Fall

The neighborhood by our condo has streets lined with trees that all turned gold.


I took a few photos and they just don't do it justice.

Cupcake Cake

This past Saturday it was Keith's aunt Linda's 60th birthday. There was a surprise party and she was very surprised. It was a good time. I made pumpkin cupcakes for the event. I used a decorating idea from the book Hello, Cupcake, and made a birthday cake out of them. Keith's cousin's wife Lisa helped me make the cupcakes and plan out the tiers.

Sweet Surprise

I had the day off from work today. This morning I walked into the kitchen to get my cereal and found a card & gift from Keith! The card said to relax & enjoy my day off, and that the gift was to make next week at work a little better. (I was pretty stressed this week.)

The card was perfect!


The gift was grey shoes that I had pointed out to him awhile ago.


It's been almost 5 years and it feels amazing to be falling more & more in love with each other every day. <3

New table!

Now we have a place to eat. We can entertain more easily. We can play games. It's wonderful. Next on the list is curtains.

Slowly But Surely

We got a new TV & PS3. We saved for these things and Keith decided that the new TV was his reward for working TONS of overtime lately. We, of course, had to get a new TV stand. The stand is from Ikea and matches the other shelves we have.

We are now using the old TV stand as a shelf for King Triton and video games.



We also finally found a dining room table. It's from World Market. It is VERY heavy. The man at the store said that it was 180 pounds, and he was NOT exaggerating. We still have to put it together and then we will definitely need to have someone help us flip it right-side up. Here's a picture of the table from the interweb.

Eventually we will be settled. Maybe? I hope so.

New-to-me things

My grandma was had me over for dinner and wanted me to look through some boxes of things she was getting rid of to see if I wanted anything. I ended up with quite a few things. I couldn't help it - she happened to have a lot of baking stuff in those boxes! Luckily Keith and I have lots of cabinet space. It's nice to be able to rid my grandma of clutter and gain some fun free stuff!

I did get some new cupcake pot holders that go rather well with the cupcake themed ones & apron that my grandma made for me for Christmas. (The homemade potholders are the pink ones that the new brown ones are on top of in this photo.)


She also gave me some birds and a plant to put out on the balcony. I took the photos at night, so they're not the best, but you get the idea.


We have been rather busy lately. Mostly working. Some social things like Keith's cousin's wedding though!


This weekend we hope to finish up the touch up painting and a few little things. We are having people over on Sunday for the fantasy football draft, so it would be nice to get some things done before then. Too bad we haven't found a dining room table (that is not from Crate & Barrel and is so perfect except in the price department) yet. Some other upcoming purchases for the home: PS3 slim, HD TV (we have yet to decide on plasma or LCD), new TV stand, dining room light, and curtains. When it's listed out like that, it sounds like a lot. Luckily, we have been saving for some of these things for some time now. At work we are all going in on some lotto tickets... so if that works out for me, maybe I WILL be getting that Crate & Barrel table. ;)

Be Our Guest

This weekend we had our first overnight guest - our friend Fern! She lives in Evanston, so it just makes sense for her to stay here. We had a good time, and I think she slept fairly well since she was on the futon in the living room where there are no curtains to block the sun in the morning.

Some top priority condo items we need to purchase:
- curtains
- dining table & chairs
- light fixture for the dining room

We also really want to finish up the tiny bit of painting we have in the bedrooms.

Our weekends have been busy with other things, and this weekend is no exception. Keith's cousin is getting married, so we will be busy with wedding fun. :)

Home Sweet Home

Keith and I have been moved in for about 2 and a half weeks. We still have plenty to do (finish painting, buy a dining room table & chairs, buy a new light fixture for the dining room, finish getting organized...) but it feels good to be home! :-)

And now, a little backlog of photos!


We had new floors put in everywhere except for the bathrooms and the laundry room. We got wood laminate in the living room, dining room, kitchen, and hallway. Both bedrooms got new carpeting.







Here is the master bedroom, almost done being painted and with new carpeting.





And here is the second bedroom - the now office:






Our stuff has moved in now. It's all still getting settled, so please excuse the mess.











I will be able to update much more frequently now that the computer is set up and the internet is up & running!

A real update is soon to come, I swear

We have moved in! :-D

The internet is up & running and a real update should be coming shortly. I want to post some photos, but right now it is way past my bedtime.

Light at the end of the tunnel

I am sorry I have not updated in so long! We have been busy with working a ton, working on the condo, and birthday celebrations (last weekend for me and upcoming days for Keith).

Keith and I have painted the second bedroom grey and it came out just the color we were looking for. We are going to put nice band posters on the walls, so we wanted a fun(?) neutral color.

We have the color for the master bedroom and will start painting that tomorrow. It's going to be a beige/brown color. We want to get new bedding somewhat soon, so we wanted to be able to change the whole scheme of the room fairly easily when that time comes.

