Tito Speaks

Hello All! Welcome to the latest edition of our blog!

Here are the updates:

Bedroom:
. Painted! Furniture in! Linens on! Curtains hung! New blinds! Yippee!
. We've been sleeping in our bedroom now for about 5 days and it's great!
. Adam's closet is being reorganized by his dad to maximize the space.




Office:
. Border is down, ceiling is painted and walls are ready for painting. Walls will be a bluish-greenish-greyish color.
. Carole's closet (in the office) is all painted and clothes are in position! No more cardboard wardrobes!




Kitchen:
. This weekend, Carole's mom and her friend Arlet came for a visit and to help work on the house. Project numero uno: remove the kitchen wallpaper. Ick!
. We got a good start on it... wallpaper scaping is NOT good times. Adam finished it up (my hero!)
. Now, we just have to repair the walls and prep for painting.
. Also in the kitchen this weekend: FOOD! Carole's mom and Arlet made several meals for the happy home owners to partake in this week. Hooray! Beef and noodles, chicken salad, beef roast, BBQ pork.. YUM!









Upstairs:
. Adam has taken up the bathroom tile in preparation to lay new tile!
. The new plywood has been bought for the upstairs floor! Just got to find time to install it.

Extras:
. We bought new front and back doors. They are in the garage right now :)
. Tuesday night is twig night! Carole's chore is to pick up twigs in preparation for lawn mowing on Wednesday. WOO HOO!
. We saw the DaVinci Code. Skip it and see Mission Impossible III.
. We had our first BAD neighbor encounter: yesterday we see our neighbor walking across our backyard. For what? To cut flowers/branchess off one of our flowering trees! Adam stepped out to see what was going on. The neighbor's wife (standing in her yard) says to Adam, "We didn't think you were home!". The neigbhor walks back to his house with branches from our tree and doesn't say a word. They don't speak much english, but enough to say they thought we weren't home!

That's all folks! C & A

Old Painty Can Ned Flanders

Due to popular demand (the three people that looked at our blog . . . we've added a picture of the front of the house. Adam calls it the Tardis, as it looks tiny, but opens up to galactic proporations on the inside.



Work on the master bedroom continues. Thanks to Joe Sr. for helping to scrap the final remnants of the textured ceiling. Today we turned our attention to sanding rough spots and filling in deep holes (no sexual pun intended). The walls and ceiling were washed in preparation for Joe Sr. to Kilz it. See how he effortlessly applies the edging coat to the ceiling.



Here Joe Sr. shows the proper technique once used by the ancient Aztecs. The second coat comes tomorrow with the walls on Thursday.




As many of us know, preping for work is 75% of the time spent on a project. Carole becomes one with the masking tape and diplays here mad-like masking skills. Quite possibly a trait she inherited from her father, a.k.a. Master Wallpaper and Paint Guru for the Church and Christine.



To become a master masker, Carole must become one with the tape. Notice how she is in deep concentration. And . . . viola . . . the room is masked and ready for painting.

FIRST POST! House Update!

Hello All!

Welcome to our blog, ADVENTURES IN HOME OWNING, which will chronicle everything and anything regarding our *FIRST* home :) Bookmark us!

This weekend marks two weeks since we've moved in, and boy, does time fly! There doesn't seem to be enough hours in the day to accomplish everything that needs to be done!

Here is an update on what is happening with the house:

UPSTAIRS:
- When we moved in, the entire upstairs was carpeted in lovely brown/orange 70s carpet. Underneath the carpet: ASBESTOS TILE! Eeeks!
- Our first weekend in the house, Adam, his brother Joe, and dad Joe set off to tear up all the carpet and tile. Mission accomplished! However, under the tile, the plywood underlayment was coated in sticky black mastic.
- Our second weekend in the house, Adam and his dad tore up all the plywood so we can lay down fresh plywood, and then paint and carpet.
- At this point, we are waiting for the plywood we need to go on sale so we can purchase it, lay it down and then move on to painting and carpeting. Yippee!











BASEMENT:
- The basement is coming along quite nicely. We really enjoy all the extra space it adds. We put all of our living room furniture from our old apartment down there, so it is our tv/family room area.
- The set-up of the basement didn't go as smoothly as we hoped though... our movers could not get our large couch down the stairs. That wasn't going to stop Adam, though...
- Our first weekend in the house, Adam, his dad, and friend Frank were determined to get the couch downstairs. The only way: rip out the bottom three stairs so the couch could clear the staircase and make the turn into the basement.
- Mission accomplished! The stairs were ripped out, couch was moved down and the stairs were promptly replaced later that week (thanks to Joe Sr.)!
- The other great thing about the basement: I can finally do laundry any time I want! As you'll see, we had quite a bit to do when we first moved in!






MAIN LEVEL:
- There are still boxes everywhere! But the everything is slowly coming together...
- Adam is chipping away all the texture off our bedroom ceiling so we are temporarily sleeping in what will eventually be our office. He hopes to be finished with the ceiling and ready for us to paint next weekend.







So far, we are really really enjoying living in Oak Lawn. We love the space we have and are excited about having something that is ours!

More updates to come soon!

Cheers --
Carole (& Adam)