Before and After

All of the weather excitement around here has passed.  No more blizzards in the last week - THANK GOD.  In fact, the weather around here is downright peachy if you ask me.  It's been in the 40s all weekend (which feels like shorts and t-shirt weather) and the snow is quickly melting.  We put the screen door on the dining room door (we found it in the shed) and even had the door open for a bit because the south side of the house gets REALLY hot in the sun.  We actually had to move the thermometer because it was in direct sun and at one point today it said it was 93 degrees outside.  Hardly.

Now that we're unpacked and settling, it's time for the projects to begin.  Initially I'd wanted to start on the living spaces, but we thought it would make more sense to get the guest spaces all set up because our first guests are coming in a little over a month!

A couple of weekends ago, we set up the guest bedroom downstairs.  The walls were already a nice light green color, so we decided to leave it.

The room is probably a bit tight for a queen bed, but it works for now.  And I think guests would prefer that to a double (I know I would.)

Here's the room from the doorway.  The door JUST closes past the nightstand.  Tight fit!

Yes, the snow is up to the window...this will all (hopefully) be gone soon.  Also, this is the only room equipped with blackout shades - for when it's sunny at midnight in the summer.  You're welcome, friends and relatives!

Although the bedroom was fine, the downstairs bathroom had some issues.  This weekend we decided to give it a makeover!

Here it is before:

The bathroom is small and has no window.  For some reason the previous owners decided that "dirt brown" would be a lovely color to complement its features.  Granted the bathtub is a hideous brown but it doesn't mean you have to MATCH it.  (this picture does not do the bathroom justice...I think the flash was on).

Here's what it looked like from inside with the door closed.  Lovely.  The room had a great cave-like quality.

So we decided that a bucket of paint was in order.  Also, the hardware didn't match, looked extra cheap, and needed to be replaced.

After two short work days, here's what it looks like now:

The new paint color is called "Bay Waves."  It's very gray on the paint chip, but in some light it looks blueish.  With the new curtain and everything, the bathroom is so much brighter.  It even looks CLEANER, which is amazing.  Not bad for about $100 and a total of four hours of effort!  The hardest part was finding a new shower curtain.  I went to FIVE places today and finally found my winner at Bed Bath and Beyond.  I think it was in the "beyond" section (which also described my state of mind after driving all over town looking for a suitable shower curtain.  Ugh!).

Between the bedroom and the bathroom is the downstairs living space.  We NEED to paint it before people come.  The color is really offensive.

The pictures don't really do it justice - the color is not muted at. all. (Just in case you look at this color and think "oh that's kind of muted.")  It's very very bright avocado.

As you can see, we've already thrown some samples on the wall.  Andy and I are both leaning toward the darker one.  It's a REALLY bright room on the south side of the house with tons of windows, so it can handle a darker color, and sometimes the lighter color looks really blue, which isn't exactly what we were looking for.  The colors are actually from the same paint chip as the bathroom.  The lighter color is called "Polished Silver" and the darker color is "Stone Mason Gray."  (I would love to know how you get the job to name paint colors, because I feel like I would excel at this job.  I would tell you the names that I've thought up for these specific colors, but I don't want Valspar to steal my ideas.)  Sadly the green goes really well with my cactus picture right now, which is supposed to be centered over the sideboard but I had to move it to paint my squares.

I like this little nook by the sliding doors.  We plan to bring the leather recliner we have down, but it's hard to move and may make more sense to actually walk around the house down the driveway rather than try to haul down the stairs.  The green looks especially offensive (and true to life!) in this picture:

It's all coming along.  I've also added some pictures of some of the upstairs spaces.  As you can see, we haven't done any painting up there at all:

Right when you walk in, the hutch is facing the door.  All of my grandma's teacups and saucers made the long trip to Alaska unscathed.  I love that I can look at them every day - I always loved looking at them in her house when I was little and they're some of my most prized possessions, especially now that my Grandma is gone.  The plan is to de-blue the kitchen sometime before our summer guests arrive.

Looking down the hallway to the upstairs bedrooms, you can see we hung a bunch of our pictures.  They all actually look good with the yellow, but the yellow will be going away.  Also, that horrible track lighting fixture doesn't actually work correctly in addition to being ugly.  We may enlist some of our more "handy" family members to assist with replacing that over the summer (Dads! We're looking at you!!)

The main upstairs bathroom got some fabulous artwork (I even know the artist!) and a pretty new shower curtain.  This one did not take me five stops to find.  Thanks, Fred Meyer.  Also, the color was already light and bright.  Not much to do in this room, thank god.

That's all for now.  We've got some other projects up our sleeves.  Maybe if we feel ambitious we'll paint the green room this weekend.  Hope everyone had a happy Easter - I can't believe tomorrow it's April already!

Snowpocalypse

Some of the snow on the deck is old snow.  Thank god that all did not fall last night. 

