The Cooler Side of Life

So, life here in the Midwest had been pretty toasty lately. Downright stifling. People ask "Don't you have central air?" My response "Hahahaha." We have boiler heat through radiators so there isn't the duct work for central air. Our humble abode came equipped with two large air-conditioning units - one in the living room window and one upstairs built into the wall of the future baby's room. Not a one in our bedroom. And this is not the summer for sleeping in the heat...due to being my own oven with a bun inside.

Memorial Day Solution? Home Depot + parents visiting = project. 

Got to love Home Depot... 

and Chris and Jack who install new a/c units in your bedroom!

 Making sure it stays on the second floor is always good!

Nice work guys! Now, you may have noticed, the only problem is the 48" wide blind stops above the a/c unit...leaving plenty of window, um, very visible.  I temporarily taped paper in the gap because, hey, it works. Looks terrible (except that it's cute scrapbooking paper) and I'll probably head out to look for two separate blinds to fit this weekend. But honestly, it depends how much the taped-paper look really gets to me. 

When we were at the great Home Depot, my pops decided they were going to purchase a lil' unit for the "guest room"...which he and my mom were going to be inhabiting that night. Maybe they did not want a sauna experience. Either way, we were happy about it! 

By now, Chris and Jack are pros at a/c unit installation.

Third time's a charm. This one is actually the third unit they've teamed up on. The first one was in the heat of the summer in our 450 square foot apartment in Champaign, IL.

 Well, you have to make sure it works right? 

Just for the record, we do not put everybody to work that comes to visit us...just a few lucky ones. And, they offered.

A bit o' green...

Call me inspired. This recent bout of nice weather has got me hooked. I think I'm ready to embrace Spring and things green...including some decoration modification. 

I try (try being the operative word) to buy versatile linens, pillows, etc that I can mix and match. The intent is that I can change things up without having to buy a lot of new items or store a bunch of linens in non-existent closets. I usually stick to changing textures and avoid patterns but I picked up this duvet set at IKEA (big surprise) for about $19. Score. Color and patterns, colored-patterns, a big out of the ole' comfort box for me. But, the pattern reminds me of tulips which just so happen to be my favorite flowers (must be Dutch or granddaughter to a bonafide Pella Tulip Queen). Double score. 

Let's see what else I can Spring-ify this weekend...

Housewarming Party!!

Last Saturday morning, I was running around like a chicken with my head cut-off...giving half-intelligible directions of what to clean, where to chuck/hide masses of things, etc to Chris, my parents and my grandma. Why? It was H-day...Housewarming party day. And, thirty or so friends and family would soon be knocking to come in and take a gander at all of our work on our *new* home. 

And they did! We had a great time getting to show people the house and changes and catch up with some friends we hadn't seen in a while! Our realtor, Jackie, stopped by too and got to see all the changes since she'd last seen the house in August...a lot. I think everybody had a pretty good time too...I was told of a few meatball-induced food comas following the bash.

To be very honest, there is not a chance that Chris and I would have pulled off such a party without some major help from both our parents and Grandma Versluys. Nope, not a chance. We are very thankful for all their help! Unfortunately, I didn't get any picture evidence of their work. Actually, I didn't get any pics of during the party, guests, etc. Here are a few pics that I got before the party...

 

Dining room bookcases (finally *pretty-ified*)

 
 

First floor *guest* room 

 
 

Living room area (which is now crawling, 7 month old-approved)

 

A tidier landing/shelf (above the front door, 

we think the stairs were moved to their current spot) 

Office upstairs sporting the vintage wallpaper...which was fairly popular with guests!

 

Tada...Master bedroom. 

(We spent so many hours in the 3-4 weeks prior to the party on this that it is deserving of it's own post...soon. )

Fast forward to this beautiful, sunny Saturday morning...I am slowly sipping my coffee in my pajamas, listening to country music on Pandora and blogging from the comfort of the EXTORP. And...thoroughly enjoying it. 

