Back to School Shopping Weekend

Today is my last free day before fall term starts. :( With this in mind, I decided that this weekend needed to be back to school shopping weekend. In my case, this includes shopping for home-related stuff, because well, that's what I call fun. :)

I decided to take a trip down to Annapolis today, so that I could hit lucy and Crate and Barrel in the same trip (oh, and this amazing Italian deli that we randomly found about a year ago...they have amazing bread....). So after a visit to the deli to bond with a meatball sandwich, I went on my merry way around this outdoor "mall" (one of those mixed residential/commercial areas they keep building). Before I even made it to lucy, I fell in love, twice.

I remembered received an Arhaus catalog a few months ago, and I thought their stuff was pretty. Visiting the store in person took things to a whole new level. I honestly had to stop myself from drooling. The store even SMELLED welcoming. I realized that I either need to find that long lost rich uncle who can help me furnish my house, or I will need to make running around and finding cheaper copies a second job (err, third I guess, seeing as how school is my second "job"). I have found my style, and it is out of my budget. There wasn't much in the store that I wouldn't have purchased if the price was right.

My second discovery of the day was right next door. Great Gatherings apparently has two brick and mortar locations and sells merchandise online. (I just reread that sentence and wow, I've obviously been in b-school for way too long. If nothing else, I can now talk about retail quasi-intelligently.) At any rate, they evidently sell outdoor furniture in the summer and bar/game room furniture in the winter. This is where one would go to furnish the ultimate man cave, but the result would be a man cave that women could also enjoy. Their bar furniture is amazing, but again, I may need to spend a fair amount of effort finding copies. As an aside, I was feeling a bit of sensory overload, as evidenced by the fact that one of the salespeople actually stopped me and asked if this was my first visit.


Just to be sure that my two discoveries were as exciting as I first thought, I drove about a half mile to the nearest Crate and Barrel. I just don't know. I've always wanted to like their stuff, let's just say that. I like their kitchen and some of the decorative-type stuff, but in order to pay full price for their furniture, I feel like I should love it. I don't, so my two-year-old gift card (no, seriously!) is going to stay in my pocket a little while longer...

Lingering scents

When we first visited our house, it was February and therefore cold outside. There was this wood fire smell in the house, which I found a little odd, seeing as how the fireplace is gas. Whatever the origin, this made the house feel welcoming, and at some point after we had moved in, I made the association between the fireplace smell and the man who previously owned our house (no names here, just in case someone actually reads this!).

Throughout the spring, I would occasionally smell this while walking through the house, and it made me smile, knowing that he had left a little piece of himself with the house. It had been a while since I had noticed the fireplace smell, which I had attributed to the fact that there hasn't been a need for a fire here in Maryland for several months. This evening; however, the smell was back and I was reminded of our first tour of the house and of meeting the previous owners for the first time.

Ironically, there is also this potpourri-ish scent that I sometimes detect in our bedroom. We have a second vanity next to our closet, (sounds odd, but it works - this is actually one of my favorite features of the house - there is no fighting over the bathroom sink when we're trying to get ready at the same time in the morning) and on occasion I get a quick waft of this scent near there. I have no idea what causes this, but again this makes me smile. It's as if the former female owner is with us too.

I think this would be disturbing if they led unhappy lives in the house. Fortunately, they seemed to enjoy the house and each other's company, so I welcome these small "visits". I hope we can add our own memories to those that seem to linger from the previous owners.

Murphy's war

The cat usually wakes us up in the morning, but he was being more annoying than normal today. :) My husband discovered that Murphy's bowl was under attack again by those little "sugar ants". We've had such problems with them this summer, and they seem to like meow mix as much as the cat does. Ant spray, traps, caulking, vinegar water! Nothing seems to keep them at bay for more than a week. Does anyone have a solution?

And speaking of Murphy's war....we've been toying with the idea (for a while now) of adopting a second furry critter. While I would like a second friend, I don't want to traumatize Murphy. Cat? Dog? Cat-like-dog? I like the idea of a dog now, but I know that it won't be as much fun in the winter. How does one go about finding a pet that will get along with the first one? How do you introduce them to each other without major drama? (Haha. Major Drama. I am saluting like they do in "How I Met Your Mother", whenever a miltary rank is said.)

Silly grad school

I realized I haven't written in almost a month, which makes me sad. I also realized that the amount of writing I manage to devote to writing is an indirect relationship to how close it comes to the end of a term. Closer to the end of term = no writing. Boo.

However, it is now "summer vacation"! I used quotation marks because a three week break from classes doesn't really constitute a vacation, in my opinion.

The good news is, that I'm getting closer to completely covering over the slaughtered salmon in our guest bathroom. Major progress over the weekend! We're close, but not quite done. I'm honestly not sure how people get projects done in a weekend. I'll be lucky if we can finish the bathroom projects by the end of the summer...or the end of the year....

