Going Green

The choice of paint color for the living room has long been the topic of much discussion. With the fabric for the living room curtains in hand I picked Olympic's color Sweet Annie. That was months ago, so there's been plenty of time to gather reactions before the paint actually hit the wall. And the reaction was about 25% "That'll look great!" and about 75% "That's too dark!". I admit that I was wavering a fair amount, especially over the last couple of weeks, but in the end I stuck it out. So yesterday, I spent my 30th birthday introducing Sweet Annie to the Einsel House living room. I think they hit it off quite well.

Looking into the living room from the dining room:

And in the living room:

Charles had never tried to talk me into a different color. God bless the man, his immediate reaction when he got to the house with the kids after school was, "That doesn't look as bad as I thought it would." (I think that means he likes it.)

I'm quite pleased. The room doesn't feel too dark, and the green does an amazing job of pulling in the view of the creek through the windows. I'm quite eager to hang those curtains I made last fall, but as you can see in the picture above the woodwork in the room still needs more attention.

In closing, if you're someone who knows us IRL (in real life) then you know that all winter I gave yesterday as the date we hoped to be ready to move into the Einsel House. In case you missed it above, I turned 30 yesterday and moving into the house would have been a nice present. So we're looking forward - maybe Mother's Day (but I doubt it), or our anniversary, or July 4th, or some random weekend just before Charles and the kids go back to school. It's sure to be a glorious day when we bring that first truckload from the storage unit, but yesterday was a glorious day too, in its own quiet way. As we sat down on the bare kitchen subfloor to a supper of KFC and chocolate cake (with pink frosting and yellow roses) it struck me that the memory of this birthday will always stand out. A good day at the Einsel House has a way of reminding me of the many blessings I've been granted. So yeah, it was a good birthday. :)

Paint Score

Yesterday after work I visited our local Ace Hardware. In my purse I had a coupon for $5.00 off each gallon of Ace Royal Paint up to a limit of 10 gallons. When I got to the paint aisle I noticed that Ace Royal Paint was on sale and there was a current $5.00 per gallon rebate on top of the sale. I pulled out my coupon and was thrilled when the Helpful Hardware Man told me I could use it on top of the sale and rebate. At the checkout I was also able to use a $5.00 coupon Ace sent me for my birthday. Finally, I had a $50.00 Ace gift card that we earned as a cash back reward from our credit card.

Final tally - once I mail in the rebate, I will have paid just over $30.00 for over $150.00 worth of paint. Lovely!

Guess what I'll be doing on my day off work tomorrow....

A Different Perspective

I was going through the pictures we took last weekend and this one jumped out at me. I love how the new front door is framed by the trees.

I need to take some pictures back in the house as well. The bathroom has 1 coat of paint on the walls. The living room's purple walls are now under primer, and some of its woodwork has shellac. Tomorrow's goal is to get the final coat of paint on the bathroom walls. Tonight's goal is to finish our school district income tax return....

A Quick Update

Just a quick update at the moment. Wouldn’t want anyone to think we’ve spent the last few days just sitting on our duffs. ; )

Tuesday we had a welcome lift from my Aunt J. She met us at the house with a huge home cooked supper (we finished the leftovers last night – yum!!!) After reviving our spirits with good food, Aunt J stayed and helped my mom scrub down the bathroom. After work on Wednesday Charles and my mom got the bathroom walls primed. My own accomplishments at the house this week include completing the first coat of finish on the dining room woodwork and putting shellac and finish on a collection of miscellaneous trim pieces. There has also been much discussion this past week on the choice of paint color for the living room.

This week also included three renovation milestones. First, the HVAC crew swarmed the house one last time. For three days in a row they had three vans parked in the drive. We now have the permanent furnace, heat pump, and air purification system installed and working. I know we'll appreciate the air conditioning in a few weeks, but at the moment I’m thrilled simply by the fact that our new thermostat includes a reading of the outside temperature.

A second milestone reached this week was the exit of our general contractor. I’m sure he’ll be around again for an odd job here and there, but there’s nothing on the books at the moment. His ladders, work lights and most other accoutrements were gone early in the week and he was going to pick up his scaffolding this morning. (I predict Cecilia will be quite disappointed when we get to the house this afternoon.) We’ll be giving our masonry contractor a call sometime this spring, but for the moment we have work at the house to ourselves.

Finally, April 7th marked six months since closing. It seems hard to believe it’s been that long. Sometime soon, I’m hoping to put together a picture-heavy post showing how far we’ve come in the past six months. (Hopefully that will make up for the picture-less post today!)

New Front Door!

This makes me ridiculously happy!

From inside the house (still a bit rough around the edges):

And a reminder of where we started from:

Eugene the Pickle says he approves of our work:

One Day More

Here's a follow-up to the last picture in yesterday's post.

The dining room windows after one day more work:

(The astute may notice the difference between the two windows. Correcting that issue is one of the few things left on our contractor's to-do list.)

Content

We've been keeping busy at The Einsel House. Ceiling priming/painting is done for the moment, and the work we are doing cntinues to be (mostly) of the visually rewarding variety. And of course the arrival of spring has been so nice. Late Thursday Charles noticed 12 deer in the field behind our house. We watched as they meandered across the field in a single file line over to the creek. Barely ten minutes later we were all sitting on the sidewalk outside the kitchen counting the bats that swooped out from under the eaves. Neil counted nineteen. As he counted we were serenaded by frogs along the creek.

Last night as Charles and I were closing up the house we could again hear our bats waking up for the night. (They make a 'chirp' noise, kind of like a cricket but much less harsh.) Charles told me that he was surprised because seeing the bats and knowing they are in the attic doesn't really bother him. If not for the fact that we need to insulate the attic, he said he would be fine with letting them stay in the current home. I wonder if bat guano has an R value? ; )

Like the local wildlife, our two children have been celebrating the arrival of spring. Here's a picture of Neil riding his new bike down the lane:

In the house we've been working mostly on the dining room. I began applying Sealcoat to the dining room woodwork yesterday. Here's a picture of the corner I started in:

In the opposite corner of the room my mom put back up a few trim pieces at the top of the windows that had been removed when the ceiling was gutted. And my Uncle J installed the new candle chandelier (bulbs for it are on my next Lowes-run list). We have a family Easter party today, but I hope to finish the Sealcoat in this corner of the room tonight: