Nursery Light

Before we could get started on any additional work in the nursery, we decided we first needed to take care of one problem: the fact that the room only had one outlet and, instead of a light switch, had this horrible lamp-like monstrosity attached to the wall.

After three bids, we finally found a contractor we felt comfortable with and had him go to work.  He had to use a raceway to add the outlets due to the brick wall, but now the room has an outlet on each wall, a light switch, and an adorable overhead light fixture that I picked up at IKEA!

Christmas 2012

Oh. my. goodness.  It has been such a crazy couple of weeks!  I had hoped to post a few photos of our house decked out for Christmas a while ago but just didn't get the chance (and I've been sick, which hasn't helped).  As it happens, posting late will give me the opportunity to include some photos of Christmas Eve (when we got snow!) and our Christmas brunch at home!

And in further good news, I have two more posts coming in the next few days.  We finally got the nursery electrical work done and Dan also got the nursery painted, so there will be photos coming soon!  Yay!

In the meantime, I hope you enjoy some of these photos of the Christmas magic that happened at our house.  I hope your holiday was beautiful and bright!

Trimming the tree after Thanksgiving!

Dan's Christmas ornament earrings

Kitties and Christmas lights!

Baking in my mom's old Christmas apron

Stovetop potpourri gifts for the neighbors

Stockings (on the bookshelf in lieu of a fireplace!)

Trimmed tree

Kermie!

Philly ornament

Harry Potter!

A very old family ornament

Nativity

Christmas village (with added Smurfs!)

Carolers in village

Christmas Eve dinner

Yogurt parfait at Christmas brunch

French toast and tempeh bacon at Christmas brunch

Snow on Christmas Eve!

Porch lights

Dressed up for Christmas Eve service

Merry Christmas!

Let There Be Light: Part 2

As documented in this post, Dan made some repairs to our bathroom light fixture over the summer.  It's been working great since then, until a couple of weeks ago when we noticed that another one of the bulbs (a different one this time) was again starting to flicker and crackle.  When Dan took down the fixture again to investigate, he realized that it was probably time to stop making repairs to the fixture and just replace it.  So, off to the store we went.

Our efforts to find a fixture in IKEA weren't fruitful, so we ended up buying a new one at Lowe's, and then Dan got to work!  (We were never huge fans of the gold light fixture anyway.)

Goodbye, non-working gold light fixture!

Closets: Before and After!

Dan finished up painting the closets over Thanksgiving weekend, so now we can officially show you the before and after shots!

Nursery closet 1
Before:

In progress

After! (Dan still plans to clean up the exposed brick a bit.)

Nursery closet 2
Before/in progress:

After!

Office closet
Before/in progress:

And after!:

Is Dan awesome or what?

Sometimes It's the Little Things

A few days ago, Dan finally got the chance to do something he's been wanting to do for a long time: change out this nasty-looking register in the kitchen.

Sometimes it's the little things that make a big difference!

Dan's planning to paint the closets over the weekend, so hopefully we'll have final before and after pics of the closet transformation.  Also, we just realized that he forgot to post a picture of the finished, painted office in the last post, so we'll get that up soon, too!

Painting Marathon (by Dan)

Unfortunately, I did not get closeups of the window trim where the more dramatic differences could be seen. You'll just have to take my word for it.

Office Prep

Office Primed

Office closet primed

Nursery Prep/Prime

Closets getting primed

All primed!