Category: At Home

Kitchen Nook Progress!

One of the more “done” sections in the house (if you can call anything “done” after just two weeks) is the kitchen nook. We put together our kitchen carts from IKEA which turned out to provide much-needed storage and work space. It has served us well for several meals so far, with some minor tweaking as to where we’d originally placed items. I found that leaving the cart on the left a little more sparse leaves me more room to work, and putting some more utensils on the right is handy (easy to grab since we’re both right-handed)

In this photo you can see the aftermath of preparing a meal. Not bad! I love it–when I cook, Doug tries to take care of the dishes. Score one for me–I hate dishes!

Here’s the nook from a wider angle.

Aaaaand here’s a big deal! The vantage point from which these photos were taken. My MIL got us some bar stools for our birthday(s). Since our birthdays are only 23 days apart, it’s easy to do combo gifts ;)

They are absolutely perfect. I just LOVE them! I did some research and discovered that since our bar is abnormally high (like 45 inches, whereas between 36 and 40 is more normal) we needed to get the taller stools. They are the perfect height and the seat is a good generous size–I don’t feel precarious or wobbly nor do I get tired of sitting there quickly. We’ve eaten the past two dinners there as well as breakfasts.

Well, at least one section of the new house is in order. I’ll keep you updated as far as progress goes!!

Moving Hiccups

If you ever plan on moving across town (our new house is only 7 blocks from our apartment) DO NOT do as I did. Don’t get lazy and lackadaisical. Yes, it is a MOVE. Not a visit or vacation. This, unfortunately means that EVERYTHING (from the useful to the less-useful, from the beautiful to the mundane) must make the 7-block trek.

Okay, let me defend myself. Our moving timeline-schedule was hazy from the start… were we going to move the weekend of the 17th or the 24th? Who was going to help? So, with all of this up in the air, I didn’t even start putting things in boxes. Plus, we had so much work to do on the new place with painting, cleaning, putting together the IKEA stuff, etc, that we were barely home at the old apartment to do much more than sleep! Also, our grocery supply dwindled and dwindled… I have eaten “out” more (fast food, pizza, not-so-fast-food) in the past two weeks than in a looooong time. We still have yet to go grocery shopping other than the occasional milk run (I cannot drink my coffee without milk. Blech).

Here’s a list of other complications that occurred due to having such a hazy schedule:

  • Not scheduling the gas hook-up on time = driving over to the old apartment to take a hot shower before bed. Inconvenient, but better than the alternative.
  • Not scheduling the internet guy = big gaps in blogging! And no TV to check for severe weather… eek! Luckily the storm that occurred on our first night in the house was not severe.
  • 2000’s refrigerator + 1930s house = have to take the doors off the refrigerator to get it into the kitchen. That was really awful, and now I have a bit of touch-up work to do on the doorway into the kitchen.
  • Forgetting to buy a shower curtain = water everywhere!!!

Moved!

What a weekend.

We have over 90% of our earthly belongings in the new house. By the end of the week the apartment should be empty and clean, with the keys turned in and change-of-address filed with the USPS. I haven’t really been sad about the whole thing, but writing those words really did kind of feel shocking. I did have my moment of bittersweet-ness when we “undecorated” the kitchen, leaving it looking so bare and nondescript.

Depending on this evening, you may get a post with pictures but you may not. We’ll see. Should have internet in the new house on Wednesday and the blogging schedule will return to normal! That is, if “normal” ever existed… I am slowly but surely going to get this blog-work balance figured out. I need to get into my old habit of writing posts at night (for publication the next day) instead of trying to cram a quick post in during my lunch break.