welcome to chris's and season's houseblog!

this is a very exciting adventure for us and we're glad you've decided to peek in. we're going to keep this blog updated throughout the 2006-07 remodel and afterward, as this is going to become season's first "showhouse" (besides being our fabulous residence).

for those of you not familiar with blogs, they're kinda backwards: the latest entries are posted at the top of the opening page. so if you want to start at the beginning of our tale, then you'll want to click on the "previous 20" link (there's one above the top entry on a page, and one at the bottom of each page) until you reach the 9/29/06 post. then you can move forward in time from there.

so have a look around, enjoy the pictures, and remember: even if you don't have a livejournal account, you can still post comments. just click the "comment" link for the entry you'd like to comment on and post as "anonymous" -- but tell us in the text of your comment who you are, please! :) we'd love to hear from you!

--season & chris
(and misha and sophie)

what with the stormy, overly-hot-and-humid weather keeping me from working on the yard (well, it's horrible for yardwork, but the plants are LOVING it), and our acquisition of a new dining set, i'm all about thinking about more decorating ideas for the house. and i just thought of something: what if i created a false wainscoting in the dining room with a display ledge about 5' up from the floor, and i could put decorative objects on it. (i'd create the false wainscoting with mdf as the background, 1"x3" boards for the "box" frames, 1"x6" boards for the shelf, with decorative trim and brackets) stuff like these plates here, by thomas paul:



i could intersperse such things with more glass jars o' stuff like the ones i've done in the kitchen, filled with various colorful beans, grains, and pastas, to pull in more of an "earthy" feeling (and to save my kitchen counterspace -- haha). (the chalkboard paint works wonderfully, btw; finally got some chalk and tried it out this weekend.)

i also really like the idea of creating silhouettes of people who are near and dear to me (perhaps i'll have them sign and date the backs of their individual silhouette), and hanging a collection of those on the wall somewhere. perhaps in the dining room, since that will be the gathering place for large family events. now i'll just have to figure out how to do that. :)

(x-posted to my personal blog)

i can't believe it's been a month since i last posted on here. We haven't been doing much worth blogging about, really; just trying to keep up with family events for the holidays and stay sane in general (both sometimes easier said than done).

However, that being said, I thought I'd post some pics of our Yule decorations to commemorate our first Yule in this house:



and our house's first winter with us:


:)

i spent saturday re-potting all of our deck plants in sterile pots and soil, cleaning all bugs and bug-related debris from everything, so that i could bring them inside permanently to their new home in the "atrium." they're a little sad-looking from having spent 3 weeks in the garage with no sunlight, but i'm sure they'll spring back to life in their new (much warmer and consistently-temperate) environment. am considering getting a humidifier to keep in the atrium just for them -- i'd have to keep it on the floor, though, so i don't have to climb a ladder to refill it every day, and floorspace over there is at a premium of late, so i haven't made up my mind. however, if i don't get a humidifier, then i'll have to climb up there all the time to spritz the plants, and that'd be just as much work. so.......hm. we placed The Amazing Ficus Tree directly in front of the french door which we don't ever open so that it gets loads of sunlight, and it looks really pretty there. :)

chris-the-stuntman cleaned out all the new (uncovered) gutters on the back of the house yesterday afternoon (while i wasn't home, which terrifies me at the prospect of the horrible things which could have happened), so now my mind's at ease on that front, especially since i've been seeing reports that the weather's supposed to turn nasty and winterish on wednesday (just in time for us to travel all over the state of kansas for thanksgiving on thursday, and then again on saturday for thanksgiving with another branch of the family.....not to mention the family which is travelling to our house this weekend!).

pictures to come soon...

