Getting (more) settled

I'm really starting to feel at home in the new house and I am really loving our new community! It is so welcoming and so very quiet.

We're slowly working on re-doing the kitchen right now. It's got the original cabinets, counters and floors. We're currently waiting on our new flooring to arrive. I can't wait to get it put down. Our current tile is in rough condition, looks terrible, and is impossible to clean. And as anyone who has bought and renovated an old house, old tile can be made of scary things. I just want it gone.

We had a very hard time deciding what to do about the flooring and eventually decided on vinyl planks. Let's face it, the carrara marble I really wanted just isn't in the budget right now (hah! the handmade lingerie business is not that lucrative).  Our house is older and has some lumpy floors and we didn't want to have to go through the trouble or laying a new subfloor right now, so I think the vinyl will be a cost-effective, durable, and easy way to spruce the place up.

Right now, we're (actually I am) painting our cabinets, adding new hardware and changing out old light fixtures.  It's looking good, but the process is so slow. Painting cabinets is so much cheaper than buying new ones, but it isn't a quick weekend project. Anyone who tells you otherwise is a liar, plain and simple!! It is a process of removing hardware, washing with TSP, sanding, priming, painting, then waiting several days for the paint to cure. Of course, all of our hardware had years of paint build up on them. If you are going to paint cabinets, please, please, please, remove the hardware first!

If you plan on painting cabinets, prepare for weeks of total chaos

 It's coming together though! I've polished up the old chrome trim along the counter top and we painted the ceiling too.

I'm currently on the look out for some art for the breakfast nook and something interesting to display on the glass shelves in the window above the sink. At my grandmas house she had pretty glass perfume bottles that looked so beautiful in the sunlight. I was thinking of trying to find some antique glass bottles, or possibly some pretty rocks and crystals. I don't think I've ever brought this up before, but I love rocks! Not in a "crystal healing" way but in a "geology is awesome" way. 

I've also been working hard trying to clean up our old Heartland Stove. It was/is very, very dirty. I'm very conflicted about this range. I'm sure it was expensive when it was purchased. It is very small. I like the gas cook top (though I burned every grilled cheese I made for the first month). I don't like the empty space above it.  I miss my old stainless steel, brand new appliances... but I'm getting used to it and I'm really trying to love this stove. I'm struggling trying to figure out how to dress up the space around it. The "hall" to the right of it is a fairly large open space.  We've put an Ikea island there for now and plan on putting some shelving above it... Does anyone else have one of these repro ranges? How did you style it? I'm not digging it's location but it's the only place that has a gas hook-up.

This house purchase was so stressful and seemed to go on for ages. I can't remember if I mentioned that when we moved in the previous owner had left so many of their belongings behind - dishes were still in the cupboards, items still in the storage areas, and below our deck is absolutely full of old garbage. We had written a condition in the purchase agreement that the house was to be left empty and "broom" swept. When we received it there was broken glass all over the basement floor, and the front door lock had completely fallen out of the door (hah!). We were told on closing day, by our lawyers office that the previous owner was having a cleaning crew come in that morning, which obviously never happened. We were pretty annoyed to hear that the only recourse was small claims court to cover the cost of junk removal despite the fact that it was in our contract. Our lawyer advised us that it probably wasn't worth our time pursue. Then just a week ago, I got a random call from our lawyer letting us know they had made an error in calculating our land transfer tax and we immediately owed $700. It was just that one last thing that pushed me over the dissatisfaction edge.

Overall, I was very happy with how the sale of our house went - we left our house mopped, clean and completely vacant, save for a bit of extra flooring and paint. The purchase on the other hand just left a bad taste in my mouth. I'm still happy with the house and am having a lot of fun working on it (dream come true), I always just have a hard time when people don't follow through on things they say they would do. I always feel like I'm the nice guy who just let's things slide, but end up with the short end of the stick. I keep reflecting back on how I could have prevented these things, but I guess that's just the way things go sometimes!