This week marks the official announcement of our new domicile! We are so excited about the new place and we've got a (short) list of things to do and then we'll be living in the new Lovenest.

I scooped gutter gunk for a few hours this morning over at the new Lovenest. Lots and lots of steamy stinky sludgy slop. I think with all the muck I removed from the gutters this morning that the house rose up about six inches on its foundation. I perhaps also destroyed an entire ecosystem in the name of free-flowing rain water. But I claim amnesty since I actually just moved it over to the mulch pile ecosystem.

The basement family/rumpus room project that was started a while back has been finished and it turned out fabulously. It is such a nice addition to the living space of the lovenest. Now, on to other news: we'll be hosting the lovenest in a more appropriate location very soon. And hopefully update it more than once a year. Stuff has been happening, just too much stuff to write about!

These past two weeks have seen a lot of closet activity going on here at the Lovenest. I ripped out the mostly useless shelf and rod in the main floor closet (only one) and installed some ClosetMaid adjustable shelving. We probably increased our usable space by at least 800%.
Late last week we finally got our custom linen closet (cabinet) installed into the dead space (before picture) in our hallway outside our bathroom. You have no idea how exciting it is to have a place to put stuff like toilet paper and towels! Yeeha! We spec'd out what we wanted and had a local place build us a birch cabinet which they installed so as to try to look original. We'll have to paint it to match the rest of the hallway now.

We got a nice gift certificate from my sister's family for Christmas so we decided to spend it on a finishing touch for our bathroom: a towel bar and shelf from American Standard. The end result is nice, but oh what a scare it was!

We finally got a new light fixture for our hallway. Picked this beauty up at Architectural Antiques - all Jeremy had to do was spray paint the base white to match the freshly-painted ceiling.

We really need to get better about taking "before" pictures!

The holidays are here and (hopefully) house projects are in a bit of dormancy. I picked up a nice little tree from the lot near work last night and transported it home on the roof of my car. It made a neat "shooshing" sound through the wind. A tasteful application of white lights and a few ornaments and things are looking mighty festive around here!

Alas, here is a photo of our darn-near-completed bathroom project! Just last week, Michael and Tim came over to install our final Swanstone shower panel, so we get to shower with actual walls instead of sheets of plastic, yay!

You can see our swank hexagonal tile (we plotted out our pattern on paper and debated endlessly about how many black tiles we should have), and our subway tile with turquoise glass accent tile. The medicine cabinet is a '40s original, which we scored at City Salvage. There's some aging around the edges that looks wicked cool. The light above the mirror was an $11 bargain at Home Depot, and looks super retro.

The only things that remain are small details: toilet paper holder, towel bars, etc. But, the major things are done - I even took off the bathroom door and painted it.

Next project? Maybe painting my office. Pink!

Better late than never...the basement update.

The major work is complete: floor, walls, carpet, and new windows. Here's the before (while the floor was being broken up for the waterproofing), and the after. Yep, that's the exact same corner, although these pictures were all taken before we got our swank new windows.

We made a TV/video game area and a spot for playing board games (or for big sewing projects if I ever get around to one). All that remains is adding some more electrical outlets, and hanging up some artwork!

Anyone up for a game of trivia in the rumpus room?!