(cross-posted somewhat from my personal journal)

last night, after preparing a nummylicious dinner of herbed scrambled eggs with sauteed mushrooms and onions, toast with homemade amish apple butter, and canned peaches, i decided that i was feeling crafty. so i FINALLY got around to re-covering our new barstools with the striped fabric i'd previously used on my "martha-stewart-y" bulletin board (which i still need to re-frame):

it was SO easy, took hardly any time at all, and they look fabulous! (i'll post pictures soon; i couldn't find my camera last night and chris was working late.)

it's funny, but i felt really encouraged by that project (i've been distinctly un-crafty of late) to continue into my other fabric/sewing projects that i want to do for the house (i.e., sewing curtains for practically every room in the place, but beginning with the kitchen and living room). i found a really cute idea for curtains for the living room: tack doornails into the wall above the window; sew loops along the top of your backed fabric panel (i'd make mine floor-length); hang curtain via loops on doornails. you can adjust how the curtain looks and how much light is allowed in by folding the curtain and hanging it differently on various nails. perhaps i'll also hang a sheer behind it so that light can be allowed in without sacrificing privacy, and to soften the look a bit. ...and perhaps i'll make two panels, so i can create the effect of a bigger, more dramatic window. :)

i'm still on the fence about recovering our current couches or having one built for me and having that covered in the fabric i have. see, i've got in my mind's eye a living room setup consisting of a couch that's a wide semi-circle facing the fireplace/tv-above-the-mantel (oh! did i tell you that chris and i bought an LCD teevee last weekend? we've got it perched on the fireplace mantel until we do the massive project of rebuilding the chimney and creating a wall of built-in bookshelves with a cabinet to encase the tv), and flanked on either side by (possibly slipper) chairs covered in a reddish/berryish leather (which will bring out the reds in the couch fabric). an ottoman/coffee table (with built-in storage) which one could put one's feet up on and use for more seating would center the group, right in front of the fireplace. see, the living room is weird in that the furniture has to be in the center of the room for traffic-flow (and lack of much wall between the living and dining rooms). and although our current couch and loveseat work all right, facing each other on either side of the fireplace, i just can't help but think that my dreamed-up arrangement would create a far more cohesive and unique "look" for the room, besides being ultimately more useable.

i've also been toying with the idea of painting patterns on the walls in the bathrooms, and using wallpaper scraps to create a vintage botany-esque scene on at least one wall in the guest room. future projects... :)

after a bitter disappointment when home depot ran out of the wrought-iron, 7-piece outdoor dining set that i had my heart set on (i thought they wouldn't be restocking it since it's "seasonal" product and was so heavily discounted), i was overjoyed to discover yesterday that they'd restocked it, that it was still on super-sale, and that they offered free shipping for it. so we snatched a set up right away. yaaaaaaaaaaay! i'm SO excited about it.....now we just need to finish the dining pavilion so we have somewhere to put it once it arrives! haha

last night while on a dash to home depot (i should get a discount there, seriously!) for a construction stapler, i decided to check out their lighting section to see if they had any decent wall sconces in stock -- and they did! they were only ~$26 each, and they look really frickin' good if i do say so myself. hehe and i'm glad i bought them, too, because, although the dirt-moving guy was supposed to meet my stepdad at our house to move the last "bit" of our dirt mountain and the smaller sand-hill to the backyard, he no-call/no-showed (again). so the sconces were a good way to cheer my dahlink up -- he really wanted something on the wall besides the fugly temporary construction lights we had before. :)

since i hadn't done a very good job spraypainting the curtain hooks for the dining room wednesday night and therefore couldn't install them last night (had to wait for them to dry all over again), i worked on my room (at long last). i got all the trim re-painted, and then decided to have a go at painting over the beige walls with my van-dyke-brown glaze. i got one wall (mostly) done, and part of another, and then brushed it with big, swooping brushstrokes. and i was VERY pleasantly surprised to discover that now, when the light catches the glaze, it literally *sparkles* along the brushstrokes, with a golden gleam. it didn't have that effect in the living room, so having the beige as a basecoat must be causing it, but it looks SO FRICKIN COOL!!! i have to buy more glaze and van-dyke-brown paint tonight to finish the rest of the beige walls, and i can't hardly wait. i think i'm going to coat the red walls with some clear glaze, too, and brush them, too, to give them some depth -- they're awfully flat now (especially compared to the newly-textured other walls), and they constantly look dusty for some reason (ugh!). my room is gonna be SO FRACKIN COOL by the time i'm done.

