Door Knob Dilema

One crazy day at Home Depot, Nick and I decided to purchase hardware for the kitchen cabinets. We bought some we liked for all the cabinets and even threw in pulls for the drawers. Well that may or may not have been before Ramona was born. I can't keep track of the spontaneous home improvement purchases we make. Anyway Nick put 4 knobs on and wasn't really impressed, so that was the end of that project...except that we have all these knobs and bare cabinets.

This memorial day I decided to purchase another knob during one of our visits to HD. I just bought 1 to try out. (I know, we are getting smarter already!) Here they are:

Which one do you like? Or you might not like either whatever just let us know what you are thinking. The one on the left is round (I know it doesn't really look like it, but it is.), and the one on the right is oval.

Fabric, Fabric and more Fabr...

Yesterday we went fabric shopping at the outlets off of Harry Hines in Dallas. The places were a big warehouses piled with all kinds of fabric that you had to dig through to find what you want.

Here was the take from the day:

Here we are trying out some of the fabrics as drapes in the office. I think we've found a winner!

Chill Out...

This spring as it started to heat up the east side of our house was heating up as well. The A/C was blowing, but it wasn't cooling off. The inside unit was kicking on, but the outside unit was not.

Saturday morning I went to work on it. Initially, I replaced the capacitor to the fan motor. It was bad, out of spec, and had to be replaced anyways. Unfortunately, it did not solve the issue. Next, I replaced the capacitor to the compressor. Once I sent power back to the unit, the compressor powered on. One problem down, but unfortunately the fan didn't turn on still.

The last option was to replace the fan motor on the unit. I took it apart at about 8:00pm and took it up to Metroplex Electric Motor Service that night. We took it apart, and it was all burnt up.


At about 11:30pm he had a new motor ready. The next morning I woke up early to replace the motor, and once I got it in there.....VOILA! We had cool air on the east side of the house again.

Dave at metroplex electric was so impressed with my handyman skills that he told me that I might look into a career in A/C repair (I probably won't).

Fixing it was a great feeling, especially since I saved us about $1000 in parts and labor. First I stood under the vent in the kitchen enjoying the cold air (it was only 68 degrees outside but I didn't care). Then I did a celebratory running man (with a couple gratuitous pelvic thrusts).Then I called my dad to ask him how it felt to be the father of the smartest man alive right, he said he wouldn't know.

Knowledge is Power

Some things I'm learning as we trudge through this remodel/furnishing process are as follows in no particular order:

1) It's way more expensive to remodel when you're house is huge.

2) It's way more expensive to furnish large rooms.

3) Sometimes you find good deals on Craig's List.

4) Sometimes you get a good laugh on Craig's List.

5) Sometimes (unfortunately most of the time) people think they should recoup at least 75% of the purchase price on their furniture after 5+ years of use.

6) I'm not crafty and can't see the final product in anything. (I actually already knew that, but this process just keeps reminding me.)

7) Everyone has an opinion about everything even if their style is completely different from yours they want to convince you that in fact it is you has no style.

8) It hurts my feelings when Nick shoots down my Craig's List finds.

9) It hurts my feelings when my bank account shoots down my Craig's List finds.

10) This process will never be complete at this point just getting functional is the goal.

Nursery Curtains

This weekend we stopped by Calico Corner in Southlake to look at fabric for curtains in the nursery. Amber is taking sewing classes at Make in Dallas on May 15th (an anniversary gift from me) and the curtains are going to be her first sewing project.

We brought home 3 swatches.

Key West




Stockholm Sungold


Aviary


Thanks for modeling Amber! I don't think she is sold on any of them, but I really like the key west fabric. It matches well with her bed set, the others are a bit too gold.

We shall call you.... Craigslist chair.

This past week Amber has acquired a new hobby. She looks on craigslist for interesting furniture. While there have been quite a few interesting pieces on there, the chair in the picture is the first one we pulled the trigger on.

It was on there for only $30, so we called up the man and (after trying unsuccessfully to work them down to $20) we agreed to meet him that afternoon.

I was a bit skeptical. The photos on craigslist were not that great and I figured it would be a piece of junk. When we got there and saw the chair however, we couldn't believe how good of condition it was in (aside from the cat hair on it).

We purchased it and after stopping at Fuzzy's taco shop for dinner with Allen and Sara (sorry about the wait guys!), we brought it home.

We plan on getting it reupholstered and maybe re-staining the arms and legs. We've already begun gathering quotes. Here it is next to the Bernhardt chair we picked up last year (another steal).

Hello, Old friend...

I generally hate blogs in which every post contains an apology from the author for never posting. So, in an effort to avoid that, I will resort to letting you know what has been going on for the last 5 months: a lot and a little.

So much stuff has been going on in our lives since baby R got here, that we've had little time for home projects. Add on top of that the tight financial quarters that we've been operating in and we haven't been able to pay anyone else to do work on the house either.

The last 5 months, we haven't been bad at chronicling our home improvement adventures, we've been bad at having them.

Now as every teacher's best friend (summer) approaches, we are beginning to get a second wind (actually it may be fourth or fifth at this point) on improving our little abode. Our goal is to have it at least presentable by Ramona's first birthday party. There's a lot of furniture to buy to get us to that point, but we're working diligently.

Stay tuned, we may actually have another post this month....