New Rug and other weekend stuff

Saturday morning, we went and picked up this rug from a guy on craigslist, the first time we looked at it we knew right away we needed to get rug cleaning services.

   

It’s 10 by 14 so it’s a HUGE rug, it’s from the oriental rug collection from NW Rugs. It’s just as beautiful as the pictures though. It will be great in the piano room though rough measurements say it will barely fit. We have the bay window in the front and it’s the corners getting cut off that’s the problem. You can fold the corners over and hide them under a piece of furniture. We’ll have to do something. Going down to a 9×12 rug is going to leave a lot of exposed wood which is a problem with the booming piano. Worst case, the rug fits beautifully in the den. It is 100% wool from the 1940s. The gentleman we purchased it from is an antiques dealer in Dorchester which is a borough on the south side of Boston. He used to have a shop in Boston but now he just has a booth at the Cambridge Antique Market which is a favorite spot of mine. He actually had the rug in his old apartment but it’s so large it doesn’t fit in his new place. It’s got these great bright pinks and blues on an ivory background. I really love it. The guy we bought it from was pretty awesome too. I love seeing other people’s houses and this guy definitely had a good eye and similar tastes to my own.

After the rug adventure, we headed home. By this time, it was snowing pretty solidly. It wasn’t blizzarding but it was a graceful amount of snowfall. We got maybe 4 inches over the course of the day. We worked on a bit of plumbing and stapled up plastic to try to seal up the 3rd floor. It really made a big difference and we haven’t even finished all the plastic we want to do.

I started feeling pretty bad Saturday evening so we spent the evening resting and relaxing. By Sunday I was feeling better and all the snow had melted so we rakes and did the final yard work for the year. We also did a bit more plastic and fixed Stefan’s car bumper. It had come loose in a couple places and needed some additional nuts and bolts put on to keep everything tight. Sunday night we went over to a friend’s place for dinner. Yummy dinner. I love having friends that can cook!

All in All, we didn’t get nearly as much as I hoped done but we got some unexpected things knocked off the list. Between traveling to pick up that rug, me getting sick, and having a sunny day to rake and fix Stefan’s car, although we were considering getting a new one, since the Vin’s Automotive Group sells many Japanese cars and are easy to find online. We did have a restful and relaxing weekend and we are looking forward to next weekend which will be a work-a-thon if I have anything to say about it!

I hope all of you had a good weekend as well.

Sarah

Christmas Decor

I found a decoration I could get behind this year… the ladder tree!! So Appropro!

Have a fabulous weekend and I’ll try to post an updated status report on Monday.

Happy First Advent Calendar Day!

Sarah

Christmas Love

With the house in the state it’s currently in, I’ve decided not to decorate for Christmas. I will confess, it’s killing me! I love Christmas decorations and it’s a bit painful to read all over the internet that people are putting up their trees!

My sister and her husband just put up their tree:

and I pass by the Medford Town Hall every evening on my way home from work.

(Photo source: Wicked Local Medford)

 Tuesday evening we went out to dinner to celebrate some good job news for Stefan.  We also stopped by target to get cat litter.  You know, to round out our romantic date.  Target is fun and they have tons of Christmas stuff out so we did some browsing.  I had seen these train stocking hangers from pottery barn and fell in love but $35 each is a bit steep.

I figured someone else must have train stocking holders and I was going to find them.  Low and behold, Stefan spotted these beauties at Target for $25 for the set!

I love them!  I told Stefan this means we can’t have more than 2 kids.  We are a family a 4 and that’s the end of it!  I’ve already called the caboose.  For now I guess Vector will have the train cars…spoiled kitty.  2 stockings?

Since I won’t be actually doing any Christmas decorations I’d share what I would be doing if time and dust levels allowed.

I love this stair treatment. I like that it doesn’t get in the way of the handrail like some garland treatments. I have two different areas for stairwell treatments. One in the entry way which will be more naturalistic and complement the wood tones. The other is in the kitchen where I want to do a more kitchy vintage look. I’m thinking perhaps some cute bunting or even white tinsel garland and pink ornaments. Or even some cute christmas card garland. I’ve been thinking that using old christmas cards, cutting out circles, and just sewing them together would make for some cute, quick, and easy Christams garland. Here’s one example (minus the Christmas cards) from Curbly.com.

As far as the front of the house, take a look at this inspiration picture:

I love the lighted tree on the porch, the wreaths on the posts, the garland on the railing, the lights in every window, etc.  I’d really love a pair of trees in urns or just neat pots on either side of the door.  I’m also thinking that in lieu of wreaths on the posts, of hanging large ornaments between the posts.  The wreaths look really good on the double-posts but I don’t have that.  At first I was thinking kissing balls but they get expensive and they have some neat big gold ornaments that I think would be kinda neat.  I’m also all about the flood-lights to illuminate the house.  Our house is so pretty that it really needs minimal string lights and just an ability to see the non-lighted decorations.

Lowes has these great urn-trees:

and these are some cool extra large ornaments. Click on the pictures for a link to the seller’s site.

Lots of ideas. I love Christmas!

I hope this holiday season is a good one for all of you. Remember to take a minute and remember the reason we celebrate this day every year.

