Here We Go!

One of the things that sold me on the new house- aside from Chris badgering me and threatening to throw my favorite Burberry cape out the window if we walked away from this "backyard putting green potential"-- was the enormous possibility within its walls.

Behold, a 1950s kitchen. Not quite the open concept, giant eat-in island, stainless steel appliance kind of facility that we've all been taught by House Hunters to expect. The keys dont technically belong to us until Friday morning at 10:00am, at which point I will be snapping pictures until someone throws my camera out the back door.

One of the first major Demo-Reno, Double-Whammy projects I dream of is the kitchen. Which is begging to have a wall knocked down, allowing for access to the sun porch (which eventually will be a legitimate family room). Until then, the L-shaped kitchen is interrupted by this completely random patch of dreadful, disgusting navy blue carpet. Somehow, the only 10x10' patch of carpet in the entire house lies smack in the middle of the kitchen.

Enter, the dinette. I have a love-hate relationship with the area and I'm not even sitting there with a bowl of oatmeal, mulling over my disdain for it yet. It's wonderful that we have a place to eat "in the kitchen," but as it is now, it feels more like a place to hold an interrogation beneath the polished brass pendant. Because I wouldn't be opposed to a crook putting his cigarette out directly on the floor. Not at all.



The right wall of this kitchen is an awesome jumping off point for us because it has a similar layout and cabinet style to what already exists in the new house. Im digging on the white subway tile with the dark grout. I'm even a little enamored with the gold fixtures.



And if by some miracle, we DO get to knock down walls, this is precisely how I would want the pass thru to turn out. Except not with the divided sink. No, sure as the sun will rise, the sink will be an apron.



Until that Dream Kitchen moment arrives, I will adhere to the notion that "if plan A doesn't workout, it's okay because there's still 25 letters left to go." We would have to shift around the dimensions, but this is a dinette I could really groove on. I like the idea of a little shelving to cap the actual kitchen cabinetry and to divide the funcion of the space. Plus, who doesn't want to sit among a pile of pillows with a hot cup of coffee and their laptop open to Pinterest?

That's what I thought.

Least Recommended

Of all the projects we did in the current house, the one we will NOT be doing in the new house involves our most beloved stone.

Meet Mr. Slate.

Varied in thickness, bumpy in surface texture.

It all started with the salesman selling us seven boxes of moderately priced backsplash tile and simple directions to thin coat, tile, and grout. He felt a weekend was an adequate amount of time to complete such a project.

BEEEEP. WRONG.

Fast forward about six months and the directions were more like lose feeling in your hands from the repetitive vibrations of a wet saw shaking you while cutting hundreds of tiles to fit so snugly around outlets, vent hoods, and into corners. My favorite part, though, is that part that you always saw Norm and Bob Vila on This Old House warning viewers about: no house is plum.

Meaning, your shit aint straight, yo.

So in about half of the kitchen, the cabinets were about 1/16th of an inch lower than in the rest. Meaning, each of those tiles had to be shaved juuuuust ever so slightly to fit in. For those not familiar with stone cutting-- doing such a thin cut is a giant pain in the butt.

Another of Nawm and Bob's warnings to heed: turn off the power before you mess with electrical things. Even if you just think you're going to squeak a spacer behind an outlet to make the fancy new slate faceplate flush with the fancy new slate subway tile.

Oops. Also, FYI, a true electrical shock is nothing like dragging your feet across the carpet and catching a little zap when you flip on the lightswitch. Oh no, a true electrical shock hurts like a (!)!%^&_!* and involves seeing spots and needing to lie down.

We love the backsplash-- seriously, it's fab-- but never again. We'll take the learned lesson with us and leave the tiling to the pros.

A is for Anniversary

A month late and a good picture short would be an appropriate summary of our anniversary last month.

Here's the best we could come up with. I blame the Pinot Grigio and the amazing company equally.

