It Always Gets Worse Before it Gets Better

We've been making excuses for our garage for years.
"Shabby Chic" we've called it. "Charming." "Quaint." "Well-used."

It's time to stop fooling ourselves. So, this weekend, we got to work scraping paint. And we were at it for at least 10 hours before we finished.

We were exceedingly pleased with our work. Now our garage looks twice as bad as it did before. And it's all our fault.

7 a.m.....................................7 p.m.


7 a.m. ...................................7 p.m.


Now, let's pray that the rain holds off for a while so that we can get it primed and painted.

Speaking of Laundry

...turns out our Maytag (which is just under five years old) is dying.

The first indication of trouble was the horrendous sound the machine started to make while entering the spin cycle. If you can imagine the sound of a jet engine taking off in the basement, you've pretty much got the idea. Despite the fact that the machine still effectively cleaned our skivvies, it was becoming increasingly difficult to squeeze a nap in during our Saturday afternoon laundry sessions. So, we decided to take action. After some solemn consideration of the matter, and an overly optimistic inspection of the inner workings of the machine, we felt it might be prudent to get a professional opinion.

Turns out, we have a failed "triple lip" seal. Since warm, soapy water can now get to the "milkstool" and bearing, the mechanism is rusting. The rusting is causing the loud, aeroplane-like screaching sound. According to the repairman that we called to take a look, this is an all-too-common scenerio. The seal itself is (apparently) a serious pain to fix. A professional will charge about $200 (labor alone) for the job, and from the reading I've done, it's a pretty nasty do-it-yourself project. So, I think it's worth our time and energy to consider a replacement.

I've been doing a bit of reading, and apparently our repairman wasn't feeding us a line. Some people have reported their washing machines dying a similar death in 3 years or less! I guess this should make me feel better. But, the reality is, it makes me angry. Washing machines used to be made to last. And now, it seems, they're disposable items, made to self-destruct. Like so many other things.

We're contemplating the new front-loaders; but, overall efficiency aside, I'm not sure if I'm ready to shell out the cash. I am giving some serious consideration to utilizing our local laundromat. After all, I could do five loads at once there (saving precious time), and I'm nearly positive it would cost me less than $100/year (which, at this rate, is what it costs me for the convenience of simply owning a machine -- the cost of the energy to run it not included).

But, we're up for suggestions/opinions, if you happen to have any.

How Peef and Lo Spend Valentine's Day

It's not what you might expect.
We did end up having a very lovely dinner last night. But first we had to live through a pretty traumatic experience.

Imagine this.
It was about 7:15pm. IPOD was playing a collection of songs with the word "love" in the title (there are a remarkable number of songs that begin with the word love!). Peef was busily unloading the dishwasher and finishing up the last of the pans we'd neglected to put away the night before. Lo was slicing and dicing and prepping everything so that they could start cooking dinner. She had a small saucepan of bagna cauda simmering on the stove (which SMELLED fantastic), and she had just heated up a bit of olive oil to begin sauteeing the mushrooms. She went into the cupboard (the corner cabinet with the lazy susan) to get a bit of cornmeal, in which she planned to dredge the sea scallops, when she saw a horrifying sight. Somehow, the molasses in the cupboard had been upset. It was lying on its side, uncovered, and molasses was dripping slowly down the side of the cabinet, and into the cupboard space below the lazy susan.

This is NOT Peef and Lo's cupboard. But, it gives you a visual to work with. Imagine the entire space below the lazy susan filled with blackstrap molasses.

Lo was horrified. She tried to tuck her hand under the lazy susan to begin wiping up the mess. But, there simply wasn't enough room for her to adequately reach underneath. The molasses had seeped all the way to the back of the cupboard -- and had coated the entire cupboard floor with 1/4 inch of oogey sticky blackness.

Lo's brain filled with visions of a summer day -- ants marching two-by-two into the house and gathering underneath the kitchen cabinets, where they could happily slurp molasses to their hearts' content.

