Through a Glass, Darkly

Just to prove how productive we have been. Since I didn’t take a lot of pictures before. And I’m waiting on things like rugs and blinds and pictures on the wall to take pictures now. You should go ahead and assume that most of the painting and dewallpapering was with assistance. Because it was.

Our bedroom:
-Painted it a lovely green to cover the icky light blue.
-Had a new fan installed.
-Put up curtain rods and curtains.
-Bought a TV so we can watch movies in our bedroom.

Our bathroom:
-Painted it a lovely green to cover the icky light blue.
-Put in a cabinet over the toilet since there was no actual cabinet space whatsoever.
-Bought a new mat.
-New toilet seat. (The one we had was cushy.)
-Put up new racks for our towels and bathrobes.

Hallway:
-Took down icky striped wallpaper (we had a lot of help).
-Painted a nice neutral beige (also had help here).
-Patched hole where weird humidity controller thing that no longer works was. (Though we haven’t actually painted over it yet. Stop judging us.)
-New light fixture to replace icky previous one.

Foyer:
-Same icky wallpaper removed, same new paint in its place.
-Another new light fixture!

Front room/library:
-Pulled up carpet.
-And staples.
-Painted a darker beige.
-Put up curtains and curtain rod.
-Had a fan installed.

Kitchen:
-Um, yeah.
-Do you want me to list all of those things?
-I mean, I can if you want.
-Okay, then.
-This is the room we had to pay people to help us with.
-We like to say that this room was sponsored by Lowe’s.
-Took down wallpaper.
-Took out cabinets and carpet and linoleum floor.
-New cabinets, new floor, new countertops.
-Painted fireplace.
-Painted laundry doors.
-Painted walls and trim.
-New stove and dishwasher.
-New light fixtures. In new places.
-Patched/painted ceiling.
-Put up shelves.

Sunroom:
-Painted brick wall.
-Painted paneling.
-Painted trim.
-These things took an insanely long amount of time.
-Changed fixture on ceiling fan to bring it into this century.

Miscellaneous:
-Lots of lists.
-Had locks changed.
-General unpacking.
-Smoke detectors.
-Fixed washing machine.
-BLINDS! Yay! Our blinds are in and soon they will be installed and I am so happy!

Things we still need to do:
-Rugs
-Take down wallpaper in one bedroom.
-Paint other bedroom.
-Finish that last bit of unpacking.
-Actually decorate.
-Work on things like window treatments now that we have blinds.
-New water saving toilet in hall bathroom.
-Actually do something to store our DVDs.
-Get the Big Chair back (it is being reupholstered).
-Deal with the brown doors.

Random things I cannot find:
-My brown belt. (I had to buy a new one. But I really want the old one to be found.)
-My vanilla body spray.
-Our heating pad.
-A box of Mike’s school stuff.

As you can see, we have been very busy. This is my “What I Did This Summer” essay. A little bit late. I kept thinking I would compile the list, but I never actually got around to doing it. And I feel like I have probably forgotten a few things. Perhaps Mike can clarify what they were. (I still have the actual master lists that I made right after we moved in. Would you like to see them? I can take a picture if you would like to see how my mind works.)

Now that we live here in the middle of everything, it is suddenly possible for me to see my students when I go out and run errands. We don’t live in my school’s district, but Target and Barnes and Noble are, you know, the kinds of places where people often are. Including my students. I saw two at Barnes and Noble Tuesday morning and one at Target that afternoon. Three! In one day! I told Mike that we should start playing a game to see who sees more students each time we go out. Even though my school has about three times the amount of students his does and I interact with more students than he does, this is fair because we live in his school’s district (let me be frank: there is a school zone sign in our front yard that is for his school. We are talking two tenths of a mile here) and so all the neighborhood kids go there. I still think I can win. And that is what’s important.

One set of neighbors came over and introduced themselves on Monday night. They brought cookies, and they have adorable children, so those points are in their favor. They came over while Brian and Sarah were here, bringing us dinner. I can sense your jealousy because we are totally racking up on the free food. But, seriously, I am pretty sure that bringing us dinner this week will get you stars in your crown in heaven, because I don’t know what we would have done if they hadn’t brought us dinner. Probably eaten microwave popcorn. We were really focused on the painting.

I didn’t take “before” pictures because, well, the camera was still at the old house when we started painting and attacking the carpet. (Those are two separate things there. We painted the walls. We did not attack the carpet with paint. Though I might have if I’d thought about it. And we haven’t gotten to the wallpaper yet. We took Tuesday off.) Also, all those things I mentioned last week about style make me kind of shy about posting pictures of my house. So I probably won’t show you much of our progress, because you won’t be able to fully understand the scope of what is going on here. But I do want to show you pictures of the brick wall that we painted in our sunroom, because I am especially proud of it. So if you are into that sort of thing, stay tuned for that.