Slowly but Surely: House Projects

We're making progress! Thanks to Anna (for painting) and Audrey (for feeding us) for their help last week - we got the kitchen painted! Now we just need to get a final light fixture and put our shelves back up - getting close!

We picked Benjamin Moore's Ozark Shadows for the grey in the kitchen. it is SO much brighter! The kitchen cabinets look waaaay better. 

old color: 

new color - I'll try to take more, and better 'after' pictures when the shelves are back in:

Can't say no to good times: fun, fun and a little tiling

The weekend is almost upon us which means it must be time for me to post my belated pictures from last weekend!

The theme was consistent: fishing and biking with some kitchen work squished in for good measure. 

Saturday - fishing with mom! Gorgeous sunny skies - but no fish in the boat at the end of the day. 

It was fairly windy out which made fishing tricky, but the sail boat watching was excellent! Everyone had their beautiful spinnakers up. Very festive. 

Isn't this a lovely picture I got of Mom? I can only hope to have such lovely skin and coloring when I am her age!

We thought we'd head back at a reasonable hour, but then I saw another boat pull in a fish and begged to stay out for one more pass. Well- it was a royal mess! We (I) managed to tangle my line horribly - and then mom and thors line got all snagged up.

   I think the river gods we're trying to send us a message to go home!

Worse than untangling yarn because your hands smell like herring!

Sunday brought biking! We headed out to ride - and mom did a long hike. we ran  into each other midway - and decided to get food together afterwards. 

Gorgeous and clear!

I think I've said this before, but I never get tired of this view. 

Celebrating a successful day of sunny recreation by grabbing a pint and nachos (canceled out by our sensible salad, of course) on Everybody's Brewing's outside porch. Perfect!

Aaaaand - I know you've already seen this - but we also managed to squeeze in wrapping up all the grouting. Success!

Kitchen Pre & Post

Still a work in progress - but here's a quick before and after:

2008 when we moved in.

2014 after updating tile and appliances. 

Remarkably the clutter is still the same! Hmmm - I will have to work on that. 

Final push with the kitchen tile: Grouting

This weekend was all about grouting (mostly - we did play too. those pictures later!)

We decided to grout in natural grey instead of white - and we're so glad we did! It's looking really good!

At the start of grouting. no going back now!

messy, messy. 

After wiping it down. 

After buffing the tile and sliding the new stove in. Thor is very pleased. 

Look! With the new hood back in as well - looking very sharp. 

First cooking on the new stove - yum!

Full Speed Till Monday: How to Pack it All In

Another jam-packed weekend at Casa Tingey documented in photos:

It's a miracle! First test of the newly installed sink and what do you know? it works! (and on the first try too)

Sink installation was such a victory we went out to celebrate with ice cream from Salt and Straw - their flavors are so creative! (sea salt with caramel ribbons for Thor, Olive Oil for me)

Saturday morning we were up at the crack of dawn to go salmon fishing on the Columbia with mom. Actually it was more like the pre-crack of dawn - I think our alarm went off at 4:15 and we were on the water by 5:40. 

We trolled until 1pm and fortunately weren't skunked: mom caught a steelhead!

Mom also brought the snacks! Scotch Eggs and her new gluten-free recipe for 'Happy Jack' cookies. These are amazing!!! she needs to dial in the recipe and sell them - they are the best cookie I have ever had!

Did we stop to relax upon getting home? oh no! straight to tiling the kitchen! Here's Thor applying thinset to the first wall

While Thor messed around with trivial tasks (such as measuring where the outlets would fall and precisely cutting tile) I tackled much more important things like decorating the supporting ledge for the tile behind the stove. Good idea, right? it's like a little time capsule for whoever pulls the stove out in 20 years. 

Thor looking happy despite the fact that I've started to 'talk' (or pester) about taking a break for dinner since we skipped lunch. 

I tried to stave off a case of the hangrys with my new favorite treat of macadamia nuts and dates...

But it was to no avail. By 7pm I was in full melt down mode and my stomach had dictated a royal pout on the couch. 

Fortunately at this point Thor realized I was in dire straights, went into high gear, and hustled me out the door to Tabor Tavern. One burger and two ginger ciders later I was ready to hit the tiling hard and we powered through most of the second wall before collapsing into bed around 11pm. 

Sunday was full play day - and boy did we have a great time! We headed to syncline with a group we've never ridden with and made some new friends. Then off to our good friend Stacy's for a delicious birthday celebration - and then finally home for the first episode of Game of Thrones Season 4. Excellent!

