And another one down.

Not that I didn't love our house before but now when I walk in the front door, I LOVE our house.
The foyer was this:

More yellow walls and trim that showed it's age, including hinge and door cut outs. Since this was a quad at one time, the foyer had a door on each side to separate the 2 apartments on each side of the house.

Matt turned it into this:

It's good to be home.

One Down...

Ok, so I'm serious this time...
We have one room done. D.O.N.E. DONE.
And we're so happy that there is a room in this house finally that isn't yellow.
Some before, during, and after pictures for your viewing pleasure

Before:
Please appreciate the untiled tub and subfloor covered in beautiful pink shag rugs, plus the cloudy mirrored medicine cabinet, and what looks like a light fixture that should be an old gas station bathroom.

During:
We were so happy to have a room a color other than yellow we left it primed for a whole week before painting it a color.
Please note the missing medicine cabinet, that is a different light fixture (I know you can't tell) and the beautiful tile work now in place.

And finally, the after shots:
New light fixture, new mirror, new wall color, freshly painted ceiling and trim, new towel ring, tp holder, shower rod and curtain, freshly painted details like door knobs and heat/air vent...

And Matt's favorite part, finally, there is a door in this house that locks:

Snow Pics

Now that it's 60 degrees outside and I can finally appreciate the pictures of our house in the snow, I'll share them.  Before I was too busy cursing and shoveling/sweeping the driveway...thankfully, we got some use out of some of the crap that last owners left behind...
I mean really, how many people down here own a good snow shovel - we do now.
Enjoy -

A photographer, I am not.  ....maybe someday I'll grow some talent until then, you just have to suffer through my lack of skill.  Night time pictures never turn out as great as I think they should.

The Car

Ya'll are gonna love this one -
So we all know that my Dad has this thing with cars....it's a collectors type thing. That in and of itself doesn't sound too bad except that his collectors type thing usually leads to conversations such as this:
Me calling Dad, while driving away in one such car -
"Hey....ummm, you know there are 3 different dashboard lights on right now, right? Is that normal?"
Dad -
"Oh yea, that's normal. I like to keep lights on to make sure they work. (while uproariously laughing) And watch out for the windshield wipers, they spontaneously turn themselves on, that's normal too. And keep an eye out for the power brakes, sometimes they just don't work..really, you'll get a nice leg workout when that happens."
Me -
"What about the power steering? It feels like I'm wrestling an alligator to make a left turn..."
Dad -
"About that, it comes and goes...kinda like the windshield wipers."
Me -
"perfect."

Feast your eyes on said car:

Looks nice right? Riiiight.

All the issues listed above I inheireted.
The following I grew all by myself:
A few months ago I was at the grocery store, I shut the truck and the license plate fell off. On the ground. It's currently propped up in the back glass.


On my way to work on Monday – The driver’s side window fell off track and is currently being held up with wedges stuck in the door.


And guess what happened on my way to work Thursday, when it was raining like hell – my windshield wiper flew off….Like the entire blade thing (not just the rubber part) was dangling from the arm.
Thankfully I was only a few blocks from the house so I circled back around and creeped home without wipers then cursed my way into figuring out how to reattach it while holding the umbrella over my head with my chin…I looked like a damn circus act. It's still attached but I don't trust it.

I mean really, you just have to laugh, it's so ridiculous.

It's Stopped Pouring

So my last post was kind of a downer. I have to admit I was overwhelmed and pretty pissed at the world yesterday until.....
10:15 PM.
At 10:15PM, both Doobie and Mary Jane start howling like crazy. WTF? I go to see if someone is on the porch and I hear the glorious sound of running water.

"We got water, We got water!!"

After 5 hours of a canon style heater being pointed directly at the main water pipe headed into the house, we finally got some water moving.
The funny thing about water is that is drips and runs down walls and falls from ceilings and ruins hard wood floors. The water I heard running was actually running and dripping from our upstairs bath to the doorway in the downstairs bath and then to the hardwoods below. Lovely.

Now what do we do? We can't turn the water off b/c it'll freeze again. We can't leave it on, it'll ruin our hardwoods. ARGH.

So I called my dad for some plumbing/frozen pipe expertise....his advice: "find the leak." Really? I could've figured that one out on my own.

Meanwhile, Matt has crawled into the wall behind the upstairs bathroom to try and find the leak and I've lost him. So of course, I yell for him, find him, and we discover that it's not a busted pipe but the cast iron drain pipe had been leaking (probably since we bought the house, we never use the upstairs bath.) Since the water is turned off in the sink, there is no more leak.

Hallelujah. Angels sing. And we sit on the couch and drink wine, quite pleased with ourselves.

A side bar to that story is this:
When Matt was younger, his Mom, Ronnie and he would do a lot of hiking and camping. Once in Florida, during a drought, they almost set their campground on fire...so seriously, like a whole bunch of bushes caught fire and they were really close to calling the Fire Dept. and Smokey the Bear. So while Matt and Ronnie were frantically beating the 5 foot flames with towels soaked in water trying to kill it, his Mom was running around and opening and pouring cans of root beer on it.

After we hit the couch, wine in hand, Matt proceeded to tell me that I was about as helpful as pouring out root beer, running around screaming his name.

Thanks Honey.

When It Rains It Pours

What a beautiful faucet. It's all polished and bronze and pretty. Do you notice something not quite right though??
Take a 2nd look.
That's right. It's on. There's no water.
Odd.
Now that we're working on our 9th day below freezing our old plumbling just couldn't take it anymore....even with the radiant heater in the basement. The pipes froze.
Great.

But wait there's more...here's the rundown of our last week.

• Matt's car - his "ecgc" sensor (no idea if that's the right name at all??) went out on his car, while at the shop was told it's time to replace his timing belt.
• Heater unit in the basement - drain pipe froze and the pump was continuosly running.
• While down there checking out the heater, found that our downstairs bath pedastal sink had been leaking into the basement.
• One of our 2 outdoor spigots, the one in the shed, froze and burst.
• Main pipe bringing water to the house is frozen and we're currently without water.

And just to add insult to it all, today, during mile 1 of Matt's 5 mile run, his Ipod flipped out. After he has spent the last 2 weeks cleaning up his music folders and adding CD art to all the albums in the library (over 5600 songs). To him, this is the worst of all.

Less than 5 Months

So what do we have done:

• Venue? Check.
• Dress? Check.
• My shoes? Of course, that's a check...I actually have 2 pair already.
• .

Sadly - those checks are the only ones..

• Save the Dates?
• Invites?
• Guest List?
• Decor?
• Flowers?
• Rentals?
• DJ?
• Band?
• Matt's clothes?
• Gifts for our "helpers"?
• Registry?
• "Rehearsal" dinner?
• Hotel blocks for out of towners?

Oh. My. God.

Didn't I hire a wedding planner for a reason?