Archive for 2010

i'll finish up the year in review today with the second half of the year, see part 1 here.

we also painted some picture frames white, framed a few of our favorite vacation photos, and hung them in the guest room.

august:

in august my parents found and bought me two bertoia chairs, and we traveled to detroit for our friends' wedding.

and got to spend some time with our bestest friends.

a few weeks after that, we traveled to cincinnati for another wedding, stopping in french lick, indiana along the way for a quick vacation.

we finished up the busy month by finally finishing our thrift store dresser project.

september:

in september i found out that i had passed my 4th architectural registration exam, i am more than half way done! we also started cleaning out and painting our basement, participated in the neighborhood yard sale, and found a great mirror for the entryway.

we also finally finished the buffet.

mike also joined a rugby team and had is first rugby injury the same weekend our friends came to visit.

october:

the bertoia chairs from my parents finally made it to our house, and they look great!

mike ran a half marathon,

we bought new sconces for our room,

and we begin looking for new finishes for our fireplace.

at the end of the month, we decided that it was finally time to order new hardwood flooring for the entire first floor of our house.

and then we started to panic...

november:

the month of november was all about the floors. we started the demo,

started working on leveling the floor,

the flooring arrived and we kept working on leveling,

and installing the underlayment.

then we started to put things back together, starting with tiling the fireplace.

by mid november we were able to start installing the new flooring.

we were able to get most of the new flooring installed in the living room and dining room before taking a break for thanksgiving.

december:

after celebrating thanksgiving with our families, we started working on the floor project again. we continued to level and put down underlayment in the hallway and entry.

we also got our christmas tree and did some decorating (around the construction).

mid month it snowed, and i took a break from working on the floors to play with the dogs.

we begin looking for new toilets, sinks, and finishes for the half bath.

we had to fix our air compressor,

and were able to install new flooring in the hallway, and start the kitchen and entry.

and that's where we are today!

over the last few days, a few other bloggers have been posting a recap of the last year. i wanted to do something similar, it's nice to have reminder of what all was accomplished. last year i did a series of "best of" posts, but this year i think that i will break it down by month.

january:
i started off january by finishing up a crochet project that i had been working on - a blanket for the guest room.

we also (finally!) finished the baseboards in the office and installed the curtains that had been in our dining room.

at the end of the month, we debated paint samples and started painting the den.


february:
i debated and debated what to do with the den.

we got a lot of snow, which had me dreaming of maui.


we also worked on one of my favorite projects, a diy light for the dining room.


march:
in march i posted a tutorial on how we made our dining room light fixture, part 1 and part 2.

we custom cut and installed 3 roller blinds


we traveled to chicago for saint patrick's day and to eureka springs for a friends' wedding.



and, i finally started taking my architectural registration exams! i took the first one at the beginning of march, and found out that i had passed only a few weeks later. march was a busy month!

april:
in april we organized our guest room and extra closet... just in time for a visit from my parents.

while visiting, my mom helped me make a cushion for the bench in our entryway


and then my parents helped us finish up our shelf project in the den.

in april i also ran a 5k and traveled to cleveland to visit a good friend.

may:
the weather got nicer, i kept running, and started planting a few flowers outside.


i bought a buffet on craigslist
and and thought about painting it. a lot.

i finished making another blanket for a friend who had a baby.

i spent a lot of time working or studying...

i organized some of my books by color, like a rainbow.

and ended the month with a real rainbow.


june:
in june we did very little work on the house. instead, we traveled to ohio for mike's brother's high school graduation,
looked at some new hardware for the buffet, spent some time at the pool, and i bought myself a new netbook.

i also took and passed my second architectural registration exam.

i think i'll divide this up into 2 posts and do the second half of the year tomorrow. when i started writing this i wasn't sure that i would have enough to break it up by month, but we did a lot at the beginning of the year!

we kept working on the floor! it's probably for the best since our kitchen doesn't really have a floor right now and also is serving as a holding area for the many floor tools. no one wants contstruction dust in their christmas cookies... don't let this picture trick you though, the progress ends with what you see. we have a few more boards left to install in front of the basement door before the hallways is done, and then we will finish up the entry, and end with the kitchen and half bath. we're getting there... slowly...

the picture above was taken from the entry - it is so so nice to have a continuous floor that runs from the front of the house to the back. please note that we did not install a transition at the kitchen door - we were able to get it to be level and run the floor through. this makes me happy.

in other news, we bought a sink and a toilet on sunday. most people go christmas shopping the few weeks before christmas, we go toilet shopping :-) at least i didn't let mike put the toilet under the tree! it's bad enough we now have a toilet in the entryway.


i wrote a post on sunday about the bathroom sink. we actually had a coupon for lowes that we had to use by sunday, so we went ahead and bought the toilet and the pedestal sink. all of you seemed to like the idea of the pedestal sink, and i liked the price and the fact that i wouldn't have to find/make a vanity.

i still can't find a picture of the sink online, but here is a picture of the picture on the box. yep, that's the best i can do.

it's a simple pedestal, so hopefully it will still look ok with a more modern faucet. i'm going to have to go back and rethink some of the other finishes in the room (lighting, mirror, paint, etc) but i am going to have to make some decisions pretty quickly, hopefully we will be working on the bathroom soon after the first of the year!

maybe i should put a big red bow on the toilet box. you know, since we're decorating around the construction and all.