Spring is here!

So apparently Spring in Bloomington means TONS of rain, and rain that comes all at once. Here's what our back yard looked like just a couple days after we put down grass seed


But, on the plus side, the bulbs we planted last Fall seem to be coming up! And the phlox (the ground cover stuff) has really expanded in our little front garden!

Kitchen knobs before and after

We finally decided on the style of knobs we wanted for our kitchen cabinets, and Paul carefully drilled through the cabinets and drawers to get these suckers on. Amazing what knobs do for the look and the function!

Kitchen before knobs...


Kitchen after knobs...


Yay!

It looks like someone lives here!

While I was busy working on my final paper, Paul was busy planning and planting our new garden areas. He dug up the grass around the mailbox so we could put a bunch of plants there. We moved the plants from our front walk area to the mailbox patch so we could re-do that section with lavender and phlox. The tiny plants up by the walk aren't much to look at right now, but they should start to fill in that area over the summer. It's amazing how much work it takes to garden such a small area! By the mailbox, we've got mums, salvia, maltese cross flowers, multicolor columbine, and a weigela bush. They all should be nice and filled out for next summer. I am so happy with how it turned out! Paul did an awesome job planning it out and getting it all in the ground!

Here's what the front yard looks like now.


It's really starting to look like someone lives here!

DIY dining room chair rail

We just finished our first big project in the house - the dining room. We figured we might as well do it now before we have any furniture for the room. The houses in our neighborhood are pretty cookie-cutter, so it's really nice to have something that feels like our own.

Here's what it looked like before:


The whole house has that same beige color on the walls with the white baseboards.

Here's how it looks now, with wedgewood blue paint and chair rails along the wall. We love the new look, and it's so great to see something like this that we've done with our own hands!


On a side note, the painting on the wall is one that Paul's grandfather made. It looks great with the new color scheme!

Fall Flowers

A trip to the local WalMart resulted in me bringing back some orange and purple mums for the front walk. The puny shrubs don't really do much for the space, and at least these add some color. I was too cheap to spring for more of them, as much as I'd love to see a big bursting heap of flowers. But it's some progress!

Not sure what we're going to do to hide the plastic downspout extender. But now at least our yard is looking slightly more festive.

Our House, per request

Here's our new house (picture taken during a rain storm when we had our inspection). We're thinking of changing the color of the shutters once we have some money burning a hole in our pockets.

From Dresden

And here's the back yard as viewed from the deck

From Dresden

We've got a lot of ideas for the yard, but probably won't start making any progress until late fall or next spring.

The interior is not yet ready for its photo shoot, as it seems a cardboard box factory exploded all over the place. The dog doesn't seem to mind, though. Once we can get some furniture, we'll have some places to put all this stuff. It's funny to try to put away some of the things, because they're from our "single" lives and our separate apartments from 2007, so for example I have a dozen or so fancy martini glasses, and Paul has lots of beer glasses, but now we have dozens of wine glasses (I'm not exaggerating), so we could probably fill half of our kitchen cabinets with glassware alone! So I'm saving our bubble wrap for storing the excess once we get a better handle on our inventory. That said, do let us know if you need bubble wrap! We've got TONS! (It was really handy working for an industrial supply company at the time)

We'll sure be able to have one heck of a party once we have some seating for guests!

We're homeowners!

Despite some crazy events leading up to it (like our key not opening the car door a half hour before the closing), we are now officially homeowners. It is a really great feeling to know you don't have to move out in a year, or deal with random maintenance people letting themselves into your home. Plus, we have a yard which is just fantastic for the dog. So far his favorite thing about the house is that he can chase grasshoppers in the lawn (if you can call it that!). Getting him back in the house, on the other hand, is a lot harder!

Otherwise the house is a total mess, since we have a lot of boxes of stuff but no furniture except a couple chairs and a kitchen table. But we'll get there eventually. The best part is having a bed to sleep on that no one else has ever slept on. We also got to pick out all the appliances since it's a new house. Finally, after 2 years, we can use all those awesome wedding presents we got!

We love the location because we are in a subdivision that's a bit out in the country. Really, it's just a few minutes drive from Indiana University, but it's far enough away that you have to drive past cows to get here. And when we went to change the address on our drivers licenses today, the local BMV office was using a cowbell on the door to announce your arrival.