Painting!

We FINALLY got around to painting. And yes, we only painted one room and yes it was the smallest in the house. This also takes care of meeting one of my goals for the year, which was to pick a room and paint it! In addition to the paint, we got a new shower curtain, new bath rug, and new towel bars. Some details: Ceiling was paint in Behr Restful (400F-4), walls in Behr Japanese Fern (400B-6) and the trim in Behr Star Shine (W-B-410). While not 100% finished, it's looking good! Still need to find some artwork or photos for the walls, possibly a shelf or two. Ultimately, we want to replace the vanity, medicine cabinet and light fixture as well and fix the tile floor.

Brand spanking new desk!

We're on our way to getting the 3rd floor office decorated and cleaned up. Step one, get a new work space that's just for work. I got a new desk that's designated for my workspace and a new chair. Finally no more card table chair to sit on all day! We got both pieces at Target for a pretty good deal. Another motivation for the new desk was to make room for our new home computer. That's step two, get a home computer we can use for photos and music as well as another tv for the house and for our
guests. Step three is to find a couch with a pull out bed so this can be the office, a den and a guest room all in one! Step four is putting on the final touches including new window treatments and a nice paint color, along with a new ceiling fan. Quite a list still to go! Now all I need to do is figure out how to work that new iMac of ours...should be fun!

New Doors!

We've had a busy week! First the roof finally got fixed and now our new doors were finally installed! We're still waiting for a screen door for the back since it's still on back order. But, the new doors are in and 90% complete. A few trim pieces need to be added to the front door, which they'll take care of when they install the screen door in the back. Now on to some before and after photos! Now that I see them side by side, we chose similar, if not the same styles for the doors, just different colors and steel reinforced security! No more wind blowing through the unevenly installed doors! These energy star efficient doors should help keep the downstairs a bit warmer in the winter and keep our air conditioning inside during the summer. They all open and lock a whole lot easier now and all have deadbolt locks (the previous doors did not).

BEFORE

Front Door - Outside Front Door - Inside












AFTER













BEFORE & AFTER

Side Entrance Door - Inside













BEFORE
Back Door - Inside Back Door - Outside












AFTER

The Roof - Part 2

It finally stopped raining long enough for the roof guy to come back and finish the roof. Yesterday we go our coating on the roof that should seal any remaining cracks and provide some UV protection. Instead of the black roof, we now have a shiny silver roof! This should help keep the house a bit cooler on those hot summer days.
A completely covered and coated chimney. We shouldn't be having any more issues with leaks now.







Nice and shiny!

The Leaky Roof - Part 1

We've had some issues recently with a leak in the 3rd floor office area. Any time it rains, the ceiling (now with a hole in it!) drips water onto my desk. Last summer during those torrential downpours, we had water come in on the 2nd floor as well. We thought we fixed that problem with a new gutter, but our roof guy thinks otherwise and I believe him. So, part 1 of fixing the roof involved replacing all the gutters, patching any holes, cracks, etc. in the roof, completely covering the chimney (the suspected source of our 3rd floor leak) and caulking around the outdoor fixtures.
Patching a few cracks in the roof.








Chimney is now completely covered.








Repositioned the downspout from the 3rd floor roof from draining onto the deck to draining directly into the 2nd floor gutter. No more water being drained directly onto the roof. This should help solve the leaking to the 2nd floor during those heavy summer rains.

Gardening time!

This weekend I finally got around to getting plants to start my container garden on the rooftop deck. We get plenty of sun up there so it should be perfect for a few sun loving plants. I decided to start small with just two tomato plants, some herbs and a few annual flowers for some color. To the right is a glance at the mini garden as well as the gnomes that watch over the plants. I still need to get some compost for the top layer from Michael. Let's hope this location is sunny enough!

Herbs are rosemary & sweet basil - 4/26/09








Better Boy tomato - 4/26/09








Bush Early Girl - 4/26/09








Vinca and Marigold - hanging basket - still need to get a hook so I can hang this up without fear of falling!

