The Flipping Couple

quality control

2012-01-27T06:15:00.000-06:00

When we left things off, Nick had constructed a new base cabinet, but we literally pushed it into place just hours before we hosted a New Year's Eve party, so there were definitely some loose ends to tie up.

Here's how we left things:

Just a couple weeks later the top was already starting to bow, which we expected because it's such a big cabinet. But since we're going to add the weight of a granite countertop we needed to beef up the frame to hold the weight.

So beef up we did.

Nick added 2x4's around the front and back to basically create a header (like you'd find in a doorway) to support the top of the cabinet.

Boom. Instant support. Exactly what this mega-cabinet needs to hold up the weight of a counter top.

Meanwhile, Shalai kept a careful eye on our work. Can't get anything past quality control around here.

backsplash updates

2012-01-26T06:05:00.000-06:00

Remember when I got all crazy excited that our upper cabinets were finally back on the wall? Yeah, well, the fun doesn't end there. Notice our gorgeous back splash in the picture below. Then notice the awkward gap of plain ol' drywall between the top of the back splash and the cabinet itself.

That actually wasn't a measurement error. We did that on purpose ~~because we like to make life as difficult as possible for ourselves~~. The driving force behind a lot of the changes we made in the kitchen was to really open things up. The cabinets felt too close to the countertops, which made things feel cramped and closed in. So, we decided to install the cabinets 6" higher than they were before.

Special bonus? We can open the coffee maker completely without having to pull it out from under the cabinet.

I think I just admitted we designed our kitchen around a coffee maker.

Unfortunately, this coffee-friendly design meant some extra work. See all those half-tiles at the top of the back splash? Yeah. They had to go so we could extend the back splash by another 6" to meet the underside of the cabinets.

We used a grout removal attachment on the Dremel and ground out every last bit of grout between every half-tile. We didn't use a guard or anything....mostly because the one we brought home from Home Depot didn't fit the Dremel model we have. (Whoops) But we ended up not needing it at all.

Once the grout was gone we used a large flat-head screwdriver to pop the tiles off the wall. I'm sure there's a better method (and better tool), but this got the job done. Even with slate tiles (which are very easily broken) we only had a couple casualties. Most of these babies will find themselves back on the wall before long.

This whole process was actually MUCH more simple than we thought it would be. Which never ever happens. Total win.

The tiles did leave a fair amount of old thinset and chunks of slate behind, so I went back through with a (smaller) flat head screwdriver and hammer and chipped all the old stuff off so we'll have a fresh start with the new tiles.

Tools of the trade:

That step was time consuming, but still pretty simple. While I tackled the residue, Nick was out in the (very chilly)(and almost dark) backyard cutting cement board. At this rate we should have new tile on the wall soon!

Tomorrow? More progress on the new cabinets and a glimpse of our quality control team.

(Hint: they're fuzzy)

sneaky pups

2012-01-16T05:45:00.000-06:00

It was a good weekend to be a dog in our house.

First, I was gone Friday night and apparently both dogs spent the entire night sleeping in our bed.

Typically, I'm the softy who lets them sneak into bed, but apparently that role was filled just fine by Nick while I was gone. Reports are Shalai took it upon herself to put my pillow to good use.

Then, Nick and I were both under the weather for the remainder of the weekend. That did nothing for our finish-the-kitchen efforts, but it made for an incredible amount of puppy snuggling.

Shalai is officially done sleeping now and ready to play! play! play! so here's hoping this week has more healthy and activity and less laying on the couch.

How was your weekend? Anybody else let the dogs get away with things just because?

booklist 2012

2012-01-10T04:08:00.000-06:00

Last year I read some really great books. Here's just a few of my favorites -

Delivering Happiness, Onward, Linchpin, The Millionaire Next Door and the Help.

I would highly recommend all of these, but if I had to pick just one I'd have to say Linchpin by Seth Godin is the winner. Very thought provoking and a great read if you want to work on your career.

(Next pick would be Onward by Howard Schultz. I know you didn't ask but I loved this book, so I had to tell you. Subtitled "How Starbucks fought for its life without losing its soul." Great great read. I cried. I don't think business books are supposed to make you cry.)

But now I'm looking for some new reads for the new year. I'm going to read 24 books this year, and here we are one week into January and I haven't even started. (Way to go, Cindy!)

If you've read some great books recently (or heck, a long time ago!) I'd love to add it to my list. Any ideas for me?

world's ugliest

2012-01-08T16:09:00.000-06:00

We've covered this before, but, you guys, we have super hyper dogs.

As evidenced here:

Play time from Cindy Germann on Vimeo.

That video was obviously from our pre-kitchen remodel days, but she hasn't changed a bit. Since they're both so high-energy, we've talked on and off about getting a treadmill and teaching the pups how to walk on it. And then we started running more, and as much as I prefer outdoor running, it's often too dark/cold/icy/whatever to actually make a run happen in my non-working hours.

So we started talking about getting a treadmill...again. And then we were offered a free treadmill. FREE. We couldn't say no.

On Saturday night we brought home what may very well be the world's ugliest treadmill. But you know what? It's totally functional, so for now, it's perfect.

Even the dogs think so.

This worked so much better than either of us thought it would! We heard it could take over 4 hours to treadmill train a dog. Multiply that times 2 dogs and I would've lost my patience long before we had this figured out. Fortunately, our crazy pups figured it out a lot faster.

To get them comfortable with the machine Nick stood outside the belt and had the dogs on a leash. He'd start the treadmill really really slowly. Both dogs kept trying to sit down, and then they'd get to the end of the track and scramble like crazy to not fall off.

But in less than 10 minutes they were really getting the hang of it! They still pause before every step (so we still have it running really slowly - less than 1mph), but they keep moving!

We kept their little sessions short with lots (and lots and lots) of encouragement and some treats sprinkled in. They actually seemed to love it, especially Beemer! He kept trucking along and would jump back on the treadmill after we told him he was "all done." Shalai is a little less certain about the whole thing, but did really well with it.

We're hoping we can use this to keep them active when it's cold/dark/icy/late and that the extra exercise will help all of us get a little more sleep at night.

Have you ever tried treadmill-training your dog? Any tips for us? Think we're totally nuts?

new dryer!

2012-01-06T06:00:00.000-06:00

In addition to our goal of finishing the kitchen this year, we’re also aiming to do more laundry.

Aka – we finally have a dryer again!!!

Once we dug out our original receipt and realized we’d paid only $250 for our brand-new dryer 3 years ago, it really didn’t make sense to put $280 into fixing it. Our next thought was Craigslist, so we started scouring the postings for a gas dryer. Should you ever find yourself in our shoes, please note that there are far fewer gas dryers on the market than electric, and they’re more expensive. Awesome.

And yes, we did debate converting our house to work with an electric dryer, but that was a last-resort idea, since we’re kinda busy with other things like building kitchen cabinets.

We followed up on a couple listings, but we were always too late (it’s gone!), or the dryer was several hours away, or the reply sounded sketchy (no thanks). On our day-after-new-years-holiday we decided to see what was available on the retail market.

Our first stop was ApplianceSmart, where we purchased our original washer/dryer set three years ago. They only had 3 gas dryers (vs 30-some electric) and the cheapest one was $400. Once we piled tax, hoses and connectors onto that price we were way above what we wanted to spend. Plus, it was a bottom-of-the-line dryer and it looked….cheap. We couldn’t bring ourselves to spend $500 on that.

We also checked out Sears, Home Depot, Lowes and Menards, but just couldn’t find anything that was a viable option. Which certainly isn’t to say there aren’t viable options out there, it’s just that we’re a little disenchanted with the dryer industry at the moment and had no interest in spending a lot of money on one, since our 3 year old purchase is now completely useless.

Frustrated, we turned back to Craigslist. We decided to just get something, preferably a really cheap something, that will hopefully last for at least a couple years. The technician that came out to look at our old one said the best dryer on the market is the one made my Whirlpool with the lint trap on top, in the back-right corner. We later found out that any dryer with the lint trap in that location is made my Whirlpool (so Roper, Maytag and Amana are all under the Whirlpool umbrella). My parents happen to have that dryer and it’s the only appliance in their house they haven’t had to replace, so we were hoping to find something along those lines. He also suggested getting a simple machine, avoiding the electric panels (the $280 part that failed on our current dryer) and the bells and whistles. The less there is, the less there is to go wrong.

Finally, yesterday, we got our dryer! Someone had what we were looking for listed as name-your-price. We offered $175, they took it, we brought home a dryer.

Hallelujah.

We still need to get new hoses (by law we can’t re-use the old ones), but we should be doing laundry by this weekend. Which is good, because I’m running out of socks. Again. And we’ve been doing a lot of laundry-mooching off our generous parents for the past month.

Also – because some of you have asked, we did consider just hang-drying everything. We already do a lot of line drying (all of our gym gear, dress pants and a lot of dressy shirts), but reality is that we’re just not home enough to line dry everything. We have enough trouble staying on top of our laundry when we only need to throw it in the dryer. If we have to hang everything up in the limited space we have available we’d never get through it all. That’s just reality.

There you have it! We’re back on the road to clean clothes. Anybody out there line dry everything? Replaced a dryer recently? Need to do some laundry? (Come try out our cool new toy!)

progress = beautiful

2012-01-03T05:43:00.000-06:00

Happy 2012, friends! You better believe I'm making my list of goals for the new year, but I'm pretty sure FINISH THE KITCHEN tops the list, so let's start there.

Ok, here's where we left off:

Aaaaand, here:

Fast forward to Friday night. We were 24 hours away from our annual New Year's Eve party and the kitchen was covered in power tools. Plus, we were still utilizing half our living room as a drywall cutting station. We put our "get it done" hats on and powered through our to-do lists.

And then my dad ended up in the ER and then Beemer ended up in the doggie ER. Fortunately, they're both doing ok now, and Dad is back home. Life has a way of putting your priorities back in order awfully fast, and I'm so thankful Dad's doing ok. We're also thankful for awesome friends (ahem, Tim) who stepped up and helped us make a party happen.

So by 7:00 on Saturday we had this cabinet shell in place (and conveniently, storing our punch bowl and wineglass boxes).

On the other side of the kitchen we got our new and improved breakfast bar in place (excuse the recycling underneath....).

I'm already loving this little spot for moving groceries in and out of the fridge, as well as dumping my purse and mittens.

We obviously have a long way to go, but seeing this much progress is an encouraging start to 2012.

How did you all ring in the New Year? Party? Quiet night at home? Drywall dust??

merry (belated) christmas!

2011-12-29T06:32:00.000-06:00

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas! We sure did, which might explain the silence around here. We had some wonderful days (and really late nights!) with family. I wish there were more hours to spread around, but we're glad we could cram in as much as we did.

The dogs were just glad when we finally came home late Sunday night.