AND i thought of a really cool thing to do in the guest room: i'm going to turn the daybed so that its back is along the west wall, centered on the window and facing the doorway. then i'm going to make floor-to-ceiling curtains that span the length of the wall, draping them over the bedframe a la a canopy, creating a haven-like feeling and *just* opening on the window, so it feels more intimate and makes the window seem larger. then, on the walls, i'm going to paint a design in green that will sort of frame the prints that i'm going to hang in there. i think this arrangement will really open up the quite-small space of the room, while at the same time create a cozy little nook for relaxing on the daybed -- plus, it'll look *so* inviting when one peeps in the doorway! :)

chris says he likes my ideas for painting in the master bedroom, so i'm going to start paint-shopping for the *perfect* aubergine color, even though we won't be able to actually *buy* the stuff until probably the next pay-period, haha. weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

so this has been on my mind lately.....i painted 2.5 of the walls in my room a deep, crimson red, and the remaining ones the same beige as is in the hallways &etc. the funny thing is, ever since i did this, i've been avoiding my room like the plague -- even to the point that chris has to nag me to finish the touch-up work on the trim &etc. the furniture's still shoved into the middle of the room, and i just never go in there unless i absolutely have to. so i've been thinking that, since i'm so enamored of the chocolate linen treatment that i just completed on the living room walls, perhaps i'll repeat the treatment on the currently-beige walls in my room. i'm thinking that that will not only balance the weight of the red, but also warm up the space, and the texturing will be a neat addition. i don't think the room would become too dark because it's got two large windows in there in addition to the white ceiling. and whatever artwork and shelving i put up can be framed in white (like the trim) to keep things lightened up. and bronze lighting. :-)

also, i'm thinking of doing a similar brush-treatment in our bedroom, in eggplant glaze over the current (*blah*) beige paint, except i'd only brush vertically so that it's not a complete copy of the living room's look. (single-direction brushing gives the paint a look rather like that grasscloth wallpaper that i like so well in ralph-lauren-style homes.) i think the eggplant would really compliment the wood furniture we've got, and we could keep the space warm by adding dark-bronze lighting fixtures and colorful botanical art on the walls. the eggplant will also go perfectly with both of our sets of bedding, we can continue that color in accents in the master bathroom, it will compliment the living room's brown, and it wouldn't be too "girly" a color for chris.

just so chris and i can have an idea of how many people to expect, could our friends here please comment as to whether they think they'll come to our housewarming party this saturday? we'd really appreciate it.

in case you need it, here's chris's party webpage, which contains a link of a map to the house.

thanks!



(x-posted to my personal LJ)

well, it took 4.5 hours last night, but i got the living room finished. and it looks FABULOUS! the wall treatment even makes our sofas look better -- less "relic-from-the-early-'90s"-ish (haha) -- and they'll *really* pop once they're wearing their new slipcovers (i couldn't resist holding the fabric up to the freshly-painted wall to check. me=nerd). i'm hobbling about quite a bit this morning -- my ankles apparently quite dislike being used to clamber up and down ladders for long stretches of time -- but my new sneakers and a couple excedrins are helping alleviate that. :-)

chris doesn't want to take pictures of the completed room until we can put the furniture back in place (which i won't allow until tomorrow night at the earliest so the glaze has the utmost time to dry in this freakishly humid (though central-air-conditioned inside, thank the gods) weather), so in the meantime, here are a couple teasers:





here's a shot of our new barstools, too, which i bought at target a couple weekends ago. though chris wouldn't let me paint the wood black, to match the kitchen better (which i now agree with -- it helps create a visual transition to the living room's brown tones, especially since they're right in the kitchen/living room doorway), i'll be re-covering the seats with our fancy new striped fabric before saturday's party. :-)

ay, dios mio, i'm SO FRICKIN' EXHAUSTED. and that's after only one late night of work (i didn't go to bed until 2:00 a.m.). *sigh*

after getting home late, eating dinner later, and walking the dogs even later, i started the living room painting project: applying a dark-chocolate glaze to the walls and then brushing it *just so*, so that it looks like linen when finished. and although it's a LOT of work, the "even" sections i did last night look FABULOUS and i can hardly wait to see the finished room when i'm completely done tonight. seriously, it's just so comforting to the eyeballs; it even softens the kitchen's green walls. MUCH better than the blank, flat creamy-white walls. and it doesn't hurt that the new color will look absolutely *stunning* with the fabric i'm going to use for the sofa slipcovers. *swoon*

