Obama moves to the White House and the Kitties move to the Brick House.

Oscar and Toby have moved in with us. They seem to really like their new house - especially all of the windows.

We had a long, lazy and snowy weekend. With mornings like this:

Looking out of the window at this:

Oscar has been sleeping under the covers. He really likes the electric blanket.

Other creatures sniffing about:

I've been doing laundry! Here is an action photo of the first load of laundry EVER done in this 99 year old house:

We did get a few things accomplished. Some furniture was unwrapped and moved into the living room so we have a place to sit other than the bed. There's cardboard under the furniture legs to protect the floors. There will be rearranging and editing in the future - I don't want to get too comfortable in here right now because I still have to fix the moulding.

Thanks to my dad, a few doors were hung (with working doorknobs!) The water dispenser and ice maker in our fridge are also hooked up.

Fernando laid out that platform for the washer and dryer in the basement. It raises the machines a few inches off of the ground in case we have any more water. We still need to paint the surrounding floor. He also filled up some cracks with hydraulic cement. We haven't had water since but I think most of the ground is still frozen from the weather lately.

We finally decided on a much needed mirror for the bathroom. If it's in stock I should be buying it tomorrow.

This weekend we plan to get some of the light fixtures up. Oh how I'll miss the hanging bulbs.

The big problem with hanging lights here is that some of the wiring doesn't have anything around it to secure a fixture to. The living room is the only one ready to go but it stopped working a week ago. I think it might just be loose wires in the switch or a bad switch. I also changed my mind about the fixture for in there... decisions are hard.

door hardware - any ideas?

The cabinet installation is done! Well, almost... two cabinets arrived without their glass, so that's been ordered. We also need to choose cabinet door hardware. I'm really pleased with the row of cabinets next to the fireplace - they utilize the dead space perfectly.

We moved the island out a little further than we had originally planned but there is still enough room by the back door and it works.

We used Hanssem Somerset cabinets in here, in "frosty white." We had planned to use "crystal white" but the color looked more creamy than we wanted under our lighting. We also used IKEA PERFEKT FAGERLAND wine shelving down the length of the wall to the right of the refrigerator. There are three units stacked and the cabinet installer did such a great job you'd never know it wasn't ordered with the Hanssem cabinets. I was a little nervous about this because I labored over the problem of needing at least 6 inches next to the fridge for the doors to open properly. Hanssem did not have anything under 12 inches in width (too big for the space) so as always IKEA to the rescue. We're not big wine drinkers but I thought it would be handy when I can't resist buying those cases of Pellegrino at Costco.

We still have to paint in here, build a half wall around the dishwasher and back of the sink cabinet and move our poor doorbell before we can pop in those lights and get the countertop installed.

My Dad stopped by yesterday and hooked up the stove, washer and dryer, put doors on the bathroom and our bedroom (yes!) moved the toilet upstairs and re-installed the curtain rod so we can shower. I hate baths here because the tub never warms up and no matter what we do, baths are freezing. We're working on weather stripping all of the windows and doors but the house is still pretty cold. Our bed is a mountain of blankets!

The snow yesterday left a pretty blanket over our back yard and bamboo forest:

sneak peak!

Fernando just sent me this quick shot of the kitchen progress.

I feel incredulous - I really was beginning to think I'd never have a functioning kitchen again!

2009

Happy New Year!
So far it's been a very happy one for us - we've finally moved in and now we're living amidst chaos. Check out the dining room:

Those are BOXES. I think we had around 250 packed up from our last move. There's even some furniture too:

It's not staying like this (I promise!) Some things are going and others will be moved around. The aluminum group chairs are not good on our floors - they've made that patch of floor over by the desk a mess. I don't know if it's because the floor was recently refinished or if it's because they are old or if it's just the type of wood they are, but they are soft.
We've been doing a lot of painting and most of the trim is done. Check out the stair risers:

More work was done to the bathroom. That's my Dad doing touch up to the plaster:

My Sister has been working on patching and sanding the bathroom window. It just needs a coat of paint. I still haven't decided on a wall color!
We now have our IKEA HÖLLVIKEN sink hung on the wall:

The plumbing is currently hooked up - that was taken just after it was hung.
And here's the new bathroom faucet:

All of our kitchen appliances have been delivered. It was hard getting them into the kitchen and after the first attempt failed, another date was scheduled, two doors (on our mud room) were removed and the appliances are now in the kitchen. All of that and only one huge scratch down the front of the left refrigerator door. Another door has been ordered and is on its way. Nothing ever goes smoothly.

Speaking of nothing going smoothly, I don't think I mentioned the footprint. There was a footprint in the final coat of poly right in the middle of our living room floor. The floor people have been back 3 times since then to "fix" it and it now looks like a weird 1 1/2' (yes foot) square patch in the middle of the living room floor. They are scheduled to come back and completely re-coat the entire living room and dining room next Wednesday. This means that all of that stuff you see in the first photo of this post has to be removed and found another home in the interim! And that the toilet from our miniature bathroom has to move upstairs this weekend (yay!) and that we won't be able to put furniture in those two rooms for at least another week after they are finished. :(

We also have our new washer and dryer in the basement. When they were delivered we realized that the ground was too uneven where the plumbers put the hook-ups. We've also been getting water again in that corner when it snows. Everyone we've consulted seems to think it's ground water. We will eventually have to add a sump pump in the future to end the water issues. As for the washer and dryer - we had to move them over, under the basement stairs and that meant longer hoses (not readily available at most plumbing suppliers.) We finally found 8ft hoses at Sid Phillips. They are not hooked up yet.

Our kitchen cabinets were delivered at least two months ago and are being installed TODAY. I'm very excited to see the results...