On Monday we took down the tree (Christmas clean up is easy when you only have a tree....) and cleaned our much-neglected house.

This week we're back at it! I'm working all week but Nick took the week off to make as much progress as possible on the kitchen. Apparently we decided that throwing a party on New Year's Eve is a great idea in a completely torn apart house, so we figured we should at least get our table out of the middle of the living room.

(Wish us luck!)

Things always take longer than we want them to, but we're chipping away at the kitchen. Nick whipped up a new base cabinet on Tuesday. Or at least a darn good start on the new cabinet.

And then yesterday he and Tim started re-building our breakfast bar. Naturally, we ran into a couple snafus along the way, but we're hoping all the planning, re-planning and contemplating will help us knock it out today.

And the boys cut the granite down to size for the new bar, so as soon as the supports are in place we'll be ready to rock and roll!

After that we just need to move a pipe, paint all the cabinets, mud and sand, raise the backsplash, find/make/install trim, re-do the floor, find matching (discontinued) tile.....

Ok, so we still have a long way to go. But the cabinets are up, have I mentioned that??

How are you guys doing? Anybody else working this week? Or working on the house? Or maybe just trying to recover from too much fun over the weekend??

cupboard cleats

2011-12-23T05:07:00.000-06:00

So we installed cabinets this weekend, right?

(Do you want to guess how many times I’m going to mention that fact? Hint: MANY)

If you’ve spent much time hanging cabinets on walls you probably know they’re not super light. I think modern cabinets come in single-box units. We had entire walls to hang at one time (meaning, they’re all connected). So while juggling heavy cabinets we also have to get them straight and level and screw them into the wall. I’m pretty sure that’s a recipe for disaster.

Unless your husband is a genius. Then you don’t actually have to do that at all.

Nick installed cleats (like what you use when roofing a steep roof) on the wall first. We spent our time leveling off a single 2x4 instead of the cabinets. Once the 2x4 was perfectly level we screwed it into the wall.

Then we hoisted the cabinets up and set them on top of the cleat. BAM. Level cabinets.

Bonus points because the cleat also held up the bulk of the cabinet’s weight while we attached them to the wall.

Maybe this is common practice in the cabinet-installing world. I’ve never actually installed cabinets before, so it was new to me. And it honestly worked really well, so I’d definitely recommend it if you have a bunch of cabinets to install.

At least if you want them to be level, which is kind of overrated.

(ok not really)

puppy

2011-12-20T05:45:00.000-06:00

Nick: What would you do if I got you a puppy for Christmas?

Cindy: We cannot get another dog.

Nick: I know, but what would you do?

pause

Cindy: Snuggle it.

cabinets ON THE WALL

2011-12-19T05:50:00.000-06:00

It was a good weekend. A really really good weekend. As in, a weekend that made us feel like the end might, in fact, finally be in sight.

Saturday morning the kitchen looked like this:

Mission: Kitchen Cabinets was officially on. But first we a few small pieces of drywall to install and some wiring to run.

Fortunately, Shalai is a really good helper when it comes to drywall. Especially if you're looking for someone to chew on drywall. She's an all-star drywall chomper.

Before we could get the upper cabinets installed we needed to finish the drywall on the ceiling. This took a little longer than we wanted it to, and involved a couple more cuts than we would've liked, but in the end it's up and it's done, so we'll call it good.

And here we are, Sunday afternoon. All the drywall is installed. The wiring for the new lights is installed. There's nothing left to do but install those cabinets!

My dad gave up his Sunday afternoon to install our cabinets. Dad, we love you. We'd still be arguing about how to fix that corner cabinet if you hadn't been here. (Long story. Don't ask. It worked out in the end.)

I think I started laughing compulsively when the first cabinet went up. It's been a long time since we've seen cabinets up on the walls. And by long time I think I mean something along the lines of 10 months.

To be completely honest, I was actually worried about re-installing these babies. I was afraid the kitchen would feel really closed in again. It doesn't. At all. I'm totally amazed and so relieved.

I think the preserved "open" feel is mostly due to three factors - moving them 6" up higher on the wall, painting them white and installing the lights above. Well, and permanently removing those huge soffits definitely helped, too.

After 10 months of having our dishes scattered all over the house I wasted no time moving them back into their proper home. The fact that I can now grab a dish out of the kitchen cabinets (instead of somewhere in the dining room, living room or basement) feels so good.

It doesn't look too shabby either.

All those fun and games are now making us feel something liked this:

But it was completely worth it.

How was your weekend? Christmas shopping done? (Mine isn't) Christmas parties attended? Anyone else knocking out DIY projects instead of wrapping presents?

drying fail

2011-12-15T05:10:00.000-06:00

Once upon a time, we had a dryer….that worked.

When we moved in three years ago we bought a brand spankin’ new washer and dryer. They were shiny. They were new. They worked beautifully.

Over the past 6 months our dryer has started acting up. Phantom beeping, we had to have all the settings “just so” or it wouldn’t start…odd, annoying, concerning, but in the end our clothes still got dry and we have other things to worry about so we ignored it.

Until the night before Thanksgiving when the dryer refused to turn on. Push start, it beeps 3 times, nothing happens.

sorry about the crappy iPhone picture

So we brought our laundry to Mom and Dad’s on Thanksgiving. (We really just wanted to create a flashback to our college days)

Then we googled. We discovered it was most likely one of two problems. One problem had a $20 fix, the other had a $280 fix. We crossed our fingers and ordered the $20 part.

(can you guess how the story goes?)

Nothing. Nada. No work-y.

$20 part that didn't work

So we admitted defeat and called a repair man. He came out, put the dryer back together, and it worked perfectly. He had it running for about 30 minutes, started and stopped it many MANY times, everything worked great.

Confused but happy, we paid the nice man and I immediately threw a load of laundry in the wash because 2.5 weeks later we had a lot of laundry to do.

We washed it. We put it in the dryer. We pushed start. It beeped three times. Nothing happened.

(cue sad music)

We kept turning it on and off, changing settings, plugging and unplugging the machine. Nothing.

We tried again the next day and voila! It worked. One load of dry clothes! We tried it again with the next load, and….no luck.

So, we’re currently debating purchasing the $280 part or purchasing a brand new dryer. Stories, advice and magical solutions all welcome.

We’re also going to be headed back to Mom and Dad’s soon, because, well….I’m running out of back-of-the-closet outfits to wear.

oh, christmas tree

2011-12-14T05:53:00.000-06:00

We’re definitely upping our Scrooge factor this year. Not even intentionally, but we are.

We headed out on Saturday, December 3^rd, with our good friends Josh and Mikalah for a Christmas-tree-hunting adventure. The day was perfect, we traipsed through the farm and both located our perfectly imperfect trees (check out Mikalah’s story here), we sipped hot cider, munched on cookies and definitely got in the Christmas spirit.

Then it started snowing.

So Nick headed into work at about 6 that night and didn’t get home until 2:45 the next morning (and left again at 5:30am, but that’s neither here nor there). Our poor little Christmas tree got thrown on the garage floor, where it stayed until Tuesday night. (Sorry, tree, you deserved better)

We finally got it set up on Tuesday night (yaaaaay!) and then discovered that one of our two strands of lights didn’t light up. It was too late to get a new string that night, so we left our tree as-is. Bare. And sad. (Sorry, tree)

Wednesday night Nick snagged a new strand of lights and got them up on the tree (yaaaaaaay!) but I was booked until 10:00 that night, so it remained ornament-less until Sunday. (Sorry, tree)

Finally, after a jam-packed, go-go-go weekend we found ourselves home on Sunday night. So while Nick worked at the dining room table I hung ornaments on the tree. Beemer helped. He’s a good helper, as long as snuggling counts as helping (it totally does).

Right now it just has silver ornaments. We usually put up a combo of red and silver along with some favorite ornaments from our childhood. On Sunday night I was just feeling the sparkly silver. I can’t decide if it looks classy or pathetic. (Votes are welcome)

And that poor neglected tree is the extent of our Christmas decorations. No bowls of ornaments, no stockings, no garlands, no lights. I’m hoping to work a few more Christmas decorations into the house, but at the moment it’s still so chaotic and torn apart that adding more “stuff” to the mix would feel hectic, not festive.

So we’re loving the (rather simple) tree, instead. And the holiday tunes. And the eggnog. And the moments together, like Saturday at the tree farm and Sunday at home. Life cranked up the crazy a little bit this year, so instead of trying to cram it all in we’re trying to keep things as simple and streamlined as possible. Kinda like our tree.

ps - votes? Is silver too "blah?" Or is it classy? Or do I need to take a better picture so you can even see the tree?

diy-er wishlist

2011-12-07T05:48:00.000-06:00

If you're anything like me, you probably still have some people left to shop for. And if you're reading this blog, chances are you have someone on your Christmas list who is a handyman (or woman). If that's the case we have some gift ideas for your beloved DIYer.

These are Nick's picks, all stamped with his approval. And trust me, when it comes to tools, that can be hard to get.

Everybody needs a hammer, but chances are the person on your list may already have a standard hammer. Crank it up a notch with a 24 oz framing hammer. This $29.98 version of the Dead On is the exact hammer Nick uses.

Nick is a hardcore DeWalt fan. And by hardcore we mean every single power tool he owns is a DeWalt. If you want to enable your loved one to get hooked on DeWalt, the hubs recommends this circular saw. But, we know this $129 saw doesn't fit every budget. So if you're looking for something more budget friendly Nick would recommend this version, at a very reasonable $49.99.

If you have a hardcore DIYer on your list you probably have no idea how excited they can get about something like screwdrivers. Really. And if it's a handtool, Nick swears by Craftsman. He recommends the 8 piece set for only $14.99 or the set pictured below for $19.99.

Nick has a small collection of drills/drivers/hammers drill. I asked him what his number 1 pick would be and he said it would be DeWalt's 18V Hammer Drill/Driver.

But if $139 isn't in your budget range, Nick's budget pick would be the $64 corded version.

Every weekend warrior needs a socket set. Nick recommends this Craftsman 20 piece starter set for $39.99.

We use our speed square constantly. It never leaves Nick's toolbelt. Great gift and one that will be used a lot! Plus, at just $10 it's a great deal.

Until I married Nick I had no idea how different tape measures could be. You guys, my husband has a favorite tape measure. NERD ALERT. But this is it, and it might be the perfect stocking stuffer for someone on your list! The Stanley FatMax for $19.97.

There you have it - a DIY gift list. Any of these pop up on your list this year? Or have they found their way under your tree before?

So, how many of you have all your shopping done? We've made a good dent in our list but we definitely still have some work to do!

cone of shame

2011-12-05T06:08:00.000-06:00

A number of you have asked about our adorable little invalid, so I figured it was time for an update.

