Dining Room Wall

Our dining room is one of the few rooms in the house that we basically haven't touched since we moved in.  We put in our dining room table (which actually belonged to my great-grandparents and was, at one point, used as the butchering table...don't worry...it's been thoroughly cleaned and refinished), and we set our non-matching chairs around it (3 of them were purchased at my former church's "garage" sale; the other chair was bought years ago when I lived alone and really just needed one chair).  That's all we've done.  Until today.

One of the main reasons we decided not to do anything in here is these words:

They're just vinyl words stuck up above the french doors that lead from the dining room to the back deck, but I actually really like them and would prefer not to take them down just yet.  Because I don't want to take down the words, we really can't paint the dining room.  (Although Shawn and I did discuss possibly painting an "accent" wall in there one of these days.)  Fortunately, I also like the pale yellow color that the dining room and kitchen were already painted when we moved in.

For the last year and a half (since we moved in), this has basically been what we see when we look in the dining room:

(And yes...our dining room table often has stuff on it.  I'll admit.  We rarely eat at the table.  We're more likely to eat dinner while sitting on the couch.)

That wall has just been yellow and empty, but I've been wanting to hang something up there for awhile now.  We did buy one piece of art, but we decided that it didn't look good against the yellow, so it ended up hanging in our master bedroom. 

But a few weeks ago, I found something at Target that I liked, and I went ahead and bought it...figuring I could always take it back if Shawn didn't like it.  :)  We finally took the time and effort (a whopping ten minutes or so) to hang it up today!  So now...here's what we see when we look into the dining room!

I've realized that this picture looks a little funny.  It's actually about as long as our table, so it works pretty well in there, I think.  :)

Small Projects

I've had a list of projects that I'm hoping to get done around the house soon.  We spent some time today at Lowe's, buying some supplies, and we also did a few small things.  Here's our list of projects (some obviously bigger than others):

1. Paint and redecorate the "pink room." 
2. Hang art in dining room.
3. Install curtain rod and hang curtains in the living room.
4. Put up shelf in the living room.
5. Power wash and stain back deck.
6. Purchase and plant some new flowers in the front flower beds (where we planted annuals last year and therefore have some "holes").
7. Pull weeds and put down mulch in the front flower beds.
8. Work on backyard (fertilize, get rid of weeds and moss, and/or lay down some sod).
9. Have drainage issue in the back/side yard fixed.

A couple of these items were started today (and one was already finished), so I'll try to post some updates soon!

New Fence

When we bought the house, we knew that we'd eventually need to replace part of the fence.  The fence on one side and most of the back of the yard was fine...it was obviously put up by someone who had some idea of what they were doing.  However, the other side...not so much.  The fence was shorter over there, and pieces of it were falling off.  Oh, and there's one section of the back of our yard that was never technically fenced in.  There was just a temporary "wood and wire" fence put up.

Here's an example of the fence between the yards:

Early last summer, the house next to us was finally purchased, and our wonderful new neighbors moved in.  As soon as they got here, they started working on their yard, mowing, weeding, and cleaning up the trash that the previous homeowners had left behind.  We introduced ourselves one day when they were working in their backyard, and Shawn brought up the subject of the fence. 

Happily, these neighbors are awesome.  They very quickly agreed that the fence would need to be replaced, and rather than hire someone to do it, they'd love to just chip in on the cost of it with us, and the guys could do the work themselves.  Woo hoo!

A few months passed before the guys got started on it.  And frankly...it took awhile.  Fortunately, Jeff and Emma like Satchel, and they were totally okay with letting him have full run of our combined back yards while the fence was down. 

Here's are a couple "in progress" shots:

Just last weekend, Shawn finished the front section of the fence (between our garage and the neighbor's property), and that included building and installing the door:

I love it!  The back section of the fence still needs to be done, but I feel pretty good that Satchel isn't going to get out any time soon, and it's a lot harder for anyone (or anything) else to get in to our yard.  (Did I mention that the previous door/gate didn't actually shut all the way?  We just got lucky that Satchel never realized that.) 

