He is Risen! Celebrating Easter Weekend

Happy Easter! I hope everyone had a great day. It was a beautiful day to celebrate Jesus' resurrection! I love that Easter (unlike Christmas) has been relatively unpolluted by commercialization and materialism. It is a true celebration of the reason Jesus came to this Earth. Our sermon this morning was related to how the Old Testament prophesies were fulfilled in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.

"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him." -John 3:16-17

My parents came into town for the Easter weekend. My mom and I went and saw the NYCB at the Kennedy Center, which was awesome. My dad helped me fix the little toilet problem that I had talked about last time. I had bought the wrong gasket (needed the American Standard gasket), which was causing the tank not to seat correctly. So, that is all fixed (pictures that include the toilet are shown a little later). We also fixed the exhaust fan problem in the last post. Turns out that stupid thing was nailed into the frame and we had to go into the attic to pry it off. The dirt-like stuff is actually insulation that is made from old newspapers.

After we finally got the box out (a crowbar was necessary).

And done. We screwed the new box in essentially the same place.

The good news is that the fan now works!

We also decided to tackle the backyard. I haven't even taken pictures of that area because it had been so embarrassing. As a result, I don't actually have a "before" shot for you. However, here is one taken from the patio last fall when the leaves had completely covered the area.

Notice the ivy on the left of the picture. We ended up filling 11 bags this weekend. We trimmed back the trees, cleared up leaves and flower petals, pulled up all the ivy, pulled out cable/Direct TV/Dish wires, got rid of broken lawn decorations, pulled up broken lights, etc. The backyard area now looks like this.

We actually get sunlight back there after we trimmed the tree! And we can entertain! It's amazing. I would still like to plant something else back there as well as mulch and make the area generally prettier, but it was a great start! And a huge thank you to mom and dad for the help! It was hard work.

In the front, my mom brought some new flowers to plant. And they're perennials, so they should look good from year to year as long as I can manage to keep them alive.

And my dad did a little trimming for us. :)

Now, I am totally going to blow your mind... see the picture of the front yard as it is now? Take a look at what it was shortly after we bought the house last year.

Are you stunned about how much progress we've made? J and I were too.

Between all our activities, I refinished a frame this weekend for the guest bath. Remember this? I had it in the half bath I recently destroyed? Yea, that one.

Well, I decided to give the frame some spray paint to match the new guest bath. For the frame, I chose white and for the mat, I went with gray. Frames can always be re-purposed. They are super easy to paint with spray paint. Rustoleum (Home Depot) is probably the best brand to use. Basically the trick is to use multiple thin coats and to keep your arm constantly moving as you spray. The coats should be done within an hour from each other (per can instructions). I then waited 48 hours for the paint to set before re-assembling. My frame came completely apart, which made it easier. If you are planning on putting something in the frame that is precious to you, I would recommend buying a new (acid free) mat. I was just diy-ing some artwork, so spray paint worked for me!

Before:

After:

Here is my DIY artwork. I used a ruler to trace out the Chevron pattern onto some yellow construction paper and cut it out, while we were watching a movie last night. I then glued the pieces onto white construction paper. And voila!

I cut the artwork to fit in my frame and reassembled my pieces.

And hung the completed work in the guest bath! Ignore that the rest of the bathroom isn't all put together. You get the idea. And see: working toilet!

My mom and I also dyed some easter eggs using vinegar, water and food coloring.

And J's folks came over this afternoon for an early Easter dinner. Yum!

All-in-all, a great Easter weekend. We also had some fun times with my parents. We went to a nearby park and had a picnic and went on a walk yesterday. Now, for me, it is back to work. My two weeks off have flown by! I'm nervous, excited, and need to get to bed.

Hope you all had a wonderful Easter.

He is risen... indeed!

Why I should stick with engineering

Ever heard the expression, "Don't quit your day job?" I think this one applies to me and bathroom remodeling. I think being an engineer suits me better. Anyway, I did manage to update the guest bath a little. And by update, I mean paint the walls and destroy the toilet. I think at this point J is looking forward to me going back to work so he doesn't have to worry about what the house will look like when he comes home each day. This was the situation in the guest bathroom tub when J came home on Monday. Yes, that is the tank of the toilet sitting in the tub.

Let's rewind. Our guest bathroom was originally wallpapered. I know this because of two things. One is that the walls look like they are in pretty bad shape (as if someone had difficulty removing the wallpaper), and two is that the area inside the vanity is still wallpapered. It's all 80s-style in there. The previous owners also removed a built in medicine cabinet at some point, and didn't do a great job of fixing it. You can see the indentation in the picture below.

That turned out to be a real pain to fix. I used layers and layers of drywall compound to smooth it out, and it still isn't perfect. These are some early on coats of the stuff.

Meanwhile, as I was waiting for the compound to dry... I worked on replacing our exhaust fan in the master bathroom because it stopped working recently. Look at how nasty it was looking in there.

Here is the new one I bought from Home Depot.