Shalai is still wearing her cone of shame. We're actually on cone #3. Girl's a little tough on cones. We've been duct-taping them for as long as possible and then replacing them when there's nothing left to duct tape. And then last week Shalai finally figured out how to lick her wound while wearing her cone. We had to go up a size, which as been miserable for everyone.

Shalai runs into absolutely EV.ER.Y.THING with that cone. Our legs, walls, stair treads, Beemer, chair legs, tables, drawers, beds....everything. And she doesn't care. At all.

Her leg is healing up ok. Since she took the stitches out on her own it's taking a lot longer to heal than any of us would like, but so far we're infection free.

At this point we're going on week 4 of our adventure, and our biggest battle now is keeping her from running around too much. Poor girl is going absolutely stir crazy.

But, we've really glad it's starting to heal. We're thankful we didn't need to do a second surgery. And we're really really thankful she's been kind enough to leave the cone on so the wound can heal.

And yes - we are making progress on the house. Kind of. Nick ended up working a big chunk of the weekend (thanks to a little snowstorm) and wasn't up for any projects by the time we got home on Sunday. Apparently 2.5 hours of sleep won't inspire you to re-do some plumbing on a Sunday night. Updates soon!

busy bees

2011-11-28T05:43:00.000-06:00

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend celebrating life with people you love. We had a truly incredible weekend and got to spend a lot of time with family, which was so great. We kicked things off Thursday morning with a 5 mile run, and that time was perfect for me to reflect on this past year and all the incredible blessings we've received. At one point Ben Folds "The Luckiest" came on my iPod and at that moment I realized that I really do feel like the luckiest girl. Our life is really incredible. Not perfect, not always easy but truly incredible. I hope you had a chance to be reminded of all the awesomeness in your life, too!

Anyway, my dad stopped by over the weekend and reminded me that we're a little behind on the blog. So without further ado, here's the photographic evidence that we are, actually, making progress on the house.

Here's where we left off - vents installed, canister lights installed, wires run.

The new stuff? Insulation! The insulation had an immediate impact on the temperature in the kitchen (probably since it's no longer open to the great outdoors!), which was amazing. We're really looking forward to a warm and comfortable kitchen this winter.

After insulating we had to fish a wire across the entire kitchen ceiling so we could get power to the lights. Nick pulled it off late at night, and this weekend we finally got to flip on the lights! We've never had this much light on the sink side of the kitchen, and I'm incredibly excited to actually see what I'm cooking.

Then? Drywall! We're finishing off the last of the kitchen drywall, because after drywall comes more electrical and then drywall on the ceiling and then? HANGING THE CABINETS. Which is basically my new goal in life. So anything that leads to the hanging of cabinets gets a solid vote from me.

I have to mention how weird it feels to have legit walls up in the kitchen. I mean, I realize bare drywall may not sound like legit walls to most people, but compared to the open stud spaces we've been used to the drywall looks AMAZING. Maybe we'll just skip the whole tape/mud/paint thing and just hang pictures on it like this.

Kidding.

Kind of.

So that's the current kitchen tour! We're currently waffling between feeling like the end is in sight and feeling like the end keeps getting further and further away. But honestly, even if the end is further away we still have insulation in, lights on and walls up. Really, what more do you need?

Well, I mean, besides upper cabinets.

How was your weekend, friends?

explore utah: part three (the end)

2011-11-17T05:54:00.000-06:00

Last post on Utah - I promise.

After exploring Zion and getting our feet wet (literally) we hopped in the car and drove back east to Moab, Utah, which is right outside of Arches National Park.

The drive was stunning. We took the scenic route through Capital Reef, which I absolutely recommend. It was an extra two hours in the car, but it was two hours of gorgeousness. Like this:

Arches is probably the most famous of Utah's national parks, but it's not huge. You can definitely cover the must-see sights in a day.

We started out hiking all around the Devil's Garden area. There are so many arches packed into a very small space, and a lot of them are extremely close to the parking lot. Super do-able even if you don't want to strap on some hiking shoes. Not that you need hiking shoes for any of this. We sure don't have them, but supposedly they're a good idea.

It's amazing how unique each arch is. For example, you have Landscape Arch:

Quickly followed by Partition Arch. Thin and narrow vs. thick and chunky.

And while a lot of arches are short trails from the parking lot you can also get your hike on with some longer trails. We hiked all of Devils Garden, taking the primitive trail back. It's really beautiful and really quiet - a lot less people than the main path. Plus, you get to see an extra arch! BONUS!

Double O Arch is a family favorite. I visited Arches several times as a kid, and with a maiden name of "Ooms" you've gotta soak up those double o's.

However, all you height-haters be warned - Nick is just starting off on the top of a rock fin. You have to walk a couple hundred feet across the top of the fin, which is about 4 feet wide. It's crazy windy up there and it's a long way down. You've been warned.

It is, of course, totally worth it, though. And not that bad. So do it.

And...here's Double O.

Like I said, the primitive trail has some really beautiful landscape that you don't see the same way from the main trail. Views like this one:

That whole hike was 6 or 7 miles long, so we hung out in the car and chowed down on some Larabars for a little while before our next adventure - Delicate Arch.

If you only do one hike in Arches, make it Delicate Arch. It's a 3.5 mile hike, and I think they call it strenuous but it's really not. Plus, the rock ledges they make a big deal about are actually no big deal and it'd be pretty hard to fall off of them (Michelle, you'd be fine). And the view at the end makes it worth every step.

Delicate Arch is perched on the edge of a cliff. It's a long LONG way down on the other side of the arch.

Unlike many of the other arches in the park, Delicate Arch stands completely on its own, not surrounded by other rocks.

So basically, DO THIS HIKE. The end. You're welcome.

Our last National Park on the tour was Canyonlands. It's right next to Arches but totally different.

After checking out Mesa Arch we headed to the Lathrop trail. It's a 20 mile trail (one way?) but we only tackled 6 miles of it. The first mile is through a grass field (wear long pants. not capris. this is from experience), but by mile three you're on the edge of the canyon. And it's incredible.

Our last day in Moab we drove south to the Needles District of Canyonlands. It's 2 hours south of Moab, and in our humble opinion....totally not worth it. The Needles Overlook is only about an hour south and that's a gorgeous view. The actual district is fantastic if you have a four wheel drive vehicle, but otherwise there's only 8 miles of paved roads in the park and it (honestly) looks fairly similar to the main part of Canyonlands.

There were some beautiful views along the road, though!

This last picture is from the overlook. It's really really beautiful, we were just a little done with all the driving at that point.

And that's it! Our Utah trip in a (rather large) nutshell. Without a doubt we'd recommend adding Utah to your must-visit list. It's such a beautiful and unique part of the country. We absolutely loved it and I've been planning our next trip since we got back. Suggestions welcome!

explore utah: part 2

2011-11-16T05:44:00.000-06:00

As much as we loved Bryce Canyon, our second day is our absolute favorite from the trip. We drove to Zion National Park and spent the day hiking The Narrows.

We fell in love with Zion as soon as we entered the East Gate of the park. It's stunning. So majestic. Absolutely impossible to capture with a camera.

We were in a bit of a hurry to start our hike, so I had to snap photos out the window of the car while we drove through the park. We really wished we would've scheduled a second day in Zion so we could soak up more of the sights and hike some of the other trails (like Angel's Landing).

Note to self: 2 days in Zion. Done.

But, the main event for us was The Narrows, so we headed straight there! Aaaaand we promptly tried to land a spot as extras for Star Trek.

Sweet outfits!

Not really. We actually rented dry suits, since the water was a balmy 47* while we were there. We were surprised by how comfortable we stayed inside those suits, even after 6 hours in the river. If you're a freeze baby like me, or are planning on hiking far into the canyon we definitely recommend the dry suits! We rented them from Zion Adventure Co, and they were worth every penny.

Here we are - the gateway to the Narrows. Ready or not, this adventure is about to begin! The whole hike happens inside a canyon that ranges from 4-22 feet wide. The entire floor of the canyon is the Virgin River, so in order to explore the canyon you've got to be ready to get wet.

Ten minutes past the gateway there's a pool that came up over my waist, and it stretches from wall to wall. That's the point where you've got to be ready to commit!

This picture of Nick is actually a little further into the hike. The water is anywhere from ankle to neck deep, and the riverbed is entirely made up of rocks. The cliffs stretch 1,500 feet above your head. It's incredible.

We hiked past Orderville Canyon, through Wall Street and ended up somewhere around Sipping Turtle (we think - there are no signs in the canyon!). Not sure why all the parks have their own version of Wall Street, but once again it was a really stunning portion of the hike.

Once we passed Orderville the hike got much harder. The water was deeper (typically well above the knees), the current was faster and there was no shoreline to rest on. The majority of the hikers turned around at Orderville, but our favorite parts of the day were past Orderville.

There are several very deep pools after Wall Street, which I loved. I mean, seriously, what an experience.

Eventually the setting sun chased us out of the canyon and we turned around to start the trek back. The last mile or so was tough. We were in the water for 6 hours and only stopped once for a snack break. Turns out that's a lot of hiking in a river. We wish we would've started a little earlier in the day to give ourselves more time (and possibly have gone a little further up river!). But in the end we had no regrets - this was such an amazing day.

By the time we got out the sun was dipping below the cliffs, bringing out their true colors.

Zion was truly stunning and awe inspiring. Someday we'd love to go back and explore more of it!

explore utah: part one

2011-11-15T06:09:00.000-06:00

This post has been a long time coming, but I wanted to highlight our week in Utah before it slips away forever. Mostly because 90% of you are currently thinking "what's in Utah?" Or at least, that's what 90% of people said when we mentioned we were headed to Utah for vacation.

What's in Utah? Well, this.

And this.

And lots of this.

We actually flew into Denver and immediately hopped in a rental car and headed west on I-70. Nine hours later we found ourselves all the way on the west side of Utah in the (very tiny) town of Panguitch. And right outside of Panguitch is Bryce Canyon National Park, which is were we headed early the next morning.

This trip was designed to be an active one! We created a rough sketch of our days based on the hikes we wanted to explore with plenty of room to change plans on the fly. And active it was - we hiked until we thought our feet just might fall off. Or until our lungs collapsed, but that's not hard when you suddenly find yourself 10,000 feet above sea level.

We hiked the Navajo Loop down into the canyon, and then tied that hike to the Peek-a-Book Loop. Peek-a-Boo is definitely a strenuous hike, but the views are truly beautiful. None of these photos are edited - the rocks are that intense.

As beautiful as Peek-a-Boo was, Navajo Loop definitely won "favorite hike" of the park. This part of the trail is called Wall Street. It's absolutely stunning, and the hike isn't as tough as they make it out to be. Definitely worth the effort.

At the top of Wall Street

Lone tree growing at the bottom of Wall Street

Check out the hikers at the bottom of the photo below. Hiking through those sheer cliffs is pretty incredible.

