IKEA and Spring

The weather is beginning to warm up and the sun is starting to come out more often. It seems like the first signs of spring are here. A couple of weeks ago Aaron and I took a trip to Niagara Falls for a mini break holiday. We took a detour on our way home to IKEA and found an entertainment console that fits perfectly in our livingroom! 

There is still more work to do in this room (we need a  new coffee table and picture above the couch) but for the most part we are almost done with our first room. Just in time for the nice weather! We'll be spending so much time outside gardening this summer, it will be nice to have one room completed.

We went to the public market this past weekend and loaded up on fruits and veggies. In celebration of our healthy haul, I whipped up some vegetarian Pad See Eeu. The broccoli and tofu was so light and fresh, it was tastey and satisfying but not too heavy.

Stairway Revival

          

  

One of my most recent projects has been to update the stairway that leads from the garage to the kitchen and to the basement. When we first moved in it was a violent shade of sea green from ceiling to trim. Not only was it an unsettling color, but it kind of made the basement seem that much more creepy. 

Finally, I had enough and decided to do something about it. I decided to continue the color from the kitchen to the stairway to unify the space and picked out some striped fabric for the curtains. After many, many coats of paint the green was covered and it was time to sew the curtains! Its been a while since I had gotten out my sewing machine and was a little nervous at first. Thank goodness it was a fairly straight forward project!

I think they turned out pretty well! As luck would have it, I found an old picture stashed away with the things we still had packed in boxes and it matched almost perfectly. 

Here is the end result. I think overall it looks much more welcoming. I'm just so glad that the sea green is gone! What do you think?

Christmas Decorating

It's been quite a while since I've posted. With the craziness of our wedding as well as moving into the Little Ranch House, I haven't had much time to post. I think its time to pick up where I left off! Its almost that time of year, when all of the stores and radio stations overflow with Christmas music and you can't help but get in the holiday spirit. Getting a little over excited about our first Christmas in our new home I decorated early this year. 

Here are a few of my favorite ornaments. Every year Aaron gives me a new ornament from this artsy little shop downtown to add to my collection. I love the glitter and splash of darker color on his feet! 

You might have noticed almost all of our holiday decorations are silver and gold. I started out with this theme years ago and have kept up with the tradition since then. I'm trying to find new ways to incorporate things that we already have into center pieces or repurpose things to round out the decorations in our living room. Hopefully I can come up with some good ideas over the next few weeks in time for the actual holiday!

Outside Progress

With the weather as nice as it has been lately, we've started to work on the outside of the house. Thanks to a ton of help from our parents and their construction background, we've been able to get a tremendous amount done. You can see in the before picture below, TLRH had large overgrown bushes and an awning in the front.

The bushes were literally about five feet in circumference and taking over most of the front of the house. These have been almost completely cut down to expose the front. We will eventually rip out the roots. From what we hear this won't be an easy task to accomplish! 

Over the weekend my dad helped to take down the awning. Disassembling it didn't take too long and it really transforms the house, updating it and giving it a fresher look.

Our initial plan was to paint the house because the current paint is peeling off in sheets on the sides and in the back. But we've opted to side it, which we were advised was much easier upkeep and lasted 100% longer. Thanks to the generosity of our parents, they have helped us with the cost as a wedding gift. Thanks Mom and Dad! (There's no way we could have done it on our own!) It will be a while until the siding is up, but here are a couple pictures of the progress.

We'll keep things updated on here! In the mean time we'll keep plugging away at the inside. It still needs a ton of work! 

Painting the Bedroom

With one room painted, we were eager to start on the next one. Deciding on the bedroom, we went to Home Depot and picked a few samples.

We ended up with the far left blue (Russian Blue). Luckily there was no carpet to rip up in the bedroom, so we could get to work right away.

Before pictures

Note the griminess

Starting with the ceiling, we painted for two days. Surprisingly this room seemed to take longer than the first. That could have something to do with it taking two days to finally decide on the paint color....

Cutting in the edges

Finished Product!

Hurrah for Working Laundry

One of the first priorities after getting the house was undoubtedly having a working washer and dryer. Paying $10 in quarters for two loads of laundry was growing slightly tiresome and waiting to do laundry for as long as humanly possible was not shaping up to be such a great idea = scary, gigantic piles of laundry or wearing dirty clothes. 


Unfortunately, the dryer we purchased with the house was broken. After contemplating the best way to go about fixing this, we were surprised by a friend who was about to get rid of his old set and offered them to us. Thank you Rick!

See the old dryer to the left and the working one on the right

It took a little effort, but we were able to get the working dryer into the basement. Before the installation, we ran into a couple of minor problems: dirty/moldy walls and a missing exhaust pipe.

Cleaned w/ mold cleaner

Sweeping dirt

Exhaust pipe hooked up and working

We still need to do some cleaning and need to reposition the washer and dryer against the walls, but in the mean time we are  successfully washing our clothes. Hurrah!

Ripping up linoleum - Small project

Although we've been over to the house every day this week and will probably continue this trend, there are only so many hours (after work) left in the day for renovating. So during the week we're keeping it to small projects, saving the big ones for the weekend. 


Our first small project was to rip up the ugly linoleum in the front entry way.

Note : Crow bar at the ready

Unsure of how it was attached to the floor and hoping that it wasn't glued to the hardwoods, we began to chip away at the corners. As luck would have it, it came up fairly easily.

Linoleum debris

After prying up many nails and ripping out lots of old smelly linoleum the entry way was finally cleared out! (And yes, it did smell pretty awful)

Ta - Da!

Final Results