4 hours = new railing!

We are on a roll with the house in our attempt to get it ready by my birthday just a week and a half away!

Eric went around the house and replaced all the dated brass knobs with nice shiny satin nickel knobs. He also managed to fix a bunch of our doors that never closed properly.

We also managed to install some bedside reading lights that we bought a month ago. I love them as they really match our furniture and give off just enough light for reading. Perhaps some day we'll get some wires covers and paint them the wall color but for now they look great!



Of course that night (Fri) we got a call from the bank doing our refinance telling us our appraisal was all set except one thing - our deck stairs needed a railing!



I'm not sure why it wasn't addressed last year when we bought the house but alas, we said we'd have it up by Monday. A trip to Home Depot yielded all sorts of railing options and $300 (!!) later, we had all our parts.

We actually had to get up EARLY on Sunday to work on this so we could make a birthday party later in the day. (Sorry neighbors!) Neither Eric nor I have ever built a railing but somehow, after multiple broken drill bits, stripped screws, and removal of a stair tread, we had a pretty decent looking railing!



We opted not to continue the wrought iron railing around the rest of the deck in favor of this non-rust PVC type railing. Someday we want to expand the deck because for such a big house, the deck is really small! We can hardly fit a table and chairs on it.



It's still standing so I'm guessing we did a pretty decent job!

Baby Bibs

I took almost a year off from anything yarn related while we moved, bought a house, and got married. I wasn't sure my craft mojo was going to come back but apparently it has.

I crocheted these baby bibs for a knitting friend who is expecting in January.



She got TONS of baby bibs at her shower but only mine were hand-made. And despite these being made to the correct dimensions, they seem really large! But I guess with a baby, more coverage is better right?



The pattern is Blossom Bib by Coats and Clark. I did a simple crochet edging instead of the scalloped one shown. The yarn is Lily Sugar 'n Cream in Hot Blue and Sage Green with Cream edging.

With this baby project done, I am now officially in to my holiday knitting. Only a month to go!

Seeing Red

Oh hi, yes, I'm still here. We are working so hard on the house that I hardly have time to post! You may remember we are trying to finish up by the 1 year mark and that is Dec 19, less than 5 wks away! But somehow we decided to challenge ourselves and see what could be done before my birthday and that is less than 3 wks away! We've made great progress though...

Last I left off we were painting the sun room. Well that was quickly finished and we jumped right in to the kitchen and then right in to the living room. Unfortunately all that painting meant moving our crap from room to room and now it's all spread out in the sun room so you will have to wait longer for those pictures.

However, I do have a wonderful before and after to show you - the living room!

Here is the before... I can't even apologize for the glare because that is not my camera - no my friends, that is iridescent paint around the entire room including the trim.



The paint also had some sort of "dripping" texture which means that Eric had to sand down each and every wall as well as the ceiling which had cracks from the house settling. I will also point out the dainty lace curtains, dated brass fixtures, and stencil over the fireplace. Actually the stencil wasn't so bad, it was green with purple accents (either thistles or pineapples depending who you ask).



Here is the after!



Despite my intentions of taking pictures during the day, I only have night photos. You can see the mess in our sunroom through the doorway. Hide your eyes!



We painted the walls and all the trim including the windows. We replaced the worn window sashes with satin nickel. Then we installed these fancy new sconces. Like, we had to special order them from Home Depot. Swanky!



And another shot.



The paint is Crimson by Benjamin Moore in Eggshell Finish. It is really the perfect red and warms up the room. This was a room we never went in to except to store all our junk and now we always visit this room just to look around!

So far we've moved in some furniture we had and laid down a braided rug. We decorated the mantle a bit and are now trying to decide on curtains.

With my birthday looming we've decided no more new projects... only finishing ones we've started which somehow, seems to be a lot!