We've been in our new home now for 6 months, and we love it. We've been working on projects all over the house, inside and out. We've stained the deck and porch, painted the door and shutters, done landscaping in the front and back yards, painted three rooms, cleaned the carpets, scrubbed all sorts of things off walls and floors, bronzed fixtures, and more. In this and the next post I will show you some before and after photos of our work in the last months. We still have a lot of painting to do, but we are making good progress, learning a lot, and having fun.
 This is how the house looked when we moved in. The plants in the front bed were overgrown and wild, bare spots and dandelions ruled the yard, the shutters were a hideous shade of mauve, and the door was eggplant. Not to mention some general grime in windows, as well as clutter. The picture above was taken from Google Earth, as the house was before we moved in. I have no idea why there is a plastic easel and cooler in the front yard. |
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| Step one was to pull out multiple wheelbarrows full of weeds, and transplant the existing plants to provide balance. We bought and laid down some river rock in the front beds. Next we had the dandelions taken care of and the lawn seeded to fill in the bald spots. This took all summer. |
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 | Step two involved some exterior paint and stain. We painstakingly primed and painted the shutters and front door. They are now "tree branch" rather than "Barney", and they match. We cleaned and stained the porch rails, as they were weathered and worn. This is how the house looks now. |
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While we were working on the outside, we were also working inside. Both of the spare bedrooms were painted sloppily (paint on trim, carpets, ceiling, and doors) with bright pink and purple paint. The children had colored and written their names everywhere - walls, windows, doors - and put stickers on every surface. All sorts of stains were set in the carpets. Our first task was to paint Jonathan's office, as it was shiny pink. Pictures will come in the next post. Then we primed and painted Quinn's room a pale green, as well as spent many hours scraping and scrubbing the walls and doors.
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| Here is Quinn's room before - a cluttered mess with bright purple walls. (This is the furniture and decor of the previous owners.) |
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| Quinn's room now - calm and clean. |
The spare bathroom was dirty, off-white, and decorated in a rubber ducky theme when we moved in. Jonathan bronzed the fixtures and we painted the room a light tan.
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| Bathroom before |
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| Bathroom after |
I will post some pictures of the office, other rooms in the house, and the back landscaping next time.
In non-home improvement news, lots of things have been going on in our lives lately. The weather has been cooler and hot off and on, but we love Fall. Quinn has had several language explosions this month. This week he is using past tense verbs consistently and clearly. He also can hear when he makes mistakes in pronunciation, because he slows down and tries to mimic our speech more accurately. Some of the cutest phrases he says are: "I love you too!", "Are you okay?", "I like to play room!", "I made a big mess!", and "JJ eats Zoie poop." (That last one is true.)
Big news in terms of Jonathan's life outside of home - he will defend his comprehensive exams in two weeks (a month early than originally planned, but he has been very productive this semester). He will also be starting his dissertation next month and may possibly push through to finish in July - nearly a year early. There would be several benefits of this change, but it will also be intense.
My dissertation is really starting to take off, and I've had renewed motivation to finish sooner than later. Hopefully my graduation date will also be moved up.
We are preparing for Halloween this week. We carved pumpkins over the weekend (Jonathan carved a Star Trek pumpkin and Quinn and I colored ours with markers). I asked Quinn if he wanted to make a big mess with me, and he was thrilled. I stripped him down, cut open the pumpkin, stuck my arm in, and pulled out the messy stuff inside. I said, "here, you do it too." He leaned over, looked in, looked at my messy hands, and said, "no" while walking away. That is so Quinn. Evaluating the situation first, then likely declining. Later he changed his mind and had a blast making a "big pumpkin mess!". On Friday he is dressing up as a turkey (I know, odd costume, but super cute!) and going trick or treating for the first time.
Here are some Fall pictures I took of Quinn last week.
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| This is Quinn telling me that JJ eats cat poop. He thinks it is hilarious. We don't. |
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| Making a big pumpkin mess |
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| A lovely Fall morning |
Happy Halloween!
