Welcome Home, Moose...

Clockwise from left: Moosey gets some much needed holiday cheer; Wall cabinets gets a taste of the Jerman wrath; Original oak flooring hiding below some hideous parquet flooring.

So it's safe to say that we are diligently working in our new home by the lack of posts on this blog. But I am just bursting with post contents and overwhelmed at the same time with the flurry of house related activities. Our blog silence really speaks volumes.

But I have been meaning to do a bit of post about what we've done so far after getting our keys.

It's been just a day over a week ago that we actually closed, and with the holidays right smack in the middle of things, you'd think that we'd have yet to spend a minute in our new place. In fact, we've spent almost every waking moment we've had, tearing down cabinets and wallpaper, and opting for a shortened holiday at home to maximize vacation time on the house.

First things first, since we bought a short sale, we wanted to make sure to get our locks changed out right away. And what a perfect excuse to start setting the theme for hardware in the house too! We chose an antiqued black finish locks and knobs on both the front and side door (which coincidentally matched perfectly with our Moose knocker) and even got a fancy keypad deadbolt for the side door, which immediately made me feel like we've updated this century old home to the technology savvy age. We are just one step closer to our very own smart home..

And speaking of dear ol' Moosey, she's also found her new home upfront and center stage on our solid wood front door. Sadly, we had to cover her up temporarily as we hung up a wreathe (and a little bit of Christmas cheer) right on top of her head. Sorry Moosey!

Then from day one, we were on a tear of terror and destruction as we ripped, demolished, and smashed (ok, we were a lot more delicate than that) wallpaper and decades old kitchen cabinets. Actually, we were careful enough to salvage a lot of the cabinets for repurposing in the garage or basement, so destruction wasn't quite our MO (it just sounded cooler)

We also discovered (during our reign of destruction) that the dated parquet on the kitchen floor hid the original oak floors underneath and is currently giving us hope of salvaging and refinishing those beautiful old floors. But we've got a lot of work digging ahead of us since the parquet are glued down pretty tight. Oh and I forgot to mention the sticky laminate underneath said parquet and atop the original floors. Oh joy!

Underneath the parquet and laminate,
original oak flooring waiting to be brought back to life.
Also note,  even more hideous wallpaper
hidden behind the cabinets.  

So the past week has been one part jolly and another part folly (ha! both applying to the house and the long drive home to Michigan for the holidays) but we can't wait for our sweat equity and hard work to pay off in spades when we're enjoying our new tranquil kitchen and home in a few month's time. (We can't wait for our walls to come down, I am itching to take a sledge hammer to it, but I have a feeling that I am no match for this old house)

In the meantime, we're going through the rigmarole of contractors and bids that we can't even keep our schedules straight, let alone blog. Sad :(. Busy, busy.. but we're still in new house bliss with our heads to the cloud, feet off the ground, and there ain't nothin' keepin' us down!

And for that awkward (albeit) essential,
carrying over the threshold photo.. Poor Steve..

Hope everyone had a very Happy Holidays and have a Happy New Year! So far, this coming year is holding a lot of promise for us already, in more ways than we can think of!

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We got the house!! Part Two

As of 5:15 pm on December 21, 2012, we've become official owners of a new, long yearned for, short sale house. After a 2 month wait for the ss approval and 3 extended closing dates, it felt like forever and I never thought I would say this, but the house is finally ours! (Yahoo!!)

I am still in complete shock and awe, overjoyed, overcome with anxiety among other things. And this close to the holidays, it's safe to say that I AM FREAKIN' OUT, MAN!!

I'll probably have to sit down another time and write in another post about the gory details of the process and the current state of the house (OUR house!!!), but I will make sure to do so when I am not in such a frenzied mental state. (And this post is coming from a few hours and a good short night's sleep later after closing) I am just in that much disbelief and its taken me about that long to realize what we just did.

So here's to new beginnings, a new year, a new life lived, and century old homes gaining new families and memories. May the coming years be kind to us all, through thick and thin, surviving renovations and new neighborhoods.

And let's hope the Mayans were correct in predicting that doomsday (the timely date that was chosen for our closing) is not about the end of life as we know it, but the end of an era and a new beginning, and a good one at that!

Cheers to everyone and hope everyone enjoys their holiday season!

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and it was all yellow...

Yet another update... Due to a few more snafus, our closing date has been moved AGAIN, this time not until Dec. 20th at the latest.. As they say, patience is a virtue.

I'm not sure if it's the winter season (although Chicago seems to be experiencing some record "warm" temps for December) or if this rainy weekend that's leaving me wanting for some bright sunshine, but yellow seems to be the color du jour in my current paint palette and I'm itching to make everything merry and bright!

A few weeks ago, Steve and I did a little picking after we spotted 2 cute little wooden chairs in our neighbor's curb.  Now we're by no means pros or experienced pickers like these guys on a certain popular show on the history channel, but we can recognize potential in nice solid wood furniture left on the curb that just needed a little love.  From the looks of it, it mostly needed cleaning, sanding and some paint!  So on to the first yellow makeover.

We desconstructed our curb finds to make them easier for prepping.  A lot of sanding and deep cleaning and scrubbing, and sanding some more, and these babies were ready to be put back together.  We just needed to make sure that they were sturdy and that even goldilocks couldn't break this chair.  

So we made sure to add some strong industrial adhesive.  We wanted something strong that dried clear, so we used Loctite Power Grab Clear Moulding & Paneling Construction Adhesive, before drilling the screws back in tight.

Now that we had our cute little chairs sanded and ready for paint, I primed with some Valspar primer paint, and painted the chairs a bright yellow using Rustoleum's Painter's Touch Ultra Cover paint in Sun Yellow with a Gloss finish.  We then topped it off with a Clear Gloss, just to keep it extra shiny!

You'll have to pardon the hoarders-like mess behind the 2 yellow chair photo, our garage is a clear candidate for the show as of lately with all of our packed boxes and stuff ready for the move.

In the end, the chairs add a little bit of sun-shiny yellow to this otherwise grey day.  Even Olive (rocking a skater girl hat (Steve's), and her monkey jammies) is all smiles while lounging in her new chair.

And like I mentioned earlier, that was just the first yellow makeover.  We made over our critter coat hooks that we got from the Land of Nod outlet back in October (but posted in November).  The original red was a bit chipped and damaged anyways, but a nice bright coat of yellow fixes it right up.  Now, they're happy critters! (and they totally go with our ceramic yellow rooster find)

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