Weekend Wrap Up

Here are a few moments from our last weekend in 2012.

Don't be scared of my mermaid harbor; it's going to be beautiful.

Jeff was none too happy about my interrupting his wallpaper removing nightmare extravaganza on Saturday.

You have to understand that Jeff considers himself a wallpaper-removing-champion, so this dining room has been an emotional and physical challenge - to say the least. 

The steamer was no match for this wallpaper, so we had to buy one of the dreaded wallpaper scorers.

This project is going to continue well into 2013, so you can look forward to that. In other sad news, Christmas is over.

Everything is all packed up; and today, the tree is coming down. I am only slightly depressed, but I can genuinely say that I'm looking forward to the new year.

Oh yeah, Dad gave me his camera tripod (from back in his hipster-camera-carrying-days) -- so, you can definitely look forward to a lot more staged shots in the coming months. Thanks, Dad! Here's our first test shoot on Christmas.

Happy New Years, all. See you in 2013!

Ryan

2012 iPhoneography

Here's to another year of beautiful moments. 

Wishing you all the best in 2013. 

Ryan and Jeff

P.S. I'll be back in January with a whole slew of unattainable resolutions and remodeling goals. Just you wait. 

Holiday Spirit

This was Toby after we opened our gifts at the house. He was drunk off the holiday spirit. Can you tell?

Christmas is definitely one of Toby's favorite holidays: (1) because we're home more than usual, and (2) because he gets to go on a car ride. This year, we spent Christmas Eve and Christmas morning with Jeff's family, which meant we all got to spend some quality time with Dakota (the one-year-old Glenn family puppy):

Toby is seven years her senior, so needless to say, he was asleep the minute we got in the car to head home. Dakota is all play, all the time. It was actually the first time I really realized how old mature Toby is getting; he was all, "Please just let me just lay here and chew on this bone." -- and she was just like "Play now, chew later, old man." Toby secretly loved the attention, though he'd never admit it.

Anyhow, before Christmas day arrived, we had a few great moments with friends at the house; mainly, we had our annual "latkah night" that I mentioned here.

Our friend Jacqueline takes care of us in the food department always. Not only did she prepare this meal, but she told us the story of Hanukkah while we ate it. She is like the wise Canadian grandmother I never had.

Later that week, I took Jac's latkah recipe and made good ole' fashioned American hashbrowns, turkey bacon, and white chocolate chip pancakes for Lauren, Matthew, and Hudson. It was the biggest meal I have made in the new house, and I was quite impressed with myself -- seeing as I'd never made pancakes or hashbrowns before. Don't judge me.

Here was the scene immediately following the meal:

Even Toby was out.

Honestly, when Toby makes that face, I know all is as it should be.

Speaking of faces; take a look at my reaction when I was opening my present from Jeff.

It was the unicorn of all things magical; a 27" iMac.

That's my "oh-no-you-didn't-but-I'm-so-happy-you-did" face.

I also got this pink Craftsman tool bag. (I am usually not overly thrilled about this level of cuteness, but this was hard to deny.) We bought Dad the traditional red and black one for all of this trips to and from the house. We'll be twins. A little bribery goes a long way, right? 

It was a really great holiday. Jeff received a ton of new tools for the house, and this really hip hand-held console that plays Super Nintendo cartridges from the 80s. (From yours truly, of course.)

Don't let his cool demeanor fool you ... he was pumped.

Leo, on the other hand, was not impressed by the whole holiday experience and tried to escape by crawling into every. single. box. that. we. opened.

Here's to the warm holiday season, and the approaching new year.

Ryan

Ceiling Fan Installation

Last night, Jeff decided to put an end to my nagging and install the ceiling fan in our bedroom.

Currently, each of the bedrooms have flush mounted overhead lighting in the center of the room:

While original to the home, we have decided that we will slowly replace each of them with more modern fixtures. The problem is, these lights leave huge holes in their wake.

Hanging a new fixture requires crawling in the attic, installing a brace, and covering the hole with ceiling medallion.

Scott came by to give Jeff a hand with the project:

The install was going rather smoothly at first. I was enjoying photographing the attic; happy not to be tall enough to help with the project ... and then, they started to mount the fan -- and I walked in on Jeff trying make this work:

Yep, the medallion was too small.

Luckily, we found a similar medallion in the shed that was purchased in 1983. August 22, 1983 -- to be exact. 

You don't believe me? Here's the receipt:

As it turns out, Paw Paw forgot to measure, too; and we were left with two ill-fitting medallions. Go figure.

Having consumed two glasses of wine at this point in the evening, I gave the go ahead to install the 30-year-old-wrong-sized-medallion, and made Jeff promise to cut and plaster some drywall into the holes. Here's how the rest of the install unfolded:

And, finally, two hours later ... success:

I love the look on their faces.

So, we have a fan.... and four small holes in our ceiling.

I suggested that we stuff fuzzy holiday socks in the holes, but Jeff went with a more pragmatic solution: cardboard.

So, there it is. One step forward, two steps back.

Here's to living and learning, and to all of the hard work went into that fan. We will definitely report back on the drywall and painting phase of this project.

Happy Friday, all!

Ryan