My first follower

I have a follower, according to my log in screen! Unfortunately, I can not see who it is, either due to a browser setting or to that person being anonymous. That's okay, though. He/she is a follower either way. Maybe it's my cat.

Welcome to the Neighborhood

Since moving into our house, I feel like we've been barely home long enough (while awake) to have the occasional dinner, let alone venture out and meet our neighbors. Last Saturday changed all that, I'm happy to report.

It was the much anticipated yearly block party, and while I had dinner plans with family, I did show up (a little more than) fashionably late. By the time I arrived, the party was winding down but rumors of a post-party were starting to spread. I thought they were kidding.

We were escorted down the street to another house, and as we learned, these particular neighbors host happy hour (pretty much whenever) in their driveway. When people walk by and stop to say hello, they just bring out more chairs and point to the fridge in their garage. I feel honored almost to be part of this community. Our neighbors were certainly not a part of the tour when we first visited our house, but surprise - the welcoming atmosphere is definitely appreciated.

Primer test

To prime or not to prime? I was a bit confused.

I spent a fair amount of time (perhaps too much time) reading about interior paints and primers, and the information to me seemed largely inconclusive. There seems to be two schools of thought on the issue: the "always prime" camp and the "that's a load of crap, don't waste your money" camp. Being the tightwad that I am (yup, I said it), I was drifting towards the latter. I was; however, willing to experiment.

I bought a can of Zinnser primer from our local Ace Hardware. As an aside, while I realize I am about to sound a bit like John Madden, Ace actually may be the place for me. The paint guy there was really knowledgeable and patient with me and my paint chips of other brands from other stores. At any rate, the Zinnser was originally purchased for our half bath downstairs, but seeing as how the wallpaper stripping debacle is likely going to go on for months (that's a story for another day), I was itching to put something on the wall, any wall.

So I took the Zinnser and a can of paint up to the Slaughtered Salmon bathroom to test the paint vs. primer thing. I discovered that the lighter color we chose for the bathroom (again, that's a story for another day) was not covering the salmon. That salmon is a little bright.

Slaughtered salmon. Love it!

So....for now, I have decided that the answer to the primer question is: it depends. My mom's advice was to prime things like brick, cinder block, and new Sheetrock. I would add that really dark colored paint should also be primed (unless of course having the old color show through is a desired look). I have happily begun priming over the salmon. The primer is an improvement.

Initiation weekend

We spent Memorial Day weekend cooking, serving, and cleaning up! That's right, it was our first official gathering. Somehow having friends and family witness the fact that we truly are homeowners makes it more real? Maybe?

At any rate, chickens were smoked, vegetables were skewered, and salads were consumed, all in the name of the unofficial start of summer. There were a few moments when I had to remind myself that we were sitting on OUR deck and that we get to live in the house permanently (or for the next 5, 10, or more years).



Enough peppers? Yes, actually, we're still eating leftovers



A did learn a few interesting things this weekend:

-We have more friends with children than I had originally thought.
-I can say that I am happy that none of those children are our responsibility on a daily basis. Whew.
-People can be hungry for dinner at four, five, or six in the afternoon. I think it has something to do with the anticipation of someone else preparing food.
-There actually may be such thing as buying too much beer. I think we may have enough beer leftover to last through the rest of the summer.
-Spending two days cooking and cleaning is exhausting. I'm glad we did it, but I am in no rush to host another party.

Food holiday!

This has nothing to do with our adventures in home-ownership, except for the fact that being away "on holiday" prevented any progress on the house for the past week....

We repeated our honeymoon in Jamaica last week, and it turned into a bit of a foodie adventure. :) I have been having serious problems remembering how to find food for myself after a week of fantastic food from the Couples staff!

One main reason for returning to Jamaica was that we were walking around in a bit of post-wedding haze two years ago (wow, has it really been almost 2 years?) and wanted to make sure that the resort wasn't a figment of our imaginations. It does exist. It really was that much fun the second time around.

At any rate, being the quasi-foodies that we are (I've always wondered if there is some sort of certification one must go through in order to officially call oneself a foodie?), we spent more time than I would like to admit trying to determine ingredients. We were again impressed by the quality and consistency (meaning good throughout our stay, not texture) of Couples's food, even on the buffets.

Who knew that so many interesting things could be made with pumpkins, beans, and jerk seasonings? I won't recap the entire week's worth of food adventures here, but of particular note: scotch bonnet ice cream (how did they do that!?), various chutneys and sauces, and mustard/cheese English muffins that I will try my best to recreate. I also found a pumpkin lasagna that almost had me jumping out of my seat to locate whomever was holding on to the recipe.