Lo fiddled with the screws on the lazy susan. Peef unscrewed the post which supported the carousel. Panic hit when they realized that there was no good way to remove the lazy susan from the cupboard to get underneath. Their only option would be to remove the cupboard door and try to wedge a rag back under the carousel to get the sticky mess out.

And that's what they did. Well, first Lo took a spatula and scraped out as much molasses as she could from underneath. Then, Peef filled and refilled buckets of water for her as she swabbed the area to get rid of the sticky mess.

Finally, at about 9pm, the cupboard was back to normal.
Peef finished putting the canned goods back into the cupboard, and Lo got back to preparing dinner. By 9:30pm, they were half collapsed on the couch, trying to enjoy their very late (but delicious) feast.

And there was light!

We are the proud new owners of a BRAND NEW chandelier.
How exciting, yes?

It is, indeed, exciting. And it should have been a simple matter of replacing the old, worn-out light fixture with something new and exciting. But, nay... as life would have it, there is a STORY to tell.

Travel with us back in time -- to last Christmas -- when we were the gracious recipients of a number of generous monetary donations. Recall with us how we took those generous donations and decided to put them toward the purchase of a lovely new light fixture for our dining room.

Now, to give a bit of background, we live in a 1920's bungalow. So, our dining room really is a lovely place. We have built-in china cabinets, and lovely woodwork. We have a tray ceiling, and a domed doorway which leads from the dining room into the living room. The ONE piece of the dining room that is NOT lovely is the light fixture, which happens to be a 1980's vintage ceiling fan (with light kit) complete with lovely caning detail on the fan blades! We probably don't need to tell you how excited we were by the prospect of a new fixture!

Anyhow -- we managed to find a lovely wrought iron chandelier (by Quoizel) with iced glass lamp shades and a leaf motif.

It was PERFECT! And, it happened to be on sale. So, we scooped it up and took it home with us. We planned to install it just as soon as we had a free moment.

Well, during that free moment, we discovered that the electricity in our lovely dining room was NOT up to code. And there was NO WAY that big chandelier was going to have enough support to hang from the dining room ceiling the way things were. SO, we needed a plan B.

Plan B consisted of having our electrical redone when we proceeded with our upstairs bathroom rennovation. Now, as a loyal reader, you know that we CRASHED our beloved Isuzu in August, and so the bathroom remodel was post-poned.

Ergo, we moved on to PLAN C. Plan C consisted of having an independent electrician come and take a look at our situation and propose a solution. As luck would have it, Plan C was postponed for a number of months so that we could get our finances back in order and determine what was really affordable.

BUT FINALLY, this very week, we have moved forward. Plan C was enacted. And successfully so. Celebrate with us, for we have been enlightened!

Peef and Lo Are Expecting Visitors

Now -- I realize we've been a bit out of touch for the past week. But that's been for good reason.

For one -- we finally got our cabinet hardware, and were able to put our cabinet doors back up! Doesn't that look nice?

The rain has come to Milwaukee, so our grass is growing again. Which means we've been spending time outside MOWING (that's a foreign concept, as we haven't done it in WEEKS). We've also been spending some of our spare time cooking up great things in the kitchen (fish tacos, anyone?).

But, the biggest reason has to do with preparations around the house.
The excitement mounts as we gear up for a weekend with some of our favorite people. Rebecca and Jeremy are coming to visit us. All the way from the Promised Land (Fargo, ND for those of you who aren't familiar)! While they won't be brining their sweet kids along, they will be bringing another friend. Jackie will be visiting us from California. And we can't wait.

Right now, the weekend plans are still somewhat up in the air.
However, we do know that they'll arrive at our place sometime in the afternoon on Friday. After getting something to eat at one of the local eateries, we'll be rocking out at the Crowded House concert.

Saturday's events could include a trip to the farmer's market, a rendezvous to KOPP'S frozen custard, or time spent at Irish Fest... or maybe a local art fair (Oconomowoc's art fair happens to be ranked THIRD in the nation for juried art festivals). Depends what we're feeling like.

