Everything but the kitchen sink . . .

Magic Magic Hat

Brad splurged and bought us some Magic Hat brewed beer for us to have while scrapping and painting and sanding. Its from my favorite brewery in Burlington, VT a little shout out to my best friend from fourth grade who now lives there and took me there a long long time ago. So, with paint covered hands and dust covered shoes I stopped to open a beer for my hard working husband, and this is what it said inside.

Perfect. 

If a tree falls on your house do you feel it?

Well luckily we didn't have to find out. . .last week we asked a couple of our friends and my brother Steve to come over and help us demo the kitchen. But on a late Friday night out, boys, being boys, decided what REALLY needed done was they just HAD to cut down some HUGE pine trees in our front yard. We are talking big. And as the night went on the importance of cutting the trees down became greater. So forget the kitchen, Steve and Pat (the one with the "tree expertise" Mr. Trustmeivedonethisbefore ) and Jason the tree climber came over Saturday afternoon with ropes and chain saws in hand. What happened could have been  . .  .oh. . .disaster. . .BUT just as Mr. Trustmeivedonethisbefore promised, it was flawless. One 6 story tree down, 2 to go. The yard already looks better!! Now one day we will get some real grass here!

the victim:

From the second story window

Mr. Trustmeivedonethisbefore dressed appropriately

My brother, a whiz with the chainsaw! Also came dressed appropriately. He loves a good costume party.

Look carefully!

 Ropes tied ready to pull in the ONLY direction it won't hit anything

And its DOWN. It was really something to see, which is why there are no pictures of it falling. hehe. Guess we will have to cut another down for some video footage. 

Success. All limbs in tact. OUR limbs that is. 

The Saturday work crew.

You can always paint over it!

History Report

We have this dresser built into the hall wall upstairs, with drawers coming out of the wall, we are deciding whether to keep that or not, but this weekend we found THIS school paper in it. The couples son that grew up in this house wrote about the history of our new home for a school paper when he was young. Its really amazing to read. 

Get out your glasses, its worth a read. 

Is anyone else so sad that the first thing they did was take down the SCHOOL BELL!?!?! Where is that thing now? 

Also, playing school and playing Bingo have always been two of my favorite past times. This house was meant to be. Though I can't imagine Brad was very into playing school . . . .  or GOING to school for that matter. . . .  

yep.

and the boy had good taste in the girl and the girl had good taste in the boy and they had good taste in their house. if they do say so themselves.

Its Kitchen Time!

LET THE DEMO BEGIN!

Wait. . .its not real brick?!?! hehe.

its allllwhite!

and heres where my brother comes over and sands off the love letter. im glad he wore his official sanding suit for this. 

8 layers later, its glossy white. we finished around. . .oh 1am again. . .

 tom tries out the old new rug

 here it is, unfinished, we havent found the right bed frame, the lamp shade has since been found in the rubble and on the lamp, and we have plans for hanging light over that black chair.

 this bed is so pretty to wake up in with the light from our windows. we are going to hang an industrial white light over that stool on brad's side. this is the first time since we have been married that we haven't been sleeping on a mattress on the ground! we should celebrate this date as an anniversary too!

We saved all our fancy pottery barn creme sheets from the Stutz family and our amazinnnnng white duvet cover from Aunt Lori and Uncle Greg for when we actually had a BED. So it was so exciting to put them on. Seriously!

Oh married life. . . . .different things become "exciting" don't they . . . . geesh.

Now onto the bedroom

Brad and I talked about how much we wanted to do to our house and what could wait until later and we decided we needed a nice bedroom to escape to when the rest of the house was in shambles. We were right. Because right now the rest of the house is in shambles, but we made our little oasis and are keeping it clean and pure and nice for ourselves.

Here is the BEFORE. NOT OUR STYLE.

This was a week long job. Ouch. First we peeled wallpaper. A lot. Myrika and Cailey came over to help and it actually made wallpaper peeling so much fun. We have a new therapy idea. Girl talk and wallpaper removal . . . .try it. At my house. Please.

So after wallpaper Brad sanded down the walls, this is were it would have been really handy to read the lead poisoning pamplet I have been handed every time I rented a place, and then when we bought this place. The gist was "don't sand down old paint" but brad wore a bandana for looks so that helped I am sure.

After sanding we moved on to putting wood on the wall. I know, it seems wierd to do, most people our age are taking the wood off the walls in old homes, but I had a vision. And even though Brad was hesitant he trusted me and we went for it. Horizontal floor boards on the wall, to be painted shiney white. yum.

(Excuse the Uggs - they are steel toe)

After we did the boards on the wall all night it was about 1 am so we went to bed.


This is what I woke up to in the morning after Brad went off to work. Love him.

(Please refer to first posting now)

In the words of the late, great MJ, "Keep it in the CLOSET!!"

Its official. The boxes, and boxes, and boxes. . .have been cleaned out and we are moved IN TO OUR NEW CLOSET.