chris has been working his arse off in the master bathroom, making it presentable. he's scrubbed the shower and bathtub to within an inch of their lives, removing all the grout, dirt, caulk, and other miscellaneous muck from them -- they now look better than they did when we first bought the things! he's also caulked all the baseboards and windows and repainted the trim, so that's all gorgeous now. and he took a razor-blade-scraper to the inside and outside of both windows, and the result is simply stunning -- the glass is actually literally *sparkling* now. :) he also put a line of silicone caulk where the bathroom tile meets the hallway's hardwood flooring, so that looks more finished now. so now all we need is the shower door, and that bathroom will be done! (...except for moving the sinks over and hiding their plumbing, but that's a future project. and there's also the decorating, but, again, future project. haha)

in other decorating news, i ordered an old 2006 calendarbook from the new york botanical garden that has full-page, color copies of antique botanical drawings in it (the sort with latin and german descriptions), and it arrived yesterday. and the drawings are SO perfect! i can hardly wait to start framing them and hanging them all over the house. hehehe speaking of framing things, i need to get our "found in the walls" stuff framed and hung as well. hopefully before the party, so we can share them all, but we'll see. so much to do!!!

so while chris was working inside last night (doing the previous night's dishes because i can't immerse my julienned finger, the gallant fellow that he is), i decided to get some exercise and start hauling more dirt to the backyard for the "dining pavilion". chris saw me working and said that he wanted to help -- "help" meant making a string-line and rebuilding the wee wall i'd previously made into a perfectly-straight, perfectly-level thing (goddess bless his perfectionism!). after five wheelbarrow-loads of dirt, i achieved a blister on my thumb that made any more shoveling impossible, so i hung out with chris and "art directed" his building of the house-facing wall and the steps that will go from the driveway to the "pavilion" (you can see them below at the left end of the wall -- they're quite flat, so it's kind of hard to discern them here). you know, those steps took quite a bit of work for how simple (broad, flat, and *heavy*) they seem!

i have to say, it's looking pretty good!

i bought some new outdoor seating wednesday (on clearance at lowes while i was *really* shopping for fungicide), and chris and i assembled it and put it on the deck last night. ain't it purty? :)





also, here's a picture of where the "dining pavilion" is going to be:

here's the rock wall that chris built last night -- ain't it beeyootiful?




and, remember my post about my oh-so-"martha" bulletin board? chris finally took a picture of it:

in gardening news, i discovered a nest of wasps residing in the front-side yard. how did i discover the nest, you ask? well, that would be because i slammed my hoe right down in their front door, which REALLY pissed them off -- enough so that one of them stung me, just above the inside of my elbow on my right arm. *that* was pleasant, lemme tell you. after emitting a shriek that echoed down the block, i fled inside (unpursued, thank the gods) and, having never been stung before and thus unexperienced in such events, immediately googled what the first aid is. i'd thought at first that i'd been stung by a bee because the swarming bugs were so small. but there was no stinger left behind to remove (a key ingredient of beesting), and bees apparently don't nest in the ground -- wasps, hornets, and yellowjackets do. after doing all my reading about wasps, their lifecycles, and their habits, i feel kind of bad that i'm going to have to exterminate them, because they're apparently *very* helpful creatures to have around, what with all the "eww"-type insects that are their daily bread, but their house is right next to where we want to pour our patio in the frontyard, and right in the middle of where i want to build flowerbeds. i can't have the little buggers getting pissed at me every time i want to do a little gardening, so they have to go.

at least we still have the bumblebees and honeybees (somewhere).

tonight, chris gave me a major surprise when i got home. he'd spent the entire evening building the retaining wall around our deck for the fill-dirt that we're going to put under the under-deck area up to grade and keep water from damaging the foundation. and it's friggin' AMAZING. it's got the perfect amount of curve to it, and he tapered its setback from the driveway, and its taper down to the ground on the south end, *perfectly*. he gave it a longer strip of setback from the driveway than i'd been thinking of doing, and i'm glad, because that'll give more space for "softening" greenery and "error room" while we're learning how to get in and out of the garage without hitting the house (*cringe*). seriously, i have no idea how he did it -- those are native sandstone rocks, and they're BIG and VERY HEAVY. i'm starting to suspect that he's got some sort of superhero power that he's keeping secret from me. we'll post a picture very soon.

