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.