I Get by with a Little Help From My Friends

It sure has been a long time since we've been bloggin! For me, it's been a busy, stressful school year, so when extra time is available, I enjoy using it to reeeeeeeeelax. But as summer quickly approaches, we've started to begin planning our projects. Indoor painting will be the biggest project, with at least four rooms definitely getting painted, perhaps even a fifth! As we progress (and hopefully not regress!!), we will keep you in the loop.

On Saturday, I invited my buddies Pat and Adam over to spend the day. Ash was gone for the weekend because she went to the Adirondacks to celebrate Jessica's bachelorette weekend! The three of us hadn't gotten together as just the guys for way too long.

Adam asked me if it felt good to have our house and if it felt like our own yet. Truthfully, I've loved having this house together with Ash, but because it hasn't been fully decorated or because we haven't completely finished any of the rooms, it didn't always feel like home. That is, until the spring came. Being able to take care of our property has been so rewarding because now we can walk around all over it, instead of just looking at how pretty it was during the winter. 

 

This is mine! All mine!! Uhhhh, I mean, ours. All ours!! :)

Having friends over to enjoy the property made it feel more like home too! We played bocce ball in the backyard (Nice win, Adam) and hung out on the back deck. Fortunately, Ash and I didn't have to buy patio furniture because we already bought it for the balcony of our old apartment.

I asked Adam to bring a voltage tester to the house because one project Ashley and I still hadn't completed was installing new wall sconces for our bedroom. Unfortunately, our master bedroom doesn't have a light switch so the only way to be positive that the power was successfully turned off was to use a voltage tester. Adam helped me, errr...I assisted Adam, in installing the sconces.

First, we screwed in the support bars that the sconce attaches to.

Next, we attached the bars into the electrical outlet.

Pat was there for moral support.

Good work, Pat.

I was asked to hold a flashlight...

...and then I was asked to hold the sconce. (How Adam wound up doing this, I still have no clue).

There she is!!

The electrical outlet had two wires coming out of it: a black and a white. The sconce had three wires: a black, a white, and a copper. Black goes with black and white goes with white. However, the copper wire connects to the ground wire (used with a three-prong outlet). Since this old outlet didn't have a ground wire, all you need to do is wrap the copper wire around a screw. Some sconces, like ours, have a green painted screw that indicates where the copper wire needs to go.

After installing both sconces, here is the finished product (excuse the made bed if it doesn't meet your standards--remember, Ash was gone for the weekend haha):

Friends certainly make projects go by much easier than doing it alone. Thanks so much, Pat and Adam!!

And to think, we completed that project after all of these!!

Needing to Know Beyond Garden Gnomes

I know next to nothing about gardening, especially flower gardens.  My knowledge about yard work expands as far as raking leaves, picking up sticks and large objects before mowing, and well... mowing (on a ride-on mower).  I just asked Brendan what he knew and he told me to keep the bushes trimmed at least 6inches away from the house and to add soil to the garden.  The soil piece was my favorite contribution.


So we obviously need help!  Please feel free to give any advice on caring for gardens and lawns.

I've raked half of the lawn.  Needing suggestions from Jamestown friends.
What is the best way to dispose of these leaves, sticks, and pine cones?

What is the best way to remove the leaves? Rake them? Will it ruin what is underneath?
And... can I pull out those ugly (dead?) stick-like plants coming from the ground?

Do I need to hand pick all of the leaves and pine needles from this section as some flowers are already coming up?
And... here are those ugly, I think dead, plants.  Can I pull them up without hurting the plants around them?

Suggestions are welcome!  I'm very close to pulling up everything that looks ugly to me!

Fantastic Furniture

After being in our house for 3 1/2 months, we finally got our furniture!! It's such a good feeling filling empty rooms!!

View of Dining Room from Kitchen

View of Dining Room from Living Room

Ash and I actually discovered dining room furniture we really liked at an Ashley Furniture store on Long Island during Thanksgiving Break. We would have bought it right then, except that each Ashley stores are independently owned, so we couldn't buy it and have it shipped from a local Ashley's. Long story short, after checking out many other stores and dining sets, we decided to buy the set we saw on LI from an Ashley's Furniture in Orchard Park.

However, the morning before we were going to seal the deal, a coworker told me that there was a closer Ashley Furniture in Olean. We went there that afternoon, looked over our set, and decided we still really wanted it.  The salesperson said that before we made our decision, we should also check out their clearance section. It was HUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU*breath*UUUUUUUUUUUGE. We strolled around, and what to my wonderous eyes did appear but our......CHINA AND BUFFET SET. We looked the thing over up, down, and all around and couldn't find anything wrong with it. It was returned because the person didn't want it. Best part? It was $700 cheaper!! So needless to say, we made out fantastically. Check it out!

Here she comes!

Very happy with Ashley Furniture's movers--extremely friendly and didn't leave until I was happy with everything

View from the Living Room

View from the Kitchen

Take a seat...or two...or six

China/Buffet...3 light settings by touching the hinges

Have a seat

Close up of the table

Bedroom wise, we got our furniture from John V. Schultz in Erie, PA. The perk here was because John V. only has a store in PA and not NY, they cannot charge us sales tax! So we saved a good chunk of change! I would definitely recommend John V. Schultz (ask for Dave #1--great salesperson).

