Step into my parlour. . .

et cetera, et cetera.

Well, I've got a few pictures of the new house. Would you like a tour? Come on in.

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First floor (actually 2nd floor of the building; the first floor is another condo, owned by our plumber) has a huge L shaped living room/dining room combination. The walls were painted peach, which we didn't object to, but they were in desperate need of a touch-up. For one, someone had previously touched up the walls in some spots with a different color. The peach that we ended up getting was a shade or two lighter, and didn't have primer, so we needed a couple of coats to get it to take.



This is the dining room. The first time I saw the light fixture, I thought it was absolutely hideous. By the time we had been in here a few times (for the inspection, and for the final walk-through), I liked it more and more. One problem: Mike and I have both hit our heads on it. Luckily, it should be above the table, so that shouldn't be much of a problem any more.



The kitchen is pink, tan and brown! Odd combo, yes. The pink was already there, but we did a touch up, after de-greasing the walls and countertops a bit (ewwww). I have issues with the idea of touching other people's footstuffs, which made my brief waiting career a bit of a challenge.



From the kitchen, there's a little window that looks into the dining room. We'll get to play "diner" with that, and yell out things like, "Chickpea curry's up!" "Salad's up!" Maybe we need a little bell there.



Okay, the first floor bathroom is my pet project and I am having a shit load of fun with it. It all started with Mike finding the trash bin with the black cat on it. He said, "It's dark purple, and will look good in the light purple bathroom." Somewhere from that it was decided to make that the "cat themed bath room". I found the rug that goes with the trash bin. I have also found a black cat toilet paper roll holder (which I haven't photographed yet) and a black cat towel ring (which is still on its way).

A few other pieces have added to the fun:



A vintage (probably 1940s or early 50s, judging by the style of the art, although it's in such good shape it may be more recent than that) tin tissue box with a black cat! That was an eBay find.




The icing on the cake -- a cat light switch plate! This isn't vintage; I have discovered that one can find a switch plate with practically anything on it. If you can't find it, but can find the image you want, a good printer and some Mod Podge should do the trick.

Time to go upstairs, right?



There is a landing between the two floors that is like another small room in itself. Friends of ours who live in an identical townhouse across the parking lot use theirs as a reading nook, with a big comfy chair that's, well, it's like a bean bag but much classier, and a book case. It gets great light through that window.

Mike repainted all of this without me, so I don't have the right to comment on how much of a pain in the ass it was to paint the really high parts. Thankfully, we had an extender for the rollers, and the plumber let Mike borrow his ladder.



This is the 2nd floor bathroom. I repainted it all, and I later had to scrub the heck out of the tub because we were using it as our clean up spot for all the rooms we painted. Standing on a step ladder and cleaning above those lights sure sucked. Those things get really hot.


We call this "the contraption". It was there, but was badly in need of being cleaned and repainted. It had rings from shaving cream cans all over it, so we're trying to figure out what to do to avoid that. We'd love to find some sort of lacquer to put over the paint so it can be wiped clean, but for now the shaving cream can can go into a beer cozie.



Notice the walls are peach all the way upstairs too? It ends in the hallway up here. By the way, this is the linen *cough yarn cough* closet. I've already put cedar planks in each shelf. It's even bigger than the yarn hutch!



Our bedroom is pink and has a huge walk-in closet. I feel really happy when I'm in this room, which is good, because I'll be sleeping in it soon.



The second bedroom, which is our library. Mike and his friend Eric put down that laminate floor last weekend. This room is now filled with all of our books, DVDs and videos, all on the shelves Mike had put together for our current apartment.



Again, you can get switch plates with ANYTHING on them, such as this zombie pin up.



Outside the library window, there's a robin's nest. I'm not sure if the babies have hatched yet, but it should be soon.

Are you ready for the third floor? It's a bit scary. We haven't done a thing to it, except for spackle some holes up and vacuum.



The stairs up to the third floor show the start of the yellow. It's not a terrible yellow, though.



Okay, photos don't do the fug justice here. This is what Mike was calling "the angry room". It's less angry now, because we got a better light bulb for it, and also because we have a plan. We're going to work with the yellow. We're going to add a red stripe, and some teal, and give it a Mexico theme. Last night we purchased a light switch plate with a loteria card for El Corazon on it, and we got a loteria tissue box cover. We'll add some Day of the Dead items (we may get a shower curtain, if a local store gets it and we like it), and do something with the floor tiles (which are gross linoleum and just. . .gross. Gross and old).



There's also that door above the tub that leads up to the attic crawlspace. You need a ladder to get up there. Those things are creepy. I've seen enough horror movies to thing so.