It looks like painting the kitchen will have to wait until after we move in, but we are thinking of blue for that. A long way down the road we will do work on the bathrooms and those will probably be green. That could change though, since that won't be for quite some time.

We asked the flooring people if they could fix the hole in our floor and they can! This means that our laminate is being installed Monday, Tuesday, & Wednesday. Carpet will be installed on Thursday. If all goes as planned, this means...

WE CAN START MOVING IN NEXT WEEKEND!!!!!!! :-D

Keith's brother will be going back to school soon, so Keith's parents will be lonely soon. Or maybe just enjoying a quiet house. hehe

Progress?

Keith's cousin painted our living room & dining room. He painted the ceilings in the hall and bedrooms as well and did a TON of patchwork. I don't think I took photos, but there was a big crack in the corner of the living room as well as stress cracks and terrible previous patching all over the place. With it painted, the place is really starting to come together, I think. Keith and I have been painting the hallway as well as the trim around the door frames. Soon we'll be painting the bedrooms.

You might be asking yourself, why is this post titled "Progress?" when there clearly seems to be some progress being made. Well, we found out that water must have been getting in by the sliding glass door (which has now been caulked) and the concrete subfloor cracked, and was in pieces. Now we have to fix that before we can get our floors done. :( We did bring the samples of the laminate back to the condo, and I think we are close to making a decision on that, so at least that's something!

As Suze Orman would say - "Approved!"

We got good news that our flooring is approved! This means we can get the work done and get moved in!!! :) Right now we are having Keith's cousin patch and paint some rooms. Then we are going to finish painting and get the floors done. Hopefully, we'll be moved in in no time!

Here is a better picture of the outside of the condo:
We got our names put on the mailbox!

We cleaned out the kitchen cabinets and decided to move in our dishes. We have so much more space, it's amazing.

Here is a better photo of the living room, since I didn't have a good one in the previous set of before photos:
Keith and I have been doing a lot of cleaning at the condo. Occasionally we will get a response similar to "How much cleaning could there possibly be?!" So, I decided to take a before and after photo. This is the before photo of the bottom of the sliding glass door - the track in which the door slides:
This is the after photo:
Notice that in the before photo lots of things are black that actually aren't. That was mud. Big chunks of mud that have built up for years. Our condo is on the second floor, so it's not like there's a lot of dirt just hanging around.

Anyway, I'm very excited that the wheels are in motion for moving! :-D

A little update

Keith's family's dog Ruby stopped by the condo recently.

We got an estimate from one place for our flooring work. I faxed over a form for approval of the work. Hopefully that doesn't take forever to get approved. We have been doing some cleaning. Our dishes can move in because all the cabinets are clean. hehe

Nothing else too exciting has been going on. Keith has been working late and going in on Saturdays. We did buy Blink182 tickets for this August, which will be a good time. My brother & sister are both going to be visiting from Pennsylvania next week, and we are very much looking forward to that.

Before Photos

I went to the condo on Saturday and found 2 stains where the previous owner's furniture had been. Ew. My mom came by to see the inside of the condo. We went out to lunch at Corner Bakery, which was delicious. We went to Target (where my mom purchased Animal Crossing!) and then we came back to clean. We started with the bathrooms and it. was. gross.

Before photos:

Here is the outside. I did not take a photo when I was there during the day, but I think you can get the gist. I will take a better one sometime. (That is our friend Rachelle and her car is parked in front of our garage.)

My photo of the living room came out dark because of the sunlight coming in the windows. Here is the picture of the ceilings in the living room though.


This is the entryway.


This photo is also dark, but it's the dining room. You can see the balcony and you may be able to make out the light fixture that we will be replacing.

Here is the kitchen with pantry and black appliances that we don't like, but oh well. :)

Here is a view looking into the half bath.

The half bath is, oddly enough, connected to the master bath. This results in what we refer to as "poo buddy" toilets. Weird, but it works.


Here is the master bedroom. I have no idea what made the wall that color.


This is the master bedroom window, which looks out to the street. The closet is a walk-in.


Here is the second bedroom, which also has a walk-in closet and faces the street.

We also have a laundry room, but I didn't think the photo was necessary, especially since it won't be changing too much.

Now for the gross-ness. I don't think that you can fully appreciate the deplorable condition of the carpeting unless you are there, but I figured I would try with photos.

First up are the two surprise-under-the furniture stains:

Now a wider view of the living room floor.
More of the living room. The lighter part of the carpet in the forground is where the previous owner had their TV. That shows you what the carpet is supposed to look like. The dining room is similar to this - MUCH lighter where the table was.
We are excited to get everything changed. We think new floor and some paint is going to make a HUGE difference!