Aside from eating, we received a two-on-one tennis lesson with an amazing pro, and I became a scuba school drop out (while my husband found another hobby). We also met some interesting fellow guests with a variety of interests and opinions. I'm already feeling "homesick" and am actually having a hard time looking at pictures of the resort, knowing that some of last week's new friends are still there on vacation. :( I hope that the pouting (and the peeling sunburn) eases sometime soon. The fact that I am no longer in Jamaica really is a "situation".

All decked out

The first "room" we decided to tackle was the deck, in large part because there was no wallpaper to contend with (more on that later). The first purchase was a grill, which was a huge improvement over the grill that we had beaten to death at our rental. You know, a grill that works is a huge step up from a grill that really doesn't work. Go figure.

After the (re)introduction of grilled meat into our lives, we decided that we needed a place to sit outside and eat the grilled meat. We looked at patio sets at Home Depot, Lowe's, JC Penney, Target.... Eventually we went on a field trip with my husband's sister to the Great Indoors (a very dangerous place for a new homeowner) and found a set that we liked. I unfortunately wasn't quite ready to make the commitment.

The following weekend we went to Sears (a sister company to Great Indoors, I learned) and revisited the set we found the previous week. We met a very nice couple who told us that if we purchased the set online, we would save an extra 10%. Does Sears not want to keep its brick and mortar stores open? Sounds like a question for one of my MBA courses. At any rate, we were too slow in placing our online order and missed the 10% that we had heard about. The next day I found a reference to a "midnight madness" sale that Sears was having if I waited until the following evening! Yay.

Fast forward about a week and a few large boxes were delivered to our house.

I'd have to say I was completely impressed by Sears's home delivery! I received two automated phone calls - one a few days after my purchase confirming my items and a second the night before delivery with my "window". Speaking of delivery windows, mine was 10:45 am - 12:45 pm, and the delivery guys were in and out by 11:30! We spent the next couple of hours assembling the patio set.

Large box containing the table top. I think I blinked.

Ah, assembled table.

The deck actually feels like a nice place to hang out. Despite the fact that it wasn't necessarily warm on Saturday night, we hosted dinner (with grilled meat of course) and officially welcomed our furniture to the deck. Dinner, as an aside, was the best executed meal I think we've ever put together. There was no reheating of poorly timed vegetables or anything on that order. I think we made the deck furniture proud.

House photos, finally!

I am still trying to find the camera to computer cable in our pile of boxes, but I remembered last night that I could put my memory card directly into my computer. Yay, photos! These were taken during our final walkthrough.

Living room. This was the wood floor that was covered by a floating pergo floor. We were happy to see the room back in its original state. The second photo was taken looking down from the second floor "catwalk".

Kitchen, when standing in the living room.

 Front room. Can you guess where this is in relationship to the rest of the house?

Dining room, from front room. The kitchen is in the background. Yup, that's pinkish striped wallpaper.

Slaughtered salmon bathroom! The shower curtain was left by the previous owners and will stay until we can find something else to put there (such as another shower curtain).

Guest bedroom, aka the dorm room.

Master bedroom, with a view of the alcove-like area that leads into the bathroom. The wallpaper in the alcove is slightly nostalgic, as my parents had this in their house as one point. The odd thing was that we couldn't remember exactly where...

Master bath. It is sort of a beige-y color.

 

That's the general gist of our house. Here are a few random photos...

 

First home repair. The chain fell off the floaty thing in the toilet in the half bath. (I don't mind the blue wallpaper, except for the fact that it has odd faded stripes. It's almost like the paper wasn't printed correctly.)

This is Murphy voting for his favorite paint color in the half bath. Does anyone know how to rotate a video in blogger?

All the small things

She left me roses by the stairs....Was that Greenday? I'm drawing a blank.

Yesterday I (re)discovered the magic of spray paint. I had this gold basket sitting in the closet of our rental that I had "borrowed" from a former job a few years ago to use for a volunteer event. Really, who at work was in need of gold gift basket after the treats had been consumed? Anyway, the basket received a coat of white spray paint yesterday and is now back in the category of things I might actually use. (The in between-y look of white with a little gold showing through looked kind of cool, but I eventually went for all white.) It probably needs a little touching up, but it will eventually go in the guest a.k.a. slaughtered salmon bathroom.

Later, after my brother-in-law took a tour of our yard and pointed out the pile-o-dead-grasses, I went to Tar-jay to buy a pruner (and cat food and toothpaste and ant traps - to protect the cat food from intruders!). I spent about a half hour quite happily hacking at the pile-o-dead-grasses (I am excited to see if they grow back as not-dead-ornamental grass) and taking down dead branches from nearby trees, while the husband tended to the brisket and chicken he was smoking. Did I mention that this weekend started with him saying, "We should smoke something this weekend!" on Friday night? We own a smoker. It smokes meat.

