the Doors
I actually worked on TWO projects this weekend. I haven’t done that in quite a while, and that’s because the lights took a lot less time than anticipated. Let’s face it, every time I do something with electrical, I realize I have no clue what I am doing and it takes far longer than anticipated. Since this time around I had a little more time, I decided to start another project. Key word…start. We have these broken, ugly and annoying closet doors for our main coat closet.
I decided to take them down and replace them with a six panel style to match the front door. I knew I wasn’t going to have the time to paint it, but I figured I would get it up. That I did, but then I realized a slight problem. The closet opening is actually two inches wider than the door. That really wasn’t my mistake, because the largest door Lowe’s had was a 36″ door, and in reality, I thought it would work. What threw me off was the little metal strip to the right of the door, which concealed that gap. So, the door isn’t finished, but I have come up with a solution. After this coming weekend, I promise I’ll have finished photos of the door…but I thought I’d give you a taste as to what we’re doing. Nothing big…yet.
Key word…YET.
Read MoreLights out
Our house is littered with brass fixtures, and I really really hate brass. Not to mention that the fixtures are also original from the house, they are rusted or peeling and they just look awful. The worst culprit of them all, these “boob” lights… hideous.
I should also mention, we have FIVE of them in our house. Ugh. Our plan is to eliminate them bit by bit, and there was no better place to start than the hallway when you first enter the house.
The first task was to turn off the power to the lights. I am paranoid about electrifying myself, so I turned off nearly half the house just to make sure. With the power off, I took down the old lights. The screws were all rusted, and the fixtures were just falling apart.
With the old fixture down, I painted the ceiling where the fixture was (and I’ll probably need to put another coat on later this week), and began to put up our new fixture which we got from Lowe’s.
With the wiring all hooked up, new screws and a few choice words because I couldn’t get the screws lined up at first (it was my mistake, I put them in the wrong slot), the new lights were up and illuminating. What a difference, no more brass, no more ugliness.
Two down, three more to go. All in due time. Next time, when I paint a ceiling, I’ll take down the lights first so I don’t have to do it later. It was an easy project, but a fun and rewarding one. I’m happy that these lights also match our chandelier, so it really brings the rooms together.
Read MoreAdd us to your home screen
I know I know, there haven’t bee many updates as of late, but I promise I am going to Lowe’s this weekend to pick up a few things for some small projects around the house. Then after that, HOPEFULLY I’ll get some new projects, and be able to keep up with the blog a bit more. I do promise that as soon as the spring rolls around, this blog will be busy with stuff again. You can hold me to that.
In the meantime, however, if you enjoy the blog and you have an ipad/ipod/ereader, you can add us to your home screen. For ipad/ipod users, goto our webpage through your browser, then select add to home screen.
Once you do that, you’ll get a fun little icon on your home screen, and with one simple touch, you can visit our blog! Exciting, I know, but if you’re like me, you like to make things easy, so I’ve made reading our blog even easier. You’re welcome!
New blog posts coming next week, with more fun home improvement, even if it’s the little things 
Productivity
This past weekend seemed to be pretty productive for us, even if most of it was just cleaning or planning out ideas for down the line. I guess most see winter as a time to work indoors, and while normally I’d agree with you, I find it to be more difficult. The main reason is that I would normally begin working on a project during the week, trying to get everything prepped so that when the weekend rolled around, I had everything ready and could really knock out what we had planned. In the winter, however, it becomes more difficult because by the time I get home from work, the sun has already gone down and for whatever reason, I feel the need to plop down and relax. That could be because one of the main things I want to focus on lately involves electrical work, and the last time I tried to do this when the sun was going down, it was very difficult. So I do apologize to the avid readers looking for new content, that we’ve been a bit slacking on that. Hopefully that changes soon.
With that said, we did get some work done this weekend, which also happens to correspond with me losing my camera (I found it last night). The big thing we got done was to get rid of a television that was just sitting in our spare room. It was an older tv, that probably weighed around 100 pounds, and I couldn’t figure out what to do with it. Luckily for us, some friends had told us about a monthly recycling program offered to county residents, and it was free. We joined forces and recycled their television as well, which for some reason weighed about 150 pounds more than ours. We hauled both tvs in the element to the recycling center, where we profusely apologized to the gentlemen hauling out the tvs. Strong men, we felt bad, but they had fun with it, seriously. That frees up an enormous amount of space in the spare room, and hopefully I can empty out some of the other things just lying around. It has slowly become a force of its own in there, quite scary.
Also in finishing up our productivity were our taxes. I love doing taxes, I don’t know why, maybe it’s because I never owe and so it’s nice to think of receiving free money (when in reality, it’s far from free). Anyway, I like getting our taxes done early, as to not wait until the mad rush of people trying to get them done at the last-minute. Hopefully that also opens the door to get some new work done on the house. I’ve got plans people, I swear I have plans.
We also made it back to my hometown this weekend to pick up some tools for the folks, as well as make plans down the road. What I really want to do is pick my dad’s brain and have him help me build some night stands for our bedroom. He has a table saw, which I’ve never used, as well as a whole lot of knowledge stored in that noggin of his, so I’m really REALLY looking forward to that. I hope to do an entire week of blogs to that once we get started. Should be fun.
So, I’m sorry we haven’t updated in quite a while, but there is a lot of work coming, that I promise. If only building stuff and blogging was our full-time job, you’d have so much more to read. Stay tuned, more is coming…soon.
Read MoreA quick look
I realized that after I finished the coffee table, that photo I took was it sitting on a drop cloth. Not really that exciting…because you know, coffee tables are extremely exciting. Anyway, here is a just a quick update to the room as it is right now. Still no dining room chairs, but hopefully that will be in the somewhat near future (probably not).
We’re very happy with how it all looks. Next up, decor. We really need to get something on those walls, just not sure what it will all be. We’ll be doing some more work on other rooms very soon, we’re just getting it all in order, so have no fear loyal readers, there will be new updates soon enough.
Read More
About Matt and MC
We just recently bought our first home, and we decided to share our story of our adventures with you. The ups and downs of home ownership, and all the fun we'll have in between. Ignore the typos and just have fun, that's what we're here for. 
