a house becomes a home

With renewing our lease an extra two years, comes a sigh of relief!
We aren't moving!!!!!

There's a point every time I move where I'm scrubbing out the tub like a banchee, or I'm sorting thru books and paper work and thinking, geez....why didn't I just sort and clean and scrub all the this stuff while I was living here!  At least I could have enjoyed it!!!!!

So in honor of that testament, we/I are actually trying to live up to that higher standard and quality of living!  If we are going to live in this lovely spot in the world, why not make it the most comfortable, aesthetically pleasing and organized experience we can!

SO!  We improved!!!!!  Of course, OF COURSE I don't have any before pictures, which would have been awesome, but enjoy the positive happy clean vibe of our new and improved home anyways!

We took down the scary looking universal apartment blinds that offer no privacy, limited actual shade and are continually covered in a layer of dust and replaced them flowing, pretty, useful energy efficient curtains!  Plus, I finally washed the windows inside and out.  The result is uber pleasing to the eye in comparison to what was!

I stained our back patio...what was once a greyish/whitish dying/dead looking bunch of wood now has a bit of a glossy happy brownish shine that is not only weather resistant and good for the porch, but is fun to look at! I'm really happy with how it all turned out!

Before we left Madison to travel, we had bought and given away an awesome patio set with umbrella that we'd found at Shopko for a bargain deal of $70!  Well, low and behold, we stop by to purchase some curtains and what do you know!  Same exact patio set purchased many years ago on same exact clearance!  YAY!  Sold!

I sanded and refinished this boudoir/closet/boxy closet thing!  Isn't it perty?  R man also cut off what was a little top cabinet off the top of it, making it impossible to fit it into any room easily.  The thing also had a continual ewww de baby odor to it, which I think we can finally say we've finally kicked thanks to repeated bleachings/washings and plenty of air freshener. 

There's probably a lot more little items that I should mention, like the new kitchen trash can with the built in opener you push down with your foot, the new shoe rack, the awesome garden we're growing which required a new hose and special tomato holders, the IKEA kitchen table I bought in Minnesota with my parents, or even the new set of steak knives purchased just yesterday...tons of new stuff to celebrate staying put, but there's also been plenty of ditching of the old, ending with a final run to St. Vincent de Paul's yesterday with a final trunk load of good byes...I end now with our piece de resistence!!!!

We finished painting our bedroom!  A nice simple white for now, but hey!  It's all one color and it doesn't look like someone went thru the room with a machine gun anymore!  No more gaping holes and scary corners!  Rodolfo installed two little side tables on each side which I stained brown and we bought matching desk lamps, so we can read comfortably at night with a place for an alarm clock!

Ok, I did forget the major purchase of an outdoor charcoal grill, but I haven't yet put it together out of the box...the first bbq experienced, you'll be sure to see a pic of R man at his best!

So yeah, lots of little odds n' ends we'd been living without fine, but now that we have them completed and finished....sigh....it feels really awesome to enjoy and live in our little spot in the world!