Whatever we decide, we always seem to have a great time.

Behold! Athenian Green!

Having spent our entire weekend "prettifying" our hallway (and subsequently learning to upload photos) , we thought we'd share some photographs of the effort.
First, we're pleased to reveal the stunning WHITENESS of our hallway. This is BEFORE we started painting.

Everything in the hallway was white (and we mean EVERYTHING)... including the hardware on all of our cupboards, which we removed.

We armed ourselves with cans of Athenian Green paint (OK, one can. it's a small hallway).

About twenty four hours later, the hallway was beginning to transform.

Another twenty-four hours later, even the TRIM was painted (thank the Good Lord!).

We're still waiting for our new hardware to arrive (according to UPS, it should be delivered on Friday). So, the cupboard doors will have to wait. But we're quite enjoying the benefits of that little spot of color.

Busy Is As Busy Does

So, Peef and Lo have been busy. And apparently Being Busy makes us Bad Bloggers.

What, exactly, HAVE we been up to?

Well...

1. HOUSE PROJECTS: We spent our weekend painting our hallway (Athenian Green) and searching for new hardware for the many cabinet doors IN the hallway.
2. THE BATHROOM REMODEL: We met with our contractor about the bathroom rennovations -- and have been trying to make appointments with some of the local showrooms to view possibilities for fixtures, tiles, and the like.
3. IN OUR QUEST TO REMAIN LOCOVORES: Last night, we spent a good portion of our evening searching Milwaukee for locally produced BREAD to make our first BLT's of the season (with tomatoes from our garden)... and ended up getting bread made in Minnesota (the closest we could come, apparently).
4. NEW TOYS: We have been playing with our new digital camera -- but have yet to try downloading any of the photos.
5. NEW FOOD: We've sampled the foodstuffs at a new local joint. Read about that, eventually, on our BURP! blog.

So, don't despair. We'll be back to blog about any number of these exciting items. Just as soon as we can manage to sit down for a few moments.

Bathroom Remodel: Take One

For those of you interested in our progress in fixing up the nasty bathroom (see entry from June 22), I'm pleased to say that we finally met with our mortgage company. The great news is that we have a bit of equity, despite having lived in our home for only a few years. The even better news is that now we can actually move forward with our plans for a bathroom rennovation.

SO, we met with a prospective contractor last night to discuss some of our options. Overall, it looks like we'll be able to do quite a bit with the money we have at our disposal. Beyond the obvious cosmetic changes, we'll definitely be ditching the cheap, leaky, plastic "neo-angle" shower we have going on (and likely replacing it with a custom tiled shower). And we'll probably be adding a bit more storage space. It's actually quite exciting to think that we'll be able to transform the room that's been haunting Lo's dreams for a long time now into something with which we'll both be really happy. I have a feeling it will transform our entire attitude toward the house in general. Not to mention the fact that it will add quite a bit of value.

In other news, we're officially closing in on our plans for the 4th of July and subsequent weekend. Despite our initial plans to hang out and take it easy for a number of days, it looks like we're going to be busy little bees. It's getting to the point where we've actually turned DOWN our third offer for a get-together (which makes us very sad!). Amid the many activities on the roster, we'll be replacing the shocks on our car (whee!) and shopping for a new dishwasher to replace our old, leaky one. Not all that mentionable.

That said, not all of our plans are humdrum. For instance, we have a variety of plans with friends and family. For instance, on Saturday, we actually have a "CSA dinner" planned with our friends Steph & Nate (during which we cook with foods we got in our Community Supported Agriculture box). The joy of such a dinner is that it invokes our spontaneous planning abilities, as we often don't know what will be in our CSA box until the day before it arrives. Such a dinner requires quick wit, collaboration, and a keen sense of adventure. This week, we could see vegetables as exciting as broccoli, kohlrabi, and lettuce... I wonder if anything will make the menu over at BURP! ?