We've been constantly working on the house since we moved in in August...and now we are going to take a little sanity-induced break from major projects (organization and decorating are still fair game) for a month or so. We need a little time to regroup and enjoy all the love and sweat equity we've doused the house with so far. And, maybe I can catch up on blogging some of the improvements in more depth, future ideas and life in general in this vintage home-sweet-work-in-progress.

More visitors, more to-dos tackled...

Makes you want to come and visit, huh? You are thinking that every time someone comes to visit us we put them to work, right? Well...they were willing and we took full advantage of their offer to help. This weekend's victims...my brother, Andy, and his girlfriend, Alysha. I laid low for the first part of the weekend due to some "special" bug that attacked my immune system on Friday. Sunday morning...let the projects begin. On the agenda, 1)install new kitchen light, 2) install dining room fan, and 3) priming paneling in our bedroom. I recently informed Chris that I am not now nor do I forsee ever being interested in or wanting to learn/do electrical work. Frankly, it scares me. Sure does. Too many steps, risk of death, and so on. I will do carpentry, painting, tiling, wallpaper removal, plumbing, TSPing (if forced), etc but not electrical. Therefore, Andy was Chris'  able electrical assistant and joke-provider/laugher-at-Chris'-jokes.

First, Chris and Andy installed the new kitchen light. The glaring fluorescent glow of the old fixture was not...um, inducing homey feelings.

The new light gives a warm, amber-tinted glow and distinguishes the "Swiss Coffee" paint on the kitchen walls from the white ceiling. I knew the color fan book did not lie when I picked out the color for the kitchen in the first place. 

Okay...I did think it lied but now I'm more educated on the influence lighting has. (Side note: Chris and I had picked out a color that we thought was a light gray to try out in our bedroom upstairs and when I brought the color fan book into a different room the next day I realized it was actually purple-ish pink. Ewww. Make sure you see it in all lights). 

Second, Chris and Andy, fairly confident in their electrical skills by now, installed the new dining room fan. The old fan worked well (and is being donated not trashed) but blended into the ceiling and had the blinding effect...more for Chris due to his super-sized height. It was also a bit too small for the room. Here's a flash from living/dining rooms past...if you are new to the blog, check out the other living/dining room posts to see the transformation.

Now, Chris and I spent many trips to Menards, Lowes and Home Depot surveying our options when it came to new fans. I've watched way too many hours of HGTV in my "day " and I know people loathe ceiling fans. Decorators always try to replace them . I have concluded that: a) their projects take place in the winter or early spring and the homeowners have forgotten what summer is like, b) the homeowners have central a/c, c) they like tripping over plugged-in fans, d) they carry personal hand-held fans to cool themselves (or those misting battery-powered ones) at all times, e) they live in Alaska, f) they like to sweat, or g) all of the above. I will admit that getting rid of the dining room fan altogether crossed my mind when we bought our house...but then we moved in to our home sweet home IN AUGUST. No doubt about it...THE FAN STAYS. We have radiator-heat, no central a/c, do not like to sweat or carry little fans or trip over cords and have not forgotten what summer is like in Illinois. On our fan hunt, we were looking for something "pretty" with good lighting since the fan also provides the only hard-wired lighting for the living/dining area. We didn't really like the four separate-light style since they always seemed to be blinding you but we didn't love the "boob"-light style either. Then...drumroll...we stumbled across our new, beautiful, air-circulating beast equipped with four separate lights that point straight down so as not to blind you. It was on clearance (not too many fan sales in the winter I guess), it was the last one, 10 minutes later it was traveling home, 1 week later it was installed. 

The new fan was meant to be. It fits the "decor" of the room perfectly...in our opinion which is the only one that really matters I guess.

And, because two electrical projects weren't enough...we taped off our bedroom and began priming the first coat. The walls are all wood paneling and the color was very close to that of the hardwood floor which gave off a "cave-esque" feeling. Thick "Gripper" primer worked like a charm, adhering to the paneling with ease. The walls still need one more coat of "Gripper" and two coats of color. While I didn't get any pictures of actually painting due to the fact that I was painting, I do still have some in my hair though if you would like proof. Here'a a few pics to entice you...