A Sneak Peek... And Some News

I thought that I would share a little sneak peek on the progress I've been making on my cabinet. So far it has been sanded down to bare wood, given 2 coats of primer, and 3 coats of paint. I've got a little more touching up to do with the pink paint on the larger surfaces but all the smaller parts and details, like in the picture, are pretty much done. After I am all done painting, everything will get a nice glossy coat of polyurethane to give it some durability and mega shine. As far as the rest of the piece goes, hardware will need to be updated by either a glossy black or a shiny chrome... I am still undecided on that. Then I've got to assemble the fabric panels in the door frames and that should be it! PHEW! It seems like I still have a looooong way to go, but it's not too bad. It's been so much fun for me to transform this piece into something I absolutely adore. I have a perfect place for it in our new house.

Yes, I did say our new house! :o) The past couple of days have been completely frustrating and exciting all at the same time. On Tuesday we received the acceptance letter from the bank agreeing to the purchase price. However the seller's were not released from their debt. In a short sale the debt of the seller is forgiven, unlike in a foreclosure where the bank still collects money from the previous owner even though they no longer have possession of the house. That left us in a very frustrating place. Glenn and I did a lot of stressing out and talking over lunch that day. We had a lot to worry about because we only have about 6 weeks left in our lease at the apartment. That left us with very few options, none of which sounded appealing.

We called our realtor and he basically explained that we didn't really have anything to worry about, but we were looking at up to another two weeks for the bank to give another acceptance letter forgiving the debt of the seller. We expressed our concerns about needing to close on the house fairly soon and about the seller finishing the bathroom like promised. In case you were wondering, if the bathroom was not finished at the time of inspection, we would have to use a different type of loan to finance the house. That isn't really an option.

That brings us to yesterday. I got a call in the morning from Glenn telling me that we got the house! Not only did we get the house, but we would be closing on May 12. That's just two weeks! The inspection is being scheduled for Tuesday or Wednesday next week and the appraisal will be done at the same time. We are definitely excited. It's still sinking in at this point and we have A LOT to get done in the short time we have before closing. The reason for closing being so soon is that the house is set to foreclose on May 13 and this time there will be no extensions given. Now we just need to get through the inspection with good results and we are pretty much good to go!

YAY!

More Tulips

As promised, here is the slideshow with the photos that Glenn took while we were in Mt. Vernon. It's always interesting to see how we see things differently through a camera lens. You can also view the photo album here:

Glenn's Tulip Photos

In other news, I started painting my cabinet pink. I think it will be more fun to do a big dramatic reveal when it's all finished being painted, so you will just have to wait until I am finished painting for now.

Love to all!

Slowly But Surely

While sanding my cabinet I never thought I would see the day when I got to begin priming. I couldn't even start thinking of when I could bust out the pink paint! Today I finally got to start priming! So far I have one thin coat on. I will certainly do another thin coat and most likely do another thin coat after that. I guess it all depends on how it looks after the 2nd coat. Anyway, I am very excited to be making visible progress that does not involve dust flying all over the apartment. YAY!

Making Some Progress

Since I got my 1950's cabinet nearly two weeks ago, I have spent every weekday sanding. Granted I don't spend ALL day sanding it sometimes felt like it. Today I FINALLY finished sanding. It is a very happy day!
Anyway, I started using these sanding sponges. They are really handy, but not what I needed for this job. I had 60 years worth of lacquer and varnish to power through and there is only so much my hands, arms, and back can take!
At first I thought that I was doing really well and had done enough sanding. I waited until Glenn came home from work and he advised me that I still had a ways to go. Bummer!

Here you can see the difference between sanded enough (left) and not enough (right). This hand sanding business was not fun.
I know that there is no way I ever would have come close to finishing it if we didn't pick up a power sander. That was my first power tool! YAY! I feel like a big girl now :o)
I was making an absolute mess with the power sander. The little dust collector thing in the back is a joke. It doesn't work at all. I knew I had to do something to contain my mess at least a little bit so I created a sanding fort in the kitchen with some sheets. I was pretty proud of it.
Since I was also tired of inhaling dust and was too silly to pick up a face mask when we were at ACE buying my power sander, I made a makeshift mask out of a gym towel and some hair clips. How do you like that MacGyver action?
Despite my awesome sanding fort, I still got dust everywhere. Check out this awesome mess next to the stove and refrigerator. It took me FOREVER to clean everything up when I was done!
Finally it was time to put the power sander away and get at all the detailing by hand. I used the lowest number grit I had (50) and went at it. Unfortunately I don't have any gloves and after an hour or so I noticed my fingers were getting torn up. It was gross but not really painful. The next day I came up with the brilliant idea of putting band-aids on my fingers. It was perfect!
Here is my beauty, naked for all to see. It's amazing what sanding can do. I am so excited to start priming and painting it now! In case you forgot what it originally looked like, the original untouched cabinet picture is below.

