Bathroom and Pantry

Have I emphasized that we're crazy enough yet? Well, one thing that we knew we wanted to do was to remodel the bathrooms like we did at the old house. Nothing really wrong with them, but they were all pretty basic - standard cabinets, outdated vanity tops, contractor grade finishes, and so on. Well, when we started looking at flooring, we realized that the best time to redo the bathroom on the first floor was now... while the flooring was being torn out anyway and painting was happening. So we ripped out the existing vanity and toilet, let the flooring and painting happen, and then (with the amazing help of my dad and Leslie's dad) installed a new vanity, faucet, toilet, light, mirror, hardware, and everything else. We still have to put up some towel bars (it's a full bath, so need something for bath towels I guess) and could probably stand to replace the shower fixtures with ORB instead of chrome as well, but those changes aren't urgent. The whole thing really came together well - we got the vanity and light from Wayfair, faucet and toilet from Lowe's, new vanity hardware from Menards, and mirror from Target. We think it's a pretty cool looking bathroom and was a nice little project we could finish pretty quickly.

Another quick project was the pantry. One of the things we reeeallly wanted was a nice, big pantry. Boom, got it. But... all they had in there were some of those cheapo wire shelves (actually I don't know how expensive they are... all I know is I don't care for them). So we immediately ripped those out and had the painters patch and paint in the pantry so we'd have a blank slate to work with. I then got a bunch of shelf brackets and prefinished shelving material at Menards and built shelves to our own specs (22" from floor to shelf 1, 16" from shelf 1 to shelf 2, then 12" per shelf up to shelf 6, which is then 16" off the ceiling - the top shelf is also larger and is for holding less-used, big items like an extra slow-cooker, an electric roaster, an ice cream machine, etc.). We then got some spice rack things from IKEA and put those up on one of the smaller walls to hold all our various spices and rubs and whatnot. I then finished it off with some pegboard which will end up holding things like aprons, brooms, and probably my grill/smoker stuff (spatula, tongs, smoker hooks... that sort of thing). It's a simple pantry, but man... I'm proud if it and am so glad to have all that space now. It's pretty great.

Of course we've been up to a few other things... but they aren't quite done yet, so I'll save them for another post later. But hopefully that's at least a bit of what's been going on over here these days. Thanks and see you next time!

Here We Go For Round Two

I know we're crazy people. We just finished pretty much everything we wanted to do on our house, so time to sit back and enjoy it, right? Not for us, apparently. We decided to start over with a new house! Because we're crazy people!

Yep, that's right. We've moved and have sold the old house. I don't think the plan was ever to stay there permanently, so once Owen came along and we wrapped up most of our projects we decided to start looking. It took a few months and seeing a good number of houses to find the right one, but we eventually found what we were looking for. Plus we're still in the same town, which has made the transition a lot easier since we can still use the same grocery store, daycare, restaurants, etc. The new house has so many of the things we were looking for - lots of living space for entertaining, a big garage, a basement, plenty of bedrooms, and a nice yard - plus a few bonus features like dual HVAC systems and a patio and swing set in the backyard. It's a definite upgrade from our last place and we're really glad to be living in our new home. More info on the house is in the newly-created "New House" page, which you can navigate to from the sidebar on the right (or the drop-down menu on mobile).

The front of our new house!

The house was in fantastic shape when we bought it. No big structural issues to fix immediately, just some cosmetic things that would need to be done eventually. But of course, being that it's us, we couldn't just move in. Oh no, we have projects! We have plans! So we started off with a couple tasks before even moving in. The big ones were new flooring downstairs and new paint throughout the house, which are much easier to do without furniture and stuff in the way. We went with LVP from a local flooring company and had them install it for the entire first floor. They did a great job and we love the look of it. We figured the durability / cleanability will be nice to have in our main living areas where dogs, cats, and kiddos will constantly be running around. As for the paint, we went with a greige for most of the walls (with some green and blue accents walls too), and then white for ceilings/trim. We had a great company out of Lebanon do the work and they were fantastic! The two of them got the whole house (seriously, the whole house - walls, ceilings, trim, doors, closets, everything!) done in just about a week. The results are fantastic and we really like how it all came together, especially when comparing it to what the house looked like before.

Here's a good "before" picture to give you an idea of what were working with

It's subtle, but going from cream to white on the trim somehow still makes a big difference

Flooring partway through the install

The finished product! Paint, floor, and even door hardware and light fixtures!

Another two house-wide changes we made were to install new window blinds and change out the door hardware. The best time to do both was right away, as all the window treatments and knobs had to come off for painting anyway. So we jumped right in with new faux wood Levolor blinds, replaced all the old brassy knobs with the bronze Juno style from Kwikset, and all the hinges with bronze as well. These were pretty simple changes, but we think it makes a big difference. The existing blinds were in pretty rough shape - bent and broken, dirty and mismatched - so the new ones help give the house a clean look to go with the new floor and paint job. And the oil-rubbed bronze really pops against the freshly-painted, extra-white doors and trim. And that's just a few more ways for us to add a little more of our own style to the house.

All the blinds in our sizes that Lowe's had in stock... somehow we required multiple trips to get enough

We did intentionally put a lever on one door, the garage entrance, since it's easier to open when your hands are full

Past that, we've mostly focused on the first floor. So, in keeping with the idea of small changes that just help bring everything together, we also replaced a lot of receptacles and switches that were ivory, almond, or any other color that wasn't white with new white ones. And, since we were replacing them anyway, put in tamper resistant outlets cuz you know baby boy gunna be putting stuff in there. Yeah, it's not an exciting change, but it's still part of the process. We also replaced all the light fixtures on the first floor (and a few on the second floor). So new oil-rubbed bronze to match the new hardware and whatnot. Well ok, we still haven't gotten around to putting up the new fixture in the dining room (mostly because we still haven't gotten around to getting dining room furniture and stuff...), but otherwise all the other overhead lights are done now.