no rest for the wicked non-wall-builder that i am, though -- because of my landscaping "vision" and because of the recent availability of some freshly-unearthed rock that leon knows about, he's renting a pickup truck for chris and me (he gets better rates than we can) so that chris and i can go get *more* rock to create the other flowerbeds, retaining walls, and the like. although it's back-breaking, hot, sweaty labor, i'm SO glad that the rock is free for the taking since the cost of renting the truck and paying for all the gas to go back and forth between the "quarry" and our house is going to be quite enough for our pocketbooks. :P 'specially since we're going to have to order more topsoil to fill all these beds &etc in. yeesh. at least i can take my time with the planting! haha

howdy folks! this is chris posting this time...

a really odd thing happened today. i was out back futzing with the deck when i hear this, "sorry, we don't mean to be snoopy, but..." it was the original owners of our house, they were in the neighborhood and were walking by to see their old house from the outside.

the last time season or i saw them, it was before we actually started any work. it was really odd meeting them because we were about to tear apart their house. i gave them a tour of the inside of the house and they were blown away. they said they could barely recognize the place.

in other house-related news, our fill dirt came.



i have an insane amount of shoveling to do tomorrow. the good news is soon we'll have the back yard they way we want it and one of the huge things on our to-do list will be taken care of.

so if you're bored tomorrow and have your own shovel, please stop by!

my lunchtime drorrings of what i want to do to the backyard (lately):

this first one is an overall plan for the backyard. there's the fence from the bottom of the deck steps to the front corner of the garage, with a gate in it. there's the odd little area where the driveway creates a "patio" at the side of the garage, where we'll put the firebowl and a couple adirondack-style chairs. there's the "outdoor room", with a table and chairs, and a water fountain (hehehe), backed by the hedge.

---

this next drorring is a look at the fence/gate if you were standing in the driveway looking south. i want to make the posts the same height as those at the corners of the deck. you'll see why in the next picture.

---

remember those odd little things sticking out of the fence in the first picture? well, here's what they are. i want to take the concept from the gate i posted waaaay back and incorporate that by creating hanging flowerpot arches along the fence. i want to do three because odd numbers of things are always better. they'll be the same height as the deck posts so that (1) there will be room to walk beneath the plants without hitting one's head and (2) there will be a sense of visual continuity. they'll also help give more "oomph" to the fence, giving the enclosed section of the backyard more definition.

---

finally, here's an elevation of the "outdoor room" as though you're looking at it from the bottom of the deck stairs (without all the other stuff in front).




whaddaya think?

i was talking to the the family on the 4th about the house, progress, &etc., and felt kinda guilty because we hadn't updated in quite a while. we've now been living in the house for a month (!), and things are coming along. we're learning the joys of having a garbage disposal and central air, and i'm thoroughly enjoying having the laundry room on the same level as the master bedroom. chris got the mirrors mounted in the upstairs bathroom, and the medicine cabinets in the downstairs one (quite a chore which he and leon pulled off splendidly).

i cut down the holly tree (the one on the right in the userpic) in the front flowerbed -- yay for sawsalls, so now there's no bushiness covering up the front of the house...no dead, dying, stinky bushiness. yay! chris had some fun chopping up the stumps and digging them out, so now the flowerbed's all ready for replanting. i'm really excited about it, and i'm sure that the flowers that've been waiting patiently next to the bed are excited as well. :)

last weekend, chris also surprised me by cleaning the house out of all boxes and construction remnants -- he said he wanted to not be embarrassed if someone called and said they wanted to come over. haha so now it really feels more like we live there instead of just squatting in someone's construction zone. :) now we just need to get those boxes and bags of stuff to goodwill and we'll in really good shape!