Except I found a problem. I got to this step and couldn't remove the old box to replace it with the new one. The nail that was used to nail it to the stud is completely rusted and at the wrong angle. Luckily my dad is coming tomorrow and bringing the appropriate tools, so this project will have to wait. So below is how our exhaust fan is looking in the master bath. Awesome right?

Okay, back to the guest bathroom. This is how the wall was looking before painting. Like I said, there were lots of imperfections going on. I ended up using Superpaint by Sherwin-Williams which has a built in primer. Since my color was pretty deep, I didn't prime the walls first, which I usually do.

I chose a gray for the bathroom (stamped concrete). I actually was inspired by the light fixture in the bathroom which is yellow. I wanted something that would work well with the yellow while offering some contrast. Gray and yellow are very "in" right now, so I used that. Since most of the rest of the space is white, I figured a deep gray should work, as long as I use enough light accessories, so the room doesn't look too dark. This picture shows that even after I painted, I noticed lots of problems on the walls in terms of smoothness and had to use more compound to smooth it out. And you can see why I removed the toilet tank. I could not paint behind the toilet without doing it. I regret nothing.

While we are on the subject of toilets, I picked out all our choices for the half bath remodel this week. There is nothing that makes you feel as grown up as looking at a bunch of toilets, debating the different footprints and flush capacities. How did I get here?

Anyway...

Since my smoothing out was taking a really long time, I saved the medicine cabinet area for last.

I ended up doing 3 coats on the walls to try and get a really smooth finish. Since this room is super small, I still have about a third of the paint left. Which I suppose is good if I ever modify anything and want to keep the paint color. Here is the wall after a gazillion coats of compound. 

And the finished product. I don't really feel like these photos capture the color very well. But you get the idea.

What I want to do is add yellow art work and decorations to the area to give it more brightness and contrast. I just haven't gotten there yet. Going from the weird yellow texture to a solid color was a huge improvement, though. I did learn a lesson though. While painting in a small area doesn't take a long time, it is very crowded and hard to keep from stepping in paint or other junk. Oh and you'll notice that the toilet's tank is back on the toilet... BUT it's also being propped up. Yea, again, very glad my parents are coming tomorrow. Added bonus is the extra motivation they will have considering that is their bathroom and the downstairs one is torn to pieces. :) Actually, it's not that bad. I tried installing a new gasket for the tank myself (which you pretty much have to do after removing the tank). 

The tank is held to the bowl by screws with rubber washers underneath to prevent leaking. The bowl's water pathway is surrounded by a rubber gasket, again to prevent water leaking. In time, the rubber gets weakened, which is usually okay as long as you don't fiddle with your toilet. But, if you ever separate the tank and bowl, the rubber pretty much disintegrates and you have to buy a new set. I'm sure this is why they are sold together. Anyway, I have no idea what I did wrong, but the bowl doesn't seem to sit right. It rocks back and forth, like the gasket isn't seated correctly. That will be tomorrow's project. I ended up fiddling around with the toilet for a long time. Despite being an engineer, I never really took things apart and put them back together as a kid. Which is what parents expect future engineers to do. Instead, I wait until it's my own house and there isn't anyone to fix it for me. Have I mentioned how glad I am my dad is coming tomorrow? I actually tried to connect everything back together and turn on the water again. Can you guess what happened? Yes, there was some leakage. It wasn't too bad though. But, the water is back off and disconnected from the toilet. 

One more small project also happened this week. I organized the unfinished part of our basement. It was looking like this. 

I couldn't walk in there or find anything. So, after organizing and getting rid of junk. Our basement is looking much better.

So, that has been my week so far in a nutshell. I'm more sore than I have been in a while from all the housework, and I am pretty sure my jeans are looser than they were. Doing house updates has that added benefit as well. I have been enjoying my time off. But, truthfully, it's a little weird. All your friends are working. And the days go by sooo fast. And I have been spending way more money on things than I would normally (and not earning anything). I think I had too many things on my to-do list for my time off. I figured I could get lots of things accomplished, but that really hasn't been the case. Things always take longer to do than I anticipate. And I haven't really done any of the quiet reflecting I should have done. But I never do. I have these romantic ideas that I will sit by a lake and just think about things, but the metro DC area isn't exactly Walden (And I'm not exactly Thoreau). 

One last thing... Long post. Thanks for sticking with me. I finally framed this postcard my dad gave to me. It is from my great-grandfather's work in television. He was an Electrical Engineering professor at Perdue. 

I made it big to point out a few things. 

1. Mr. is the assumed greeting. Women wouldn't have been involved in engineering or radio. 

2. Date: 19__

3. The frequency is given in kc. or kilocycles as in cycles/second. This was before the term Hertz (which is 1 cycle/sec) was adopted. 

4. I probably don't need to point out this was analog television. :) 

I refinished a frame I had and framed it for my desk area. 

I know it's off-center. I have plans for this wall to be a wall of pictures, but I haven't bought enough frames yet. :) So, for now, it will just look a little strange, but I'm okay with that. 

