Feeling green

It was a busy weekend at Casa Megan. (Chris's) Family dinner on Friday, (Megan's) family dinner on Saturday, Superbowl on Sunday.

The hours were also filled with the predictable and prerequisite workouts, trips to the golf store and grocery, laundry, and daydreaming of all the things the future holds.

Chris and I are in that awkward relationship moment when we aren't married, we don't have kids, and we are already moved into the house with the yard and dog. For quite a while now.

We often look across the room at each other on Saturday afternoons and think, "there has to be more than this." More than just a boyfriend and a girlfriend and a big house full of too many boring grownup possessions.

We know the missing piece has ten tiny toes and ten tiny fingers.

But since that's a really serious lifetime commitment, for now we doddle and tinker and bicker and do aimless things like shop online and reorganize garages and pantries.

After a full week of anticipation, this box finally arrived on Saturday and it sent me running into the house for a scissors to tear into it with.

Inside were precious contents. Paraben free contents. If that sort of thing tickles your intrigue, then be sure to checkout Abe's Market. While many of the items are available at Whole Foods or the Co-Op, internet shopping practically guarantees a discount code of some kind. So I snagged shave cream, deodorant, and the most awesome Vicks-esque stuff called campor. I mist the inside of the humidifier before bed and I feel clear in the morning and my sheets aren't muddled in scary petroleum grossness.

 

The green theme continued on Sunday when a rare occurrence of Spring Fever struck me. I generally adore winter and swallow enough D3 and fish oil to keep the Winter Blahs away. But for whatever reason, the greenhouse and its between seasons destitution whispered into my ear to come inside.

 

I was disappointed to strike out in the herbs department. The hope had been an enormous basil plant and a rosemary topiary, but that's fine because lord knows I can't get a usable herb to grow in the herb garden much less a kitchen window in the dead of winter. 

Instead, I found these darling clay pots rimmed in silver and distressed enough to sport some real Euro flavor. Like sheep on the countryside and lavender fields as a backdrop for crusty bread and red wine.

They were charming and a fiscal ripoff originally, but an acceptable amount on clearance. My one regret is only buying three for myself and not picking up the rest to fill for fiends as gifts come spring and summer. Nothing says I Love You, Pal, like a fabulous pot full of mojito making spearmint.

You can never go wrong with succulents and even if you neglect them, they'll still give you a good amount of life and green before joining the English Ivies and ferns in Houseplant Heaven.

I love Sunday nights for their quiet nature: I love Sunday nights because it's like getting to hit Restart on the computer and the week can begin clean, fresh, organized and uncluttered. With Sunday night comes a sense of satisfaction for what was accomplished and an anticipation for what's yet to come.

We may not have babies, but we have succulents and gleaming countertops. Here's to hoping the weekend found your time blooming with goodness.

Kilim

With gorgeousness!

See what I just did there? I made a decorating pun.

Like I'm killin em but kilim. Get it? I've been sitting on that one all morning.

All of this SOPA blackout business.. Tough stuff, man. I get it, free speech and all of that, I hear you! Now give me back my coupon app and WordPress!

As a fan of  freedom to publish, I rather fancy the internet. Got it is this lovely intraweb which allotted me to piss away endless hours of previous life and countless flats of hard earned income.

Enter: kilim!! The fabulously patterned and colorful Turkish tradition holds a special place in my heart. Its not quite Navajo and it is certainly not your grandmothers paisley. Its bright, playful, and in my eyes, it should practically be considered a neutral.

I picked up a fab area rug for the kitchen at a favorite local antiques gem last  weekend and negotiated my way to a sweet steal at $68. Now I find myself craving more. Pillows. Runners.

Saddlebags!!

The real stuff is super pricey and let's be real, kind of scratchy. Paying two hundo for a throw pillow makes about as much sense as a penguin on a bicycle, but that doesn't stop me from wanting.

More kilim, please!

Deconstruct, Reconstruct

As an aside, I'm writing from my phone today. Which was annoying from Go anyhow, and now I'm seeing, quite clearly mind you, my complexion in the screen protector cover.

 

 

Can we say frown lines and brow furrow wrinkles?

 

 

Another tally on the CON side for you, 2011, another tally on the con side indeed.

 

 

Anywhoozle. The bees have been buzzing at Casa Plumage lately and most of the work has involved undoing the work of the prior owners.

 

 

Enter: Demolition.

 

 

When we moved in, it was a well known fact that the kitchen would need a little botox now and eventually, an entire facelift and boob job. Probably a tummy tick got good measure, too. 1973 was probably a great year for the old Plumage Kitchen. Hell, even the back of our BEAST of a GE frig boasts of "1979 Energy Standard" compliance. Oh yeah baby, that's it, that's the stuff of every energy bill paying homeowner's fantasies.

Behold:

The kitchen reno began a couple weeks ago when the living room painting failed on an epic level. Rather than sort out the frustrating choice of color in there, we wandered next door to the kitchen. You know, the bigger, more complicated, wayfrickenmore expensive project.