Tulips

Last Friday we had the pleasure of visiting Mt. Vernon which is about an hour north of Seattle. Glenn had enough overtime that he was able to leave work a few hours early and we were able to beat the traffic leaving the city.

The first thing we did when we actually got into town was drive around trying to find where all the fields were but it seemed like we kept finding daffodils instead. I think daffodils are still beautiful so we parked on the side of the street for a few minutes and snapped some pictures of the sunny yellow field of flowers. They're such happy looking flowers, aren't they?

Anyway, instead of posting a ton of pictures I thought I would share the album of photos that I took here:

Tulips Album

I'll upload another album of photos that Glenn took a little later.

Love to all!

I Finished My Pillow!

A while back I decided that I was going to teach myself how to knit cables. I just love the way they look, and I couldn't stand that I didn't know how to do it! So finally I sat down with my book of knitting patterns and some of my favorite yarn and taught myself how. I always thought that it must be really complicated but it isn't really. Anyway I thought it would be cool to create something to showcase my newly discovered skill so I made a pillow. Who doesn't love soft cuddly pillows. It only took me a week or so to get it all knitted and stitched together but I didn't have any buttons for the decorative accents. A month or so has gone by, but I finally finished it and I am really proud of it! I can't wait to put it somewhere in our new house (hopefully)!

A Light At the End of the Tunnel

It seems as though we are finally coming to a head with the house. To sum everything up we offered asking price (115K) on the house, the bank didn't like it and said they would accept 145K, we sent in a BPO proving our offer was fair, bank still didn't like it but said they would take 130K, and we relented.

While Glenn and I are usually extremely quick in making decisions, we were finally brought to a halt with this one. We probably stared at each other saying "what do you think" for a good ten minutes before we actually started talking through it. The biggest holdup for Glenn was that we offered the asking price but the bank wanted more. Basically he felt like we were being duped with some sort of bait and switch scheme. I totally get that. Ultimately we understood that we are operating in the bank's universe, not ours. My biggest issue was that I was tired of waiting! That goes for both of us actually. It's been about 2 months since we put in our original offer and all of this hurry up and wait crap is kind of exhausting.

When it came down to it, I really felt that if we had seen the house just one week earlier when the price was at 145K (or something close) we would have offered 130K and been very pleased. Also, I was pretty positive that the bank was not going to budge anymore. They already compromised their original counter offer and given up 15K while we didn't budge. We deliberated a lot about whether or not we would be overpaying for the house.

In the end, we decided that going with the 130K purchase price would work for us. Neither of us is really excited yet. We still have an inspection to do, and that could change everything. For now it is very nice to finally feel at peace with this. I wasn't sure my heart could handle much more worry and anxiety! Now we wait for the acceptance letter from the bank, and that should be within two weeks. I cannot understand why on earth the bank needs two weeks to draft an acceptance letter when it's actually their offer we went with. Oh well. Like I said, it's the bank's world, not ours.

Love you all!

Rally and His Girlfriend

While our apartment building is very pet friendly, not every pet owner is the same. Of the many, many pets that live here, very few of their owners will actually let them interact with other dogs. It's really strange. That's such a bummer for Rally because he is such a social puppy. Luckily for him he has made good friends with a Husky named Mika. We even go so far as to call her his girlfriend. They get so excited to see each other and when it's time to leave they act like a pair of star-crossed lovers. Seriously, they are too cute for words. Enjoy this video of the two playing.