Chris was playing in a golf tournament-- WHAT, playing golf you say? NO! Unpredictable that one is, I know. That meant I had to play the, "if we do nothing, it's fine" card. Which I sincerely meant because it seems sort of silly to me to be sure to sit down to dinner together for a special occasion. Call me old fashioned, but damnit, we make a point of sitting down together no matter what.

Even if it is in the living room while we watch Housewives of Whatever City at 8pm while wearing our sweaty gym and driving range ensembles. Whaddayawant from us, we're only normal people.

"But if we DO do anything" I told Chris, "you're in charge. Because I planned New Year's and Valentine's Day."

Ah. Therein lies the rub!

He surprised the living daylights out of me by barreling off of the links and into his magical Hot Boyfriend machine otherwise known as his bathroom. He swoops in there and comes out gleaming, smelling like something so much more fantastic than that generic Axe crap so many dingdongs wear, and is always sure to come out sporting his Puma hat backwards. Sometimes he says it's because I prefer it that way, but really we know that it's because he's... psst... in his thirties and clinging to his youth.

But shhh.

We hopped in the car and he fended off my constant, "OH, I KNOW, we're going to Insert Any Restaraunt Within a Mile Radius" idiocy. Much to his chagrin I am sure, we pulled into my favorite Minneapolis neighborhood and strolled towards the cutest place around. A place full of microbrews, tiny tables, and those annoying people known as Hipsters. Young Professionals in very stylish clothing, if you will.

It's the kind of place too cool to accept reservations. The kind that has a 90 minute wait list that people glady put their names down on. While you wait, you're free to take glassware full of wine and microbrews outside to linger with a swarm of other sweaty, getting drunker by the waiting list minute-er diners. After being seated, Chris broke out the prerequisite Anniversary card. From my favorite obscure stationary shop. We had agreed to a very small gift budget since the only thing I care about right now is new appliances for the new house.

Being the high maintenance Go Big shopper that he is, he blew the budget out of the water with a gift from Crate and Barrel. And I know, how trite of a man to give a woman something for a kitchen store, right? But wrong. Because I treasure that store and even though I've never gone so far as to drag Chris into it, he knew.

That's the thing about Chris. He might complain 99 times out of 100 that the lunch I packed was wrong because X, or dinner was fifteen minutes too late for his liking or blah blah blah. You know, the standard complaints every woman hears from her family that make her feel inferior. But I will tell you something, folks, that one time? That one time looks at those other 99 and shuts 'em right the fuck up. When it counts, I can count on him. No matter how big or small, I know he won't disappoint me on the things that truly matter.

Now I Need to Know

What the fudge is SimplePie and how come you people are using it to find Plumage?

I'm still on AOL version 4.0 and it seems a'ight by me!

You guys are so technologically advanced, it's unbelievable.

You Need to Know

If you live in the Twin Cities area, then you need to know about the Pot O Gold that poured itself at my feet while blog hopping a few weeks ago.

Uniquely Attainable is a mobile thrift store.

That's right- a moving bargain mobile. SHUT THE FRONT DOOR, right!

We rode to school on a bus as children. We rode to the club on a bus as hard partying college kids. Why would we not ride on a bus as penny pinching adults?!

Also, while we're on the topic of blog hopping-- SWEET JEEBUS, have I been a Pregnant Lady After Pickles fiend lately!

It all began about a month ago when my favorite blogger-- the blogger that introduced me to the beautiful black hole of personal weblogs-- sold out. I'm not talking little Google AdSense ads in the side margins of her site. Oh no, I am talking footnotes to every single post that began with the phrase "this post sponsored by."

Half of the posts turned into product and business links (aka CASH MONEY for blogger). I became disillusioned the way that I did when Kim Kardashian packaged up our sweet Minnesotan homeboy, Kris Humphries, and Bennifered the shit out of him. Only to turn around and sell the whole appalling mockery of marriage for about fifteen mil.

