Karen and Erik

Here are some pictures to show our renovation progress. We worked on the new place two nights this week, and will work at least one more before the weekend. Erik is nearing the home stretch with the floor, but I still have a good amount of painting left to do.

Here’s the finished kitchen lights - these are placed right over the island (or rather, where the island will be when we finish the floor)

Erik also put in lights in the kitchen over the breakfast nook. This fixture was originally to go over the kitchen island, but works well here too.

Here’s what our kitchen floor looked like after Erik had scraped off two layers of linoleum.

Now, he has almost all of the tile squares (that did not need cuts) laid down. This weekend, he’ll rent a tile saw to finish laying the tile and then put on the grout.

Here’s the (mostly) painted downstairs. All that’s left is the remainder of the trim, the utility room and bathroom.

Stay tuned for more pictures. By the end of this weekend, we hope to accomplish the following:

• Finish kitchen floor
• Finish downstairs trim
• Paint utility room
• Start bedroom

Also tomorrow, a window covering/blinds company is dropping by. We need new blinds in every room because there’s only one kind the cats won’t destroy - the 2″ wood/faux wood kind. Luckily, they are the kind they like. If they only behaved around vertical blinds, we’d have a problem.

First off, thanks to Jen J., Jen P. and Pete for coming over and helping us on Saturday. We were able to get a lot more done with your help!

After feeling like we didn’t get as much done as we’d hoped last weekend, we took some of our friends up on their offers to help paint. Friday night, K and I went over to finish painting the ceiling throughout the downstairs and start on scraping the vinyl flooring off the kitchen. We finished up and were home by 9.

Saturday, we started out the day at Lowe’s picking out tile for the kitchen. We had already picked out a tile at the Home Depot up by our current place. However, that Home Depot is a “Design Center” and their hours are all weird. Basically, we would have had to started late one day, have it delivered at a much higher rate since their a design center, or left early Saturday to pick it up, drive back down to unload it. Also, the tile wasn’t available at any other Home Depot. So we opted to just pick out another tile at the closer Lowe’s, saving us an hour, and also had it delivered for a much more reasonable rate. Also also, we came in $300 under budget. Nice.

So we spent Saturday painting the downstairs with much needed help from some friends. We finished up the second coat in the kitchen and family room, and painted two coats on the dining room, living room, entry and hall way. All that is left for painting downstairs is the bathroom and laundry room. We also finished scraping the vinyl flooring off, and moved the kitchen island and range/oven out of the kitchen to clear as many obstacles out of the way as possible.

On Sunday, Karen painted the office upstairs and I started tiling downstairs. I got about a 3rd of the way down on the kitchen tile, and was slowed by laying it out and keeping the first few tiles straight. We’ll be going back at least 2 nights this week, so I should make some headway on that, while Karen paints a few more rooms.

Before we move in on February 16th, we want to finish the tile in the kitchen, finish the painting in the master bedroom, laundry room, and the bathrooms. I’m planning on renting a tile saw on Saturday to get all the cuts in the kitchen complete, so I need to get all the tile down that won’t need to be cut this weekend. Then on Sunday, I’ll be able to grout and the Kitchen will be ready to move in. Also, Sunday will be a short day, as we’re going to a Super Bowl party at Dave and Trish’s.

The next weekend, I’m in Guy’s wedding so we won’t get any work done Thursday - Saturday, as the bachelor party is Thursday, rehearsal and dinner is Friday, wedding Saturday. So that leaves only Sunday, and who knows how motivated we’ll be that day, as I’m sure the reception will be awesome.

And the weekend after that we move! Whatever we don’t get done will just have to wait. Also, sometime soon we need to start packing. We sprung for movers this time around, at least to help with all the furniture and maybe some of the boxes.

Sorry for no pictures this time. I’ll try to take some to show the progress.

This was our first weekend of work at the new home. I write this to you from the comfort of our sofa, with the Packers-Giants game on in front of me. We are stiff and covered in little flecks of paint. We are homeowners.

Upon arriving at the new home, the first order of business was removing the yucky fluorescent lighting in the kitchen. Fluorescent lighting gives me the wiggins (a cousin of the heebie jeebies), and my wonderful husband took it down for me. Unfortunately, we discovered that the wiring was not centered over the island (not even close, actually) and there were black heat marks on the ceiling from the light bulbs. We filled in the holes from the fixture and realized we were going to have to paint the ceiling. That, and installing the new kitchen lighting (which was different from the one we originally picked up because of the centering issue) took us the entire first day. We left tired but wishing we had made more progress. We still had the entire downstairs to paint.

Today, we arrived and got to work right away. The ceiling now looked great - nice bright white ceiling that lightened up the dark looking room significantly. We began painting the walls of the family room and connecting kitchen. It’s a very light creamy yellow color - much better than the previous color, a grayish-purple that looked like a bruise. Because of the surfaces we had to cut around - like the fireplace and windows, cabinets and counters, and more - this took us most of the day. During that time, we pulled bacl the refrigerator and found a toxic waste dump that had to be cleaned by hand, and I made runs to pick up supplies. By the time we left in the early evening, the first coat of paint was on the walls. We decided to let it dry overnight before even attempting anything else.