I KNOW I keep saying I'm going to post pictures of the inside of the house, but this snow is just too ridiculous to not write about.  I cannot believe this storm! This morning we woke up to about 10 new inches on the ground.  Of course Ripley wouldn't let us not take him out, so we did the usual walk to the high school.  Andy made the brilliant statement about halfway there as we were slogging through shin-deep snow "Hey, we should have worn our snowshoes!"  Yes, we both have law degrees.  Good thinking, Naylors.  Well at least we got our workout in.

When we got back from running around in the snow, we hit the driveway with our snow shovels.  Ripley decided to oversee with his frisbee in tow.

He's really good at entertaining himself.

By the time we finished (we shoveled the whole LONG driveway in less than two hours thankyouverymuch), we were exhausted.  Also, I am probably going to catch pneumonia because I spent the last hour shoveling in a t-shirt.  Ripley's bad decisionmaking is rubbing off on me.

Ripley decided to take a nap with his bones.

We thought it might be fun to let the cats explore winter.

Fro is the stupid brave one.

She darted for the stairs and Andy had to retrieve her.  She wanted to go back out immediately.  I told you she was stupid.

Throughout the day we've had what the weatherman is calling "periods of heavy snow"

Because we were concerned about the weight, we shoveled the deck when we shoveled the driveway.  By 5pm we decided we needed to shovel again.  This time, our neighbor friends were outside.  Ripley, Bandit and their human friend and six year old ball of energy, Tyler, ran around in circles, chased the frisbee, and sledded down our driveway while we shoveled.  Tyler even helped us shovel the walkway!  His mom was thrilled that he only wanted to help us and not her.  Aren't kids hilarious?

We came back inside and measured the snow on the deck.  In five hours we got five more inches.  Isn't that just wonderful?  As I write this at almost 7pm, it continues to dump and I think we've got about 18 inches of new snow on the ground from Sunday morning until now.

In other news, my "friends" are a-holes (from my Facebook page):

We're Popular

The unpacking continues! Unfortunately, so does the snow.  We woke up to 3-4 new inches of snow on the ground and it's been snowing all day.  This is now what the weatherman says:

And yes, in case you were wondering, of course we live on the Hillside.  Even Andy is displeased with the snow at this point.  Thank god we bought a ton of wine on Friday.  12-18 inches? Seriously? Ugh.

Today has been a day of meeting new friends.  First of all, we met our neighbors! They have a cute dog named Bandit that is Ripley's age, but perpetually looks like a puppy (and Ripley LOVES HIM).  I need to get a picture of him...or steal him.  The neighbors also have a cute 6 year old boy who was dying to check out our swingset.  Of course we invited him over to try it out whenever he wants. (I have a feeling he'll be over here a lot!) They seem very nice and we hope this becomes a place where we actually hang out with our neighbors!

We also had many visitors today.  First were the Jehovah's Witnesses.  They had some excellent literature for us:

Doesn't Jesus seem awfully...white...in this picture? He's practically a ginger.  We enjoy his multi-cultural entourage though.  Andy said he reminded him of Gerard Butler.  I didn't really see it until we flipped the flyer over:

Jesus has been hitting the gym! He really DOES look like Gerard Butler in 300.  And these comments are a perfect example of why Andy and I are not generally welcome in most churches.  

We must have really been putting out the heathen vibes today because then the Baptists came by.  When I looked through the window, I saw two young guys in white shirts and black ties with name tags, and I was sure they'd be Mormon! Since I've always respected the fact that Mormons are like postal workers in that they go about their business no matter the weather, I was really nice to them at the door - even though they stopped by while I was enjoying a glass of wine and watching a "Say Yes to the Dress" marathon on TLC.  I even stayed nice to them when I realized they were Baptists (nothing against Baptists, but I was actually hoping they'd be Mormons).

Their literature was less exciting:

The text makes it feel like they knew we just moved in.  Is the USPS selling demographic info about people who request address changes now? Not cool, postal service, not cool.

Check out the inside!

I don't know that this is necessarily our crew.  There are just no words for my reaction to that picture.  Or there might be, but if I say/type them then I'll really be in trouble with God.

Well I think I offended plenty of people with this one.  I'm going back to my wine and TLC marathons.  Andy and I did a TON of picture hanging today.  I plan on doing another post later today or tomorrow to show all of the progress.  It really feels like we live here now!

First Weekend of Spring

When I think of spring, I think of this:

source

It's supposedly springtime around here, too, but there's no daffodils around to let anybody know about it.  

Today it looked like THIS outside: 

How come everybody wants to visit us in the summertime? Nobody wants to see Alaska between October and May for some reason! :)

Despite the snow (which is melting off the deck right now even as it comes down, so it's not as horrible as it might seem), we're having a great weekend.  Monday is Seward's Day which means that for these two state workers, we get a three day weekend.  Thanks for buying Alaska, William Seward!

Today we're hanging around the house continuing to put stuff away and make this house more of a home.  We've both been pretty under the weather for the past two weeks and spending most of our spare time getting the rest of our crap out of the OLD house, so it feels great to finally be productive at home.

Ripley continues to keep watch.

Fro remembers that she missed our furniture, especially the coffee table with the weird bar at the bottom.  Perfect chin height!  (Why is it that both of them find the weight of their own heads so unbearable?)

