Out with the old...

Over the weekend, Todd and I waged war on the crown molding in the blue bedroom. It was supposed to take a few hours, and it easily took eight. It did not feature the crisp, neat corners I was hoping for. Actually, it didn't feature corners at all. It featured two pieces of molding jamming into each other at awkward and unsightly angles. Trevor had to come finish the rest of it, which he (naturally) did in about a half hour, much to our rather pained delight.
Our problems began with having two ever-so-slightly different sizes of molding. This, my friend, is why you only buy certain things from Builder's Bargain Center (Southern Oregon's very own scratch-and-dent Home Depot). Also, the walls are crooked, which I expected but got really confused about how to compensate for. My little miter box saw let me down, miserably. But Trevor left his compound power miter saw at the house, so I will be well-equipped for next time.

Also over the weekend, we got new appliances! I didn't take pictures in the kitchen yet, but let us all take a moment to bid a fond farewell to the old stove:

This is what it left behind for us. Fond memories, really...

All together now, YUM! You got your forty-year-old bacon grease, some scrambled eggs, potato bits--that's breakfast!

Saturday was a beautiful sunny day, so I also spent some time outside pruning the camellias back from the house (so they don't rub on the siding), and hacking back the huge, ugly juniper bush that was taking over our driveway.

Sunday morning, we were talking about what to replace the bathroom carpeting with (it's gross--I'm sure you're shocked...seriously, who carpets a bathroom!?) and then one of us said, "Why don't we just redo the bathroom before we move in?" So we had a meeting with Trevor, who's going to be redoing the bathroom, and decided we might be able to start next weekend! Lest you think this is spur-of-the-moment, we've been planning the bathroom since we bought the house. We have materials pretty well chosen (some combination of off-white subway tile, travertine, a Carrara-marble-topped vanity, electric-net-heated floor...) and I have to go find a tub this week. I'm meeting with a cabinet guy tomorrow; we might have our vanity custom-made to fit the rather specific 40-inch space. I found something that's almost perfect from the Pottery Barn, but it's for the less-than-perfect price of $1500. So I'm going to see if I can get a knock-off custom made for around $1100 less. If everything falls into place, we might (just maybe) have our downstairs bathroom redone in two weeks!

On the list for today: putting away dishes in the kitchen (which Kate so generously cleaned for us. What a champ!) and putty-ing the molding so it doesn't look like a blind carpenter tried to hang it while sleepwalking.

Also, here's a video that's exciting. Or it was, woulda been, like three weeks ago when it was current....