Wednesday, November 20, 2013

Trip(s) to PIttsburgh!

The most exciting thing that's going on right now is that John and I are casually considering buying a new house, perhaps even building one.  This might be one of those crazy ideas we eventually give up on, but we're taking the first steps to at least do some research.  I know it sounds crazy considering how much I LOVE the house we currently live in, and how much money I've put into making it what it is today, but I think it's time for someone else to put some more love into the house, and time for us to move on to something that's a bit more updated.

We'll see what happens, though.

As for getting caught up on pictures, John and I spent a night in Pittsburgh back in January for a concert, so I got some photos from our hotel room window from that (I'm running the Pittsburgh Half Marathon in May, and the finish line is at The Point, so I'll actually be finishing somewhere in or near these photos!).  And then in April, I went back and got some pictures of E's kids, and I picked just some of my favorites to post below:

Pittsburgh at Night

Pittsburgh at Night

Pittsburgh at Night

Pittsburgh during the Day

Pittsburgh during the Day

Pittsburgh during the Day

Katie

Mary

Katie

Andrew

E + Emma

Crazy Hair

Emma

Emma


Friday, November 08, 2013

Bathroom Remodel

Ok, now that I finally have Christmas out of the way, let's talk bathrooms. I really thought I already posted all the bathroom before-and-after photos (maybe I just linked to them which is why I don't see them after a quick glance?)  Oh, and I'm throwing in a picture of Myles at the end just because he's cute.

Upstairs Remodel
The hallway - before. I didn't get an after photo, but this is just to show you the "before" layout. Guest bedroom door on the left, then the linen closet (those drawers barely opened and contained nothing), bathroom door on the right. As part of the remodel, we lost the linen closet, but we made up for it in other ways, which you'll soon see.


Upstairs Remodel
The bathroom before.  Notice how you have to step OVER the toilet to get in, the ugly peel-and-stick "tiles", and the fact that there's only one sink. Also, there's hardly any storage. That vanity had no drawers or anything, and the drawers in the back right of the bathroom were the same as the ones in the hallway - hard to open and too large for ideal drawer storage for a bathroom. Oh, also, notice where the wall is in comparison to the window - it hits it right in the window frame.


Upstairs Remodel
The bathroom - after!  You can tell how much bigger it is by looking at the wall compared to the window again. It's actually 14 inches bigger, which doesn't sound like a lot, but it's  HUGE difference that let  us take advantage of all sorts of wasted space - the biggest being that we were able to move the toilet to the back of the bathroom so you don't have to step over it anymore! (there wasn't room for it there before because of the drawers). This gave  us enough room to add in a large double-vanity!  So now we each have our own sink... and.  are those DRAWERS?  We'll get a closer look at that in bit.  We also put privacy film on the window so we could throw away those cheap ugly plastic blinds and the bathroom gets a lot of light now.


Upstairs Remodel
Slightly different view shows the vanity a bit better. I wasn't originally going to put tile on this wall because of the expense but I'm SO GLAD I decided to. I think it's really what makes it feel like a luxury bathroom.


Upstairs Remodel
the shower/tub before. I didn't take a picture of how gross the tub actually looked because I was too embarrassed, but it's actually the only thing in the whole bathroom that remained!  Even all the walls were knocked down to the studs and new insulation and everything installed.  Anyway, here is before.


Upstairs Remodel
And here it is after!  Notice the tile goes all the way up to the ceiling now! More expense. The tile for the entire bathroom (floor included) was the single biggest expense (other than labor) for the whole bathroom.  This photo was taken before the tub was refinished, but we got that reglazed, because we liked the oversized tub that was original to the house. It's now a very clean, very bright white. LOVE IT! Oh, also, I had just done the final coat of paint in the ceiling when taking these pictures, thus the bathroom fan cover hanging down while the paint dried.


Upstairs Remodel
This might be my favorite part of the entire bathroom (though it's really hard to pick just one thing), the nooks in the shower for us to put our shampoo and soap. there's enough room for my shampoo and conditioner, and John's two types of shampoo, plus each of our soaps, because of course we can't use the same of anything. Love. LOVE!


Upstairs Remodel
The vanity (and dirty mirror) before. There are just not enough words for how much I hated this thing.


Upstairs Remodel
Including how SHORT it was. I had to actually bend over to wash my hands. From that horrible faucet.


