Hi. We own our home. We’ve lived here 2 1/2 years, and love it, SO STOP SENDING YOUR CHRISTMAS CARDS TO MR & MRS BRADLEY.

I’m sure they were nice people and all, but they haven’t lived here for several years, and you obviously aren’t close enough with them to have gotten their new address.

This morning I knew exactly what had happened before Christa even said anything.

There was a gasp, a plop, and a scream to alert me that Christa’s engagement ring had ended up in the toilet.

Too much information? Don’t worry, I fashioned a hook out of a coat hanger while Christa kept watch on the bowl to make sure the ring didn’t go anywhere so I wouldn’t have to go noodling for the ring bare handed.

I spent a couple hours outside doing some yard work today, so I though I’d show off the work we did last weekend plus today…

Front of the house

Carport patio

Monty’s playroom

Somehow I managed to get sweat on the camera. Hey, it’s hard work taking photos and posting them on your blog.

Most of you probably won’t care, but yesterday the planets were in alignment & all the laws of quantum physics were broken; I managed to change the oil & degunk the lawn mower carburetor to get it started after winter storage… IN ONE PULL!

Any of you who know me know I one of the least mechanically inclined people on the planet, only marginally ahead of the dude below.

I never thought of myself as the must-have-a-nice-yard type, but this blast of winter after the 2 weeks of warm weather is devastating the flowers that came up already in the flowerbeds out front of the house…

Have a great Easter!

Holy crap thats a big wardrobe! Thank you Ikea for the new clean space in the basement.

It took me 4 hours last night to assemble this monster, and a couple hours tonight to rearrange stuff in the basement to get this beast to its new home.

What do you think??

Before

After

Sunday I was feeling like I needed to accomplish something constructive around the house, so I convinced Christa we should goto Ikea. Really it was the mere mention of Ikea and she said yes, but in my mind I was the one who did the convincing…

We had a few items picked out that we were looking at, and most involved storage in one way or another. After cruising the store in record time, we ended up with 2 major purchases: a storage hutch & a 3 door wardrobe.

Last night I assembled the hutch destined for the upstairs “reading room”. We needed something fairly low since the ceiling slopes down, and something within a certain measurement to fit in the existing space layout. This model fit our requirements perfectly. It’s got a couple of storage drawers as well as some big shelves inside the main doors. I think the idea is to store some of the nice drinkware we have like wine glasses, martini glasses, champagne flutes (no we aren’t alcoholics…), and our nicer china set & cutlery we anticipate getting soon to help alleviate some space issues we are having in the kitchen.

I think that’s a perfect addition to the room; makes the area seem more whole instead of just being empty space where we had Bailey’s litter boxes.

Up next: IKEA Trip Part 2: Holy crap thats a big wardrobe!

I love to start projects. And though I’m not that great at finishing them, starting them is always a blast. My latest project involves one my favorite things: food.

Usually, we make a weekly menu for all our meals and go to the supermarket once a week. We then buy all the produce, pastas, and breads that we’ll will need for the coming week. Sometimes this works out well, but most of the time, we stray from the menu, either by eating at a restaurant or by deciding late in the week that we really don’t feel like what we planned for after all. This results in another trip to the store, an expensive trip to a restaurant, and/or wilted produce and unused items.

Now, we don’t have a big kitchen. In fact, it’s tiny. Matter of fact, one trip to Costco and we’re busting out of the cupboard seams for storage.

So Christa had a brilliant idea last weekend to use an empty area under the stairs/back door landing in the basement as a place for a pantry & additional storage.

Currently the area is filled with random boxes, leftover crap, stuff not touched since we moved in, and 4 inches of dirt, dust, and leaves/pine needles from all the shoes walking downstairs from the back door.

So I plan on tackling this project in a few steps:

1. Clean, sort, and toss anything sitting untouched since the move that is still under the stairs
2. Close in the steps leading into the basement to prevent the dirt/grime buildup in the pantry area
3. Curtain or close off one side of the stairs to hide all the junk from my office area
4. Decide on purchased pantry storage unit that will fit the area or build shelving

Step 1 should begin within the next few weeks. I’ll try to stay updated with pictures as I go along.

Before | 12/19/06

This weekend I tackled a project around the house which I’ve been meaning to do since we moved in, because despite living near 8 Mile we both didn’t like our ghetto humidifier drain we had in the basement (ie. a bucket).

I finally worked up the courage to install a pump and about 30 feet of tubing to get the run-off from the furnace in the middle of the basement to the sink in a corner.

Minus a slight miscalculation of the amount of tubing I’d need, the project went off without a hitch. No more bucket emptying for me this winter!!