What we've been up to...

What we've been doing lately...
Showing off our ears


Wearing Sweatshirts and harassing other dogs




Climbing

Wearing Hats

Dressing up for Halloween

Mags as a bunch of grapes (great costume, hard to sit down)


Whiskey as a piggy.

Room by Room: The Bathroom

The Bathroom

I don't have too many photos of the original bathroom, mostly because it was so hideous that I didn't like to look at it. But, I can tell you that was done in an underwater theme, blue walls with fish stickers and border and green ceiling.

In the photo above you can see the tacky 1970's shower, and the indent in the wall where there had once been a window, and had been boarded up.

The contractors gutted the whole thing, put new fixtures in, and installed a recessed cabinet.

And here it is! We painted it and tiled the floor (and by "we", I mean "Brandon").
My only complaint is that is is right off of the kitchen, but, oh well. That's not too large of an albatross.



I think that color is called "Sedona Dust"


Lovely diffused light coming in the new window


Corner tub - perfect for a cat. Brandon also tiled the floor in here - it's black. Hard to see, but it's there.

The Floors, Part II

We wanted a house with hardwood floors. If you've ever had pets, you understand why. And this house HAS hardwood floors. It just took some digging to get to them.
First we took off the carpet, which was cathartic, because the carpet was disgusting.

Master Bedroom

Landing at top of stairs


Apparently, former owners of the house were not up to restoring the hardwood floors, and found it easier paint over them.

Master Bedroom

Second bedroom on 2nd floor

This had been done many times, and there were many layers of paint. And sanding it didn't work. The sander just spun on it. So, we broke out the life-span-shortening chemicals and did about a week straight of scraping. The paint-stripper was probably the nastiest thing I have ever used. I usually have a theory of household products - I should be able to eat them and not die. This definitely didn't apply here. Even though we wore masks and chemical gloves, this stuff burned through the gloves. Ech.

Guest Room, 1st floor
The base layer of paint on the wood floors was some sort of really awful primer you would use on concrete. It took forever to get off. In some places it just stayed.

Landing on 2nd floor

Then we rented a giant sander from Menards, and spent three days on the floors. And by "we", I mean "Brandon".

After that, there was a lot of sweeping and mopping to get all the dust up. We opted to varnish it instead of staining it, because we liked the color the wood was naturally. So, there was a long period of time of varnish, wait 3 days, sand again, sweep, mop, let dry, varnish again, etc. X3.

But, overall, we're pretty please with the results. The floor has a lot of what we politely call "character". But we really like it. Although if I had it to do over again, I'd just hire someone. Seriously.

Outside kitchen

Landing on 2nd floor

.
Second bedroom on 2nd floor.

Floors Part I: the Kitchen

We first did the painting of the walls, with the theory that it would be better to spill paint on a a floor that we were just going to refinish. I don't have a whole lot of pictures of the painting process, but I do have a lot of photos of the floors, as they were a lot more Herculean. I'll start with the kitchen floor.

It was your typical 1980's linoleum floor, with a lovely teal back splash.

Apparently, the previous decorators couldn't imagine why anyone would want to get rid of such a lovely floor, and the linoleum only came off in postage sized chunks. Enter an iron, wet towel, scrapey thing, and hours of genuflecting.

I guess there is something worse than a teal kitchen. The previous lavender color under it!

Kitchen floor, sans tile.


Laying the tile on top of the cement board (which is on top of the subfloor).

Giant bucket of morter.

Grouting

Finished product! It actually looks better now that we've gotten the haze off tile. I'll post a current photo when I get one.

Moving in!

Sorry it's been so long since the last post, dear readers. Here's a little photo history of what we have been doing for the past few months. We moved into the house in August. The contractors were (mostly) done, and the city had done the inspection and declared the house was no longer a candidate for a tear-down. But, there was still a lot of work to be done.

Living Room - drywall is up but not painted, floor still needs to be refinished

And the house was dirty after all the construction, and fairly awful to be in.

The Kitchen, already a repository for all of our construction tools,

also became where we put all of our stuff that wouldn't fit down the stairs into the basement.

Since we were still working on the house, we had our mattress thrown down on the floor in the living room. As you can see, it was exhausting.

But, it got better - stay tuned!

The New Face

Before and After.

Looks better, eh? The inside still needs work though....

Worst Ad Slogan Ever

Someone in the marketing department should rethink this slogan...

Saga of the Baby Bed

Well, it's not much of a saga. We bought Whiskey a little bed, and figured she would grow out of it and move on.

January, 2009

May, 2009

That hasn't happened. She still loves her baby bed. Note empty size-appropriate bed in the background.

Ken-Plucky! (Part III): Return to civilization

Well, we packed up all our muddy possessions and headed to Indiana, to visit B.'s parents. We stayed there a night (and Whiskey didn't destroy anything - yay!) and then it was off to Chicago to our niece and nephew could meet their new furry cousin.


Whiskey looses her bed to Felix

A view from the 18th floor of Brandon's brother's place. Brandon, his mom, and Whiskey are visible in this photo - go to the crosswalk just above the white car. Brandon et al. are up and to the left of the crosswalk.



Whiskey looses her bed (again)

Colette and Whiskey doing Yoga (Whiskey is the down-dog position)

Felix and Whiskey reading about trucks


Hanging out in B's brother's place, on the 18th floor.




Whiskey on the way back to Minnesota