Ah, old appliances, crappy boob light fixtures and faux brick. Where to even begin the fun!

We soon found out from an electrician that one of the stove's burners wasn't working because the previous owner had jerryrigged some sort of home made circuit board beneath it. We then found illegal wiring and flammable insulation shoved over an electrical outlet all within a 12" space.

This is why you don't open Pandora's box, kids. Leave well enough alone and live gleefully in the bliss of ignorance.

So we figured what the frack and went on ahead and took the saw to the cabinets, the sledgehammer to the gingerbreading and schmeared it all with the most heavy handed layer of luscious navy blue paint you ever did imagine.

It will all be encrusted in a shiny coat of brand new stainless this weekend. I had jokingly told Chris that I would accept a new kitchen in place of an engagement ring, but I did that thinking a reno was more of a 2020 -something project.


There's that foot in my mouth again!

 

 

But I guess when a professional cries Fire Hazard, things expedite a bit.  The new frig is too tall for the previous opening, thus the jigsawing apart of the upper cabinets. We look forward-slash-dread the day that we decide what to do with the current 40" range and hood opening. And we most certainly look forward to taking the washer and dryer OUT of the kitchen and jamming it back DOWN in the basement where it belongs. I have beautiful, seed-glass-front dreams of a built in sideboard for my Grandma's Blue Meisen, all of my serving pieces, and of course a wine cooler.



Who knew that The House Before the House had the potential to potentially become The House.

Holla!

A big shout out to the lovely folks who joined us over the course of the past ten days. It has been a helluva ride, huh?! 

We kicked off the move by throwing our brand new gray sofa over a bannister at the old house. And when that didn't give us enough titillation before noon time, we threw an 8' tall armoire over the back deck rails. Neighbors stood on their own decks and watched in both shock and awe: will they drop it? Will it break? Will it drop and break them in half? 

Hysteria followed by raucous applause and congratulations. Just the way I like to kick off a Friday morning! 

We pulled into the new driveway with our entourage of family members and a moving truck too tall to fit up the driveway. Meaning, our wooded lot with fantastically mature trees was about to take a beating. After a couple of hours of unloading from the END of the driveway, my mom and I were both paralyzed by the sound of a chainsaw. I looked outside only to find my father standing atop the moving truck, slicing limb after branch after tree. Thank Jeebus our neighbors are not arborists. Or people who scoff at new neighbors moving in, cutting down trees, and swarming the neighborhood with rowdy, Coors Light fueled hooligans. 

But nothing can be as fantastic as moving into a new home with brand spanking new wood floors. Because that, my Intraweb friends and followers, is a real bitch of a job. The floors made it through the move relatively unscathed. Although, the front entryway did take a few dings and there are trace amounts of furniture varnish mysteriously smudged across the white walls and ceiling. In more than several places. 

We did it though. We moved in. We drank beer. We ate pizza for so many consecutive nights that I will claw the eyes out of anyone who dares mention words like "mozzarella" or "marinara" anytime soon. The boxes were not even unpacked before we took a hammer and a paintbrush to our first Reno project. I figured the 1950s vintage (read: horrid) kitchen would be the first project, but what a fool am I! Such thinking would be entirely to rational for Chris and myself. 

So without further ado, I give you Plumage House's first DIY. 

You expected more, didn't you?

Fine, fine. Stay tuned for the pictures of the actual project. Because Comcast is the only bitch bigger than wood floors on moving day and my Internet at home is yet to be connected. BUT REST ASSURED, Kilz is the word around our house and Kilz'ing the bananas out of our wood paneled, 1975 VFW basement is the name of the game. 

DIY Dreamland

Since our current house is on total lockdown while For Sale, the delight of a Sunday evening DIY project has come to a screeching hault. We moaned and groaned with every third tile spacer, but that's how those types of projects are: it feels like habanero pepper seeds in your eyeball at the time, but oh how we do adore ourselves a backsplash redo.

In the meantime, we are counting down the 51 days prior to move in day at the house/The House. We are happily browsing appliance stores, sadly crying over professional grade dual fuel ranges that cost more than my car, and eagerly brainstorming possibilities from moulding to settees to eventual sun room redos that involve creating a larger family room attached to the kitchen.

You know, for our eventual family.

I came across the Ana White website by way of a fellow Blogger. This thing is genius. I feel certain that we'll waste more time and money botching up building our own furniture, but the idea of jigsawing our way to the Custom Furniture Finishline makes my mouth water.

Behold! Ana White.

Oh and also. It is totally friggin free.

Salivation, commence!

In Review

After several weeks of stashing things, staging things, and storing things, the realtor finally came to officially list the house. Chris and I worked hard with minimal funding and gave his darling house a total makeover over the past twelve months. Had we known that a year into our relationship, we'd be packing up to move to our bigger, beautiful (eventually!) home in a quiet suburban neighborhood, we would have been better at taking "Before" pictures. Along the way, we snagged a few shots of some of our first DIY projects together.