And all that in just one day! I promise not to drag out the entire week-long trip this much. But you'll want to check out our post tomorrow about the time we spent 6 hours hiking in a river. Yeah, like IN the river.

Has anybody else been to Utah? Or on another fantastic vacation recently? I'm a travel nut and can't get enough of it!

pupdate

2011-11-14T06:28:00.000-06:00

It's been a long week for Shalai. After her stitches a week ago she's been back to the vet 3 times, and worked her way through 6 bandages.

We've tried bitter apple, Stop Lick, athletic tape, sedatives and the cone of shame, but she still managed to take out 3 of her 4 stitches. Over the past week we've spent the middle-of-the-night hours replacing bandages, administering meds and snuggling her to keep that paw away from her lick-happy tongue (which results in many a foot to the face).

She's now on a sedative (so that we can keep the cone on her cute little head), the cone, with a splint (so she can't chew through it). It's worked pretty well, but I hate keeping the cone on all the time. It was that or another (twice-as-expensive) surgery, so we've done everything we can to make this combo work.

Her hard plastic splint makes it sound like she's wearing high heels, which took some getting used to! It's also too slick for hardwood stairs, so we have to carry her down the stairs. Plus, Beemer is absolutely terrified of her. Apparently getting run into by a cone stops being fun after the first time.

I think it's fair to say we're all very ready for this a little adventure to be over. If anybody has a trick that got a very stubborn (and pain-immune) dog to leave a wound alone we'd absolutely love to hear it!

Also, the Easy Canvas Print gift card winners were announced on Saturday, so make sure you check to see if it was you!

Happy Monday friends. Let's make this week a good one.

winners!

2011-11-12T21:30:00.001-06:00

Happy weekend, friends!

We have two lucky $10 gift card winners from our Easy Canvas Prints giveaway.

Nicki from Double the Life, Double the Trouble

Jamie from Family of Four

Ladies, just shoot me an email (theflippingcouple @ gmail) with your address and I'll get your prize in the mail. I wish we had gift cards for all of you, but remember that you can take advantage of their 50% off offer (with free shipping!) just by liking their Facebook page.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend. I'm off to a snuggle a puppy (or two).

shining bright...kinda

2011-11-08T06:36:00.000-06:00

While I remain totally focused on getting our upper cabinets on the wall Nick keeps coming up with more things that need to happen before we can nail in the cabinets.

Apparently a "ceiling" is "important." Or something.

Nick pointed out that drywall would be tricky to install above the already-in-place upper cabinets, so this weekend found us getting the porch floor/kitchen ceiling ready for drywall.

Step one - vents!

Since this part of the kitchen ceiling is actually the floor of the porch (and therefore exposed to the great outdoors) we needed to vent the ceiling before we can pack in insulation and cover it up with drywall.

Installing the vents was a combination of liquid nails and tiny nails that wouldn't penetrate the porch surface. Also, don't you keep insulation batts on your kitchen counter? No? And you don't stand on it in work boots? Weird.

Once the vents were in place our next step was installing canister lights. They'll be (conveniently) hidden behind the beam, so we'll get all the function of can lights but they won't be visible unless you're standing right under them. Win. We chose the mini version, because I think they look better.

Nick would like me to point out that we also chose them because they actually fight in the joist space. Details.

Nick got all the lights wired to each other, so our next step is to get power to these babies!

Unfortunately, that involves fishing wire through the (not torn apart) ceiling and down a wall. Wish us luck.

ps - our canvas giveaway runs through tomorrow so you still have time to get in on the fun!

weekend wrap-up

2011-11-07T05:44:00.000-06:00

Happy Monday, friends!

We had a great, although not exactly as-planned weekend.

Our little lady is sporting a bandage from the vet, after she managed to get a laceration that partially separated the pad of her dew claw from her leg. Major ouch! She's doing great, but keeping her away from that bandage has been an adventure.

Friday night we celebrated the wedding of two of our gym buddies. We love these two and couldn't be happier for them! It was such a fun night, too, as most of the gym came out for the wedding. We love our Crossfit family.

We spent the remainder of the weekend doing some backyard clean-up (holy leaves, batman!) and working on the kitchen. Three cheers for progress on the cabinets-on-the-walls front!

Not pictured? Fun family celebrations and some extra sleep (thanks Daylight Saving Time!). Also not pictured? Shalai's foot in my face all of Saturday night. The only way to keep that little stinker from taking her bandage off was to have her sleep next to me, so I spent most of the night with her foot in my face.

How was your weekend? Did anybody manage to stay on track and own their to-do list?

giveaway! easy canvas prints

2011-11-04T06:19:00.000-05:00

**This giveaway is now closed**

We're really lacking in the stuff-on-our-walls department. This might have something to do with the fact that we keep removing walls, but even the walls that are still standing are pretty bare.

So when the nice folks at Easy Canvas Prints asked if they could turn one of our photos to canvas I was thrilled to say yes. But then I had to pick a picture, which was incredibly overwhelming. Apparently I take a lot of pictures. They actually have a page of ideas to get your creative juices flowing, and after our week in Boston this summer we had the perfect picture. Last week this beauty showed up on our doorstep!

We're really impressed by the quality. It's kind of crazy having a snapshot we took on vacation show up on canvas, looking all fancy.

Someday this will be part of a gallery wall in our office, but we're still a little ways from having that put together. In the meantime I'm gazing longingly at the ocean and wishing we were back in Martha's Vineyard listening to the waves.

We opted to get an 8x10, which will be great in our collection of frames. However, I would definitely recommend going up a size or two in general. This would be such a gorgeous piece of art to hang above a fireplace, but the 8x10 would be a little small for that!

We are really happy with our experience with Easy Canvas Prints. Their site is easy to use and made uploading our photo easy. The canvas was exactly what we thought it would be, but more fun in real life than we had imagined.

So now, for the fun part! Right now, if you "like" Easy Canvas Prints on Facebook you'll automatically receive 50% off your order AND free shipping! Plus, to sweeten the deal a little bit more we have 2, $10 gift cards to give away. Just leave a comment for a chance to win one of the gift cards. This could be a great Christmas gift! (Three cheers for checking people off the list before we even hit December)

To review, here's the scoop:
The goods: a $10 gift card for Easy Canvas Prints
How many winners: TWO!
How to enter: Leave a comment. Tell us what picture you'd turn into a canvas!
Deadline: Wednesday night, 11/9/11

Good luck!!

Easy Canvas Prints provided the canvas for us to review as well as the gift cards, but our opinions are ours and ours alone!

mushy stuff

2011-11-02T06:27:00.000-05:00

From the bottom of my heart, thank you for all the sweet and encouraging comments about Saturday's race. You guys are so great and I wish I could give you all a hug. Thank you. Really.

Beemer would like to give you a kiss to say thanks. Don't mind the excess drool.

And as I'm typing this the hubs and I are planning out the next steps for the kitchen and trying to figure out if we can finish it this weekend.

Just kidding.

There's zero possibility of finishing this weekend. But we *might* get our upper cabinets back on the wall, which would be pretty close. Keep your fingers crossed! Which brings us to the all-important question - what's on your weekend to-do list? Any projects getting finished? Walls torn down? Puppies snuggled?

only half crazy

2011-10-31T06:11:00.000-05:00

We did it! As of Saturday Nick and I are officially half marathoners. And you know what? It was kind of awesome. I realize you might not be terribly interested in hearing all about our race, in which case feel free to skim the pictures and come back tomorrow. I just want to document our first half and a pretty cool day all around.

Also - this post will be kind of one-sided. Nick and I ran separately, so these are my thoughts on the race. Maybe if you all ask nicely Nick will recap his thoughts on the day, too.

I went to bed Friday night super-crazy nervous for the race. I'm not entirely sure why. I didn't have a specific time goal and I was confident I'd be able to finish the race. I think it was the unknown. I'd never run 13(POINT ONE) miles before, I actually hadn't run at all for two weeks leading up to the race (because of vacation and some shin/hip issues), I was afraid I'd be insanely slow....yikes. So many thoughts. None of them particularly helpful.

But then we were at the starting line! It was a huge race, and we shared the course with the Monster Dash 10-mile race, so all together there were about 7,000 people running that morning. Nick started up by the 9 min/mile group and I started back by the 10 min/mile group. I have a bad habit slowing down a lot over the course of a long run, so I knew there was no way I'd finish at a 10 minute pace, but that's where the pace I start running and I didn't want to spend the first 5 miles weaving through slower runners.

Miles 1-4 were great. Amazing, really. Especially considering I couldn't feel the front half of my feet until mile 3 (it was a little chilly that morning). The first four miles flew by. I kept a great pace (well, for me. I'm not exactly a speedster) and felt strong. I spotted Nick's parents at mile 3 and was SO thrilled to see a familiar face. It's amazing how alone you can feel in such a huge sea of people.

Mile 6 my ankles were hurting (a new pain for me!) and it was hard to mentally accept that we weren't even to the halfway point yet. The 10:41 pacer passed me at mile 7, which I felt good about. I should be slowing down to an 11 minute mile by 8 or 9 and I'd be right on track with my training runs.

And then at mile 10 there was the "other" finish line. Right about then I was half wishing I would've signed up for the 10 mile race. But, to be honest, there was part of me that was also thinking it was "just" 3 miles left and 3 miles is totally doable.

I'd heard that miles 10-13 were all downhill. Turns out that was a big fat lie. There was a long, slow UPhill at mile 11. It wasn't steep, but that late in the race it was mentally tough. And then I saw Mom & Dad G cheering from the side. Oh you guys, they got me up that hill a heckuva lot faster then I was going on my own. Nick's dad ran right along with me for a couple minutes and that was exactly what I needed to get moving again.

Then I saw the mile 12 flag. ONE MILE LEFT. Just one! I'd be across the finish line in mere minutes. But I just couldn't move any faster. My hips were lit on fire, my ankles felt like they were going to collapse with every step and my shins were hurting. (Running is fun!) Apparently my limp was pretty obvious, because a girl came up behind me and asked me if I was ok. Ha! Mile 12 seemed to drag on forever, but eventually the finish line came into view and I dug deep (really REALLY) deep and sprinted in. Nick jumped in from the side at the very end and crossed the finish line (a second time) with me.

13.1, baby!

My official chip time is 2:29:19. It's right on target with my training runs and I'm happy with it. Nick ran a great race and finished at 2:01:21. He was hoping to come in under 2 hours, but overall he's happy with it.

Will we do it again?

Yup, I sure will. I want to be faster and I want to correct my form so it doesn't hurt this much. Nick will probably run another half at some point. He's more focused on triathalons for now, but I'll probably drag him back in for another half at some point in the future.

Will we run a full marathon?

