Thoughts on the Master Bath

So, more or less, the master bath project is done. It was a long weekend goal to finish it, and, well, we got it done by Wednesday. It just kept going and going. So, the moral of this is I haven't yet done a good thorough cleaning of the bathroom, and once I do that this weekend I'll post some pictures. Taking down wallpaper is perhaps the messiest thing I've ever been part of - no matter how dilligent you try to be with picking up as you go, there are little bits of paper stuck everywhere.

Anyway, we're VERY proud of how it turned out!

During all of the wallpaper removal, we came to refer to the previous owner as Effing Brian. Because we get the feeling that Effing Brian liked to do a lot of stuff in the house himself, and let me tell ya, it was painfully obvious EB did the wallpaper himself. And didn't do it right, at that. It was hard work taking it all down, but it did make it a little better to curse his name and blame it on someone who wasn't there to defend himself. Stupid Brian.

Wanna hear some other wierdness from Effing Brian? During the walk through, we noticed one of the upstairs bedrooms had the doorknob on backwards, like with the lock on the outside. Uhhhh, Veird. And, along those same lines, EVERY door has a locking knob in the house, INCLUDING the pantry & coat closet. Seriously? The pantry? That's all I can think of actually right now. Scott also says he liked to strip out screws. God, hate that Brian.

Book Binge

I had a week off in between my old job and the end of the semester and the beginning of my internship (this past Monday) in which my only goal was to read fun books. And I did... a lot. It was positively blissful, and as I sit here at work I'm a little sad that week is behind me. Here's the scoop:

Election - Tom Perrotta. I'd read this in freshman year of college and remembered really liking it. I still do. The writing is really interesting to me, he was a very "writer-ish" way of describing stuff and I found that pretty cool. The synopsis is this: A teacher, Mr M, is in charge of a school election where is looks like Tracy Flick is going to win. He doesn't like her so he plants another kid in the election and drama ensues. It's kind of messed up at times, but I think it's written in a very real way. IDK. I gave it 4 stars on shelfari. Oh, and you can read it in like 3 hours, it's a very quick read.

American Wife

Curtis Sittenfeld (who might be a woman? IDK)

This book was a fabulous surprise... my friend Amy mentioned it to me and it was pretty great (an NPR recommendation, turns out). It's a fictional account of Laura Bush's life. It takes the main "events" of her life, starting with a fatal accident in high school which kills her would be love interest, and ends up with her in the White House. It's obviously very fabricated in parts, but a fun imaginative journey since we know so little about our most recent first lady. The character of Charlie Blackwell, a thinly-veiled George W was at once hilarious and appalling. But I will say I was a tad nervous to read this, not having much affection in my heart for the Bushes. I liked it anyway. It was well written and passed the Jamie test there. Cause we all know I don't read crap.

And lastly, The Reader by Bernard Schlink

This book was REALLY good. It was very "literary," which for me is a nice way to say not everyone will think it's good. Sometimes the writing is very thick. It also took me a while to get into it but as soon as you kind of "get" where it's going it's a really adeptly told story and kept me thinking long after I finished the book. I really want to see the movie too, I think Kate Winslet was a great choice for the main character. But part of me is sad I don't get to watch it as a surprise, since I already know what happens in the book.

I started The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon last week and it started a little slow, but I might be getting into it now. Hopefully I can put a dent in it this weekend.

This Summer

Great news - officially! I got another internship at IBM for this summer. It's with a different group, and I'm excited to have exposure to a different product...and continue to have IBM on my resume. I start 5/11...woohoo! Is it sad that I'm *most* excited to have the week before I start completely OFF? No work, no school... nothing.

And also, I'm about 1 week from being done with this semester, which is pretty awesome. I will have one more full time semester this fall and then my last class next spring. Next year at this time, I'll be Master Jamie (or nearly...) Very exciting indeed.

As usual, I have totally fallen off of reading during the semester, with so much school reading, working, moving, ETC... but all that will change this summer. You'll be glad to know I spent a good portion of last night's class composing a summer reading list:

1. Memoirs of a Geisha (reread, it's our JUNE book club book)
2. Revolutionary Road (JULY Book Club book)
3. The Reader
4. Pillars of the Earth (gulp...it's a big one...)
5. Grapes of Wrath (Kel got me thinking about this one... hopefully it's not too rough)
6. American Wife (I'm reading it right now actually, totally jumping the gun on the end of the semester... oh well)
7. Bridge of Sighs
8. Year of Magical Thinking - Joan Didion

... and I'm sure some more. Any other suggestions would be fab... woohoo!

Hey Master Bath...

Enjoy your last day w/ wallpaper, bc after this weekend, it'll be GONE! :) That is what we'll be doing this weekend, taking down this monstrosity. Wish us luck...



And though I don't know if it's fair, I think this wallpaper is making me hate the entire concept of wallpaper... And I've only spent about an hour taking down a small portion of this bathroom already.

We have Interwebs at the new house!

Woohoo! :) And all of our stuff...

So, Smarty is slowly adjusting to live in the new house...one that is substantially larger, with creaky steps and hardwood floors (not nearly as comfy as carpet!) The first day and a half she was hiding and when we'd pick her up to show her her new palace she was *shaking*... very weird. Unlike any behavior we've ever seen from her. At one point on moving day she was totally MIA for like 3 hours, turned out she was head first INSIDE the fireplace. She had soot on her little white chin :( Her new hiding place is a little safer & I assume quieter - in our closet (CARPET!) under our clothes.

(hopefully this image shows up... it's from my iphone and I've been working on figuring out how to use those images in blogposts...)

But, as this picture shows, she's slowly getting bolder and more curious... last night I was here alone and putting away our clothes and stuff and she kept kind of wandering in and out of the room...still very uneasy and freaking out at the smallest sound but at least not cowering in the closet! Progress!