Perhaps most importantly, I learned yesterday that my husband has no interest in landscaping. I therefore told my slightly-overzealous-new-homeowner-brother-in-law that I may be the representative of our household who would be accompanying him to the garden store in the months to come. Based on these findings, I told my husband that I could respect his distaste of yard work, as long he continued to cook.  And yes, there was smoked meat for all.

Das big wish list

Time to get organized! All this stuff has been floating in my head since, well, the first day we saw the house. Here is the project wish list (for now):

First and foremost
Finish unpacking
Deck furniture
New grill!
Kitchen table and chairs
Plant herbs, etc
Hide cables in walls
Soap dispensers/toothbrush holders/etc for baths
Get rid of mailbox magnet wrapper-thing
Start to make design plans!
Hang some art

First big project
Strip dining room wallpaper and paint

Projects: Years 1-10 (haha)
Front room
Furniture (would be good)
Good cleaning/repaint built-ins

Living room
Repaint
Pillows
Area rug

Dining room
Curtains

Half bath
Replace hardware (just say no to pineapples)
Strip wallpaper and paint

Kitchen
Replace paper towel holder
New cabinet knobs
Fix cracked kitchen tiles
Curtains
Replace light fixture

Master bed/bath
Strip alcove wallpaper and paint
Repaint?
Move mirror to half bath and find one for master

Dorm room
Lighting
New bedding
Curtains

Dorm room bath
Paint (Yikes, what is that color anyway? "Slaughtered salmon" perhaps?)
Paint mirror frame
Shower curtain
(Window) curtains

Office
Lighting?
Potential trip hazard!
 
Basement
Triage shelving
Paint floor

Outside
Paint/stain deck
Reshape bushes (crazy hack job)
Motion sensor light for deck
Motion senor light for walkout

Low priority
What to do about the wall color in open areas?
New front door
Finish basement
Stain cabinets
Kitchen counter top

Maybe, maybe
Solar power!
Bath renovations
Garage door

And...I'm exhausted already. Can you imagine what this would look like if we bought a house that needed major renovations?

Welcome to Boxland

This weekend marked the official end of week 1 in the new house. I am still wandering around asking myself, "Do we really live here?" Somehow I still feel like we're staying in a vacation rental, except for the fact that we have to get up and go to work each morning. Particularly amazing was the fact that the flowering trees in our neighborhood (flowering pear or apple trees maybe?) bloomed about 3 days after we moved in. It was a nice welcome to the neighborhood from mom nature (we even have a few blooms visible from our bathroom skylight). I was sad that we were moving out before the crabapple in front of our rental was going to do its thing this spring, so getting to see multiple flowering trees on my drive home has been sweet.

I keep looking around the house feeling frustrated with all the boxes, but then I remind myself how long it took to pack. Thus far, unpacking the boxes has gone much faster than packing them, and we made major progress this weekend in boxland. As an aside, I arrived later than I had hoped to my sister's shower on Saturday, because I just could not find pants! I eventually won that battle with the boxes.

Speaking of boxes, I have started a rather random list of things that the boxes are still holding hostage. It is a very odd, the things that we feel slightly lost without:
-Pepper grinder (salt shaker is missing too, but the box of kosher salt has been found!)
-Bathroom clock
-Coasters (where to put the glasses in the living room?)
-Candles for giant candleholder (in front of fireplace)
-Charger for camera battery (This makes me sad. There are a lot of house photos that are currently just stuck in my camera.)

Can't Help Myself

Does the world really need another blog about a house and the humans who live in it? Perhaps not. The thing is, I do. There are ton a DIY/home improvement/decorating sites out there, but none of them include any of my ideas. This is a place to store ideas and memories of our new adventure in home-ownership.

We closed on our house on March 23rd and moved in April 1st-3rd, and the fact that we actually have a home of our own still a bit of a surprise to me. My anti-house-buying husband put up a bit of a challenge, although I don't think either of us recognized it at the time. He was always against buying, although he eventually disclosed enough information to provide me with a mental picture of a home he would consider. After only about a month of "active" house-hunting, I found a house that made him stop and take notice. Our house is "us", as best as we can probably visually define us at this point in our lives.

And then there's me. Did I mention that this was a big deal? I've always been frugal and have been saving for a house longer than I'd like to admit (although non-profit employement and paying for grad school the past couple of years has made things a little interesting in the savings department). I've been squirreling money away in drawers, boxes, and bank accounts since I was somewhere in the neighborhood of age eight; when packing up our rental, I discovered that I still have my tooth fairy money (packaged all together mind you), because I could never bring myself to spend it. You never know when you may need a few silver dollars.

This is to be a journal of our lives in our new house, along with all of the related joys and pains of home-ownership.