The cats would LOVE to go outside.  It's fun to tease them with a tiny window to freedom:

Desperate!

This is Zeus' "stop teasing us" face (please ignore the camera strap):

Fro also enjoys the dining room table.  Many chairs to sit at, and a great view out the window.

Here's the view she's checking out:

Redpoll! The previous owners installed an awesome bear attracter bird feeder, outside the dining room window which the cats LOVE.  Fro spent hours staring at birds today and lunging at the window. 

As mentioned before, Ripley also loves the windows.  He was pretty disappointed that we spent most of the day organizing our stuff and not catering to his every whim, so he just looked out the window with his saddest face on.  To our defense, we took him to the high school to play frisbee this morning, as we also did three other times this week - a trip that involves a 2 mile roundtrip walk plus frisbee fun.  I cannot tell you how much happier we all are that we can take him out by foot and not have to jump in the car to go play.  The walks are doing all of us some good, too.  

Hopefully we'll get enough done this weekend that I can put some pictures of the house up on the blog.  We haven't painted yet, so the before and afters won't be super dramatic, but once we're more settled, we'll slap some paint on the walls.  I'm sure Andy can't wait!

Sick.

Oooooo-eeeeee.  Sorry I haven't posted in awhile, I have spent the last few days feeling like death warmed over.  I definitely haven't been this sick in years, and am just now feeling human again.  It wasn't the flu - just a really bad respiratory cold thing, but I've had periods of such horrible coughing that I WISH I was throwing up instead.  Thankfully, I seem to be coming around and I'm sure Andy is disappointed that my voice is back.  In all honesty, though, he did a great job of taking care of me while I was incapacitated, and so did the animals.

On Monday, Ripley decided I might feel better if he slept on top of me all day.

Then Fro got the memo:

Ripley really enjoys sleeping with his head in her butt.

Obviously taking pictures of the animals with my phone was all I had the strength to do while I was dying on the couch.

In non-illness related news, we're settling into the house nicely.  We have made it through most of the boxes and are more in the "putting away/organizing" phase rather than the unpacking phase.  Does anyone need 453,000 boxes?  Feel free to come and get them all out of our shed, it's not locked.

Fro has discovered the fireplace:

Zeus decided that the dining room table is a good place to roll:

If anyone comes to our house for dinner we promise to try to remember to change the tablecloth.

Ripley has a favorite spot, too:

I'm pretty sure that Ripley sits on the couch all day just looking out the front windows.  Usually he barks at children playing in the cul-de-sac (a nice way to make friends with the neighbors, huh?) or just watches the world go by.  There weren't any front-facing windows that he could look out of at the rental house, so he's been missing this view for the last year.  He's a happy pup now.  

In other exciting news, it seems like spring is creeping in.  We've had a lot of sunny days with the snow melting and over the weekend it got up to almost 50 degrees!  ....and then on Sunday it snowed 6 inches without warning.  As much as I love the snow, I'm ready for it to be spring again, especially now that we're at about 12 hours of daylight.  Thankfully it's already melting again.  

Okay, I think it's about time for me to take a bunch of nyquil and pass out before 8pm so I can make it through another day of work tomorrow.  I can't wait until I'm feeling normal again! 

Welcome Wagon

The unpacking continues!  I would post some pictures of the process, but who wants to see all the boxes in my house?  I'll post some pictures when we're done.  Or maybe after we paint.  Anywhooo...

Andy and I love our new neighborhood.  It's full of trees and, based on the tracks we find in our yard all the time, MOOSE! The other day we rolled into the driveway and a young one bounded out of the backyard and ducked into the woods.  Sadly I wasn't able to get a picture of him/her.  We'd also seen a couple running around on the neighborhood streets, but couldn't catch any of those on film either.  Early this morning we took Ripley for his first walk in the new 'hood, and we happened upon a VERY LARGE lady moose who was asleep and not very happy that Andy was shining his headlamp right at her.  I would say ever since we moved into this house last week, we spend about half our time in the house peeking out the windows and trying to spot a moose so we can get some good pictures.  Well about 30 minutes ago, just as it was starting to get dark (by the way, it is AWESOME that it's still light at 7pm), I looked out the sliding door at the kitchen and saw one! 

As large as he looks, he's actually pretty small...and pretty excited about the swingset.

The cats were absolutely fascinated.  

Sorry these pictures are blurry...it was starting to get dark and I didn't want to use the flash, and my tripod wasn't handy.

Zeus called Fro to come check out the friend in the yard.

After he ate whatever was by the slide, he walked under the swingset and went right under our deck! I ran to the basement to take pictures out the other slider.  By the time I got down there he was nose to nose with the window, but I couldn't get a good picture.  There was no way I was going to open the glass so I could use the flash.  I don't want anyone reading "Crazy moose-obsessed outsider gets trampled by moose in her own basement" in the local paper.

He was VERY interested in the shovel.  He kept licking the handle.  Gross.

He then slowly headed up the driveway, but got spooked and hauled ass across the neighbor's yard (I think he finally heard Ripley FREAKING OUT from our bedroom).

I love the moose! I love our new house! I'll post some pictures soon.