This house is definitely *louder*... something that must be very different for Smarty. The creaky stairs cannot be understated...they're quite loud, and there aren't really ways to ascend or descend without sounding like an elephant. We hear this might be a challenge once there's a baby to wake up. Because, he/she WILL be woken up with these steps.

Another long day of unpacking ahead of us... I have to somehow fit schoolwork in today as well (something I've neglected for 2 days now...) I also have the goal of making dinner in the new kitchen tonight. Woohoo!

The work we've done:

Lord knows I don't have anything better to do... so I'll post some pics of our remodeling week. :)

Here's the obligatory first pic of us in front of our new home. :)
First up is the OFFICE.
Before:

After! The wall is Pinniped (Martha Stewart color...) and I thought it'd be more gray/brown, but it has a definite purple hue to it. But I'm ok w/ it, it's not too girly or anything.

Now... the Master Bedroom! Was boring white...


Now it's "Chive" :) It's the same color we painted the bedroom at our townhouse, but we really liked it and had a bucket leftover... even though it took two buckets. Oh well!


Guest Bedroom (downstairs)
Before:
After! It DOES still have the nasty brassy fan, but we're working on replacing that. Love the way this one turned out!


And lastly, the downstairs bathroom/guest bathroom. You'll surely remember this gorgeous wallpaper and drapery!

And... the AFTER! :) (I'm REALLY excited about how this one turned out, if you can't tell!


MASTER PAINTER! :) (Though, I did a lot of priming and coats of white in the bathroom too!)

Packing

Isn't our girl just the cutest? We feel so negligent... she's been spending so much time alone at the "old house" while we're spending our evenings at the new house. We keep telling her it'll be worth it, and she'll have so much space to herself, a screened in porch and a special closet for her bathroom, but she doesn't quite get it yet. When we get home late at night she's pretty much got a one track mind: FOOOOOOOOD! FEEEEEED MEEEE!

And she does love being inside cupboards, especially empty ones that have been packed up :)

(See, I'm packing!)

House Progress & I *heart* Jersey Mike's

The first weekend in our home ridiculously tiring and long... yet wonderful. Scott and I made some definite headway in our ambitious first week plans on the new house. We still have a long week ahead of us until the movers show up 9am on Friday, but I actually feel like maybe we can get there?

Our goal is to do one room at a time, and to COMPLETE that room before moving on to other rooms... like do all of the little and big improvements at once.

So here's the list and our progress. I'm hoping to get pictures up this week sometime...because I'm really proud & happy w/ how it all turned out!

-Paint the master bedroom (check), replace light switches & outlets w/ white (tonight), replace doorknobs (check).
-Master Closet: Replace brass knobs on built-in stuff (check), replace light fixture (tonight?), replace doorknob (check).
-Office: paint one wall (check) and do the outlets & doorknob (this week)
-Guest Bedroom: paint walls (check) and trim (half done), do outlets & lightswitch. We also need to do SOMETHING about the ceiling fan in there bc OMG it's so ugly. :)

So, long week ahead of us, but I also do feel that the more we can get done before all of our stuff gets there, the happier we'll be.

One awesome discovery of the weekend: I love Jersey Mike's. And Scott is eating his heart out bc at random times over the past, oh, 6 months he'd be suggesting places we could go get dinner and say Jersey Mike's and I'd be like..."meh". I'd eaten there once and just thought it wasn't that special. Well, for some reason I agreed to go there Saturday and wouldn't shut UP about how good my sub was. I think the only thing I said the whole time we were eating it was some variation of "Oh man, this is so good." Just so you know, a #7, Mike's Way? Life changing. (Or maybe we were just really hungry!) We totally had the same thing for lunch the next day.

TIRED!

One day in and we're totally drained... this could be a very long weekend! Or... 30 years.

Yesterday went well, we signed the obligatory 893 papers and initialed here, here and here. We spent the entire afternoon and evening at the house painting and getting paint on the bottoms of our feet and tracking it around the upstairs. Good times. Our new neighbors Cara & Steve brought the Welcome Wagon pizza & beer over in the evening, which was just what we needed. (I should make it clear it's not an official WW effort, they are existing friends that now happen to be our neighbors! Woohoo!)

Some highlights:

• My feet are KILLING me today because I was walking around barefoot on the hardwood. Didn't realize that would happen...
  
• We painted the master bedroom the exact same color our current master is, and somehow needed two buckets for this room where as the old room only needed one. How fun. ;)
  
• We're trying to replace the lightswitches & outlets... but we have aluminum wiring. Does anyone know how to do this w/ out burning down the house and/or electrocuting yourself? Seriously, if anyone has any advice, please email me!
• Yesterday we worked hard, we really did, but we also were dumb in that we didn't stay hydrated and well fed... must stay on top of that today.
  
• Today we get our fridge! Making the above point a little easier...
  

Today we're heading over there in a little... grabbing some paint for the guest room/Quiggy Suite (as it is now called)... We're also addressing the very important issue of the wallpaper this morning. I have this wallpaper tool that's been loaned to me that looks a little scary :)

Thanks for all the well-wishes & posts on facebook! :)

Tomorrow!

Tomorrow we sign on our new house! :) Sorry I've been a bit MIA this week... lots going on. And of course, my old stand-bys for blog topics - books & recipes - not so much doing either of those things lately! We've boxed up a lot of our stuff, and the plan is to get in there tomorrow and paint, paint, paint!! We're moving our stuff the following Friday, the 27th. Or I should say movers will be moving our stuff (and no, not the ones who asked our size in my last post!)

Of course, we're super excited. I keep telling myself this is really happening... it all happened so fast. Which is good, bc I'm generally not a patient person.

Hopefully I'll have some fun pictures after the weekend to share.