The bedroom reads a little like this on the listing, but is way cooler in person. Mostly when our things get to be a part of the space rather than stuffed in storage. The color is matched to our dream wallpaper. But since the $150/roll pricetag of the beaded bird masterpiece did indeed only allow for it to be a dream, we stole the cool gray tone instead. In a shoebox in my closet, the paper sample and order number still sits. I told myself it couldn't be for this house, but would be for The House. We'll see I guess! It's hard to tell on my wimpy Point N Shoot camera (or maybe it's my sad excuse for photographic documentation), but the bedding has pintucks, silver gilding, and greek key patterns, Oh My!

The item in this picture I miss the most is the framed photobooth strip from our first exchange of "I Love You"

Wait for it...

AWWWW.

Here's Chris's tooshie in the crawl space, unloading the crap from the previous seven years of him having lived here. The crap went to storage, then we stored other crap there while we are For Sale. You know, things like 40lb bags of grout mix, holiday doormats, and 37 pairs of women's jeans that no longer fit, but hopefully will again someday.

I put winter sweaters INTO the storage space, and Chris pulled out 22" TIS rims. Which, if you know him, is a total DUH.  I think it is endlessly entertaining-- mostly because there's eleven more just like it in the garage. I don't have a place to put my flip flops, but we somehow store wheels, rims, and oh yes, eight sets of golf clubs.

My favorite thing about Chris and I as a couple is how practical we are.

The notorious slate backsplash. We decided on this as our first project an entire five weeks into our relationship. The guy at The Tile Shop was all dude, you can do this in an afternoon. So we were all like okay, here's my credit card! To which he said, "coolbeans" and we wondered if we had stepped into a 1996 timewarp. Christmas, Valentine's Day, and Easter all came and went before this project was done. And there was only one minor electrocution of a human being during the course of the whole thing. Can I get a WOO HA?

My blog's namesake. This is the Plumage paint from Martha Stewart that adorns the entire basement. Chris and I squabbled over color, but at the end of the day, his only requirement was that the space be a clubhouse of sorts. We were at the Home Depot one afternoon for a plant tray or something random and lame like that, when I wandered off to the Paint section. We were supposed to be meeting his Mom-- who is a totally genius interior designer-- so Chris said WOMAN! There's no time for this! Let's Go!! HA. In my purse I managed to snatch a paint swatch from my favorite domestic savant. It was a no brainer. The paint went up, and so did endless photos, autographed hole flags, and teebox statuary.

The only regret I have about this move thus far is that upon deciding to sell, I quickly bubble wrapped and removed all of our personal items. I did so because it is a part of showing the house, but also because I didn't want our private lives to be photographed and put on a MLS listing at all. Ironically, the only personal item not put away by the time the realtor showed up today was this engraving. Even before a single Reach My Arm Out & Take a Picture of Our Heads Smooshed Together photo found its way into a frame, I had this made by an Etsy shop. It may not be on the Oak tree in the backyard, but I hope this goes with us wherever our lives take us.

The Bidness of Moving

One couple, one house. Endless possibilities and unpredictable predicaments.

Chris and I met and fell instantly in love over a bucket of chocolate chip cookies at the Minnesota State Fair. I know, I know, go on ahead and feel envious of our fanciful romance. At the time, he owned a white-walled, blank canvas home in a city I had no earthy clue how to get to. In no less than 60 days, we had purchased tile saws, featherbeds, and countless buckets of paint. Zebra rugs, peacock colored paints, slate tile backsplashes. The house got a complete makeover– botoxed, lipglossed, corsetted and all. Then we thought HEY! Know what would be fun? LET'S MOVE!

After making the decision as a family– Chris, myself, and our 14 pound terror of an Eskipoo, Snoop– to pack our bags and move north of the river, we are about to embark on a brand new DIY masterpiece.

We hope.

The new digs take us closer to family, friends, and work. Snoop needed a proper yard and we needed a proper home in which we could grow our lives together. We wavered back and forth over the Real Estate Golden Ticket: after months of looking all over the Metro and at all sorts of price points, we had to make the executive decision as to whether land or house would win out.

Our hearts were set on a 1950s rambler in a quiet neighborhood with a great big lot. The basement is paneled, the closets are small, and there’s a good chance that the kitchen appliances are running on coal. But the lot! Two-thirds of an acre with a fenced area for the dog and ample outdoor space for us to live in, work on, and play with.

We made an initial offer to the sellers and, of course, were sent back a counter offer. We played back and forth and were tactfully told that the sellers wanted to wait for another open house (the property had only been on the market for 5 days when we made an offer). They were hoping for full price. So we quietly retreated and put it out of our minds, only to be called by the listing agent a week later: “Are you still interested?” he wondered.

The reno plans began even before the ink on the purchase agreement dried and we are unabashedly thrilled. T Minus 65 days. Grab your life jacket and have an emergency dingy on standby: this is going to be one hell of a river forging ride.