No. At this point in my life I have no desire to run a full. I can't even imagine that amount of pain! But seriously, I'm not at a place in life right now where I want to commit the training time required for a full marathon, and I don't really see that day coming any time soon. I have a lot of respect for people that can log 26 miles on their feet!

A huge, huge, huge thank you to our friends and family who came out to the race. Having people on the sidelines meant a lot more to me than I thought it would and it definitely made for some fun memories. We felt really loved!

Us with Jack & Laurel and some gorgeous Fall colors

Overall, this was a great experience. THANK YOU ALL for being so encouraging and supportive along the way. There were many Saturday afternoons collapsed on a couch after a long run where I really appreciated the encouraging tweets and comments. Plus, you haven't sent me hate mail for being a terrible blogger for the past 12 weeks. So, thanks. We're a little bit relieved to have this adventure over so we can get back to knocking down walls and putting up cabinets. So here's to the next adventure - a kitchen!

Beemer's really proud of us.

We asked him.

ps - story behind the post title - my favorite t-shirt of the day said "I'm only half crazy. 13.1"

I thought it summed things up pretty well.

pps - I definitely don't recommend running through pain that you're concerned about. I'm working with a chiropractor and personal trainer to make sure I'm not doing permanent damage to my achy body. Fixing my form issues is at the top of my list before I tackle any more long races!

and then there was heat

2011-10-27T19:55:00.001-05:00

Last night we finally got our heat up and running! The house is now very comfortable and I'm wearing less than 30 layers of clothing. Win/win.

When we left off on Sunday night, Nick and Tim had just discovered that we were missing one part. ONE PART. But it was 8:40 on a Sunday, which means our good friends at Home Depot had closed up shop and there was no way to get that part. In a stroke of genius Nick remembered he actually had the same part connected to some plumbing we had cut out three years ago when we first bought the house (we had to re-plumb one section). Why we still had a hunk of pipe with a bunch of brass connections still attached I don't know, but we were thankful we did! The guys got it off the first pipe and connected to the system.

And we turned on the water.

I was pretty convinced we'd have heat that night and was pretty gosh darn excited about it! Tim and I ran around to the radiators and closed bleeder valves one-by-one as the radiators filled up with water (instead of air) until Nick yelled up from the basement that we had a leak. Wah-wah.

Unfortunately, solder doesn't stick if there's any water in the pipe you're soldering, so we had to drain the entire system and start over. By then it was already late and 4:30 comes extra early on Monday mornings (it's a scientific fact) so we headed to our (chilly) bed.

Monday night after work we started again. Nick fixed the leaky solder, we turned the water on, we ran around and turned off bleeder valves on the radiators. And we found another leak.

Major bummer. This one was in a really tricky spot and it took some creative maneuvering to get at it without lighting the nearby joists on fire with the butane torch. Yes, there's fire involved. Yes, the house was smoky. No, we didn't have heat on Monday night. Nick was frustrated, it was late, we were tired (I was cold). So off to bed we went.

And then there was Tuesday. Nick quickly fixed the final leak, we turned the water back on, we bleeded the radiators one by one AND THERE WERE NO MORE LEAKS. By the time we went to bed an hour or two later the radiators were warm to the touch and I was doing happy dances.

We woke up to a cozy warm house this morning (which, by the way, makes showering a much more pleasant experience) and so far there are no waterfalls in the house.

And I may never again take our heat for granted.

Is anybody still holding out and keeping the heat off?? I totally salute your efforts. I am a certified wimp when it comes to all things cold.

home again, home again

2011-10-24T06:17:00.000-05:00

We've been on the road for the past week and we just got home on Saturday night. I had hoped to pop in once or twice from my cell phone, but we spent the vast majority of our vacation out of the land of 3G. Or 1G. Or any signal at all. And....I kind of loved it.

We spent a solid week hiking all over southern Utah, visiting Arches, Bryce and Zion and Canyonlands National Parks along with a quick drive through Capital Reef. We drove over 2000 miles, covered over 30 miles of "strenuous" trails and even spent 6 hours one day hiking up a river. In a canyon. It was awesome.

Dear Bryce Canyon, you are beautiful.

And then we left the balmy mid-70's of Utah behind and landed in Minnesota, where Fall is quickly turning into Winter and our boiler system is still out of commission. When we walked in the door on Saturday night it was 52* in the house. If you're a thin-blooded wimp like I am, that's pretty gosh-darn cold.

So instead of lounging around and squeezing in our last pre-half-marathon long-ish run, we've been working fast and furious to get all the pipes reconnected so we can turn on the heat. My dad spent the entire afternoon in the basement with Nick, helping him connect all the return pipes. Then Dad headed home and Tim showed up and the menfolk worked on the run that goes through the kitchen.

Speaking of Tim, while we were galavanting around Utah Tim was manning the homefront and entertaining our dogs. And fixing our fence. And garage door. And trimming trees.

Yeah, we like Tim a lot.

Last winter a strong windstorm came through and ripped one of the back gates off of the post, damaging the post beyond repair. Plus, over the course of the last year we realized that the (massive) front gate needed some extra support. So Tim tackled both projects last week, putting in a new post in the back (along with a stronger support system to attach the two gates) and adding a wheel to the front gate. The wheel is exactly what the front gate needed and the latch closes perfectly again. And now our back gate is operational, instead of held up by random lumbar. Dear Tim, we love you. Please don't ever leave us.

In a nutshell, here's what I've learned over the past week:

1) Vacation is super fun
2) Hiking in rivers is even more fun
3) When you leave for vacation, ~~people~~ Tim will come and fix your house for you
4) Not having to do the work and having it still get done is awesome
5) We should go on vacation more often

faq

2011-10-13T05:23:00.000-05:00

Real questions we've gotten recently about life, our fast-approaching half marathon and the never-ending house project.

Why have you been so bad about blogging?
Yeah, so, there's that. It's one of "those" stretches of weeks where I just cannot get on top of the ever-growing to-do list. Plus we've had exceptionally gorgeous weather lately, and I love ya'll, but I know that another horrible Minnesota winter is coming quickly so I'm soaking up as much sunshine as I can while it lasts. That and half marathon training has been taking what little energy I have left over AND SQUASHING IT COMPLETELY.

Example of squashed energy.

Not productive, but makes for a super cute photo ops.

I didn't know you liked running! How's training going?
Funny you should mention that. I don't actually like running, but Nick and I decided last year that we wanted to run the Monster Dash this year, and, well, here we are. Training is going pretty well, but squeezing a long run (usually 9-11 miles) into the weekend has proven to be a lot harder then we thought it would be. It's definitely impacted our work on the house and our overall energy levels, so while I'm excited for the race, I'm even more excited to be done with the crazy-long runs. I've also been experiencing some rather significant posterior shin splints, (plus hip pain) so running is actually quite painful. Super fun, right? But honestly, it is exciting because I've never been a runner but I've always wanted to be able to run. I ran the first full mile of my adult life last Fall and now I'm headed towards a half marathon! It's exciting, just really draining. And painful.

After our 7k in March. Racing is addicting.

Are you done with the house yet?
Next question.

(Side note: this is the most popular question from everyone we know right now. Super fun to answer that one every day.)

When are you going to be done with the house?
Nick has been saying he wants to have it done by New Years Eve since, well, last New Years Eve. Keep you fingers and toes crossed that it doesn't snow (much) between now and then so we don't lose too many weekends of work. (Nick gets called in to work if it snows. And we live in Minnesota, so that happens A LOT.) Honestly, we're hoping to pick up the pace quite a bit once the race is over and we can re-dedicate our full weekends to the house. Except then we'll have nothing to blame for our lack of progress. Dang it.

Do you wish you hadn't started this project?
No. It's been a really long and drug out process, thanks to an over-packed Spring and Summer. I'm sick of having the entire main level torn apart and making it impossible to have the house look put together, BUT we're both 100% convinced this was a project worth taking on. We love the new layout of the rooms and we're really excited to put the kitchen back together and see how it all works. It's been difficult and draining but we already know it was worth it. Plus, we'll have insulation this winter, which was the reason we started this process in the first place!

I'm really looking forward to NOT having all of our furniture

shoved into a corner of the living room.

So there's the quick update on 5 questions we hear all the time. If you've got a burning question we didn't answer leave us a note! We're always happy to provide the juicy details on our ~~super exciting~~ life.

do I need to seal these?

2011-10-06T05:48:00.000-05:00

You’ve probably noticed that we’ve been painting cabinets. My coworkers have been noticing too, since I’ve been showing up to the office with paint still on my hands and in my hair. Classy, you guys, I like to keep it classy.

The painting process has been incredibly simple…and yet incredibly time consuming. We kicked things off by giving everything a good sanding. A really good sanding. We had around 60 years of gunk to sand off in some places.

After the gloss and gunk were gone I vacuumed them out with our trusty shop-vac. Then I wiped them all down with a wet cloth.

And then – paint! Well, primer. We used Behr’s water-based primer, as recommended by our local Home Depot pro. Other than one cabinet with radioactive spots inside it, the water-based did the trick. And the smell is much less offensive than the oil-based, so I’m really glad we went that route. I used a small (1”) brush to cut in, getting paint into all the corners and crevices. Then I followed it up with a 4” foam roller. One coat of primer and we were ready for paint!

Like I mentioned before, we decided to go with Behr’s Swiss Coffee for the cabinets. We used the satin finish, again thanks to our friendly pro at the Depot. While people often choose the Semi-Gloss finish, he mentioned that with a lot of lights in the kitchen the semi-gloss can actually reflect too much light and make things too shiny. Since that wasn’t quite the look we wanted we went with his recommendation and used satin instead.

I’ll let you know if that was a good choice once the kitchen is done. You know, next week. (La la la, I can’t hear you, la la la )

We ended up doing 1 coat of primer and 3 coats of paint on each of the cabinets. The shelves soaked up the paint a little more and we ended up doing just 1 coat of primer and 1 coat of paint. I think we were slapping it on a little thicker at that point, because, yay! Done!

So that brings us to today. Everything’s painted…but I haven’t sealed it. Some people say seal, some people say no sealing required. Anybody have some expertise to send our way? (Bonus points if you say don’t seal it. I’d like to be all done now)

the weekend of awesome

2011-10-03T05:56:00.000-05:00

We had a pretty awesome weekend. My parents came over on Saturday and proceeded to hack through our to-do list like it was no big deal. Their energy and we-can-do-this was exactly what our disillusioned selves needed.

Mom and I tackled the kitchen cabinets. We finished painting all the (upper) cabinets and got all the shelves painted.

Exhibit A: painted shelves

Exhibit B: Cabinets. Painted. (cue: oooooo, ahhhhhhh)

More painted cabinets:

Now, you might be wondering, what's standing between you and getting these cabinets reattached to the wall? Why, nothing! Which is why I've been asking Nick if we can go ahead and re-attach them. Every 5 minutes. Apparently he wants a third person here so we don't drop them on our toes. Details.

