Monday, July 14, 2008

House Pictures; After

Here are a few "after" pictures... but we'll definitely post more. They don't really do it justice. We've moved more furniture in since these were taken, but it gives an idea of the progress we made.

Living room. The ceiling use to have the "popcorn ceiling" texture, but Rob put on the space suit and gas mask and scraped it all off in one long evening (yey, me!). Evidently the fireplace use to have an insert (a big metal wood stove-type device), but one of the previous occupants took it out and left it a big void.

Hannah and Christina doing what they do best :-)

Dining room with new chandelier. We have great evening sunshine in this room.

Jude's "pink" room - we have a fun crib set now, more pictures later. Rachel bought a great orange-ish, brownish set. And we also have the Harrod's teddy bear from Rachel's trip to London.

Kitchen: I know it may not "seem" much to look at, but we did a huge amount of work (mostly Rachel, Linda and Jeanne ... and Josh and Chris). Jeanne re-textured the gross space left behind when Josh took the cabinet off from above the fridge. Soon we hope to have a new fridge and stove sometime in the next year or so.

Kitchen again

Our new "kitchen nook" area. We mostly eat here. This kitchen is about 2x the size of our last cute rental house kitchen.


House Pictures: During

Here are some of our work party pictures. These are mostly from the 2nd weekend. We forgot to take pictures on the 1st weekend. There's no way we could have done this all in two weekends without everyone's help. We don't have pictures of Josh and Jeremy (our British friend), but they were definitely there and helping out.

Mom & Rob sanding cabinets. The process for each cabinet door and cabinet frame: 1) course sand, 2) fine sand, 3) pre-stain, 4) 1st coat lacquer, 5) 2nd coat lacquer, 6) sealer. Props to Linda, Rachel and Jeanne.

Chris, the master pin-nailer

Dad enjoying a momentary respite from painting the dining room

Dad working into the evening - he just moved everything in a few minutes earlier but thought a break was for wusses

Angela helped Jeanne paint the inside of the cabinets - they used to be blue and pink!

Jeanne working hard on the kitchen cabinets

Dad painting. I also included this picture to show the fabulous chandelier included with our home.


House Pictures: Before

Here are a few long awaited before, during, and after photos of our new home in t-town. First, before. The house was built in 1925, so there have been lots of previous occupants who did a real great job of "personalizing" the place. If you think this blue paint is "unique," you'd be even more impressed by the key-lime green underneath it.

From living room looking into dining room. Note the rough patch on the left side of the wall. Imagine that rough wall patch scattered throughout the house. Why would they be all over the house? Your guess is as good as ours. But it's because of those patches, and numerous other strange wall issues, that we had to call in professional wall texturers to smooth everything out.

Busy dining room with old chandelier. We still have the chandelier in the basement if anyone wants it. Let us know soon before it goes in the trash.

Dining room again - looking into the living room area.

Jude's pink room. It looks much better with the neutral beige/latte tone.

Old orange kitchen with plastic nobs! Now you can see why Rachel felt it was an imperative to "just do something" to the kitchen. Imagine that picture circling 360 degrees and all around you is orange cabinets and big white nobs. Not a relaxing way to make a meal.

Blue living room. We tore out the shelf above the window. Why? We just haven't been around long enough to accumulate so many knick-knacks.

Thursday, July 03, 2008

America's # 1 Killer: Chocolate Cake

America, nay, The World is under a threat bigger than terrorism, war, global warming, AIDS, and BPA leaching from Nalgene bottles. The biggest threat to mankind is chocolate cake. Every year more citizens of this world fall victim to its yummy, decadent succulence. We've always known that heart disease, obesity, and type II diabetes together account for more American deaths than all other ailments combined. But we're now seeing the sinfully delicious killer strike more and more of the most vulnerable youths and elderly in places as far away as Holland, Bavaria, Oompa Loompa Land, and China.

My friend, Todd, chooses to ignore the peril of chocolate cake. He believes free will allows us to choose between eating the cake or ignoring its lascivious allure. Don't listen to people like him. Their fallacious spin doctoring is mere argumentum ad ignorantiam and they will try to confuse you by appealing to your lust rather than your sensibilities. Don't be ignorant to this man-made travesty. End this arteriosclerotic menace before it strikes you and the people you love.