Before and Durings

OK, I know I promised you "before and after" pictures nearly two months ago. So I lied. I have been waiting and waiting and waiting for something--even just one room--to be "done" so I could have a really dramatic, HGTV-style reveal. Unfortunately, this process is just going to be long and drawn-out, and if we waited for that, you probably wouldn't see pictures until next summer.

So consider these to be "before-and-durings."


Here's the before of our living room. Note the carpet--once brownish, now blackish with filth--dingy walls and popcorn ceiling.


These pictures are dim (we still don't have overhead lighting in there), but they show our new paint job (which members the -dub and O. families helped immensely with), crown molding (which N.O. did all by himself) and scraped, painted ceiling (thanks again, -dub family!).



Here you can see the new carpet. N.O. loves it when I take his picture without warning.


Maybe he's just embarrassed because I caught him watching Bill O'Reilly. Ick.

Another view of the living room. Please pay no attention to the ugly kitchen behind it! We are planning to paint all the cabinetry, redo the countertops, and replace the floors in there, and we haven't done any of these things yet, so I haven't included any kitchen pics!




Moving on to the master bedroom--what was once the most disgusting room in the house. The carpet filth seemed more concentrated in here, and there were gross black marks on the ceiling. We couldn't figure these marks out until someone told us there had been a big fire next door and our house had incurred some smoke damage. Thanks for the non-disclosure, seller!


Here's the bedroom now. Please don't remark on what a lousy bed-maker I am--I already know. We haven't yet put up the crown molding or painted the doors in here, and we're in the middle of a headboard-building project, but otherwise, I think we're close to done in here. There's also a bathroom off this room, but I don't have any pics of it. We haven't done much to it yet anyway.



Here's another view of the bedroom, with my vintage reading chair, which N.O. hates, I think. Also note the original artwork by my nephew Zachary! Isn't it beautiful?! When he was "helping" paint this room, my mom painted a big "Z" on the wall for his amusement. He was a bit crestfallen when he learned we would have to paint over the "Z," so I asked him to paint me a special picture to hang on the wall. It's a horse drinking out of a river by some mountains, and I think it's great.


This is the second bedroom. It was only marginally less disgusting than the first.


Here it is now: our guest bedroom/office/workout room. E-dub accompanied me to IKEA (on Labor Day weekend, which I would NOT recommend) to pick up the day-bed and underbed, so now if any of you come to visit us, you will have someplace to sleep! That big white thing in the front of the picture is an entertainment center where we keep our other TV.



Here's another view of the same room. It's a bit crammed, and the Designed to Sell folks would definitely say this room needs to find one identity and stick with it, but it's working for us for now.


Hall bathroom before. Note the lovely peach countertops which are prevalent throughout the house. The other two units have, respectively, turquoise and kelly green countertops. Delightful! We also couldn't figure out the gross marks on the ceiling until we learned about the fire. That would explain it--soot settled on the lightbulbs, then eventually burned off and left soot/smoke on the ceiling. And nobody ever bothered to clean it. Nice.


My girly bathroom now. It still has the gross pink countertops--for now--but the rest is a bit better. Not sure if you can tell in the picture, but the walls are light blue.

And back to the dining room. It probably would have made more sense to show you these right after the living room, since they're attached, but I am not moving these pictures around in here any more! Here is a picture of N.O. during the great ceiling scrape of aught-six. Seriously, I know it makes for prettier ceilings, but I'm not sure I would recommend scraping your popcorn ceiling. It is a huge, horrible job.


Another "during" of the dining room. I don't have a real "before" of the dining room, but you can see what we were dealing with with the gorgeous upside-down fruit basket they were using for a light fixture.


And here it is now. We still have the elementary-school style floors, but hope to tackle a tiling project in the near future. And the new light fixture is a bit more modern!

Well, there they are. Obviously, still a lot of work to do, but now that we're moved in, we'll have a bit more time and space to get to the bigger projects.

The scary part: we still have two other units to do before we sell this thing in 2008. And, of course, there's the whole "grad school" thing we're supposed to be focused on. It's going to be a busy couple of years!

