Spring Forward

We had a blank calendar slate this weekend, so even though we "lost" an hour, we gained a lot of time to regroup. It feels like it's been forever since we've had this much energy, and it feels good to be back! Here's what we accomplished.

Fixed the downstairs shower and officially moved into the downstairs bathroom.
Got a gas leak fixed. (No telling how long this has been going on... We never noticed the gas smell in the basement before, so hopefully not long!)
Did a bunch of dishes.
Made a bunch of chicken broth.
Did prep work to make dinner for 30+ people at the Shalom House.
Made pumpkin muffins.
Did 2 weeks worth of laundry. (Since we were out of town last weekend)
CSA pickup & grocery shopping for the week.
Made progress on smoothing the bathroom walls...
Made progress on stripping the bathroom trim...
Made progress on clearing a decade of weeds in the back corner of the yard...
Got a HUGE roll of black landscaping plastic and started covering the garden to warm the soil.
Started some seeds (tomatoes, broccoli, various flowers & herbs) and ordered some others online.
Burned some brush. (Don't worry, it was all in the fire pit)
Hung out with some neighborhood kids. (Agnes' former family. The fire brought them over!)
Trinity studied some anatomy.
Tim gave himself a haircut.

And somehow we still had time to sleep and veg out in front of some HGTV for motivation. Seems like the motivation worked!

Bathroom Update

When we went to bed Saturday night, Tim soaked the paint covered hinges in a water based paint stripper.

It worked pretty well on the part that was soaked.

Before we moved into our house, they textured the walls and did a horrible job. We have wanted to fix this but weren't sure how. Tim woke up Sunday morning on a mission to have smooth walls! He sanded the walls which worked really well. Then he primed and painted one part of the wall as a test. Thank you for the paint, Allison! Here is what it looks like:

The trim will go over the part on the right and cover up the holes you see. It looks much better without the texture but it was hard to get in a picture. I will take more pictures as we move onto more parts.

While Tim was working on the walls, I began the tedious process of stripping the trim. It is going to take a long time and lots of elbow grease but it will be so worth it. Here they are after 2-3 coats have been removed - only 2-3 more to go. Can you imagine our bathroom trim the pink color?


Here are some other projects we are also working on for the bathroom.

My mom gave us a cabinet she got from an antique store that has been cut for a vessel sink.


Today I bought this red sink on Ebay for 1/2 price!

This is a picture of the shower curtain that my mom got us for Christmas that we using as our color inspiration.

Now that we have started our first renovation/remodel in our house, we have been coming up with tons of other ideas - thanks largely to the This Old House magazines that Tim's dad has given us. We are interested in tiling the shower in place of the lovely plastic insert that we have currently. Since neither one of us know how to tile, it will be the last project of the bathroom. If anyone knows how to tile and wants to teach us how, please let me know.

We have really been enjoying working on the house! These projects are the reason that we bought this house and it is nice to actually get a project started. I guess I should be more excited when it is actually finished! If you anyone wants to come check it out in person (much better than pictures), you are always welcome. Don't worry we have another bathroom downstairs.

Honse Home Improvement, Inc.

We woke up this morning and decided it was finally time to do some real work on our house. Our sister, Allison, gave us some paint a couple of months ago which matches the new shower curtain and rug that my mom gave us for Christmas. Since we had paint and the bathroom is pretty small, it seemed like the best place to start.

We got our supplies and were ready to prime and paint. Next thing you know we have started taking apart the bathroom!

This was our light and medicine cabinet that we took off. They had a wood frame behind the medicine cabinet.


This is what it looks like now

Then we decided that if we were going to do this then we were going to do it right! Tim took off all of the baseboards, molding and even the door.

Here is the "finished" product

We are going to work on it some more tomorrow and will post updated pictures soon. We had a lot of fun today and are excited to finally work on our house!

Tim's New Blog

FYI - I have started another blog for my more reflective stuff, like I used to post on One's-Self I Sing. You can find it here if you're interested: http://www.volume2kc.blogspot.com/

Trinity will keep posting here at the Zoo.

Wood Minus Brown Paint = Beautiful

This is what the stairs look like after we ripped the carpet off them. All of the wood on the 1st floor is painted this same brown color.

This is what it looked like after Tim used some Lift Off.

It will take a lot of time to remove all these years of paint but it will be well worth it! We'll keep you posted.

The Cold Has Brought Us Inside

Don't worry this was done on purpose. We have never had access to our attic but it is kind of necessary for blowing insulation - so we made one! The finished product is below.

However, Tim had to make another one in the front room because the roof was so narrow in the back room. It was all worth it because thanks to Tim and Andrew our house is much more insulated. Well it will be once the holes to the attic are closed up...


We got a bed skirt for our bed this weekend which is the only one we've had in the 5 1/2 years we have been married.


Tim's dad has been graciously passing on his This Old House magazines to us and I love them! I found a "reader remodel" that we love. It inspired us to work on stripping the wood in our house. The wood on the first floor is all painted brown and the wood on the 2nd and 3rd floors is white (often sprayed with texture and then painted over). Tim bought some Lift Off and started on the stairs railing. The wood underneath is beautiful. I read that we can remove the paint with a washing soda paste overnight. We'll give it a try sometime and see what happens. We have also been reading about making stains with coffee and tea.

Watermelon Picture

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Watermelon

We picked a watermelon last night but when we cut it open tonight it wasn't quite ripe. I took a picture of it on my new blackberry but I haven't figured out how to load it on here. Maybe I'll post on here more often now =)

News

William Jewell College (my alma mater) is starting a Center for Justice and Sustainability, which Andy Pratt, the Vice President for Religious Ministries and Dean of the Chapel, will be directing for its first few years. I have accepted a position at the Center to help Dr. Pratt get it off the ground, as well as assist with many of his duties as Chaplain, including teaching a couple of college courses per semester. I am so excited! I will start off teaching 3 courses: Introduction to Ministry Skills, Meeting Human Needs & Alleviating Suffering, and supervising students in Ministry Internships. I will also be the sponsor of a ministry group on campus, as well as help out with Christian Student Ministries. And then, there's a whole other world of helping Dr. Pratt with the Center, which I am so excited about. Who knows what that will look like!

I will start Sept. 1, so I will get a whopping 2 whole weekend days off between jobs! Actually, that's orientation weekend for the first year students, so I'll probably be there to help out too. And it looks like I’ll be doing homework until then, preparing for the classes, which start that week. I suppose that’s the life of a professor (Just kidding!).