upstairs

I had a housewarming party last weekend, and while I failed to take any pictures during the blessed event, I did take pictures of the upstairs beforehand--the first time it was actually cleaned up enough to do so!

The guest bedroom/office:
with the drawings of Paris Gramma bought when she was there-I love them!

I love the sunlight in this room-it's very calming.

The chest of drawers survived the car ride! The door on the left it to the shared bath.

My bedroom:
with memaw's bedroom suit and nana's side tables as bedside tables :) (and the other bathroom door)

looking back toward the door.

The bathroom:

the vanity (with the HEAVY mirror I installed myself)

Looking to the left of the vanity (and on the wall behind you)

The tub is on the left, looking back toward the vanity and my bedroom (standing in front of the toilet)

and finally, at the landing looking into my bedroom and down the staircase. and that's it!

Susan, Lindsay, and Nancy throw a great party, I must say. It was a lot of fun to have my first official party at my house. It is now thoroughly warmed!

the garden fairy

While I have long outgrown santa clause and the tooth fairy, I have recently become acquainted with the garden fairy. She comes to your house while you're at work, and plants flowers in your garden. I must say, I'm a big fan of this fairy!

She's come to my house twice now, and there are happy little flowers greeting me when I get home from work. I can take little credit for how my garden looks now. All I do is water it :o)

Thanks garden fairy!

work, furniture

this week was my first week back to work--back to being a productive member of society, as Mom says. it was a really good week, actually. Right away I was handed a project to be the lead on; they gave a brief of what was expected, and then set me loose. it was great! I pretty easily got back into the flow of being in the office, and remembering how things work. It was great not having that awkward orientation period where you don't really know how to do anything, or where to find anything, and you don't feel like you're being productive.

the other great part is that we have three summer intern students. One is a friend of mine from grad school; she is a year behind me, and we went on the same study abroad in Europe last summer. The other two are undergraduate students. It's great no longer being the low man on the totem pole :o) There are plenty of other people to do the gophering. Being higher up is good!

the adventure of the day today was moving the last of my furniture into my house. still to be retrieved was furniture for the guest room/office: a bed, that was Mom's when she was a little girl, and a chest of drawers that had been in my room several years ago--the topiary chest, for those of you who know which one I'm referring to.

we put the bed in the back of mom's explorer, which took up the entire back. so, we thought we would have to make another trip; but dad said that he thought it would fit in the back of his tr! So, that's what we did! It rode beside him all the way to my house, with mom and I behind in the explorer, laughing the entire way because dad was so cute in his little car, and the chest made his car look so tiny--like a toy car. below are my attempts at photographing the humorous event :o)

more downstairs

second post of the day...see below for the first half...

the kitchen, with my new fridge :o)


more of the kitchen. the window above the sink looks out onto the back patio. Also notice the rotary phone on the counter--it was Gramma's mother's phone, and it still works! I absolutely love it!

The back door to the patio.



Looking into the powder room. It was very hard to photograph this room! hopefully you can get some idea of the space.


The vanity and mirror. [unintentional self-portrait]

That concludes the downstairs tour. Once I get myself in gear, I'll get to work on the upstairs!

the downstairs

I know you had probably given up hope that I would post pictures of my new house...but it's just taken a little while to get it photo-ready :o) But here it is now! The vast majority of my decorating brainpower has been directed at the downstairs--so, I'm opting to wait on the upstairs posting until it's in a little better shape decor-wise. But, enjoy the first floor!

This is the view from the front door: through the living room and into the dining room, and past that is the kitchen and powder room (with the patio out back--but that will be another post itself).


This is the living room on your left when you enter the front door. Ignore the large stack of cardboard packaging waiting to be recycled :)


The living room on your right when you enter the front door. The door in the picture is the closet underneath the stairs.


The dining room to the left. (the birdhouses are waiting to be painted as table decor for Lindsay's houswarming party on Sunday).


The dining room to the right. I bet you guys recognize the furniture! You can also see the start of the stairway to the upstairs, and the kitchen/powder room beyond that.


View back into the living room, and the front door.

more of the dowstairs to come...

home renovation #1

Here is my laundry closet project documented in pictures. I didn't think to get a "before" picture until it was a bit too late. :o) Here is the closest I've got:


Note the dryer vent coming up out of the floor, and the two different types of flooring that were down. And, my super-handy dad removing a big chunk of my wall!


Installing the new dryer vent in the wall (note the hole in the floor required to make it possible)



Putting the wall back together...


Scraping away at the ridiculously sticky floor...it took forever, and wore me out! But, I'm pretty sure I got bigger muscles as a result! :o)


Finally, down to the subfloor (plus a little glue that I couldn't scrape off)...

Laying the first new tile...

What a pretty new floor!

Wall repair complete--after color matching the paint at Lowe's with a chip we scraped off the wall. VERY COOL.Project complete! boy, it's a tight fit in there--you can't even see my new floor! but I know it's there. And you guys do too!

The drought is over

Hello world, I'm finally back! What a crazy week it's been. Moving into my new house and all that entails has consumed my life. I hadn't even been here a week, and I (with Dad's help) already embarked upon (and just an hour ago completed) my first home renovation project, which ended up spanning four days! It involved the laundry closet: moving the dryer exhaust from the floor to the wall, new floor, and installing the appliances. I documented the events, and will post them later. Currently, I'm doing a load of laundry of the clothes I want to take with me to the beach tomorrow! VERY EXCITING! It will be a short trip, but still a great chance to relax and get off this whirlwind I've been living for the last couple of weeks :o)

...more updates to come...