Palm Sunday and April Fools

Happy Palm Sunday everyone! J and I got up this morning, went to church, and then decided to tackle some yard work. Yesterday, I planted the pansies that I picked up last week. Here is what our yard looked like on Saturday morning.

This year, in addition to some potting soil, I decided to add a little fertilizer and plant food for the flowers.

I only got 6 pansies. As you will see, I need a few more flowers this spring.

Here's how it was looking Saturday evening.

So, after church, J and I decided to get some mulch and get our front looking a little more spruced up. When we got home, we ended up deciding to get rid of the monkey grass. All of it. Here's why: we didn't like it. We tried living with it throughout the past year (can you believe we have been in our house almost a year?). Throughout the course of the year, we have continually thinned it out and gotten rid of some of it. But, after looking at it a full year, we decided that enough was enough. So, J did most of the hard work and dug it all up and I came in after to clean it up. I actually didn't even have to ask. I was starting to dig it out, and J asked if he could try and then proceeded to do the whole job. We joked that it was like the commercial from Home Depot that is running on TV a lot right now, where the guy is sucked out his window and starts gardening. :)

Anyway, with J's help, our front was looking a lot better this afternoon.

And here are some close-up's.

The monkey grass was extremely difficult to get up. All of the roots seem to grow together making uprooting it extremely difficult. Even after J had gotten rid of all the visibile monkey grass, I was still painstakingly pulling up the roots on my hands and knees. And I have no doubt in my mind, I will have to continue to pull up the monkey grass that survived in root form. This, along with the sermon at church this morning, reminded me of the changes God has been making in my life. I think it started with Him getting my attention to the strongholds in my life. My doubts and fears, and the things that I had been using as distractions, that had begun to show through in my life in real ways. It was a dark place to be in, and I have seen that, as God has gotten rid of these things in my life, the roots sometimes stick around. But perseverance eventually leads to the place where God can plant new seeds of life, so that maybe one day His Spirit will shine through my life. It reminds me that grace is not a one time deal. Grace is a continuous life change. I am hoping to use the places where the monkey grass was to plant something new, something beautiful.

Today was also April Fools day. Our house decided to play a little joke on me, so that was cool. It started with the bathroom fan breaking. My thoughts were, "no biggie. I will find a replacement motor." Well, I did find a replacement motor on our trip to Home Depot. So, after we had finished in the yard (and I ate 3 bowls of ice cream), I decided to tackle the fan. Here's what the old one looked like. Gross, I know.

And here's the new one in its box...

It actually never got installed. I did manage to remove the old motor. However, the nail that holds the motor box to the stud was completely rusted and impossible to remove. After some frustration, I called my dad, who said he could bring a metal cutter when they come this week.

So, for now, our bathroom's fan is dismantled. Awesome.

Onto the guest bathroom... this will likely lead into another post, but I am trying to re-paint the guest bathroom. However, the guest bathroom has some problems with the walls. One of the previous owners successfully removed the wallpaper in the room, but did not smooth out the wall before painting. Someone also removed a medicine cabinet and didn't do a great job of patching the wall. So, before I paint, I am working on smoothing the walls. As a result, our guest bath is currently looking a little worse than it did before.

That will continue as a project this week. In case you are counting... this makes 3 bathroom messes in one week! Don't act like you aren't impressed.

PS - Check out YHL's April Fools Post! The post is a joke, but the toilet is real, which made me laugh quite a bit today.

Getting organized... mood board, closets and intercourse

I've been busy, but I will try and start where I left off last post. Remember how I destroyed our half bath? Well, I have been working with a contractor in designing our new bathroom. Here's a mood board with some ideas I have had based on the things I have seen and liked for the space.

I haven't decided on the faucet yet, but I did really love the Caesarstone for the countertop. We considered the idea of a vessel sink, but I think both J and I prefer an under mount sink. And I really like how modern the Kohler Verticyl looks. The faucets are both Kohler Purist brand. The toilet is a low gallon flush option from Kohler. The cabinets are Bertch Osage, which we can custom order for our space. We are planning on the taller height cabinets as well. I am not sold on the wall color yet, but it gives you an idea. 

In other news, I have been organizing things around the house. Here is how my closet was looking last week (before the organizing). 

I was having a hard time seeing around my door so I ended up removing the door completely. I am hoping to replace it with a nice curtain (I've already spotted one on Pottery Barn that I like). The closet is already more functional than it was with the door, and I went through and donated the clothes I don't wear anymore to my parent's church's clothing swap.

Ahh... much better. Although, I desperately need to organize some of the other closets in our house as well. I am hoping to tackle some of that this week. 

I went up to PA to visit my parents and my mom and I took a trip out to Lancaster county (Blue Ball, Intercourse and Bird-in-Hand to be more specific). Don't you just love those Lancaster county names? We went shopping and looked in some antique places, but I didn't really find anything I loved enough to take home. But here are some fun photos from the trip. 

And for those of you that linked here from facebook ... you know that I pre-occupied with something else this week that, for privacy reasons, I am not sharing on this blog. But that has been pretty exciting too!