of the fabric i ordered, two bolts came in. they're the "accent" fabrics, though (one is striped and one is a lovely textured red), so i haven't been able to create any of the drapes or start on the sofa-recovering yet. HOWEVER! i did complete a very marthastewart-esque project: we have a couple of cheapie bulletin boards, and long ago chris painted the frames black, so i took one and covered the corkboard in the striped fabric and reassembled it, and then hung it vertically in the kitchen on the blank wall behind the breakfast bar. then i hung our little silver "mailboxes" next to it, so it's now a highly-functioning wall, and a place for us to dump our stuff besides the countertop. :P it really gives the kitchen a "lived-in" feeling, which always makes me feel better (i'm SUCH the nester, given the time, money, and materials). i'm eventually going to get some nicer wood to make a nicer frame for the bulletin board, which i'll also paint black, but that's a future project.

chris cleared the leftover gutters out of the backyard and has stored them out of sight behind the garage, and has now found a scrap-metal guy who will pick them all up on monday. wooo! now we just need to find someone who will *buy* the old windows from us, and haul them away themselves, and we'll have that all cleaned up.

i've come up with a fabulous new landscaping plan for the backyard; i'll do some drawings over lunch and share them. methinks the plan will incorporate some decorative fencing from the deck to the garage, and hedging along the rear property line (i'm thinking either bamboo or korean boxwood), and will allow me to create the "outdoor room" we so badly need for entertaining purposes (we're going to get a high-top table set to put on the deck, but there's not room for anything other than that). my "outdoor room" idea should be able to hold a 6-person table and chairs, methinks. it'll be defined by the fact that it'll be a level area, raised about a foot or so (enough for one step up) from the slope of the yard/driveway, and bordered on the front (house-facing) edge by the same sort of rocks which we're using to create the retaining wall under the deck. along the south edge of the backyard, where the neighbor's fence is, i'm going to created a formal, raised flowerbed backed by climbers. not only will this give the slope under her fence purpose, but it'll create seating. i'm also thinking that we won't have any grass in the backyard; what isn't dedicated flowerbeds will be covered by that dark-dark mulch. i think that will really complement the driveway's colors, and we won't have to worry about trying to keep grass growing in that mostly-shady space. my reasoning for installing a hedge instead of a fence along the rear property line is that we won't have to worry about setback limitations and so can USE and INCORPORATE the space behind the garage instead of leaving it outside the fencing/hedging and therefore mostly inaccessible. i'm really excited about it. :D

well, we finally closed on our refinance loan last thursday. this means, as chris put it, that we're finally out of "construction loan" phase and into "the bank owns my arse for the next 17-30 years" phase. weeeeeeeeeeeee! we're official! hahaha

( had some excitement over the weekend... )

i'm starting on the "filling out" of the house now. i've been buying super-cheap baby plants at lowes, and some good topsoil, and if it's not too disgusting tonight i'm going to start taming and replanting the front formal flowerbed. i'm actually really excited about it, to have at least one thing that will look cared-for and on it's way to being "finished." :) also, i got the fabrics ordered for the window treatments in the kitchen, dining room, and living room ordered, and the fabric i'm going to use to re-cover the sofa and loveseat as well. and they were all half-price! :D they could arrive all at once, or piecemeal between this wednesday and up to 6 weeks from now -- i'm kinda hoping they arrive all at once, since two of the fabricks are going to be used for "accents" on/with the other pieces.

chris has been working hard on the inside of the house -- he's gotten his own room entirely done now, including creating a "guitar wall":


he also got the guest room all done, and assembled the daybed. (and now that i can do laundry again without fear of causing the Next Great Flood, i'll wash up the bedding and make it look all purty!) yesterday he spent the morning assembling and putting up the lovely mirrors and glass shelves which go under them in the upstairs bathroom (pictures to come), and finished just in time to show them off to my dad and stepmom who came for a visit.

we're also getting dirt soon, which is very exciting because, once that's delivered, we can start the "real" landscaping. and there's a LOT to be done, according to what i've been plotting. (remember this?) i'm imagining a mixture of formal and informal beds (some incorporating rock that we've brought in from the 'burbs) arranged around a series of patios and at least one water feature (lowe's currently has a really pretty, simple-but-elegant, tiered fountain that i'd like to use, for one). lots of space for interesting plants (especially since we've got an interesting mixture of completely-shady to mostly-sunny spaces scattered throughout the yards), conversation/social areas, and space for my "yarden workspace". there's also going to be some fencing and arbors incorporated, all made of light-green-painted wood, methinks. that way they'll blend in with the plants which will be growing up/on/around them. the fencing will also give the puppies room to play and socialize with whoever's in the yard without having to be confined to the deck or tied out. (i have a *major* issue with tying dogs out, which i won't get into here.)