Adventures in Matriculating

Well, I'm back. Back here where it all began, at ol' Alma Mater U. I have now had two days of classes and work in my assistantship, so I have a pretty good basis to begin telling you what it's like.

It's kinda weird.

It's mostly cool.

Well, actually, hot. Those of you who went here before will probably not believe me, but I am not lying: the parking situation is twice as bad as it was before. The Powers That Be have built several new parking garages which are, of course, stunningly beautiful in addition to being functional and all that. However, they have also grassed over several centrally-located parking lots in what I can assume is an effort to discourage driving on campus, and eventually lead to a pedestrian campus. The square parking lot in the middle of North and South Marrying-Kind Hall? Grass! The big parking lot in front of South Marrying-Kind Hall? GRASS! The mini-lot across from the student union and next to the tennis courts? A memorial garden to two professors who unexpectedly passed away last year... oh, okay, fine, that one's better than a useless mini-parking-lot. But anyway. I have given up the car and am walking everywhere. Fine. It's faster. Healthier, too. However, I am not accustomed to arriving at my destination sweaty. Sweaty is for immediately pre-shower workout time only. I'm having to get used to it, and it makes me slightly cranky.

My professors (I have two professors for my three classes, which are located in three rooms, the farthest-flung of which are ten paces from each other) are nice. One of them is this extremely dry, slightly nerdy but funny pregnant lady. We get to cut the semester three weeks short so she can have her baby--hooray! Babies are awesome, especially when they make the semester end before Thanksgiving. The other is an absolutely adorable elderly gent who came to class today wearing a seersucker suit and a pink-and-blue diagonally-striped tie. He proceeded to lecture us on the wonders and benefits of capitalism. He could not have charmed me more if charming me were his express purpose. He is an old "newspaper man" with loads of experience and a remarkably upbeat attitude toward emerging media technology. I'm going to love him. He is making us subscribe to the NYT, but after the seersucker suit, I can forgive him almost anything.

Regarding technology, clearly it's a hot-button issue in the journalism field. (When I'm a professional journalist, I vow to avoid cliches like "hot-button issue." Just now, I'm too tired to care.) I already know the topic of my big class project in one of my classes, and it's to do with blogs. So you, my darling blog-friends, will likely be the topic of discussion 'round the conference table. (It's a small class.) I promise to keep your identities a secret, and to represent our little blog-ring well... without telling any of my classmates or professors how to find us on here. I would never sully our special trysting-place like that!

Must sleep now.
~A-Dub

PS. Today at 5 I was walking past Puff Net Hall (a pseudonym) talking on my cell phone (must fit in!) when our resident Quasimodo-or-Quasimodette began playing "The Star-Spangled Banner" on the carillon. It warmed the cockles of my withered heart. That may sound like a snarky statement, but really, it made me happy.

PS. Yesterday I saw an underclassman girl walking to class wearing a pair of leggings and a tank top (the kind with spaghetti straps, not the wife-beater kind). That's all. No pants. Not even what I would consider a shirt (though I'm obviously in the minority on that one). Essentially, she was wearing long underwear and some kicky sandals. I was appropriately appalled. The fact that no one else seemed particularly appalled made me feel like a granny.

PS. I miss you all. I hope things here will get more regular soon!

Hollywood Shocker!!!

Hollywood insiders and movie audiences alike were stunned this weekend to discover that, despite the impressive pre-release buzz, Snakes on a Plane is actually crap!

The best part of waking up

Yesterday, N.O. and I were beset with several challenges. Namely, our kitchen faucet died and our front door handle came off in N.O.'s hand. Being the hardy homeowners we are, both problems were faced head-on and fixed. We also stayed up until after 2:00 arranging the guest bedroom just so.

Fast-forward to 7 AM and N.O. and I are in deepest REM when the doorbell rings. It's one of our tenants. There's a snake in her bathroom.

N.O., 7:15 AM.

"It is perfect."

If anybody reading this likes me even a little, they will get me this for Christmas. Make sure you read the Twain quote at the end.

Looking for a bargain?

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flying fingers

Any idea how fast you can type? Go here to test yourself. And consider the gauntlet thrown down--I clocked in at 107 wpm on a laptop, in one try.