Our side door...

...has never really been used much because the lock was very difficult to unlock from the outside and you needed a key to unlock it from the inside (I know, this kinda freaked me out).

 

We've had a replacement for it for a while, but in order to install it, Josh needed to re-drill the hole in the door. We got a keyless deadbolt, so it has a keypad and codes to unlock the door. Now I'm not so worried about getting locked out of the house.

And I thought I would just show this too. It's the edge of the door and you can see the poor paint job and the previous blue and yellow trim colors before the red.

Just inside the door is where we were finally able to hang the flashlight holder Bud made for us. We've had it for 3 years I think, but we wanted to wait until we had a permanent place for it before we put it up.

A Long Weekend

This Labor Day weekend was long for us! We got tons done here at the house. First, Josh took his last Friday off for summer hours and we installed the ceiling fan in our room.

It wasn't as easy as just attaching it to the wall. We pulled all the wires out going from the switch to the fan, and replaced them. Then added a new switch that controls the light and motor separately. Then we put up the fan. I'm so glad to have light again in there, and the addition of the fan is great too.

Then, we took it outside. We ripped out all the overgrown plants on the east side of our garage. It feels good to have all that junk out of there and now we'll be ready to plant there in the spring.

And the big finale for the weekend is our backyard.

We trimmed the 2 maples and birch in the yard and our yard looks twice as big. No more ducking under branches while Josh is mowing or playing with the dog. And...now we have some sun also. Hopefully the grass can grow a little thicker now.

The First Week at 5053

Well, we're FINALLY here. And we already have a makeover to show! This was the dining room before...

We had to prime the walls because of the dark color, but we may end up priming all the walls in the house for that matter.

And after! We changed out the light fixture for a George Nelson saucer. You may remember back to the Nelson cigar pendant that we bought a few weeks ago at the Room and Board outlet. This is part of the same line. And you're not seeing things, that is pink (well actually it's Coral Gables) and purple (Black Raspberry) on the walls. It looks fantastic with our robin's egg blue buffet.

The room isn't complete yet...I'd like to add some curtain panels and a FLOR rug, but I wanted to update everyone since we've been busy!

Art Buddies

Yesterday was our last day for this session of Art Buddies. Art Buddies is an after school program for 4th and 5th graders at Whittier International School in south Minneapolis. Each student is paired with a creative adult art buddy over the course of 6 weeks. Each session has a theme and this time it was to create an animal costume that represents your childs good qualities.

I've been volunteering since college and this was the 4th time I've done it. Aminata was my buddy this time and together we made a wolf costume. This is a picture of her working it in front of the professional photographer. I always have such a fun time and this was no exception. I can't wait for the next session to start in the fall.

IKEA DIY

After reading about this project on one of my favorite blogs, Door Sixteen, I had to try it. This is the before FROSTA stool from IKEA.


And this is the after. I followed the same steps as Anna. First, I made a template in Illustrator to figure out where to put the legs (I used 3 instead of all 4). Then, Josh drilled pilot holes for me and we screwed in the legs. Lastly, I painted the top glossy black. Doesn't it look suspiciously like an Alvar Aalto’s Stool 60? Instead of paying $285, I made mine for $18.

Craigslist Catch

While randomly perusing Craigslist one day, I found this Jenny Lind frame for $40. We bought it and decided to refinish it.

We sanded it down and used supplies from the Benjamin Moore store in Sacramento. The primer was oil based and the paint was latex. We splurged on the paint paying $60 but it was well worth it. The paint covered so well and had a self leveler to prevent brush strokes. We loved how it turned out!

Sunday Project

While Lucy was getting her haircut today, we strolled through IKEA and found this curtain system. We decided it was perfect for a backdrop behind our sofa. And Lucy wanted to get in the picture and show off her new style.

Crochet Crazy

So on Friday, I decided to teach myself to crochet. I've always wanted to know how. I went to Michael's, got a Learn to Crochet kit, and watched some YouTube videos and Ta-Dah! I should hopefully have a blanket done just in time for April. To bad I probably won't need it then!

And we haven't posted a picture of our new table. I wasn't in love with our other tables and they were much to bulky for our furniture, so we craigslisted them.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! We are thankful for all of our friends, family and our 65º weather today. We can't wait to see you all over Christmas.

We have a couple of updates. After we got back from Minnesota, everything in California started turning green and our oranges started turning orange.

Last weekend we were bored and decided to built these shelves for the TV and its accessories. The TV used to sit up on the fireplace, but we wanted to change it so we wouldn't have to crank our necks to watch.