Long Time No See

Well, hello strangers.  I know, I know. So bad. However, I need an outlet and I have this already set up, so here we go again.

In order to make sure I get off to a good (re)start, I've decided to participate in a challenge for February - a decluttering challenge.  Between work, my kiddo, and life in general, the house and keeping up with things there gets the short end of the stick and the lest of my attention.  The amount of clutter and "stuff" that we have is out of control and, frankly, it has gotten to the point where I don't even want to deal with it anymore. I'm sure this is adding to my overall stress level, so I'm taking this opportunity to make some headway.

Here is how the challenge works. Every day in February you get rid of the number of things equal to the date. So, today is February 1st and I am going to get rid of one thing. Today, I tossed an old zip lock bag of pistachios that has been sitting on the kitchen counter for I don't even know how long.

I have a few ideas of things to toss on some days, but I have a feeling this is going to get tough later on.  Stay tuned.

DIY Project

I don't know what it is about a holiday weekend that inspires me to do projects around the home, but it always does.  I thought about doing the kitchen back splash this weekend, but then my car's radiator sprang a leak and had to go to the shop.  I knew the back splash would probably be a multi-Home Depot-trip project, so I put it off in favor of this quick and easy one.

Before and After

All you need is a lamp or two that don't quite match your style, some painters tape, a drop cloth and one can of spray paint (Rustoleum Textured Metallic silver).  I covered the electrical part on top with aluminum foil and stuffed the cord in a ziploc bag, then taped the little bit that was sticking out.  Once I got the lamps all prepped and dusted, it only took about 10 minutes to do this, which is good, since it was hot as all get out today.

I am going to change the harps from gold to silver and I need to get new shades for them, otherwise I'd show you a picture of them back in the bedroom.  The old shades are not the bright white I want, but I think the bases came out great. 

Home Improvement

What is it about a holiday weekend that makes me want to tackle home improvement projects? And why does every home improvement project require a minimum of three trips to the Home Depot?

This weekend I decided that we (isn't it nice how I committed Jim to help me) would finally do the chair rail in the dining room. This is a project that would have been sooooo much easier with power tools, but you work with what you've got. In our case, a miter box. It's a good thing I had Jim's help because I never would have gotten these cut by myself.

First piece is up!

The walls in this condo are all bowed to some degree. Most of the time, it was fine and some nails in addition to the construction adhesive would do the trick. This is the worst of all and we ended up shimming the crap out of it. It's probably not the best fix, but I think it looks ok.










These little pieces to finish the exposed ends were a total pain in the butt.












All finished!










Lessons learned:

1. Get power tools.

2. The walls in this condo are ridiculously curved. Stupid old building.

3. Coping a chair rail is not as easy as it looks on You-Tube.

Three Day Weekend

I love me a three day weekend - it gives me a chance to do "projects." Today I was bound and determined to tackle the dining room chairs. I bought the material to recover the chairs on the last three day weekend, so it was time.

Altogether, it took me about 2 hours to do all six chairs, so this is definitely an easy project for an afternoon.

Here are the tools you'll need: Scissors, a screwdriver, a hammer, a heavy-duty stapler and staples. For the material, I got two yards of decorator fabric off the remnant table at the fabric store for $4.97/yd. I had more than enough to do six chairs. The amount you will need depends on the number and size of your chairs.
Turn the chair over and unscrew the seat from the frame. Say hi to Rex; he was helping.

Center the seat on your fabric and put one staple in one side. Pull the fabric tight to the opposite side and staple. Then you can add more staples to each side. I used about four or five staple to each side. Once you have done two opposite sides, then repeat with the other two sides. The only tricky bit is the corners and you just have to fiddle with it a little bit. This is what it looks like when it's done.Then you just have to screw the seat back on the frame and you are all done! Here is a before and after picture of the chairs.

"New" Furniture

Look what I came home with from my trip to Georgia.

This is my grandmother's (great grandmother's? - help me out here, Mom) cherry dining room set. The table seats six and has two leaves that will expand it to hold ten. When I get a chance, I am going to reupholster the chairs to a less 80s fabric.

The sideboard has a crazy amount of storage. As a bonus, I also brought my Mom's good china and silver, which is in there along with my Lenox Christmas china.

It looks so good with the cherry cabinets in the kitchen and I don't care that it is really a tad too big for the room. I love, love, love it and am so happy to have it.

This is what happens when you don't have kids

We have a small media problem. We are working on unloading the boxes that we had stashed in the office-library-man cave, now that we have acquired some more bookcases. This is two IKEA Benno CD towers, two IKEA Billy bookcases with DVDs (the red boxes also contain CDs) and a bookcase full of VHS tapes (72 cassettes on each shelf).


You can't see it, but behind me is another five shelf bookcase full of books.

We might need an intervention.

Moving Day

Yesterday was officially moving day, although we had been moving boxes in the cars for the last week or two. We hired movers to get the large furniture and it was worth every penny. They were early arriving, fast and very careful with our stuff.

We are trying to get as much done this week as possible because we are going on vacation on Thursday and would like to come home to a mostly finished place. Give me a few days and I'll pictures of some finished rooms to share with you.

More Color

We are almost done painting (for the time being). Please excuse my poor husband, who has passed out in the middle of the living room floor. This weekend we completely finished the living room and the entryway. The dining room needs a second coat on the top half and then we are adding a chair rail. All that's left to paint before we move in is both bathrooms.