Merry Christmas,
Sarah

Weekend Update: Pre&Post-Thanksgiving

Stefan and I headed to Texas on Monday to visit my family for the Thanksgiving festivities. We stayed Monday to Friday but saved the weekends on both ends for house work. The first weekend, we started off by catching up with some friends over margaritas on Friday night and thus staying up well past our bedtime. Saturday we slept in super duper college student late. It was AWESOME. After waking up about noon-ish, I headed strait outside to enjoy the one hour of tolerably warm weather we have each day. I needed to clean up my final garden bed: The gladiolus.

They are beautiful flowers. The row of them was quite stunning.

Here they are at there peak and after I dug up the corms and insulated the bed:

The corms are HUGE. They are probably 3 times bigger than the ones I planted in April and I have HUNDREDS of cormells (little corms).

If you look in this picture, the corm on the bottom left is representative of the size of the corms we dug up. The corm directly to its right is the size of the corms we planted. HUGE! The crop next year is going to be amazing provided I don’t completely mess up the drying/cleaning/planting cycle. I left tons of cormells in the bed (I couldn’t get them all) which is why I mulched it so heavily. It will also help it to warm up quicker in the spring so I can get those corms in the ground early.

I left three boxes full of corms setting out on the kitchen counter to dry while we were away. The weekend after our vacation, I clean them off and stored them to be planted next spring.  One box wasn’t quite dry so it will wait for another few days.  

In addition to the gladiolus excitement, we also started some electric work in the Den. If you take a look at our handy-dandy floorplan, you can see that the wall we took down to create the den is directly above the wall between the entry way and the formal living or piano room. Since the wall-removal gave us access below the floor to the top of the entry/piano wall, we are able to fairly simply drop lots of wires. You can see the big hole in the floor where the wall used to be in this picture:

This wall also has a 3gang box with switches. The number of gangs refers to the number of slots. So 2 outlets or 1 switch fit into each “gang”. Dumb name but that’s what it is. These 3 switches go to the entry light, the piano room light, and the front porch light. We pulled a new supply to the box and new lines to the entry and piano room lights. We still need to do the front porch but since it is an exterior light, it needs to be on a GFCI breaker so we need to run a seprate supply. We will probably tie the front porch light in with the basement lights which also require GFCI.

On Saturday night, we went on a “date” to home depot. We grabbed 5 Guys for dinner on the way. Standard Wolpert date but I love it. I meant to take pictures and I even brought the camera but I was too busy chowing down. When Stefan saw the camera he didn’t get it but honestly, I think our 5 Guys/HD trips will be some of my fondest memories of our first year of marriage. Doesn’t it make sense to capture that? So, I will get picture next time 🙂

At Home depot we picked up some motion lights for outside, some paint samples, and some drywall screws to try out the plaster buttons we heard about on this awesome blog www.oldtownhome.com. I wish these people lived closer. We would seriously be best friends.

The plaster buttons worked well after we got the hang of it. Despite the recommendations over at OTH we found that the smaller ones flatten all the way and we had a hard time getting the large ones to really flatten. We haven’t tried to plaster over the buttons yet but we’ll report when we have.

We also picked up some motion sensor lights. It gets dark really early here…like 4:00 early. After living at a much more southern latitude for all of my life, the darkness is unbelievable. What this means is that I come home from work in the dark EVERY DAY. It’s awful. I generally come in the back door into the kitchen but it is so dark. I decided a motion sensor light was an absolute necessity. We bought this cute one and installed it in no time. The one snafu was that I dropped one of the decorative acorn nuts.. 🙁 One held it well enough and we ran by Lowes later that night and picked up a new one. No biggie but I’m still kicking myself.

We got another more flood-light style motion light for the driveway area. That will help with the trash taking-out but unlike the back deck light, I can handle another couple days without that light installed.

I mentioned I also picked up some paint samples. I’m working on browns for the den. Nothing is decided so far but there are squares of brown paint all over the room and a ton of paint swatches strewn on top of the library cabinet.

If it sounds like that wasn’t enough work for one Sunday, you’d be right! We also pulled 9 different wires through the entry/den wall into the den floor to wire up the den. Yes, 9 wires. 1 for power, 2 for cable, and 6 for Ethernet. We’re going to be WIRED! The next step is to route all of those wires along with speaker wire to all the places they are supposed to go. So much wire!

We also went to Lowes to check out black Friday deals on washers and dryers (Best Buy is better) and packed for our trip. For a weekend with only one and a half days we sure managed to get a lot done.

After a wonderful week with my family, we came back at about 1:00 AM on Friday night and after an uneventful flight and a harrowing cab ride we saw our cuddly and neglected kitty and jumped into a very, very cold bed.

We slept until noon, as usual, and went to work.  After a Home Depot trip we were armed and ready to get some attic stairs in and build a ramp for the shed.  We accomplished neither the stairs project nor the shed project but we made progress on both.  We did, however, finally foam the windows in the closet and bathroom as well as one in the basement.

And for the crowing glory of our weekend, we got the garbage disposal working!  It took a second trip to home depot but tada:

Garbage Disposal!

Not much to look at but oh so exciting.

In addition to work work, we did some thinking work too.  We finished out the major purchasing for the bathroom.  We ordered the half bath sink, the second master sink, the half bath toilet, and chose the medicine cabinets.  In addition, we planned out the heated floor in the bathroom.  It’s nearly time for a bathroom design plan post and that will be coming out soon.

All in all, Thankgsiving was a success.

 

I hope your holiday was as good as ours and Merry Christmas!!!

Sarah