New Furniture

We finally got some new furniture pieces for the house. Ikea proved to be a good place to start! Since the house doesn't have a linen cabinet, the one we got from Ikea was much needed. It fits all our towels and sheets and has plenty of room left over for even more stuff! I love it's yellow color and the glass doors. We put it in the second floor hallway by the laundry area and I think it looks great!

Our next project was to find bedroom furniture since we don't have any side tables or a bed frame. Due to the size of our mattress, a lot of the Ikea frames didn't work out (at least the one we wanted!). So while at the store we spoted a metal frame that measured out nicely. We also found end tables that were high enough to reach if we were sitting in bed and that included some extra storage. To top it off we got some end table lamps from Walmart to match the metal frame. Now all we need to do is paint and get some new bedding!

BEFORE:

AFTER:Mr_BTM's End Table
My End Table

Christmas Tree!

This Christmas will be our second Christmas in Baltimore. However, last year we were still in transit and didn't have a permanent home. Plus, we spent almost 2 weeks in Ohio and Illinois for the holiday. So this year, now that we have our house, we bought our first fake Christmas tree. This year we'll only be spending a few days in Cincinnati so we'll have time to enjoy it at home. We opted for a non-pre-lit tree since the pre-lit trees looked skimpy. The tree we got is 7.5 fee tall and is pretty wide and full. We decided to put it up in the 3rd floor office since we have the most open space there and I get to look at it all day while I work. It's got white lights and lots of ornaments! And there's even a few presents for us under the tree.

New Kitchen Cart!

We've wanted to get a small kitchen cart/island for our kitchen to add some more counter space and more storage. We finally got around to buying the darn thing and had it delivered to the house. It arrived in a huge box and weighed over 100 pounds! We reserved the Saturday after Thanksgiving to put this together, we figured it would be a good project for the day. So step 1 in putting this thing together is to count all the bits and pieces. Step 2 is finding out you're missing a few screws so you have to call the manufacturer for them to send you replacement parts. But they're not open on the weekends so you have to wait until Monday morning. Step 3 is to put together as much as you can without needing the missing screws. So, we were only able to put the drawers together and what would have been a productive Saturday turned out to be a dud. Step 4 is to wait a week for those replacement pieces to arrive and to live with this huge box and all it's pieces scattered about. Step 5 is to rejoice when the replacement parts finally arrive! Step 6 is to proceed in putting this thing together. I must say, it was pretty easy to put together. Mind you, Mr_BTM did all the heavy lifting but I helped! It's a pretty sturdy piece and has wheels so we can move it around easily. The wood matches our kitchen perfectly and the stainless steel top is just what Mr_BTM wanted. Here are two quick shots of the finished product. Now we just need to figure out what we want to store on the cart! As you can see, we put the coffee pot on the bottom shelf but it doesn't fit standing upright so it looks a bit goofy.

All moved in!

We moved into our new house last weekend and have been unpacking ever since. We've also been doing a ton of shopping to buy back all the stuff we didn't move with us from Portland. Lots of good consumering going on. Our list seems endless...mattress, vacuum, tv, dressers, organizing stuff, cleaning supplies, garbage cans, recycle bins, etc....

But...it's all worth it and I love our new house! It feels so good to finally be in a place of our own. We have lots of ideas floating around on what we want to do to improve the space. But, first things first, we need to finish unpacking!

The fam is visiting in less than 3 weeks so we have a lot of work ahead of us.

Closing Time

Our original closing date had to be rescheduled...underwriting wasn't done yet. Good thing we only had to move the closing out by one day. We close this afternoon and will be celebrating soon thereafter! I believe 40s and crabcakes are on the menu. Finally, after almost 2 1/2 months of living with other people, we can unpack and move into a place of our own. And I can't wait!

On the home front

We finally found a rowhouse we like enough to put an offer on! The offer was accepted and we're now wading through the red tape of home ownership on our way to the closing date. Very exciting! We have a few things to settle before we're ready to close, but we're already making lists on what we need to buy when we finally get the keys! Like new locks!