Satisfaction.

Today, I did something that's been needing to be done for about 10 months. Gathering my newfound confidence in electrical work, I installed a porch light...

Cute, huh? (We love it. Makes such a difference.) Now it's not pitch black when you walk up to our door at night. Here's one more, from farther back.

That one also features the icicle lights that we put up yesterday, which need to be taken down. Worked two days ago, didn't work once they're up. Naturally.

This evening, we worked on painting more trim and getting rid of that dingy mauve-y color. We painted the bookcases in between the living room and dining room, which allowed me the opportunity to take out the contents and stack it all over the dining room table.

I also painted the inside of the front door, which I didn't take a picture of. It was white, just the primed steel, and I wanted it to match the trim. I don't think it would look that different in a picture, but it does in person.

Todd painted the door to the upstairs in the dining room, so now all we have left is one strip of baseboard (and probably another coat on the bookcases) and the dining room will be...semi-done. Minus crown molding, chair rail, a painted ceiling and a new light fixture, but still, steps in the right direction.

Yay for cute wallpaper!

Worked on a couple of projects in the past few days. A few night ago, we decided to paint the trim in the dining room. Someone who lived in this house at some point had an unfortunate affection for the color mauve, as evidenced by the color of our coat closet, and the trim in the dining room was sort of tinted muave.
The color's just subtle enough to not be horrible, until you compare it to the fresh paint (new is left, old is right). I still have to paint the bookcases, but that won't take too long. Contrary to what you might believe about a nice coat of paint freshening things up, we stepped back and realized everything else in the room now looks WORSE than it did before, by comparison. Luckily, painting the ceiling and adding quarter round (aka base shoe) around the floor should help with that. And replacing the light fixture, which evokes such words as gaudy, grotesque, tacky, abominable...

Yesterday, I started ripping down wallpaper in the kitchen. Here is a before: Sorry it's dark, that was kind of the problem to begin with. That, and it looked like a bruise. Anyway, in typical fashion, there are/were at least three, if not four, layers of wallpaper on our kitchen walls. The top layer, the red, is vinyl, so that ripped off easily and left a paper backing that steamed off, no problem. Underneath...Cute vintage wallpaper! Well, some of us think so. Todd walked in and said he thought I was taking down all the wallpaper. In his words: "You took down one layer, found something creepy, then quit." It reminds him of what was upstairs, but I like it and he said he'd try to get used to it. What a guy. Here's a closer shot:It's not the greatest stuff in the world, but it's a lot better than the red. I'll post a pic when the whole kitchen is un-papered.

Oh, one other thing. In the past few weeks, I have successfully fixed two lamps. One (the nickel lamp) I replaced the switch on and the other, my desk lamp, (which I don't have a picture of) required a replacement socket and some other assorted finagling. My first attempt with my desk lamp resulted in a tripped circuit. All in good fun. I would say that these two successes and also the light fixture I replaced qualifies me for most electrical jobs. HA.

Shrubs, electricity and free boxsprings

Boy, do we have a lot to talk about. I'll just list it off with pictures...easier that way.

1. We (Todd, along with help from Dad McD) planted our laurel "hedge" out front. He measured, strung the line, dug the holes and planted our little shrubbies. They look tiny now, but in a few years, they will be four or five feet tall. They'll grow as high as we want them to.

2. This is my stupid heirloom tomato. Running about two months behind schedule. I am mostly mad because it actually did get around to making an actual tomato, but I don't think it will ripen. Not enough bright sun during the day anymore.

3. Here is a before:

and after, or midway:

picture of where I'm patching the hole in the wall where the light switch for the bathroom used to be. It's right outside of the bathroom, and it's just an empty box. Or was, before I started the first round of probably three applications of spackle.

4. Most recent accomplishment: replacing a light fixture! I did this just a few minutes ago. Who knew electrical work was so exciting (at least according to these sketchy instructions)? After seeing these instructions, I enlisted the help of my trusty Sunset "You Can Wire" book. Sounds cheesy, but it's an incredible book. I do not trust suspect Chinese instructions around voltage.

Found a super-cheap schoolhouse light and decided to swap it for the ugly brass-and-glass deal that was up there. I'm not suggesting it's gorgeous, or possibly even permanent, but it's an improvement. More importantly, look at me!! I can do electrical work! (Sorry for the blurry picture; the camera said it was blurry but I thought it was lying.)

5. Nabbed a free boxspring from craigslist for the twin bed upstairs. It's like a real bed now!

You can try this nifty trick I picked up somewhere...if you don't have a dust ruffle (like this bed). Fitted sheet over the boxspring, and voila! finished look. Or at least a lot better than the gaudy floral patterns all boxsprings seem to come with.

6. Lastly, here are some shots of upstairs. We've made a lot of progress scraping up the glued-down carpet pad (boy would I like to have a chat with the moron who had that idea), though the floor looks pretty much as gnarly as the green carpet did. After water and fabric softener made almost no dent in the glue, we busted out the Wagner Power Steamer. Worked like a charm, steaming the gross glue and pad right off the floor. There's one patch on the landing where we haven't finished yet, but the rest of the floor is "clean."

Downstairs, looking up....
Upstairs, looking down to the halfway landing...
Looking at the upstairs landing, outside Todd's office

Upstairs landing from the guest room.

So, I think that's pretty much it. Oh, well, I will leave you with one other picture of an amazing hike we took a few weeks ago.