Upstairs Remodel
OMG, right??? I mean. Just.  Wow.  The picture says it all. (for the record, my sink is the one on the right)


Upstairs Remodel
We each get our own drawer, and I bought these little containers for mine so that I could sort mine (we hadn't officially "moved into" the bathroom yet when I took these photos, so it's not completely full, but it certainly is now). I'm really glad the vanity has two deep drawers instead of three shallow ones because it means I can have stuff like eyeliners standing straight up (not that I have a lot of eyeliners, but. Still.)


Upstairs Remodel
The photos I put over the toilet.


Upstairs Remodel
So, this replaced those stupid built-in drawers - a built-in cabinet!  It's actually usable nice and nice and deep, so there are three shelves in it. One contains extra bathroom storage stuff (first aid, extra soap, hair products I rarely use, etc.), another is big enough for all my extra towels, and the bottom one has extra toilet paper (that you can reach from the toilet!  No longer do I have to yell downstairs to John when I realize the roll is empty!) and a small laundry basket.


Upstairs Remodel
So, because we made the bathroom bigger, we had to steal the space not only from the linen closet that we lost, but also the closet in the guest bathroom. Here's the before photo, where you can see the wall is flush with the door opening.


Upstairs Remodel
And after.  You can see the door opens and there's a little wall there now. Also, I had just done the last coat of paint in here, too, so excuse the painting supply mess.


Upstairs Remodel
Another before shot. The closet door was small, but the closet was actually a really decent size, just hard to get to it all.


Upstairs Remodel
And so now it has big closet doors! Also notice where the new wall meets the windows - he did such a great job of making it look like this is all original to the house!


Upstairs Remodel
So I told you I was putting the towels and toilet paper that used to be in the linen closet in the cabinet in the bathroom now, but that still left me with no place to put all my extra sheets, so John and I bought (and John put together) this closet system. This is also the closet that John puts all his clothes in, so we're both really loving it. Also notice that "for fun" (John thinks it's crazy I call it that), I painted the inside of the closet the same green as the bathroom instead of the blue the rest of the bedroom is. Fun! FUN, RIGHT???



Myles
I told you he was cute.

Saturday, November 02, 2013

Oops

Guess I forgot to write in here for a while. Let's see, what are some major things that have happened since July?

Well, in August, my parents came out to visit and we went for a hike through Cuyahoga Valley National Park

In September, John and I went on a road trip out to Colorado and back and had a great time, other than me getting a pretty bad case of altitude sickness that wiped me out for the most scenic part of the trip, so I didn't get very many photos.

At the end of September, I ran my first Half Marathon.

And, of course, at the end of October, I turned 36.

I guess that pretty much sums up the major events.  Now, I have about a billion photos to catch up on. I last left off with Christmas 2012 and Christmas 2013 is NEXT MONTH, so I should really get caught up here.  Here's the rest of Christmas, the part spent at E's house.

Christmas at my sister's house


Christmas at my sister's house


Christmas at my sister's house


Christmas at my sister's house


Christmas at my sister's house


Christmas at my sister's house


Christmas at my sister's house


Christmas at my sister's house


Christmas at my sister's house


Christmas at my sister's house



Sunday, July 07, 2013

Two Holidays in One!

I was originally supposed to go to CT for Fourth of July, but after paying for the remodel, I was waiting to recover a big financially before buying the tickets, and by the time that happened, the ticket prices were so high, it just didn't make sense to spend the money on it. Sigh.

While I was upset to not be with my family for a nice long weekend, we did enjoy going down to see John's family for the day and watch them set off fireworks at night. I got some decent pictures again this year, but of course you probably won't see them here for six months or so.

In other annoying news, I hurt my foot running.  I was running a 6 mile run last Saturday and my foot had been hurting some before I even started the run, but nothing horrible. Around mile 3 it started to really hurt, a stabbing pain with each step. And of course, I stubbornly kept running anyway, so I'm sure I made it much worse. After the 6 miles were over, I could barely hobble back to the house. I went to my favorite running store, and found out that the shoes I got fitted for last time (from a different store, because I had a coupon for there) were the culprit. I shouldn't have been running in those shoes (they were for people who overpronate, and I don't, so it was basically too *much* support and causing me to put pressure on parts of my foot that I shouldn't have). I'm still hobbling around some and haven't been able to run in over a week and I'm ITCHING to run again. I'm also hoping this doesn't ruin my training for the half.  We'll see.

Anyway, since we just celebrated Fourth of July, it's totally natural to post Christmas photos, right?  I'll probably have two batches of those... here's a bunch of decorations:

Christmas Decorations


Christmas Bokeh


Christmas Decorations


Christmas Decorations


Christmas Decorations


Christmas Bokeh


Christmas Decorations


Christmas Decorations


Christmas Decorations


Christmas Decorations