Project Rehab

I have been itching to grab some ratty old piece of furniture that had been well loved and abused from some thrift store. My intentions once I got this piece of furniture were to rehab/repurpose it into something awesome and uniquely me. This weekend we did just that... well we at least started the process.
This hunk of wood is my new baby. We picked it up at Goodwill for 30 bucks. It is a 1950/1951 radio and record player by Capehart. It's a really neat piece. None of it is operable though. Glenn decided to test that and plugged it in. He consequently started a mini fire (according to him... I was somewhere else at the time this happened) and blew an outlet. Fun stuff.
You can see that the condition of all the wiring back here is questionable to say the least!
The bottom right panel houses this speaker, which I promptly took out. It definitely wasn't going to be of any use to me.
This is the panel covering the speaker. If you look carefully you can see the round outline. Don't you just love the cool diamond detailing? I know I do.
As you can see, this is the radio panel. It has an AM/FM tuner. It's really cool and I was hoping to be able to make it useful again, but considering I know absolutely nothing about wiring and the age of everything, it just isn't going to happen. Now I have to figure out a way to bang this panel out of there so I can make it a functional shelf.
Here we have the bottom left door of the piece. This is the only functional storage space at the moment. It has a shelf built in and an operational door. Thankfully I don't have too much to do to this part.
I thought it was so cool when I found the manufacturer's tag on the back. I was really glad it was still intact. I'm going to have to find a way to incorporate it into my design. It was especially cool to me because I was able to look up the model number online and find out the age of the piece. In case you are wondering if I managed to pick up some valuable antique at a steal, the answer is no. It's worth about what I paid for it. Oh well. When I am done with it, I will have a one of a kind piece that I love.
This is the fabric that covers the panels on the bottom. I thought they were some kind of mesh, but after poking around a bit I discovered that it is glued on fabric. You can see where the diamond shaped hardware was before I took it off. The fabric was apparently a dark red at one point before its age and light faded it to a tan color. I'll update it with some cool graphic fabric when the project is closer to being finished.
I absolutely adore the hardware. I may just polish it to restore some shine, but I'll most likely end up spray painting it glossy white or black.
You can see this piece is not in such great shape. It's going to take a lot of sanding and wood filler to get it into workable condition. You may be wondering what my master plan in terms of color is. Well my friends... wait for it... HOT PINK! Obviously.
I promise I will keep you all updated on my shenanigans. Today I begin prepping by lots and lots of sanding. FUN!

Love to all!!!

So This Is What Spring Looks Like!

Having lived in Arizona all my life with the exception of the last 10 months, I have never truly experienced seasons. Seasons to me have always been a blazing hot extended summer followed by a mild cool down for winter (otherwise known as not summer anymore.) Here in Washington, things are DRASTICALLY different.
Summer here was absolutely wonderful with warm days and cool nights and a handful of hot days that reminded me of AZ. Then fall came with it's cool days and much cooler nights. Leaves were changing and the jewel toned colors of the season were abundant. Fall was nature's way of telling me to start wearing pants instead of shorts and to quit wearing flip flops. I still wore flip flops. Winter brought us some verrrry chilly days with some downright freezing nights. We even got a few days of snow! I really enjoyed winter, as I just love to bundle up.
Now we are experiencing a stunningly beautiful spring. We finally seem to be getting the rain that everyone seems to thing is never ending here. I really should quit wearing flip flops until the rains let up, but I can't help it. Like I said to Glenn the other day, "You can take the girl out of Arizona, but you can't take the Arizona out of the girl." I live in flip flops and probably always will. I even wore them out in the snow sometimes!
I am really enjoying Spring here, it's absolutely beautiful. I have been utterly captivated watching everything bloom and seeing once lifeless plants burst with renewed life and color. What makes this especially fun for me is that our deck is wonderfully landscaped with lots of dimension and color. I got to watch the leaves change color, the trees collect snow on empty branches, and now blossom with color once again.

I just wanted to share some photos that I took on the deck of things that I find particularly beautiful at the moment.

Love to all!

A few videos of Rally

A Bit Of Good News

Well, there isn't really anything super exciting to share, but I do have a small update on the home-buying front. As I have said before, we decided not to change our offer on the house but rather sent a supplement along with our offer that proves why our offer is fair. That information was passed along to the investors via our negotiator. We have recently learned that the investors will be making a decision, either accepting our offer or countering, by Friday the 8th at the latest. Finding out a real date instead of some indeterminate time frame is good news indeed. I'll keep everyone posted.

Love to all!