This room is the fug that we don't think we can work with. For real. Those red walls? They were painted over dust, or were painted while dust was flying off the ceiling fan. I'm not lying. Those walls are full of little bumps that catch dust, and when I tried to use a Swiffer on the walls, those little bumpy bastards shredded my Swiffer! We're going to sand the shit out of those walls, prime them, and repaint in a minty green. In fact, the color I like the best is about the same color as the "Disagree" avatars on Ravelry, which amuses me.



If you look into the closet, you'll see the room used to be blue. I have no clue why it was repainted red. Oh, and you can also see some of the cable wires. There was illegal cable and phone jacks in EVERY room. It was crazy.

Thank you for coming on today's tour! It was great showing you around! You may go back out the way you came in!

Until next time. . .

xoxo. . . ZantiMissKnit

BACON!!!! and news!

Have you noticed the big bacon craze lately? Bacon is everywhere!

Some of us even have bacon on our feet:







I actually finished these at the end of April, and uploaded them to Flickr about three weeks ago. I just haven't had much time to blog lately.

The reason I haven't had much time to blog lately is that we bought a home!!!!

See, we have some dear friends who live in this gorgeous townhouse in a nice little complex about a mile from where we live now. Once, last summer, when we were leaving one of their parties, I said to ZMrK, "The amount of space they have is exactly what we need." We then talked about how much we love the layout of their place, and that, on the chance one ever came up at a price we could afford, we may want to look into it.

Last December, a townhouse in their complex showed up while I was browsing Trulia at a price we could potentially think about. We discussed it. I got the name of a realtor. A couple of days later, the price on the townhouse dropped by about $15K. We made an offer.

After months and months of waiting (since this was being offered on a Short Sale, which are anything but), we finally closed on May 14. The price we got it at was another $12K less than the price it was when we made our offer. The Bank lowered the price -- we're not sure why.

Now, we do have to put some work into it. We've started by repainting. Since last Thursday, we've been spackling, sanding, cleaning and painting, and we're going to keep painting probably up to next weekend. We are also going to clean the carpets and, most likely, replace them. We're at least going to replace the carpets on the stairs and the second floor, because they are champagne colored and are gross.

We're doing fun stuff, too, like working out decor around the different rooms. The downstairs half bathroom (there are 2.5 bathrooms in this place!) is lavender, and we happened to find this trash can at a yard sale for $1. That little lavender half bathroom is going to have a cat theme. I've already ordered a switch plate for it, and I plan on getting the rug that matches the trash can (unless the measurements don't work out).

The third floor bathroom, which we don't plan on using much (except we may keep the litter box in there) is painted a really ugly piss yellow and the light bulbs in there have a yellow glow. Ugh. I have nothing against yellow, mind you -- I love the right shade of yellow. The more I look at this yellow, the less I like it. ZMrK has called it the "angry room" because he thinks it feels angry. The third floor will be the last floor we do anything on, but I've been thinking today about what color to repaint that room. Maybe we can do a softer yellow (and change those bulbs), or we can go completely different.

I joked with ZMrK today that we can paint big pink stripes on the walls to make it match this light switch plate. I'm actually thinking of a pin up theme for it, although I just told him that I should put it out of my mind and focus on what we need to do now.

These are the rooms we're keeping the colors in:

The living/dining room area (which is HUGE) is peach. The color we got (which we thought had match, and I discovered that our matching skills aren't so go) is much, much lighter than the one that was there, but I prefer it. The entry way and the stair way/landing/hall way upstairs is close to the same color, but no cigar. We're not sure if we'll do the same color, or something different. I was wondering if a very light tan would be okay.

The kitchen is pink. It's a very small, not-eat-in kitchen, so it won't be overwhelmingly screaming pink.

One bedroom (the one we'll be sleeping in) is a light raspberry color.

Second bedroom (which will be our library) is light blue, with teal trim and closet.

Second floor bathroom is the same teal as the trim/closet in the library. We'll be using our current rubber ducky shower curtain in there for now.

Third bedroom, which is on the third floor with the Angry Bathroom, is dark red. I also don't think anyone has lived in that room for months or even years. It had a thick layer of dust everywhere, including the ceiling fan and the walls. The paint job in there was total shit as well - pieces of dust must have been painted over because it's a bit pebbly. Like the Angry Bathroom, this room (which I'll call Red Room, like the spoof on The Shining's "Red Rum") is on our "low priority" list, but it's going to be a craft room/music studio eventually.

Speaking of crafts -- where will the yarn go? In the linen closet, of course! (Seriously, how many linens do two people need anyway?). I already bought some cedar lining to go in the shelves to keep it smelling fresh.

When I can, I will post updates on our home improvement, and I'll take some photos soon!