The other big thing I'll share for now (we've done a few other projects too, but this is already getting to be a long post) is that we've gone ahead and put up a nice fence in the backyard. This is great for Leo, who's used to having a fence and can now run around like a crazy dog, but also gives us some peace of mind for when Owen is big enough to run around out there with Leo. So yeah, it's definitely more to keep those two in than to keep anything out. It's black aluminum fence panels with a single gate on the left side, a double gate on the right, and another single gate out the back (figure we'll be chasing down a lot of stray balls and frisbees before long). We hired this out to another good local company that was great to work with and got it done so quickly (seriously, they showed up at 9am and were done by 1pm). The process was a giant pain (lots of red tape to go through for the town, county, and neighborhood HOA), but it was finally finished a few weeks ago and we love it.

The fence as seen behind the amazing playground! The dirt is where we removed a sandbox that was more swamp than sand

Ugh, sorry. Another long post, I know. So I guess I'll cut this one off here. We've got more to share on the house, because of course we've already done a few other projects... but those can wait for another post. Thanks for sticking with us and we'll see you next time!

Kitchen Refresh

It's hard to believe, but we're done making changes to our house. It's been five and a half years and we're finally finished with most everything on our list. So, having recently completed our bathroom remodel, we decided to do the only other thing we've been planning on and give the kitchen a bit of a refresh.

We kept it pretty simple for this project. Our two main changes were replacing the counters and putting in a microwave hood. For the counters, we picked out a nice white pattern of quartz at our local Menards and then had a guy they recommended install it. He did a fantastic job removing the old ones, putting in the new stuff, and even patching the back wall. We then had to do a little touch up painting and caulking the new edge. Overall, it was a pretty painless project (as we expected since we hired out the hardest part). Our contractor was done in a day and then we finished the touch up the next day. Really, it was so easy I don't know why we didn't do it earlier.

The next part, replacing the hood, was also pretty easy. While looking for a new hood we thought about maybe trying a microwave hood. The problem is that we just don't have the room there for a full-sized microwave. But, then we found something we hadn't seen before - a low profile version! It's a little larger than the old hood (not surprisingly), and sticks out more (because obviously it does), but really fits in the spot well. This was a bit more involved than the counters (since we didn't have a contractor do it), but not too bad. I removed the old hood, leaving nothing but wires coming out of a hole in the wall. Obviously this doesn't work for a microwave - we needed a plug to power it. So I drilled a hole into the cabinet above and installed a junction box and receptacle. Then I followed the microwave installation instructions, which mostly consisted of installing supports on the wall and into the upper cabinet, then making another hole in the cabinet to bring the cord up. And that was it. Boom, roasted. The microwave works like a champ, and we have so much extra room on our counters that we didn't even know what to do with it at first. Another project that we really should have done a long time ago. But oh well.

And that's about it for now. There's a lot coming up though, so stay tuned! But, until then, thanks for reading and see you next time!

Three Months, Three Trips

I've been really bad at keeping this updated... not that that's a huge surprise. Or change. But still. Sorry. So this post will be a little different. Instead of the usual in-depth post-vacation run-down, I'm just going to recap a few trips we've taken since having Owen and dump a bunch of photos on ya. So here goes.

One of the first trips we took after having the little man was to Ohio in October. We drove up to Fort Wayne to see family for Friday night, then left early Saturday morning to get to Cuyahoga Valley National Park in good time. The sky was threatening rain, so we made it a quick tour and got going. Plus the park, while nice, wasn't really that much better than Eagle Creek here in Indy. I'm glad we went, mostly because we're trying to go to all of them (gotta catch 'em all), but I wasn't really impressed. Oh well. Anyway, after regrouping at the hotel, we headed to downtown Cleveland to meet some friends who live in the area for dinner. We had food, we had beer, and we had some amazing ice cream. And then we went home the next day. The end.

Next month, we continued our tour of this great nation's parks with the Gateway Arch! Oh, also my sister lives in St. Louis, so we visited her too. We visited the arch (but didn't go up - we've done it before and it sounded like a lot of work with a baby), toured the Budweiser brewery, checked out the science center, and did a lot of good eating. My sister was a great tour guide / baby-snuggler and it was a lot of fun visiting a city Leslie and I haven't spent a lot of time in. Owen seemed to have a good time too, but I think he'll enjoy it more when he's a little order (the science center especially - so much cool stuff for kids!).

And lastly, we took a little journey to the happiest place on earth: Disney World! I'd been planning this trip for a long time... like, over a year. It was a birthday gift for Leslie, but since her birthday is in June (when she was eight months pregnant) the actual trip was in December instead. The three of us, along with Leslie's parents, drove down on Friday night and Saturday morning, hit the parks Sunday through Friday, and worked our way back north over the weekend. This gave us two days at Magic Kingdom, two days at Epcot, and a day each at Animal Kingdom and Hollywood Studios. I'm not a huge WDW fan, but it was so much fun, especially with Owen! He was just wide-eyed, taking in all the sights! It was a great trip and another thing I'm looking forward to doing with Owen again once he's older.

So there it is. Three trips, just like that. We've got a lot going on, but hopefully I'll do a better job posting on here soon (but don't hold your breath). Anyway, thanks for reading and we'll see you next time!