As in One-Five-Million-Dollars.

I know celebrities do it all the time, as do bloggers, but the one-two punch of these women shamelessly putting a dollar amount not only on matters of the 9 to 5 business variety, but on the entirety of their lives, left me feeling sour towards the self marketing madness of our Me-Me-Me World.

So I gave up on reading the same handful of blogs I have always read and instead began trolling through the smaller Mom and Pop sites listed on their blogrolls. And the blogrolls of the blogrolled. That makes perfect sense when I think about it though. Because I hate Macy's but I sure like that Peruvian woman on Etsy who makes scarves out of repurposed grain sacks.

You can always view MY blogroll, of course, but I have to give a shout out to a few in particular. So here's to the few and far between; the Radioheads of the Blogosphere; me and my growing carpal tunnel syndrome salute you. You and your uniqueness is so.. well... rare.

Uniquely Minnesota. Speaks for itself. 'Nuff said.

Now. I'm a little upset about this one because it sort of takes my creativity quotient down a notch. But I didn't know of this woman's existence until about 36 hours ago. Ironically, she, too, is a Minnesota girl with a sick sense of style and an appreciation of all things colored by the procreation of blue and green. Behold, my secret blog cousin, House of Turqoise.

Erin Gates is such a style smartie, but she also gets my respect for always giving credit to every single person on the planet that inspires her. It's also worth noting that she is so perfectly polished that you may feel tempted to backhand the skank, but just when you think she cannot be anymore pristine, she'll hit you with a sobering reality check post.

Green and Natural Parenting. I know you knew it was coming, but herein I plug my belief in minimizing exposure to chemicals, hormonally altered, and otherwise unnatural elements. This is something my parents and I differ on, but god dangit-- my kids, my rules, my way! When they are 27, they, too, can decide whether or not Fruity Pebbles poured in Mountain Dew is okay or not. For now, however, we go reasonably green.

This post brought to you by me, myself, and I. And for the record, it is sponsored by no one. Unless you'd like to click one of those little ad banners to your right. (imagine flight attendant finger directions). In which case, thank you for contributing to.. well... mostly Google. Because my share of that is pennies. Literally. So this post is brought to you by nothing but me and my desire to share what I think is delicious and wonderful about life, mmkay?

The Time has Come

It's here! It's FINALLY friggin' HERE!!!

Even though the calendar says that the wait for Official Moving Month hasn't been much more than a Sex & The City marathon, it feels like an eternity. We sealed the deal over the 4th of July weekend and have been absolutely counting down every morning when we wake up.

The thing, too, is that from the first awkward "Hi, how are ya... pause for hug or handshake or maybe kiss cheek. But one or two? Is he Italian?" meeting until now has been but a mere 13 months. Which felt like something I waited an entire lifetime for, but then again feels so quick. And here we are. I have Etsy'ed the shit out of "Change of Address" announcements and have been so, so tempted to go on ahead and subscribe to Renovation Style sort of for the content, but mostly just so I can type in our new address.

Then it occurs to me that the current owners would probably get the first issue and they might take away our perfect little (will be) amazing rambler in the 'burbs.

My Pinterest pins are getting out of control-- Chris sees me for long enough to share a quick dinner debriefing session, then sees nothing but the top of my head as I bury my nose in the computer. Each day, my excitement builds. Each day, I feel more and more inspired and hopeful about the enormous potential of this dark-paneled little house.

I trust that the Intraweb will also deliver to me a tool with which to pin the overnight delivery of a money tree.

Three weeks from tomorrow, I'm going to get Chris to begrudgingly pose next to the SOLD sign at the Plumage House and I am going to geek out with sheer joy. Then I will go inside, only to be reminded of the poop colored electric stove, the awkward bedroom layout, and this dreadful sunroom which is crying out for proper drywall and a refurb pair of french doors.

But the joy! Oh, the joy. This is going to be so totally out of control. Tally Ho!