Sleigh bed

I better get all of my clothes in here before Ashley claims this whole thing for herself!!

As you can tell, the furniture certainly fills our bedroom! We love the sleigh-bed look and love how the foot board doesn't protrude, giving us extra space. Ash did a phenomenal job on the wall colors; the furniture still pops despite the dark accent wall! The coolest feature of the bedroom furniture is that the nightstands have a hidden compartment with 3 outlets, so you can hook up a lamp, alarm clock, and laptop and have all of the cords hidden away!

Now we just need our mattress, which is coming in on Saturday, and two wall sconces and we'll be done. Wow. Done. It's nice to be "done" with a room. This house is starting to feel like a home more and more each day.

First Steps of Real Progress

Well I have some great news... we finished painting our bedroom!  I am pretty sure that this took us way longer than it should have, but that's how the Keisers roll.  Ha.... get the pun?

Anyway... I chose the colors of the room, brown earthy colors.  To some, this may be boring, but for me our bedroom needs to be a place of sweet serenity with the type of jobs we have.  We love teaching, but sometimes at the end of the day, we are just fried!  The colors of the room were actually determined by our bedroom comforter set that we got as a wedding gift.  It's a dark brown comforter with touches of beige and sage green in it.  Getting that earthy feel?  I wanted to do something other than just painting the four walls all the same boring neutral color, so I got my heart set on an accent wall.  Not quite as hard, but it requires a little more time and patience for the taping, and some more money for additional color of paint.  We decided on Gobi Desert walls, Belgian Sweet accent wall, and toasted marshmallow trim.  In man terms: beige, brown, and cream. 

Painting the accent wall

This is what we had to work with:

The Before (Like that unshowered deer in the headlights look?)

 Before we could begin the painting we had to take care of a couple things:

1. Take the old sconces off, AFTER spending 20minutes finding the right switch in the circuit breaker that turned off the electric to the master bedroom. (This communication ordeal between Brendan and I was cause for a glass of wine. Note: this is an important detail, stay tuned.)

B unscrewing the sconce from the wall.

So cool! You can see the history of the room underneath: blue paint, striped vine wallpaper, plaster walls.

2. Spackling holes and imperfections.

How To's from Black and Decker Complete Photo Guide to Home Repair

Awesome spackle that goes on pink and dries white, so you know it's ready to be sanded down.

Using the techniques Brendan read about.

Wet and Pink

Dry and white

3. Priming over the dark blue paint with Kilz oil-based primer to seal the painted wallpaper from the previous owner.

Motion shot

This was after 3 glasses of wine. (foreshadowing)

Looks like we need another coat!

4. Second thoughts.  After the delicious wine's effects had worn off, I began to have second thoughts about my impulsive decision to just paint everything (and anything). The painting was fun and went by fast, but here are the bloopers:

Why didn't we completely take these off the wall!?!

I found the page explaining how to disconnect the wires from the sconce, but Brendan read it because we know I don't have the patience to. 

As if these weren't hard enough to remove from the previous coats of paint before us, I added a thick primer!  Again, what was I thinking!?!  Brendan spent an hour trying to take these off the wall, one set probably installed when the house was built 80 years ago.  B then sanded them all down, spackled, sanded again, and re-primed.

Lesson learned: drink after the work is done, or just drink and don't do the work. ; )  

5. Time to officially start painting!

Starting the trim

Walls and trim finished

Catching the action on video...

I had no idea..

I think the paint fumes are getting to me.

Why does my shadow look sexy and I look like an idiot?

Overall, I had a great time painting the bedroom.  This was Brendan's first room he ever painted, so he learned a lot.  It was great to teach him some of the ropes, while learning a lot from each other.  These words may have crossed my lips at one point though, "Dear God, My patience will get me into Heaven, right?  This is my golden ticket, right?"  

Things we learned:

• I hate doing trim, but love painting overall.  Brendan hates taping, painting, cleaning up, but loves... uh, loves... the finished product!
• Bren is awesome at researching tips and quick fixes.  He can walk me through everything and seems to know what all the experts say.
• I hate reading and researching, but I have the confidence to attack each little project with B's guidance and some common sense (usually).

We joked a lot, had some heated, frustrated moments, but every inch of that room is filled with detailed attention and love.  The room isn't perfect, but it's ours. (Best Corny Comment Award Nominee) 

Drum roll please....

Accent wall and regular wall prior to tape removal.

Finished walls after all of the tape was removed the next day.

Interior walls, door to the hallway

Closet door and hallway door

Sorry that some of the photos are dark, due to the lack of lighting in the room currently.  Furniture was delivered Friday, and Brendan will update with that post and pictures of the bedroom furniture in the newly painted room.  It looks sharp and I can't wait to start decorating it!

Total project time: 2 weeks (so far)

*Please note, any possible innuendos are unintended. (At least this time.)