Inspiration

Matt and I have spent the better part of the last few nights combing through magazines our friend Mike gave us, trying to find “inspiration” for the staircase. The problem with this strategy is that when you comb through This Old House and Fine Homebuilding you’re bound to find inspiration for a lot of other projects too. Coraling all the creative horses running amuck in my brain has been a big problem.

So now I have 2 piles of magazines in my house; one of the piles is labeled “Staircase,” the other is labeled … well “Other.” And by ‘other’ I mean everything from porches, to basement floors, to cabinetry, to bathrooms.

And by bathroom, I mean that I have found my inspiration for the upstairs bathroom. It’s just perfect for my remodeling ‘lite’ project. Remodeling ‘lite’ – this means no ripping up floors or walls, no re-doing plumbing, no 6 months worth of work.

Here’s the photo inspiration for the bathroom.
Cabinet: I didn’t want to replace the cabinet so painting it is a great option and this is such gorgeous color.

Countertop: When Mike was over he recommended we change out the sink/countertop and we had to agree. This solid-surface one with the under mount sink is so much nicer.

Fixtures: Goodbye gold and chrome combo!

Walls: Yes … we might actually have beige walls. My hand is shaking as I type because this is so foreign to me but with a blue cabinet, I think beige is the best option.

So there we go. A new upstairs bathroom should be a 2-3 months away!

Bathroom when we looked at the house

Trading Scotland for Simon

We just made our September vacation plans and they don't involve Scotland, but instead another island that starts with S - St. Simon Island off the Georgia coast.

Matt's parents have invited us along on their coastal vacation of the year, and it's been a long time since we've gone on vacation with them (Charleston in 2006?). We've never been to St. Simon's and it's always fun to go somewhere new -- I've already scoped out some restaurants for seafood and BBQ.

Trading in the haggis for some 'Que, Scotland will just have to wait ...

A Tale of 2 Villes: Nashville & Louisville

We finally got a vacation! Well a mini-vacay, but it still counts.

I finally finished the end of my huge project at work -- that same week, I had to cover for a colleague (more work) and be on-call for a stressful book adoption committee (more work). Let's just say that one day I worked for 20 hours where I didn't crash into bed -- literally crash - until 4:00 a.m. All I kept thinking was, "When is break time?"

So this past weekend we headed to Nashville for three days to visit Matt's family and then to Louisville, KY on the way back up for two more nights. I have to say that breaking up that 8-hour trip with a stop in L-ville was really nice, we might be doing this more often.

Nashville was a good time - we had some much needed R&R, sleeping in until 9:30 am most days. My mother-in-law and I visited Cheekwood Botanical Gardens one day, and then we all headed to the Frist Center the next day (the Chuck Close prints exhibit was really cool). We ate at Rotiers (finally), a family owned place that's been around forever and always closed when we're in town for holidays. And then we had more burgers from Bobbie's Dairy Dip - a walk-up burger and ice cream stand that also has some history (and I wish I had known about this blog beforehand- well, next time!). And of course, Matt and I helped the Nashville economy by having coffee at Fido's about 5 times (this is always our first stop when we get to Nashville we love it so much).

Cheekwood Photos:

July 09 Cheekwood

On the way to Louisville Tuesday, we veered off towards Bardstown to take a tour of the Maker's Mark Bourbon Distillary. It was a nice small operation, but what I thought was odd were the tenement-looking housing that were actually the warehouses where they age the barrels. They dotted the otherwise beautiful landscape. Next time, we'll head east towards Lexington and visit Woodford Reserve which I hear is also beautiful.

Our B&B, the Central Park B&B, was situated in the Old Louisville neighborhood, directly south of downtown. This area has the most Victorian homes of any in the U.S. and in the 1970's, after 30 years of demise, the preservationists stopped the wrecking balls and saved all the homes. The homes are incredible and historic, but the area, in my opinion, still seemed to be going through re-gentrification with these stunning homes juxtaposed with much poverty. However, there wasn't a Starbucks in sight, and that was refreshing. Our B&B was a beautiful mansion, and our room was really pretty -- it was my first 4-poster covered bed and I felt slightly like royalty.

We only had that night and the next day in Louisville so we jammed in a lot of To Do's -- the first being "Eat a Hot Brown at the Brown Hotel." It consisted of white bread, thick cuts of turkey, mornay sauce, bacon, and tomato. Delicious. My waist expanded 2 inches. My 2nd To Do was to go to Lynn's Paradise Cafe which we did twice, one time getting the Brown Derby pie milkshake -- basically a slice of pie blended. Another inch on the waist...

Besides eating and expanding, we toured Churchill Downs, took some self guided walking tours of our neighborhood, lunched at Third Avenue Cafe ( a great vegetarian/vegan friendly diner). We saw the Young Dubliners at a free concert at the Waterfront ( "Waterfront Wednesday" sponsored by this great radio station 91.9) and saw a Louisville Bats game at Slugger Field.

I always like visiting a place that's sort of local that we might not otherwise go to - I thought Louisville was a nice little side trip and a good stop.

Next stop - Madison, WI on Saturday!

Braveheart revisited

I've been wanting to go to Scotland now for a few years and I keep telling myself that it's not only because of the Outlander series-- although falling through a rock into the arms of a huge Scot sounds appealing – but because it's part of Matt's heritage and a place that we've never been to that I've only heard is lovely.

