The Luck of the Irish

It has officially been five years since we moved into our happy home. I will always remember that we unpacked on (or around) St. Patrick's Day because we gave our dear friends green beer and wine for helping us move. Chardonnay doesn't taste quite the same when it's green, but I know the beer was good.  

Adam and I dig our place so much that we decided to finance it again! Six L-O-N-G months of headache and paperwork are finally behind us, and we just completed signing enough documents to carry us through middle age. It must be the luck of the Irish (and President Obama) that allowed us to be among the fortunate few able to refinance to take advantage of the very low interest rates in a declining housing market. We are grateful.

We had an appraisal several weeks ago, and since our house will never be that clean again, I thought I should take a few photos. I was fooling around with a cheap little wide-angle lens, so that's why the photos are distorted and blurred. Also, it goes without saying that a house is a work in progress, especially our house. On to the living room!

The "new" basement. (We have two basements, which I know sounds awesome, but really, you just have to buy twice as many furnace filters and there's always double the expensive stuff to break.) I don't use subterranean spaces, so it's kind of an embarrassing catch-all for lonely furniture and boxes from other people's basements.

TJ's spot, one of his favorites. He can see everything from here.

The entry. Probably my favorite room in the house, if only because it has no projects that need doing (yet).

Here's a great example of a project for 2012. Ironically, this was also a project for 2011 (see also, TJ Wins!). The only change we've made to the hallway in the past year was to add two additional boxes of shelving. 

The master bedroom. (Does the term master bedroom bother anyone else? I hate it. I usually just call this the room with the bath.) This room is usually full of shoes and laundry, but we put them away for today. Also, this bedroom has never contained a bed. We do have a project planned for the bathroom this very weekend - sealing the grout and replacing one tile. Fun, fun, fun!

The kitchen. Still the same green and purple cabinets that charmed us into buying the house and overlooking the fact that we do not have a dishwasher. We did purchase that Darth Vader of a fridge about a year ago after our old one finally lost it. I wanted stainless steel and a bottom freezer, but since each of those options adds a few hundred bucks, Adam only let me pick one. You'll never notice the color once I finish my magnet collection.

Another of TJ's favorite spots. This one is great for intercepting the cat on her way to dinner.

The poor dining room. It's only purpose is to collect bills and newspapers, since we routinely eat dinner at the coffee table. Today, it has no purpose except for Adam to drink his cocktail creations. (See here, here, and definitely here). I did create a wall collage last year, but as it is now the third wall collage in our home, I think it's time to lay off.

Here is the mother of all projects, the one we have been saving since the day we moved in - the horrible blue bathroom.

Here's another look, just to terrify you. Ironically, Adam casually mentioned, just today, that he was considering demolishing the bathroom this very weekend. I'll let you know how that goes.

The guest bedroom, a project we actually completed. Although I'm slowly learning that no room is ever complete. At least our guests have a nice place to lay their heads, to make up for the fact that they still have to use the blue bathroom.

The computer room / mud room / sun room. We never did decide on a name. This is generally our worst room in terms of cables, shoes, mud, dog hair, mail, purses, plants, pencils, pollen, etc. It's also the room we live in.

All that's missing is the dog kennel and a bit more dirt.

 

The "old" basement. I almost don't want to go here. That is why the photos will henceforth be in black-and-white. Most people, including TJ, have never set foot in this place. Consider yourself warned.

It's not so bad (for a Stillwater basement). We actually spent a few weekends last fall patching, priming, and painting the walls to pretty it up a bit. I think the waterproof blue looks delightful in the space. Other than laundry, it's mostly a repository for Adam's endless collection of beer bottles, anyway.

That's it. Happy house hunting. The place spruces up a bit in the spring, and hibernates again in the fall. Stop by for a visit if you're ever in the neighborhood. You know we'll be here for awhile. I'm not going through that nightmare of paperwork ever again.