ETA: i talked to the plumber over lunch to see what he encountered and whether the problem had been fixed. he said that indeed, the blockage was just beyond the bend in that main pipe that runs to the big street sewer pipe, which leon couldn't get to with his crowbar last night, so the plumber ran a snake 100' (which is very thorough of him considering that the pipe in the basement is probably only 30' from the street line!), vaccuumed it all out, and then ran a bunch of water through the line to make sure it was all cleared out. i'm not looking forward to seeing the bill, which he left on the dining room table, but i'm glad the problem's likely taken care of for good now (seeing as how we don't have any more loose sand or concrete in the basement anymore to get into the line! haha).

tonight, leon's going to come over and help us mount the lovely medicine cabinets in the master bathroom. it's going to be a bit of a project because there are pipes directly in the way of where the screws need to go. hopefully we won't have to go to the extent of cutting out the sheetrock, inserting a board between the studs, re-sheetrocking, patching, and painting, and then mounting the medicine cabinets. ugh!

tomorrow, *knock on wood,* we're supposed to get the money from our refinance. then we can finally purchase a door for the shower and get that finished, and then we can use the master bathroom at last instead of having to hike all the way to the second floor to shower! weeeeeeeeeeeeee! :D i'm also looking forward to some long, luxurious soaks in the superdeep tub in there. :)

so we STILL haven't closed on the refinance ("endloan") for the house. this is the step that's supposed to pay off our construction loan and provide us with the money to do the little "sprucing up" things we wanted to do, i.e., build the frontyard patio, landscape, buy fabric for window treatments and slipcovering, etc. the f*ing bank's inspector keeps coming back to us with little ridiculous demands and lists &etc that MUST be done in order for us to close. she's been doing this for over a month now, which has cost us $1400 in interest payment on the construction loan, and will probably cost us another similar amount if we have to pay the may interest amount because of the endloan bank's taking so long to close this f*ing deal.

the latest demand? we have to have a dishwasher. not just bought, but installed. why, you ask? well, see, there's a "hole" in the cabinetry for one, so even though it's not required by ANY sort of code held by ANY regulatory agency, there must be a dishwasher in that space.
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so yesterday i spent a good hour finding a well-reviewed, on-sale dishwasher on the sears website, locating a store that had one in stock, and organizing my dad and stepdad so that dad could pick up the machine this morning and deliver it to our house, where stepdad would help him unload and install it.

but, even though i made a separate call to sears and requested that the salesman put the requisite power cord with the machine so that it's all together and ready for pickup, he failed to do so. so now leon has to go get one, along with the powercord for the garbage disposal. *sigh* i just hope the damned thing works properly.

on a lighter note, i picked up our c.s.a. distribution last night, so now our fancy-schmancy new fridge has veggies in it and doesn't look so pathetic! yay! AND we even got a dozen fresh eggs from free, grass-fed, small-farm hens (they're SO SO SO tasty!), which are now happily chillin' in their special egg-compartment. hehehe

poor chris wasn't feeling well last night, and i was so worn out from officework and general stress that it gave me a horrid stomachache, so nothing much was done last night besides the purchase of the doorknobs, a new deadbolt for the backdoor that doesn't require a key to open it from the inside (which locks, by the way, have been against building code for AGES), a plunger for the toilet that was mysteriously stopped up when chris got home from work, and some gorilla glue so i can glue magnets back onto the spice cans and stick them on the fridge door with their buddies. hopefully that will work better than the superglue ("works on all materials!" pffffffffffffffft!) that i used before.

oh, also: chris has informed me that the kcp&l guy showed up this morning (not at the time requested, of course) and installed our spiffy new programmable thermostat. hooray for saving money and energy! and with a ~$300 thermostat that we got for free! :D

all right, back to work for me.