Most of you know that Matt and I are trying to have a baby and that things aren't going smoothly, or as planned, so why not take one last fabulous trip since fate/god/whatever's in charge has given us more free time than we'd thought we'd be having. 

I used to travel so much – I lived abroad and traveled everywhere as a student, then my first job out of college was 4 years of circling the globe, finally I ended up back in France as a grad student – but after I met Matt I wanted to nest and have a home.  But I miss the travel.  Not that Matt and I haven't tooled around – his first trip out of the country was to visit me in France before we were even engaged -- but now we need to go back.

When given the option, "Siding/windows or Scotland?", I thought that was a trick question.  Scotland, of course, I yelled.  The idea is to spend 10 days in Scotland in a car driving from place to place, inn to inn and see everything in between from golf courses to castles, maneuvering the roads and wearing out the clutch.

Here's our dilemma.  September seems the best time to do this as we have 2 weddings in October (one of them in Rhode Island which will be another mini-trip). And if we wait any longer we risk getting pregnant and then the multitude of Doctor appointments that will ensue (I'm red-flagged at the OB-GYN of you know what I mean). Not to mention, I imagine it gets cold quick in Scotland.

Flights are currently $800 a person. I've spent that before, but I was crossing my fingers for $500-600 range. Matt thinks that's too high because that's only the airfare (not to mention food and lodging), and I agree slightly but am torn. If we don't do this now, when will we do it next?

How much are Inns? Why can't lunch be stuff we buy at a grocery store? This doesn't have to be super expensive, we just need to think like students. And MacGuyver.

My mom likes to tell me "no one ever regretted doing something, it's what you didn't do that you regret."

Paying someone?

We've just entered the final stretch of home remodeling. Not bad considering that we bought our house in February 2005, and I estimate we'll be finished in 2010 -- the 5-year plan.

Next up is to finish the staircase/upstairs landing.The stairs in 2005 -- when we first went to visit the house. They look about the same today.

We didn't do this last year because my dad has been having trouble figuring out the stairs, not to mention we've already started to butt heads on whether or not we need a new banister. We want one and my dad says we don't need one. Any ideas I've kicked around have so far been met with, "what's wrong with what you have?" I could see this was not going to be pretty. In the meanwhile, we decided to do the downstairs bathroom and leave the stairs for another day.

Now is that day.

My mom called me up not long ago and said this, "You're dad is leaving for Italy on the 23rd for 3 weeks, I suggest you call and hire someone and get this thing over with." Always sage advice from the mistress of going-behind-my-dad's-back (out of necessity, of course). So that's what we did, and last night Matt's work-wife's husband (try and figure that one out) came over and we talked stairs.

In the end, the job does not sound all that difficult. It might entail 2 different vendors -- a stair guy and a floor guy -- but in the end it will probably take a couple of days. The best part is that the stair guy has access to a huge supply of stair parts so we can pick and choose (instead of picking what Menard's has) and potentially even do something custom.

Now comes the part where Matt and I flip through magazines to get ideas and maybe in a couple weeks, we'll have new stairs!

This is very exciting stuff around here.

Do you Zumba?

I thought this was a made up class from my Park District, until my mom -- yes, my mom is more with it than I am -- set me straight.  Apparently Zumba is the new thing, infusing latin dance with aerobics for a fun 1 hour sweat festa.

Aside from the learning the dance steps, which might take a few classes to pick up (although I was surprised at how much I could do, but then again, I have danced Salsa, Cha Cha, and Argentine Tango), it's a lot of fun. It made the hour go by quickly even though I was sweating - running on a treadmill for one hour is torture to me. Dancing around a mirrored room for one hour --sign me up!

I'm Zumba'ing because Operation Skinny is in action. That's what I called it when I re-joined the Park District's classes in my quest to shed these 10 lbs. The treadmill workouts were boring.   I need a class, a teacher, some motivation, music, and mirrors.

First Crop of the Season

Yesterday we picked up our first crop share of the season.

We joined a CSA – Community Supported Agriculture – with our next-door neighbors on the every other week plan (because even that was too much for 2 people!). The nearest farm to our house for pick up is the Green Earth Institute in Naperville.

Pick up is from 530-730, I left at 5:10 and got there close to 6PM – and it's only 12.5 miles away! I took the BMW all alone, so this was my first "real" alone trip driving the stick shift that far in heavy traffic and it was great. Although when I turned on the gravel road to the farm, I cried, "Oh no, my car!" And then I saw all the other SUVs and felt like we were a bunch of hypocrites. Next time, I'm taking the Civic with all my bumper stickers. Matt won't let me fancy up the BMW with stickers …

I got there during a lull, so the line was short and I got to mull over which 7 turnips I wanted, and which 6 garlic snapes looked thickest. My 2 big Madison Farmer's Market bags served my well as I ladled all the greenery into them, thinking I'll need more bags as the season continues.

This bi-weekly share included (and I'm splitting this with our neighbor): 1 summer squash, 7 turnips, 5 radishes, 6 garlic snapes, 1 Chinese cabbage, 1 bag of sugar snap peas, spinach, mesclun, and Asian greens, 1 broccoli head, 1 bunch of Swiss Chard, and 1 bunch of green onions.

Tonight I am making pasta with greens, garlic snapes, broccoli, onions, truffle oil, and Parmesan cheese. After kickboxing class, of course.