New Spare Bedroom

Before mom and dad came down, we tried to finish the spare bedroom the best we could. I installed cork floor, painted the walls a new color. If you are ever wondering, we always use the Benjamin Moore histrorical colors. All the colors have a hint of grey, to stay with the theme of an older home. We also cleaned up the white trim a bit and also installed white trim where we could. The top molding is not complete yet, but I wanted to post some pictures.

Before:

You cant really tell how incredibly skanky this room was (and still is to some degree). It's not there yet, but at least we got rid of the awful carpet to start.After:
We have a lot of junk in that room right now because I am using it as a staging area to pack for our trip.

Double Ear Infection and Snow at the end of March!

Rob has a theory. Just as we get ready to go on a trip, I always get sick. I hate to admit it, but he is right. I am sure it has a lot to do with making sure everything is taken care of at our house, with the cats and at work. This trip is a little different because we are going with other people, so if I screw up some bungalow reservations, it's not just me and Rob who are out on the street, but now it's Marc and Michele too.

My co-workers urged me to go to go urgent care to have my ears checked out. As the woman stuck the ear funnel into my ear, I literally starting crying. If you know me at all, you know that I rarely cry under any circumstances. I was mortified! Not only is it a double ear infection, but it's external. That means that all the times I jab my ear with misc objects, it was causing this infection. I now have pain medication and ear drops, so at least it is already feeling better.

Rob and I worked for most of the weekend but we get to check one thing off our list at home. The installation of the arbor/trellis is the back yard!! How does it look?

Backyard Work

I wanted to update with all the work we did in the backyard this past weekend. Originally I wanted to list all the plants that we purchased, but to be honest, that seemed like overkill. Rob is in the process of building an arbor across the whole back fence. We bouht 4 vines to crawl up the fence. Most noteworthy is an evergreen clamtis and an Akebia Vine. I'm so excited to see how they grow. Below are some pictures of the new plants so far. You can also view all the pictures here.

Happy Easter

Happy Easter! We celebrated by going to Dave and Tami's for an early Easter dinner. We watched a little basketball and quickly fell into a food coma. It's always nice to spend the holidays with friends, so it was really nice to get together. I made a little treat called birds nests. You may also notice that the sweater I have on is the finished Central Park Hoodie. My mom helped me finish it while she was in town. It's a little small, but I love it.

Out of touch

I've been so out of touch lately. With my site traffic increasing, this is not the right time. Thanks to Google Analytics, I have seen this site traffic increase and where my referal sites are. Ravelry and Facebook being two big traffic drivers for the Giffzone.

Anyway, I haven't posted in a while and that is mainly due to the terrific houseguests we had this past week. Mom and Dad Raspor were in town and boy did they get to work. They had one day of rest and all the other days they worked on various projects around the house. Thanks mom and dad! Not only was it great to play games and enjoy many bottles of the fine Charles Shaw, but you got more work done in 6 days than we have in 6 months. So thank you. You can come back anytime.

Here are the pictures of the bathroom including the curtains that mom made.

We also went shopping for material for my new dining room chairs. My mom and dad also finished these chairs for us. Don't they look great.

New Dining Room Table

We found a table on Craigslist about a week ago. The seller didn't want to come down in price so we told him to call us when the table didn't sell. And he did! So this morning we went to pick it up with the help of a zip truck. The chairs need to be reupholstered but it's still really nice and matches the wood in our house so much better than the old table.

As soon as we placed the old table outside with a "free" sign two people stopped to fight over it. I guess there are perks to living on a semi-busy street.

Mom and Dad Raspor are coming into town a little earlier then expected so we are trying to get the spare bedroom all set up for them. I'll post some pictures later of how it all turned out.