Since we are behind now and are considering painting the ceiling in the other rooms (it looks great and the ceiling is currently dingy and had old paint marks on it), we’re trying to reassess our schedule. We only have two more weekends to finish the work, then an “unavailable” weekend for a friend’s wedding that Erik is standing up in, and then moving weekend. So we are working out options such as scheduling time during the week to do work. Keep in mind that we had scheduled to do our packing during the week, so any work at the new place during the week is time away from packing. We might also take our friends who have offered to help up on their generosity. So, we’ll see.

And now the part Fitz everybody wants - pictures!

The old living room color, right as we started to cut in on the trim.

Erik used to take jobs paint during the summers when he was in school. He’s very good at it, and my house painting has improved a lot thanks to him.

Here we see the new kitchen lighting, with 2 of 5 lamps attached. All 5 are now installed.

What happened to the old fluorescent fixture? Erik took an extension cord, cut it open and wired it to the flourescent wiring, and turned it into a work light for us.

Behind the refrigerator, we found a shard of painter’s tape showing the original color of the kitchen. See, this house was on the market, then taken off for a couple of months and put back on. It seems that while it was off the market, they painted the place in more neutral colors to appeal to buyers. It was a good plan - the painter’s tape shows that the kitchen was originally Pepto Bismol pink (the color on the photo is a bit off). Other discoveries - the dining room and living room were a deep raspberry red, and the downstairs half bath was bright metallic purple. I can see how that would scare away some buyers.

More later - time to get ready for bed.

Quick note to let you know we closed on the termite house today. That’s how the lawyer’s, mortgage, and real estate people call it. There are no more termites (it’s bonded), all repairs were made, and we got some extras out of the deal. We’ll post more later over the next few weeks as we do the work before we move in on Feb 16th.

Merry Christmas everyone! We’re sitting at Erik’s parents ranch now near Kingman, AZ. Everyone is full of good food and thisclose to passing out. In fact, I ate so much I had to change pants and lie down before I could consider dessert (which is sitting next to me right now).

We have house updates but… I’m not ready to post about them yet, because we still have a lot up in the air. So, I guess I should not have brought it up. Too bad. Instead, I will tell you that the Christmas haul was pretty sweet this year. Erik got some good stuff, including some sweet Star Wars stuff. I got a bunch of dirty rocks. Oh, and a Macbook. Best present ever. I’m typing this post on it right now. I bet you could already sense how much cooler this post was because of it.

We’ll have more to post about soon. Meanwhile, I leave you with a taste of the desert scenery. PEACE OUT.

Erik and I have been pretty busy these past few weeks, but lucky all of the hard work has paid off. Ladies and gentleman, we are under contract for a house.

This is our first home, and we think we picked a great one with lots of potential. It’s got room for guests (in their own room - not the sofa!) and an office and eventually, room for a baby. We just have to put in a little cosmetic work on it (some paint, some new fixtures, new kitchen floor) and it will be good to go. We close in mid-January and will move in sometime in February. We’ll keep you updated as everything progresses.

Meanwhile, here are some bad photos I took of the place. Note that they were taken for reference purposes (which is why there is a picture of the washer/dryer hookups), not to show off the place. Also, as I uploaded these last night I realized that I didn’t take a picture of the front of the house. So I’ll do that next time we visit it.

To: Martha Stewart

c/o Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia

11 w. 42nd Street

New York, NY 10036

Dear Ms. Stewart,

May I call you Martha? You may call me Karen. I must start this letter as many of your fan letters must. For 25 years, I’ve been a huge fan of you and your work. Your creativity and finesse have inspired me since I first saw my mother’s newly purchased copy of Entertaining in 1982. In planning my wedding last year, I purchased all of the available wedding magazines, as most brides do. But only yours was truly helpful, and I thank you and your excellent staff for that!

My husband and I are getting ready to purchase our first home, and I can’t wait to decorate it - full of Martha Stewart products and ideas, of course.  Truly, a life without your Soft Grip Lemon Zester or new set of cookbooks is a life not worth living. My kitchen is where I feel most comfortable, and I look forward to finding inspiration for my next recipe.

Would it be possible to send me an autographed photo that I may put up in my kitchen? Seeing your smiling face would inspire me on those nights when I am cranky from the tolls of the day and tempted to order bad Chinese instead of cooking for my wonderful, often put-upon husband. Indeed, it would be as if you were there to ensure the heavens would smile down upon my oven, figuratively speaking.

Please keep up the excellent work, as I know you will. Your daily show is one of my favorite programs, and certainly much better than anything that oafish dimwit Donald Trump could put on.  Besides, your version of The Apprentice totally kicked ass.

Your sincere fan,

Karen Garrett