While Mom and I were slapping paint on cabinets, Nick and Dad were down in the basement re-attaching pipes to the boiler.

I don't think I've really mentioned this, but two weeks ago we went ahead and tore out all of the boiler pipes in the basement. Meaning, we can't actually turn on our heat, because all we would do is flood the basement. And the house would still be cold.

The boiler pipes were much big for the boiler, which means there was way too much water in the system. The boiler was working so hard just trying to heat it all up and get it through the system, and on the coldest days of the year we would just watch the thermostat drop, even while the boiler was running. Plus? Crazy expensive.

So, we're replacing the 2.5" pipes with 1" pipe. We're also moving the pipes up into the joist space instead of having it hang down into the basement. Which means we could put a real ceiling in the basement, if we ever wanted to finish it.

Exhibit....whatever we're on...NEW PIPES!

The men got all of the supply pipes run. All of them. Nick still has a couple of return lines to run and then we'll have heat. Which is good, because we got down to 30-some-odd degrees the other night.

So yeah, it was an awesome weekend. We're trying to figure out how we can con my parents into coming over every single day, because then I think we might actually finish this project in the next year.

Seriously. Mom & Dad, you were exactly what we needed this weekend. Thank you SO MUCH for all your work and help and encouragement. We love you two.

Stolen from Facebook.

This is not actually our backyard. Which is a bummer.

ps - We have a winner! Our 3M Giveaway winner is comment #5 - Stephanie from Second Chances. Stephanie, shoot us an email (theflippingcouple(at)gmail(dot)com) to claim your prize!

white paint vs white paint

2011-09-28T06:16:00.000-05:00

You know you’ve spent too much time DIY-ing when you have a favorite white paint. Really, Cindy? You are pretty much the epitome of lame. But yes, really, I have a white that I’m in love with. It’s Chocolate Froth by Behr and I adore it. We used it in our bathroom last year on the paneling and trim. It’s beautiful. It’s perfect. It’s so warm and somehow has a tinge of chocolate brown even though it’s…white. Ok, so yes, I admit I have a problem. I’m head-over-heels in love with a white paint. But it’s pretty. See?

I’ve been saying for the entire (9 MONTH) length of this project that we’re planning to paint our kitchen cabinets with Chocolate Froth. We didn’t want to use a white that was too stark white, because there are a lot of browns in the kitchen and we wanted it to be warm and inviting not stark.

A couple weekends ago I was feeling like we were making zero progress and that it was entirely likely we’d never have a fully functional kitchen again so Nick suggested I start painting cabinets. I just about DIED OF HAPPINESS. Somehow, paint always feels like you’re actually getting somewhere. (Can I get an amen?) I was just testing out the effectiveness of some sanding techniques, so I used our existing bucket of (flat) Chocolate Froth to see how it looked on the cabinet.

And I didn’t love it. (It's on the right half)

It was just too warm. Meaning, cream. It looked old and dingy already and it had only been on the cabinet for 30 seconds.

We waited for it to dry. We looked at it in different light. We just couldn’t make ourselves love it.

Enter: plan B. We’re painting over all the trim in our house with Behr’s Swiss Coffee, so that was a natural choice for the kitchen. Since we planned to paint the kitchen trim the same color as the cabinets this would ensure the kitchen trimmed meshed with the rest of the house. And it’s not a crazy stark white…but it is pretty white white (this is really too long of a conversation about WHITE).

I painted over half of the cabinet with a can of (flat) Swiss Coffee just to see how it looked.

(drumroll)

We liked it. Winner!

Here’s hoping we chose correctly, because we’re spending lots of quality time with Swiss Coffee on our brushes/rollers/hair/dog butts.

full of it

2011-09-26T06:45:00.000-05:00

Full of paint, to be exact.

Especially Beemer

Homeboy wanted to get in on the painting action. Which he did, obviously. And then I chased him around the house and wouldn't let him sit down until his paint-covered-rear dried off. And then? He did it again. I have a Beemer-tail imprint on one of our freshly-painted cabinets. I like to call it "character." No? Ok, fine, I'll be covered that side of the cabinet in another coat of paint.

So that's basically a summary of how our weekend went. How did your weekend go?

ps - the nice folks over at 3M have extended the giveaway, giving you until this Wednesday, 9/28, to get in on the goodies. Get all the details here and remember that your entry (on Facebook) could win you $250 and your entry here on the ol' blog could help you score a bag of 3M goodies. Win/win! (literally....)

the someday kitchen

2011-09-21T06:33:00.000-05:00

Someday, we'll have a fully functional kitchen again. We'll store our dishes in the kitchen. We'll have a pantry. I'll know where my mixing bowls are and we won't store food in rubbermaid bins in our front porch (hypothetically).

That day is not today. Or tomorrow, or anytime next week. It's gonna be awhile.

And the longer it takes to put our kitchen back together, the more fantastic (read: time consuming) ideas I'm coming up with for this new kitchen of ours. So come along and dream with me - this is our "someday" kitchen.

pinterest

This one is a "must" in my mind. We're going to lose our current recycling space once the kitchen is done, and I'd love to have it behind cabinet doors so it's neater and cleaner. We currently store our dog food in a kitchen drawer, but it's too small and we're refilling it every other day (or so it seems). This is especially frustrating at 4:30am when you have to trek down to the basement to re-fill the food storage. I'd also like to put the garbage in a place Beemer can't get to it (like....in a cabinet) because he likes to rummage through the garbage and pull out tasty morsels. Like wrappers of frozen ground beef. So.gross.

pinterest

I can always use another place to stash invitations, pictures and must-make recipes, but I hate having stuff floating around or stuck to the fridge. This would make it so easy to close the door and everything is neat and tidy. Instantly.

pinterest

I strongly dislike trying to wrestle muffin tins out from between 9x13's and cookie sheets. Love this solution - tension rods between shelves. Simple, effective, no wrestling involved.

pinterest

Totally love this idea - add electrical outlets to the inside of your cabinets. Plug random, small (often used) electrical appliances in inside the cabinet. Out of sight, off the counter, but still totally accessible. Which is important for things like coffee makers.

Well folks, that's our (in-my-dreams) kitchen tour for the day. I'd love to hear any ideas you have for making your kitchen a little more functional or presentable or organized. I think I still have plenty of time to dream before we have to make it all a reality.

Also, if you're on Pinterest let's be friends. Then I can copy all your ideas. Deal? (If you're not on Pinterest let me know and I can send out an invite!)

ps - there's still time to enter the 3M Giveaway! Your entry could win you $250 in addition to the great pack of goodies from 3M.

put some paint on it

2011-09-19T05:58:00.000-05:00

That's what I did this weekend. Slapped paint on things. Well, primer, actually, but whatever.

After spending a very large chunk of Saturday sanding (sanding, SANDING!) two of our kitchen cabinets, I pulled out the primer and started whipping these rather sad-looking cabinets into shape.

After a coat of water-based primer we have a couple spots that are going to need some extra help. Like these radioactive circles in the bottom of one cabinet.

Just kidding. It's (probably) not radioactive. But it is a fairly terrifying shade of yellow. Even more terrifying is the fact that you couldn't see it until I painted over it. I'm really glad we've been using shelf liners for the past three years, but I'm going to feel a lot better once these cabinets are a beautiful new shade of white. We should be able to take care of this cabinet with a quick coat of oil based primer.

In other news, there's still time to throw your name in the hat for the 3M giveaway! And right now, let's just say you've got stellar chances of winning. Plus, remember that your giveaway entry could win you $250 from 3M, in addition to a pack of some great 3M goodies. Go. Do it.

And finally, sorry I've been so absent lately. I have lots of blog reading to catch up on and lots of DIY-ing to catch you all up on. Here's to a new week and another chance to stay on top of things!

3M giveaway!

2011-09-14T06:31:00.000-05:00

****This giveaway is now closed!****

Remember when we mentioned the Couple Speak contest 3M is hosting a couple weeks ago? Well, on top of giving away a whole bunch of money the nice folks at 3M want to hook one of you up with a collection of some of their classic products. They sent us a sample of the goodies and we've already dug in and put some of them to good use. (Hint: sanding blocks + kitchen cabinets + paint. I'm pretty excited about it!!)

Here is a list of the products that will be included in the giveaway pack:
2 3M LeadCheck Swabs
1 Roll of Scotch Blue
3 Stages of Sanding (green, maroon, gold sandpaper)
1 pair of gloves
1 respirator
1 eye wear

I'm absolutely loving the color-coded, clearly labeled sanding systems. The different grits/uses are different colors, making it easy to know which one to grab when I'm stripping cabinets or sanding between layers of paint on cabinets. Hypothetically (oh heeeey! look who's painting kitchen cabinets!).

While we're talking about expensive projects, 3M is offering $5,000 to the lucky winner of their video contest. Find all the details or upload your own video here. Or, if you're camera-shy or short on time, try your hand at their weekly contest - someone will win $250 every week for their witty translation. Plus, it's a good stress reliever when old pipes won't budge. Or you smash your finger with a hammer.

Another stress reliever would be to enter our giveaway! Here are all the juicy details:

To participate in the giveaway:
1) Participate in the translation sweepstakes being hosted on the 3M Framework Facebook Page (you'll need to "like" the page in order to participate).
2) Post a comment on this post saying that you participated.
3) Include your translation in your comment.

We realize there are a couple steps involved to enter the giveaway (not how we normally like to roll), but we think you'll have fun with the translations. And the goods from 3M are worth a couple minutes of your time, right??

The giveaway will close on Wednesday, September 28 at 10:00pm. Make sure you get in before then!

The more the merrier! You can Share on Facebook or Share on Twitter to get more DIY-ers sharing their stories.

Disclosure: We were compensated by 3M for our time in writing this post. The words and opinions are our own, as is the communication we struggle with during DIY projects.

thankful

2011-09-12T06:14:00.000-05:00

Life feels a little crazy right now. We're jumping back into a full Fall schedule, training for a half marathon, trying to finish up a major renovation, juggling commitments with family and friends...it's amazing how fast a short little week can fill up. I know we're not the only ones feeling overwhelmed! So to kick off another crazy week, we're making a list of some things we're thankful for.

Quiet moments. Even when they're few and far between.

Our furbabies.

This house project. Really. I can't imagine life without renovations. I hope I never have to.

Pumpkin Spice Lattes. Because, really.

source

You're turn. What's making life beautiful today?

how to wear out hyperactive dogs

2011-09-07T06:25:00.000-05:00

Our dogs have a lot of energy. That could basically run circles around us all day, everyday, and still wonder why we have to go to bed at night.

They wake up between 4 and 5 am every morning and are pretty convinced that breakfast needs to be served RIGHT NOW! We're up at 4:30 during the week, but dude, on weekends? I'd like to sleep in until at least 7. Seriously, dogs.