Even better - Thor rode the whole day and worked hard on Saturday and still felt good at the end of the weekend! His head is really beginning to feel better and we both feel incredibly fortunate about that. 

One Step Closer

The new kitchen counters are in! Dark grey quartz - and we think they look fantastic. 

New single, deep, stainless sink - and our new faucet. 

Paint, paint everywhere - we're trying to choose a color for the bathroom upstairs. it's tough! we are both bad with color - and neither one of us likes the process very much - so we are looking forward to getting it finalized. Any thoughts?

Next up - subway tile backsplash!

Finished Upstairs Pic

I think my knee injury really caused me to slack on this blog during the fall - because I don't think I ever posted finished pictures of the upstairs that we began work on in November!  Here's a final picture of our new bedroom - and huge belated thanks to S&Em who came over to help Thor wedge our mattress up the narrow stairwell! (Their assistance helped narrowly avert Thor and I resorting to separate bedrooms at this early stage in our marriage. Thor declared he would rather stay downstairs if it meant getting to sleep on the larger mattress, and I countered with the fact that after all the emotional distress I'd suffered picking paint colors for the upstairs I was going to sleep up there mattress or no mattress!  Fortunately - marital crisis averted - and we are both currently enjoying the new space upstairs.)

Metamorphosis!

We've officially launched into finishing up our upstairs remodel. Skylights and sheetrock went in at the end of last week. Painting is happening now - and they'll start on the floors at the end of this week. We're hoping to move upstairs before thanksgiving! More pics to come.

Front Bank Update

Thor & I have been spending A LOT of time working on our front bank lately. We're laying the rock in the bank ourselves and trying to put in some larger plants so that the bank will fill in over the next few years. I don't have all the exact names of the plants we put in, but here are some of the plants we've put in so far:

• Coral Bark Maple - This is the large tree on the left of the bank.
• Callistemon - We have a 'Woodlanders' variety planted on the lower edge of the bank. This is an evergreen plant from Australia that blossoms gorgeous red flowers once a year.
• Sedum 'Xenox' - We have three of these spaced out along the bank. They have lovely dark foliage that is green & mauve in the spring and darkens to a deep burgundy by the fall. I'm hopeful that they will survive any cold weather we have as they are supposedly hardy to -40 F!
• Ceanothus 'Tilden Park' - This is a great evergreen plant that has gorgeous blue flowers in the spring and summer. We have three of these spaced out around the bank as well. One of the reasons we selected this plant is because they are quite drought tolerant and are supposed to do well in poor soil (which is pretty much our entire front bank!)
• 'Regal Splendor' Lavandula stoechas - I bought two of this lavendar last year for a different part of the yard, but they weren't doing well in the partial shade so I transplanted them to the front bank in the hopes that they will like the full sun better.
• 'Munstead' Lavandula angustifolia - This was another lavendar that I bought last year that didn't work out well -- so it has been transplanted too. I think we have three of this variety on the front bank.
• 'Blue Cushion' Lavandula angustifolia - This is the third type of lavendar that we have in the front bank - we only have one though -- it's planted by itself over on the right side of the bank.
• Berberis thunbergii 'Rose Glow' - This is a variegated barberry -- we have 5 of these on the bank - they're drought tolerant and we selected them because of their year round burgundy color.
• Dicliptera suberecta - This is a little plant from Uruguay. I'll admit that I got this partially because it's supposed to be a hummingbird attractant, partially because it does well in poor soil, and partially because it reminds me of my sister, Anna, because she lived in Uruguay for a little while during high school!

Here is the bank as it looked about three days ago - we've been busy trying to mulch the open areas so that we don't get so many weeds!

And here is a before picture just in case you forgot what the bank looked with the hedge!

'New' Old House Picture

I just found this picture on my work computer -- it's a great shot of what the front of the house used to look like -- you can even see the hideous holly tree in the upper right hand corner of the picture and the big yews on either side of the front porch that we dug out last year! I can't believe how different everything looks now.

Around the same time I took the above picture Thor & I decided we had just HAD IT with the ugly, white, cursivey columns and rails on our front porch.....well, almost. We realized we couldn't actually cut out the structural support of the columns, but we took the Sawzall to the rest of the railing and chopped it out. Our long term plan is to encompass the verticals in solid columns of some sort so that it doesn't look like a 75-year old couple does the decorating.