to know what YOU think!

Option #1Option #2
Option #3
Option #4Sorry the sizes are so off; most days I don't have the patience to play around with formatting here. I look forward to hearing your thoughts!