I'll go back after work on Tuesday and paint the second coat in the dining room, take down tape and, hopefully, prime the bathrooms. I have new light fixtures that I also want to install, but that may have to wait until the weekend. In the meantime, we are furiously packing. Jim is moving boxes over each morning. Since we drive by the new place on the way to the Metro, he stops off on his way back home with whatever got packed the night before.

I did ask him before I put this picture up. He assures me that it does not embarrass him and it is the only one I took where you can also see the blue in the kitchen. He does say that he is not "passed out" but listening to the cd player. Whatever.

For those who are curious, the colors are Behr Toffee Crunch (living room accent wall), Freshaire Roof Top Garden (bottom of the dining room) and Gliden Water Chestnut (main wall color).

Happy Home Owner!

After several days filled with drama caused by our seller, we closed on the new condo this morning. The seller threatened to back out of the deal repeatedly over the past week (he couldn't, which was explained to him many times by my agent, his agent and the closing attorney) and he was a half an hour late to the closing, but we left with keys.

Keep your eyes on the blog for updates as we do some painting, add chair rails and crown moulding, move in and decorate. I started painting the kitchen today in a blue-grey color by Martha Stewart called Kerry blue terrier.

Condo Update

Just a quick update. I heard from the loan officers today and the appraisal came back right at the sale price and everything looks good. The seller is supposed to be fixing a few things in the unit (at least I hope he is - there has been some resistance, even though he agreed to fix them in the contract). I am waiting to hear back from the underwriter today on any more information they need. The only thing I know for sure is the gift form from my Mom (thanks, Mom!) and I need to get the home owner's insurance policy set up and get a copy of that to the bank. I think that's it. Everything looks good to close on May 14th.

To tide you over until we get keys and can really go to town, here are the light fixtures that we are going to use to replace the 1980s dressing room style fixtures in the bathrooms.

Master Bath











Hall Bath

Home Inspection

We had the new condo inspected today. There were a few issues with the place, but that is to be expected since it is a 40 year old building. None of them were major. We should get the report tomorrow and then my realtor will get the list of item to be fixed to the seller.

In the meantime, here is a scale drawing of the new place that I made today while we were there for the inspection.

Condo Update - Condo Two

Don't worry; we are still buying a condo, just not the one that I showed you last week. We were running into some bumps with the first condo, so we backed out and made an offer on an even bigger place in the same general area. This unit is not as polished as the first one, but it is four bedrooms and two baths. Both baths and the kitchen have been redone and it has new carpet. It just needs some paint, a few fixtures and some crown moulding to finish it up. It's still ground floor and has a million closets. We are so excited. I'm having the home inspection on Tuesday and we are scheduled to close on May 14.



foyer into living room, foyer into dining room and kitchen.

The whole listing can be seen here.

We Made an Offer!

Well, I may have just spent more money than I ever thought I would. We put an offer on a condo today.

Jim actually found this one on Friday when it popped up on the listing service. It is a three-bedroom, tw0-bath ground level unit with pretty much custom everything. There is stainless in the kitchen, granite in the kitchen and bathrooms, beautiful hardwood floors in the living and dining room. It could not be better located at the intersection of Gallows Road, Route 50 and the Beltway. It is less than a mile from the Dunn-Loring Metro station.

We fell in love with it the instant we saw it. The seller basically took the unit and gutted it and started over. The only thing that could possibly make it any better is if the laundry was in the unit, but we've been carrying laundry up and down the stairs for so long now that doesn't even bother us.

All we can do now is wait.

House Hunting Update

Today I met with a realtor and I really liked her. I think she is going to do a great job finding a bigger home for us. She has been in the business for 15 years and is a specialist in short sales. Her office even does property management and will be able to help us with renting our current condo.

I finished getting the pre-approval from Wells Fargo earlier this week and now I think we are ready to go. We don't have a time table on finding a place, but we'd like to be able to take advantage of the tax credit if we can. Wish us luck!

Bad Blogger

Hi Everyone,

I want to apologize for being such a bad blogger. I'm going to try to catch you up very quickly. This week was our two month "anniversary" and we are loving being married. I do still smile whenever someone says Mrs. Watts.

We finally (this morning) got the last of our new appliances, purchased with wedding gift money, installed in the kitchen. Of course, this desperately makes me want to rip out the floor, counters and cabinets and just finish the whole thing.

Last weekend, we walked in the AIDS Walk Washington 5K. It was warmer than last year, but not as humid as the first year. We went with the pastor from our church, her sister and nephew and had a great time.

Work has been very busy this month and I've started a new online accounting class at NOVA, so I just haven't been on top of it as I should be. I'll try to do better.

Bathroom Renovation

So, we can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel on the bathroom renovation. The installer from Bath Fitters is coming tomorrow to take the measurements for the new tub/shower liner. I think we are still going to get another coat of paint, and we need to reattach the plumbing to the sink, hang the towel racks and put the door back on, but it is almost done. If you want to see pictures in progress, here they are.

September 24, 2008

On September 24, I flew home to check on my family and help out my former co-workers at the Haven. They lost some staff and didn't get the new accountant trained before the old one left, so they asked me if I would come down and help her out for a couple of days. Like I would say no to a free plane ticket home. My sister says I am a 'rock star accountant' and is writing me a theme song.

If I didn't get to see you when I was home, I'm sorry that I missed you. I'll be back for a few days around Christmas.