Well, this weekend I think we found our magic solution.

Running.

We took the pups for a 6 mile run on Sunday, and I think that's our ticket to tired, sleepy puppies. They both slept straight through the night....all the way until 7:30 Monday morning. TOTAL WIN.

See? Before:

Yes, our dogs are horrendously awful at walking on their leashes.

They're much MUCH better when a) running or b) not on a leash.

(Seriously. Beemer heels perfectly off-leash)

After:

So what we learned from this is running + hyperactive dogs = happy doggie parents.

(Hopefully we also learned that camera phone + night = crappy pictures, but no promises on that one)

Anybody else have hyperactive dogs? How do you keep them happy without running yourself ragged?

weekend update

2011-09-06T06:27:00.000-05:00

We made a lot of messes this weekend. Ran into a lot of walls (not quite literally. but close). Got frustrated. But we also chipped away at the never-ending project and saw some real progress.

We also got sidetracked by another truck project. Hubs had to re-do some wiring that required removing the bed of the truck. Again. So we've had the bed strung up by the garage rafters for the past week. Last night we finally got it re-attached, just in time for this morning's commute.

When we were discussing which of the zillion to-do's to tackle this weekend, Nick pushed hard for mudding the dining room. I resisted until he casually mentioned that once the taping/mudding is done the dining room will be ready to prime.

I heard "blah blah blah.......ALL DONE WE'LL NEVER HAVE TO WORK ON IT AGAIN."

So naturally, I was all for mudding.

Until there was drywall dust all over the floor. Then I reconsidered my vote.

Nick also got another wall drywalled, which feels awesome. Like, maybe-someday-we'll-have-real-walls kind of awesome.

before

Sorry this picture is dark. It got late. ~~And I got cranky.~~

after

(there's new drywall, promise)

There are many more stories to tell, but I'm still fighting some nasty seasonal allergies, so that's all I've got in me right now. I hope you all had fantastic holiday weekends and managed to knock everything off your to-do lists. We had a great weekend, but our to-do list is still way too long. Maybe next weekend....

analogies

2011-09-02T04:20:00.000-05:00

While shopping for Nick's happy-birthday grill....

Cindy: So, what makes a Weber worth three times as much as a Brinkmann?

Nick: Weber is the DeWalt of grills. And a Brinkmann would be....like a Ryobi.

Cindy: Oh! Got it.

Cindy: Can I point out that you just used a power tool analogy to explain something to me....and it made sense.

Nick: **smirk**

white wash

2011-09-01T04:18:00.000-05:00

After several decidedly fall-like mornings we realized it was high time to hit the pre-freeze list (but apparently it's Summer again now. Forecasted high of 92!). We never know when winter will decide to show up around these parts, and we still have a number of outdoor projects to tackle. So Monday night I headed outside right after dinner to take care of one of them.

We painted the exterior of the house last year, but there were a couple details that we didn't have time to finish before it got too cold to paint. For example, the office windows.

They're super dingy, two different shades of white, and overall, not attractive. At all. In the name of curb appeal, we wanted to slap a fresh coat of paint on to brighten things up.

I'm amazed at how white they actually look in the picture above, but check out the one below. The bright white of the new paint reveals just how not-white the windows actually were.

I only managed to get one coat on before it got too dark to see, but hopefully I'll have the second one taken care of tonight or tomorrow. Or this weekend. Because this (long!) weekend is going to be all about the house projects!

We're still finalizing our to-DIY list for the weekend, but it's gonna be a long one. Anybody else have the weekend blocked off for projects?

tearing it up

2011-08-30T06:51:00.003-05:00

Apparently we're still in the demolition phase of our kitchen/dining room/whole house remodel. This weekend we tackled the one remaining "bump out" in the kitchen. It, like most of other soffits and obstructions in the kitchen, was created to hide plumbing that would otherwise be exposed.

Back when we bought the house there was a broom closet hiding these pipes, but in order to fit a normal fridge in that space we needed to take out the broom closet. Once the closet was out Nick and my dad created a small (permanent) enclosure to hide the plumbing.

And then we tore out said permanent enclosure because doing things twice is more fun! (Or something?) So here's how it looked before we took a hammer to it -

And here's how it looked an hour later:

With the soffit and vertical enclosure gone Nick got his first real look at all the plumbing and connections inside. He's working on reconfiguring the pipes so they'll take less space on the wall and run straight up into the ceiling instead of jogging to the left (like they do in the photo below). This little space housed several radiator pipes along with hot/cold water to the tub/shower.

I think the hardest part is yet to come (you know, the pipe-moving part) but I'm already amazed at how much more open the kitchen feels with just that chunk of extra wall out of there.

And with that little adventure behind us I think that's the last of the demolition.

At least I hope it is, because once again the kitchen (and entire main level) was covered in a ~~fine~~ thick layer of plaster dust.

Awesome.

One step forward.....two steps back. I'm just thrilled we're moving. Even if it feels like we're moving the wrong direction.

cookin' with gas

2011-08-24T06:18:00.000-05:00

We've been pretty die-hard charcoal grillers. We love the smell, love the taste, love the grill.

Except, charcoal grills are small. Trying to squeeze chicken breasts, corn on the cob and veggies onto the grill at the same time was absolutely impossible. So we'd rotate each item through, which was fine for just us, but add a couple guests to the equation and we had impossible-to-time dinners. We'd pretend we were fancy and serve it in multiple courses, but....yeah. Pretty easy to see through that one.

We thought about getting a larger charcoal grill, but it felt like we'd end up wasting an entire bag of charcoal every time we grilled. So, finally, for Nick's birthday, we upgraded.

Hello, beautiful!

We hit up 4 stores on Sunday afternoon, but ended up coming back to this Brinkmann from our good friends at Home Depot. It's gotten rave reviews for the past several years and it's priced competitively (ahh Weber, you're just too good for us). Annnnnnd it's super shiny.

But the best part? We can fit our entire dinner on the grill at the same time.

I do feel like a traitor, but we're loving the (near) instant heat-up and the space.

How about you - are you a charcoal lover or a gas griller?

wilderness

2011-08-22T06:15:00.016-05:00

First of all - Happy Birthday to my charming husband! Nick is celebrating 28 years of life today and I'm so thankful we're celebrating together. He's an incredible guy and I feel lucky to call him mine. Happy Birthday Nick!

--------------------------------------------

We had a really awesome weekend with some of our favorite people. Really, really awesome.

We went camping. I love camping, but it's hard to give up a precious weekend that we could spend working on the house, and with marching band, weddings, showers, graduations....man. It's hard to get away! Fortunately, we took the plunge and during a dinner date with Josh & Mikalah the four of us reserved a campsite.

After finalizing the reservation we realized there were no showers or modern toilets in the campground. There were, however, some pretty classy vault toilets (just kidding on the classy part) along with a solar powered water pump and the opportunity to cut your own firewood.

There was also a one mile hike into the campground and it featured a quarter mile jaunt up a pretty steep incline. Carrying all of this.

You can call us expert backpackers. Oh, and all that stuff was just what Nick and I brought. Josh and Mikalah had their own load to bear. Everything except the dog kennels needed to be hauled into camp, and you know what? We did it. And it was fine. Not fun, but totally worth it.

Because this was our campground. After getting to the top of the bluff we walked through the grass meadows to get to our site. Our campsite was partially wooded and partially surrounded by the grasses. We could just barely see the next campsite through the trees, but we were far from them and only caught occasional sounds from their site. Mostly, we heard crickets, birds and the wind. Incredible.

The dogs were pretty much in heaven the entire time. They got to run around, smell a million new smells, climb up and down the hill a half a dozen times and (the best part) sleep in our tent with us! In fact, when I woke up in the middle of the night on Sunday I found Shalai occupying 3/4 of my pillow. I sat up to roll over and by the time I was shifted around in my sleeping bag and ready to lay down she had commandeered the remaining 1/4 of the pillow. She was really too cute and content to move, so I went pillowless for the rest of the night.

We didn't have much of an agenda for the weekend. Sleep (as much as possible while in a tent), explore the park, check out the beach, read some books and eat ridiculous amounts of delicious food. I think the majority of the weight we carried up to the site came from food, but man oh man was the eating good!

This was one of my favorites - banana boats. Slice the banana peel on one side, stuff the peel with peanut butter, chocolate chips and marshmallows. Roll banana in tin foil. Place in fire for 5-10 minutes. Enjoy. (You're welcome.)

All the work and the rustic feel to the campsite was absolutely worth it. The surroundings were beautiful. And so peaceful and still.

Sunset was incredible.

We're already talking about heading back next year and I'm pretty sure if dogs could talk they'd be petitioning for a repeat visit next weekend.

That was our weekend! How was yours?

beemerversary

2011-08-17T06:56:00.002-05:00

This time last year we were trying to figure out if we were the right forever home for Beemer.

His first few weeks with us were rough. He and Shalai were figuring out what her rules were for the house. He was also learning that he was expected to obey me and Nick. Even though I'm a girl. I had a number of rules and he'd be expected to obey them. Without whining. (Beemer likes to whine. Loudly. For hours on end)

Nick and I realized that while we could read Shalai easily we had absolutely no idea what this adorable 55 pound dog was thinking. We almost threw in the towel after our two week trial. But there was a glimmer of hope at the end and we decided it was time to expand the family permanently (you can read the whole adoption story here).

I'm so glad we did.

Yes, he can still be a pain (especially during thunderstorms). But that doesn't hold a candle to how much we love the big goof. He's a sweetheart who loves loves loves to cuddle. (Especially at 3am. During a thunderstorm)

Did I ever tell you how we almost re-named him Gus? Doesn't he look like a Gus? In the end, though, we decided we wanted to honor the 6 good years he had with his first family, so we kept his name. I do still call him Gus Gus on occasion. As long as we're cuddling while I do it he really doesn't mind. (I asked)

So, no, two dogs are not easier than one (at least in our experience). But they're worth the extra work. Beemer, we're so glad you're here to stay!

room to grow

2011-08-16T05:42:00.000-05:00

While progress on the kitchen has been much much slower than we'd like it to be, we are making progress. This weekend we tackled one side of the buffet, which will eventually be built-in shelves instead of wasted wall space.

But first we had to tackle a little problem. These pipes were infringing on our shelving space, so they had to go. Except, those pipes bring hot water up to our second floor guest room, so they needed to stay. We compromised by cutting them off and (eventually) moving them to the left side of the opening.

The offending pipes are the ones on the left. We're only gaining about 5 inches of shelving, but in a narrow space that makes quite the difference! Or so I told the hubs.

85-year-old pipes aren't always ready to move easily, so Nick used a combination of heat (see: propane torch) and leverage (see: jack handle attached to wrench) to convince these babies to move on out.