Sure, it took awhile to get the whole thing done, but it was a nice "bonding" experience for Shawn and Jeff.  It'll also be a nicer selling point whenever we sell the house (versus the crummy fence that was here before).  And since Jeff got a deal on the materials and since the guys did the work themselves, it only cost us a few hundred bucks.

First "Major" House Project

Okay, that title might be misleading.  It was the first "major" house project we did (something more than painting, weeding, or installing a new appliance), but we didn't actually do it ourselves.  We definitely paid someone else to do it.

Anyways...during our home inspection when we bought the house (back in September 2009), we realized that the garage door had some issues.  Namely, it wouldn't stay up.  Our inspector thought that tightening the springs would probably do the trick, so we didn't think too much about it.  After living here for a few months, we had someone come to look at the door (and, ideally, fix it), and we were told that actually, the springs had already been tightened as much as they could, and at this point, all we could really do would be to replace the door.

Shortly after we were told that, we also realized that the door was falling off the track.  If we did open the door, one side of two of the panels was hanging off the track, just waiting to fall.  Additionally, the wooden door was "smiling" (warped enough that, from the outside, the bottom of the door looked a bit like a smile...turned up on the ends).  It kind of makes sense that a wooden door in a super rainy area would probably warp after awhile.  I was searching for a "before" picture, but I don't think I really took one.  This is probably the best picture I have of (part of) it.

You can at least see that it was gray, and it had little squares on it.  I guess I never really cared to take a "before" picture of our crummy garage door.  :)

So finally...about a year after we moved in to the house...we had the garage door replaced.  One guy came and did it by himself, and by the end of that day, we had a brand new, white, non-wooden, insulated garage door.  And a super quiet garage door opener.  I love it.

Other than the fact that the garage door opener is so quiet that I can't hear it from inside (even from our bedroom,which is located directly above the garage!), my favorite thing about this new door is that we can actually park the car inside the garage!!  You may be aware of the fact that it rains a lot around here.  I love that I no longer have to walk through the rain to bring in the groceries from the car.  :)

One More Appliance

When we bought this house, we went into it knowing that we'd have to buy all new appliances...except the dishwasher.  This was a foreclosure, and the previous owner took just about everything with them when they left. 

The first thing we bought was the stove, and we actually bought that and had it installed before the house was technically ours!  We needed to have a working stove in the house prior to the appraisal or we may have had an issue with our loan.  We choose a Whirlpool stove/oven, stainless "look" with a black glass cooktop. 

Once the house was ours, we bought the refrigerator.  For this, we went with a Frigidaire, stainless "look" with black handles.  Basically, we're going for the sleeker look without spending the absurd amounts of money.  :-)

At one point prior to taking possession of the house, we thought our dishwasher was also unusable.  I have to admit I was a little bummed to discover that the dishwasher door does, in fact, latch shut, and therefore I didn't have an excuse to buy a new one right away.  :-)  Since we've moved here, the machine has done a decent job, although I've been noticing lately that it isn't cleaning all that well, and I occasionally end up re-washing some items.  So I was thrilled when Shawn suggested a few days ago that we could use part of our tax refund to get a new dishwasher!!  Yay!

So...any suggestions?  I'd like to go the "stainless look" route if possible, just so that all our kitchen appliances match.  I'm willing to consider black, though.  The main things I'm looking for in a dishwasher are simply a machine that will clean well and a machine that is quiet.  I had heard good things about Bosch, but on the Lowe's website, I've noticed that those machines aren't receiving very good reviews.  Whatever we get, we're limiting ourselves to less than $700. 

So feel free to give me some input!

Oh, and in case you're dying to know, we did purchase a washer and dryer for the laundry room when we first moved in, too.  We just chose to go the Craiglist route for those, though.  :-)