Too long since I last posted! It feels like every second of every day has been filled with some task until we are drop dead tired. But things are moving right along and really shaping up to what we want it to be. We are now living upstairs completely. Here is a list of the tasks we did in our bedroom:

• repaired joists in floor
• replaced sub-floor
• laid hardwood
• painted ceiling, walls, window frames, closet doors, and main door
• painted and installed baseboards
• purchased bedside tables
• hung lights, artwork, mirror, and plants
• replace hardware on closet
• purchase, trimmed, and painted a piece of framing for the closet
• painted and waxed our old dresser and replaced its knobs
• replaced the door knob to match the brushed bronze finish I’m using everywhere else
• bought a nice hamper

The only tasks that remain in my mind are changing around the bed frame, finding drawer organizers, and finding shelves or something else to hang above the dresser. Maybe I’d also like a rug for in here, but that is too hard to think about right now.

We also finished the small room (hate to call it a guest room because we’d never put more than a twin bed in there). We set our computer up on the built in shelves and moved all of our kitchen stuff into that room (microwave, toaster, kettle, nutribullet – all on a cart that the previous owner left here when they moved). We also have our two dining chairs, a side table, and a small round ottoman in there. Its extremely crowded and I haven’t posted any pictures of it yet because its not how I envision the room will be in the future. I want that to be the office/reading room. I’d love to get a fancy chair that pulls out into a twin size bed, but the ones I like might be too big to fit through the door to the room.

Moving on, this was a long weekend for me, and I really wanted to get a lot done. We settled on doing the right thing and getting a permit for the electrical work B is going to do in the kitchen (need to add some circuits and change things around while we install recessed lighting and ceiling speakers because we fancy), so we realized that wasn’t going to happen this weekend. Instead, I sucked it up and decided on paint colors for the living room and kitchen, which I’d been waffling on for weeks. We  prepped the entire living room and hallway for paint, which included washing most of the walls, taking down the crappy bamboo blinds, removing baseboards, and patching some holes and small cracks in the wall. We painted the entire thing and I painted the tiny crown molding. The walls that were a strange pinkish brown became a buttery yellow and the brown trim became white. It looks like an entirely new place. I was a little nervous about the yellow being too bright, but I am also not surprised that was the color I was drawn to at this time of the year. February is always gloomy for me, when I struggle the most with seasonal depression. I’ve come to realize this in my adult years…so if yellow is what is going to make me happy right now, then its worth it.

I tried to remove window tint from our largest living room window that is extremely aged. One of the 6 panels on the window came off like a dream when I followed the ammonia and plastic bag trick, but the rest has been hell. I will get the sunshine coming through if I have to replace the whole dang window! I assume I’ll be working on that for a while.

We also ripped down our ceiling in the kitchen, a disgusting process which we will some day repeat in the living room (but thankfully not now). I only hope that hanging ceiling drywall isn’t as difficult as it sounds. We also tore out the old gypsum board behind the cabinets in the kitchen and will replace that, which also requires a permit. Anyway, our sink, stove, and fridge are still in use for now, but once Brad gets the wiring done, we’ll be on to removing the last pieces. We are considering getting “Ready to Assemble” kitchen cabinets and have done some research, but still have a ways to go before we decide. Our budget is pretty tight, but we could get actual plywood boxes and solid birch frames if we assemble them ourselves, compared to MDF everything if we go with Lowe’s options. It seems like a big decision in some ways, but I also know I’ll be happy without buying the priciest of options.

Its been warm here, so I’ve also been starting to think about my vision for the back yard and for our garden. So many more projects to come – I can’t wait!