Well, that and a lot of muscle.

He ended up only needing the heat on one of the four connections. The rest let go after some serious cranking with the wrench.

Once the pipes were out of the way our next step was to remove the paperboard from the back of the cavity. We'll be filling the stud space with insulation instead, and pulling out the paperboard gave us deeper shelving. Perfect!

And finally....an open space! The line running down the middle of the cavity is the stud. Everything else is cleared out (for now). We'll have to put new copper pipes in eventually, but we'll do the insulation first. And there was talk of replacing some of the basement pipes first (hey look! scope creep!).

Progress. Slow but sure. In my head we're a million miles closer to done. With "done" looking something like this:

source

It doesn't hurt to dream, right??

go bananas

2011-08-11T07:48:00.001-05:00

I love ice cream. Loooooove ice cream. Especially cookies n' cream or anything that combines caramel, chocolate and nuts. Or coffee. (See, honey? I am so easy to please!)

I could probably eat ice cream every evening. In fact, I know I could. Unfortunately, ice cream doesn't exactly fit into the healthy eating category. In an ongoing effort to make healthier choices we decided to try making our own ice cream. Except it's not actually ice cream. But it tastes a lot like it. Confused?

Banana soft serve. I started seeing this pop up all over the blog world but didn't really believe bananas could be a convincing substitute for ice cream. Plus? I'm not a huge fan of banana-y things. But when we started a nutritional challenge at our gym that eliminated ice cream I was ready to give this thing a try.

End result? It's so delicious. I mean, it's not ice cream. But it's a pretty amazing substitute and it's just fruit.

And it's so ridiculously easy.

First - freeze bananas in chunks. I just break off small chunks and plop them on a cookie tray and throw it in the freezer. Done. (We used two bananas on this particular night)

Hi Cindy, have you heard of natural light? You should try it sometime.

After a couple hours the bananas are ready to go. Just dump them in a food processor. On this particular night we added some frozen strawberries for a different flavor. Cinnamon is a great mix-in, too. Or, if you're not doing a nutritional challenge with your gym you could mix in chocolate chips, oreos, caramel....the options are truly endless.

We add some coconut milk to the mixture (good fats!) to make it even creamier. I use the canned variety so there's no added sugar, but you could use any milk (almond, soy, normal milk, whatever). I don't measure it, but I would guess it's somewhere around 1/4 - 1/2 cup for 2-3 bananas.

Then, turn on the food processor. We have to stop it a couple times to push the frozen deliciousness down the sides of the processor, and then moments later we have dessert. It's definitely edible right now, but we've found it's even better after about 15 minutes in the freezer. We usually just dish it into mugs, pop them in the freezer and anxiously watch the clock.

And it's just fruit (well, and a little milk, which is optional). Apparently fruit really can be dessert!

Even if you don't love bananas you might surprise yourself with this dessert. The banana flavor is subtle (the riper the banana the sweeter the end result!), and if you add some favorite mix-ins it would be even less noticeable.

I realize I'm no food blogger, so if you want to see some pictures that will make you drop everything and freeze some bananas right this minute I recommend checking out Espresso and Cream's version of this delectable snack. (No really. It's worth the click!)

Enjoy! : )

a better view

2011-08-10T06:27:00.001-05:00

This weekend we decided it was time.

Way past time.

Remember this? If not, it's our story of how we totally failed while trying to install a storm door. We had a heads-up from Sara at Russet Street Reno that this little project wasn't going to be a walk in the park. We tried tackling it anyway, mere days before a massive snowstorm drowned us in white fluff. Partway through the project we discovered we needed to rebuild our door jam in order to fit a new door in (the door jam was warped). We packed it up and decided to wait until Spring to tackle the door again.

And.....here we are. Mid-August. It was time to conquer this little project of ours.

We started by removing one side of the door jam and replacing that side with a piece of plywood that allowed our shiny new door to fit perfectly in the space. Well, as perfect as possible when you have an old (not square) house.

That was the fast part of the project. It went downhill from there. I don't know what is so complicated about these doors, but the parts were hard to work with, everything needed to be cut to size, the instructions weren't terribly helpful....it was kind of a mess.

But in the end it was totally worth it. We call this "drastic improvement."

See?

Not that it was too hard to improve on that piece of architecture.

Anyway, we're still planning to paint the door red. I was somewhat hopeful that the white would work, but I think it's just too bright. It kind of looks like I photoshopped it onto the house. Which is awkward in real life.

Now we just need to put house numbers up and replace the windows in the porch. And the office. And fix our crazy run-away bushes. Curb appeal, here we come!

Bonus: our three furballs approve of the new door. You can see so!much!more! through a full pane of glass.

And no, we haven't adopted another dog. Sami (on the right) is just hanging out with us while her family is on the road. (She does kind of fit right in, though.)

In the end, we're thrilled to have this project done. Finally. We're not a fan of how complicated the process was, but the end result was worth the pain. But now, if anyone wants to tell us about a "simple" project that took 3 times as long as you thought it would, we'd love to hear it. We're good at commiserating.

home tour

2011-08-05T06:13:00.000-05:00

I have one last post to write about Boston before I leave the topic completely (for this year, anyway). This post actually combines a few of my favorite things - houses and oceans. And dreams.

I have fallen completely and totally in love with New England architecture. To the point where I embarrass my husband and stop and take pictures of random houses while walking and make him slow down to a crawl while driving so I can snap a picture.

There were many many of my favorites that managed to slip away from my camera, though. Still, here are some that I loved. They're all from either Martha's Vineyard or Rockport. All of them are no more than a few blocks from the sea.

I absolutely love cedar shakes. Someday, we'll have a house on the ocean. It'll have cedar shakes.

And yes, even while on vacation I'm attracted to fixer-uppers. This one was calling my name.

And as much as I love the seaside houses, I'm also drawn to the traditional (150 year old) colonials. So much history. It's incredible.

And the red doors? Love 'em.

This isn't a great picture, but the house below is absolutely stunning. Huge wrap-around porch, house perched right on the edge of the ocean in Rockport. It's a beautiful house, but it's the setting that makes it truly amazing.

I've been bit by the coastal living bug and there's just no going back. But since we're land locked in Minnesota I frequently run real estate searches on the coast. And I email listings to my poor husband. Like this one.

Listed for only $1.25million.

Yes, I have a very firm grasp on our personal finances. Why do you ask?

So friends, there you have it. A glimpse into our dreams and a brief tour of New England real estate. What are you dreaming about this Friday?

barrell o' monkeys

2011-08-03T06:54:00.001-05:00

We've had a number of large heavy-rain-producing storms this summer. Which is great, because that means less watering of the plants/garden/yard and more dreaming of Seattle. But we've had so much rain that the excess water from the garage roof was actually starting to wash out one of the corners of the garage. Last weekend we decided to finally get it taken care of and we installed brand spankin' new gutters on the garage.

To clarify, in this situation "we" means Nick. I was having coffee with my girlfriend and exploring the Minneapolis Farmers Market. Yes, it was lovely, thanks for asking.

Anyway. Nick had these gutters up and the downspout installed in about half a day. We tested them out that very night with insane amounts of water pouring from the sky. They worked like a charm! No leaks and no rivers running under the garage slab.

As soon as we started the gutter debate I started petitioning for a rain barrel. I've always wanted one (free water!) but now that my (teeny-tiny) vegetable garden is planted I want one all the more. We only have on outdoor spigot and it's a long long way from the veggie garden. Instead of dragging a hose across the yard everyday, or running yet another hose under our sidewalk, the rain barrel is about 4 feet from the garden. Super convenient. Or at least it would be if it ever stops raining and I actually needed to water the garden.

We found this rain barrel at Fleet Farm. It was $30 cheaper than Home Depot's (one and only) barrel, and I liked the square design and neutral colors. It looks really small in this picture, but it is a 50 gallon barrel.

The barrel came with two hoses - one at the very bottom, used to get the water out of the barrel and water our garden:

And one at the very top that acts as an overflow safety. If the water level in the barrel ever gets that high the water will drain out through the white hose.

This project was definitely one of compromise. Nick got the gutters he wanted so badly and I got the rain barrel I've been asking for. Anybody out there a more experienced rain barrel user? Anything I need to know? Any tricks to keeping mosquitoes far far away?

couple speak

2011-08-01T06:48:00.009-05:00

Cindy: "So....what's our timeline for finishing this baby up?"
(Translation: why are we still working on this?)

Nick: "Just another hour or two. Tops."
(Translation: I have no idea why this is taking so long.)

Please tell me we're not the only ones playing this little game? The say-something-nicer-than-what-you-mean game that just makes us all frustrated in the end?

Well, apparently we're not the only ones because 3M is looking for the best video capturing one of these moments. And they're offering two (2!) $5,000 prizes for the best videos.

(Did you ears just perk up? Imagine the damage you could do at the hardware store with $5k! Or maybe go on a much-needed vacation to celebrate surviving yet another DIY project.)

3M is providing all of us DIY-ers with a chance to laugh about the moments that showcase the differences in our communication styles. It's called Couple Speak, and as soon as we got the email from 3M's marketing partners we had to laugh out loud. I mean, really. How many times during a single project does your spouse say something completely different than what you hear? And while that can lead to a lot of frustration mid-project, those moments usually lead to the best post-project stories.

Plus, who couldn't find a project that could use an extra $5,000? Yup - $5k. Just for sharing your miscommunication stories with us. (And everyone else out there. You're gonna be famous.)

So here's the scoop - check out some of the videos on the 3M Frameworks Facebook page. This is the perfect 5 minute break when things start to get a little too stressful on the jobsite! Start thinking about some of the best "couple speak" moments you've experienced and then share it with us!

Here are some key points to keep in mind while you create your video submission -

The video needs to be no more than 2 minutes long. Ya'll are funny and creative folk, and that's perfect for this contest. Make us laugh at with you through your video.
Don't portray any 3M products in the video. The fine folks at 3M are hoping their products will keep us out of these DIY pickles, not get us into them!
Close out the video with the animation clip that best matches the category of your video. You can find all 5 clips (and categories) on the Facebook page.
Keep it clean and keep it nice! While the focus on the clip might be a moment of tension, we all want to be able to laugh about it - not wonder if someone's feelings really got hurt. Focus on the humor in the situation!

Feeling inspired?? We hope so, because there's $5,000 up for grabs and it's calling your name! Plus, we need some humor to break up long days of tedious finish work, and these videos are just the thing. Good luck!! Somebody's got to win and we're definitely hoping it's one of you! Here's one of our favorite inspiration videos (from the 3M pros) to get those wheels turning.

The more the merrier! You can Share on Facebook or Share on Twitter to get more DIY-ers sharing their stories.

Disclosure: We were compensated by 3M for our time in writing this post. The words and opinions are our own, as is the communication we struggle with during DIY projects.