Decorating, what do we do?

Our house is so empty.  Here are some things we need, I think.  Feedback?  Where should we shop?  The round couch is a joke, sort of.

 

This is coming on Friday!!!!

Man Cave

What do you think?  Can't you see this in the basement with the rest of the rugged man stuff?

Outside

Our roof is a bit old and there is A LOT of shrubbery molded into perfect shapes.  The two of us are now in charge.  So The Handy Man went to get us all the tools we will now need.

 Note our new hose, gutter cleaning thingy, and very fancy ladder.

Gutters are now all clear...but then when I went to work Monday I was informed we cleaned the gutters two months too early.  Whatever.

Look what The Handy Man picked up for me at the store.

 I got to work on the shrubs...

 ...but since I don't know what I'm doing I got a little overzealous.

I've decided these are going.  No more long tall shrubs.  When I take them apart I'll let you know,

Fire Fire Fire!

I know nothing about wood burning fireplaces.  Most of my life has been spent flipping switches, or most recently using a remote, to get a fire going.  Spoiled?  Yes.  But here is how I got to spend a recent Beaver game.  The house was so cozy, the pumpkin ale and food delicious, and the game, a win! 

Trick or Treat

Our neighborhood is not one that gets many trick or treaters...which we found out after filling our entire cauldron with candy.  Here is one of my new decorations.

 I did get one very important visitor though.  He moves so fast I could hardly get a clear shot.  Here are a few of the 50 I took in a 25 min span.

 Almost got a face shot, a bam, head whip.

 Mom tried enticement with a favorite song.

 Found my Jack Skellington scarf.

 Really excited about the big TV.

 Rolling on the floor during a small fit.

Paused just long enough to check out Nightmare Before Christmas.  The rest of our night was spent watching the movie and listening to Neil Gaiman's annual scary story.  This year it was on Audible for download.  I highly recommend it.

Handy Man

When we told people we were buying a house, and an old house at that, the first question we often heard was, "Is Kris handy?"  What about me?  I'm handy!

Turns out I'm not as handy as I thought.  There is a plethora of small things in this house that we could never have predicted.  Example 1:  The dishwasher soap dispenser flap was broken.  It didn't latch.  I would have just called a plumber.

This is how The Handy Man handled it.
 First he ordered a part.  Never would have crossed my mind.  When the part came, he got to work.

He took apart the door.

 Look how nice he looks.

I got to work being helpful in another way.  Anticipating all those clean dishes put me in a celebratory mood. 

There was wiring to work with.

 Then voila, place the new part in the right spot.

And you have a newly functioning dishwasher!

Is he handy?  Why yes.  Two more projets I didn't get photos of:

-Our toilet was running.  It's fixed!
-We thought the master closet was haunted because the light kept coming on at night.  Fixed

Moving Day

I don't have a lot of pictures from moving day because, well it was moving day and that is hectic.  I really didn't spend that much time moving due to the excellent organizational and delegation skills of my friends.  RKS and I spent most of the time breaking down my bed and couch.  Then we spent the rest of the time putting my bed and couch back together.  It was all quit a blur.

Note the beautiful new hardwoods and the matching sexy walls.

Something went wrong with the door, we found out later the lock mechanism had collapsed.  Still don't really know what that means.

Bed assemblage in new house.

Future man cave/technology center.

Guest room now sleeps 3.

It seems like so much stuff...

(Of course priorities were in place. We had the cable installed Friday so we would be able to watch the Beaver game.  When moving day was pushed back a day we were ready for the Broncos game.  Phew)

...but it's not.  Look at this completely empty room

Now look at my kitchen.  Why is the kitchen what I have the most of?

By the end of the day we actually made quite a bit of head room.  The entertainment center was even in working order by sunset, you might be able to see Kris crouched in the corner doing wiring.

I got to work in the master bed.  I have the most clothing so it seemed important to get that put away so we could go to sleep.

Not bad for a first day!  Slept like a baby that night.  It must be home!

Man night

The previous owners were smokers so we knew the first thing that needed to happen was carpet, wallpaper, and curtain removal.  We were just nervous about what we would find behind and below.  The boys all decided they wanted to have a man night.  They bought a bunch of beer and I brought over pizza.  They got up to all kinds of shenanigans but when I stopped by the next morning everyone was hard at work. 

 The wall paper came down pretty easily, but

 so did a lot of the plaster coating.

This is just for one room!

 Then we had to decide if we needed a dumpster.  Turns out that is way easier to do than I thought.  We  called and one was in front of our house 3 hours later.  How's that for Saturday service?

Look at all the different colors!  If you can't tell there is green, blue, beige, and grey.

The boys were excited to rip up carpet.

With the dumpster ordered and the house clearly in good hands I went for a run.

  An hour later I returned to this!

Look at the difference!  The floors, aside from a bit of rotting upstairs near the tub looked great.

In case you didn't know this.  Carpeting used about a billion staples.

The light looks so nice on the lightened walls and pretty floors.

 Removing staples is very exhausting.

 Everyone took a nap to recover from the night before and wait till the dumpster arrived.

Thanks for all your hard work guys.  Next step, refinish the floors, and move in.