P365 catch-up: 04/11-04/26

OK…finally!!! Here we go! Two weeks worth of Project 365! My parents were here from 4/15-4/24 so the pictures from those dates were from while they were here. Hopefully I’ll be better about doing this regularly now :-) Matt and I have been busy bees!

4/11/09

Some tulips and daffodils waiting to be planted.

4/12/09

Levon checking out the rather ghastly linoleum that was underneath the hallway carpet.

4/13/09

New hardwood flooring in the hallway! (An improvement over that linoleum, no?)

4/14/09

Matt and Levon spending some manly man time together!

4/15/09

Matt hard at work, recording a tune.

4/16/09

Levon moseying around the new floors :-)

4/17/09

Being very silly with a bird puppet at the gift shop at Walden Pond!

4/18/09

My dad and his longtime friends at a barbecue in Carmel, NY.

4/19/09

My parents playing each other in Wii baseball.

4/20/09

Krissy’s dad and Matt both surfing the net.

4/21/09

Matt and I at the Springsteen concert. (Had to take with our flash-less camera phone as cameras weren’t allowed)

4/22/09

Levon curled up on a beanbag chair.

4/23/09

My parents chowing down on some fresh New England lobster in Rockport.

4/24/09

Levon mid-yawn.

4/25/09

Baaaa! A sheep at the Sheep Shearing Festival in Waltham!

4/26/09

Matt’s hops growing like weeds in the backyard!

Project 365: 04/04/09-04/10/09

Playing catch-up!!

04/04/09

Levon looking like the handsome devil that he is!

04/05/09

Busy bee Matt!

04/06/09

Splish splash, Levonnie’s takin’ a bath…

04/07/09

Matt working on the new floor in the extra bedroom. (Formerly Karl’s room)

04/08/09

Levon quenching his thirst.

04/09/09

Getting ready to board the tall ship Stad Amsterdam! (in the background)

04/10/09

Spring has sprung!! Tree in bloom in West Newton Square.

Project 365: 03/31/09

Matt putting in the new floor in his recording studio. Look at all that dust! I wish Matt was wearing a mask while sawing.

Project 365: 03/30/09

On Monday, Matt got the recording studio ready for the new floor.

Project 365: 03/22/09

We got a nice new carpet to protect our new wood floors!

Project 365: 03/03/09

New bamboo floors!!!! :-D

Linoleum and Old Newspapers

We are putting bamboo floors in our living room, after our radiator turned into a dripping disaster! Well, this time we hired our friend, who is a carpenter to do it. You may remember that we installed bamboo floors in the attic 3 years ago, but for the living room we wanted it done professionally. However, we did prepare the room.

First, we moved everything out of the living room, with the help of our friend Derrick. They put the couch on its side in the corner of the kitchen and I think Levon found a new favorite place to sit:

First we ripped up the carpet and the foamy stuff under it. (What’s that stuff called?)

Then we learned that there was linoleum beneath the carpet and foamy stuff. The linoleum was kind of funny…it was composed of fake wood and a fake area rug. Maybe this was the style back then?

And then, underneath the linoleum were well-preserved newspapers from 1945! (Also found: a puzzle piece and a playing card…7 of diamonds, to be precise.)

Attic update

I just realized I never posted pictures of the new attic floor! Pictures of the old attic are here….

And here are new attic pics!

Home Improvement

Since buying our house in August, living with Matt has become like living with Bob Vila. Matt is Mr. Home Improvement all of a sudden! And I don’t say that as a complaint, it’s nice having someone who can do stuff around the house. Especially since our house is over 115 years old. It’s in good shape, but we do have little renovations we’re eager to make.

Matt’s first project was building this stage in our basement:

The stage was pretty exciting because when we had our housewarming party we had people playing music in the basement. But tall musicians were urged to take a seat, because our basement has verrrrry low ceilings.

The attic was our next project.

The attic is a nice little room, but the floor was hideous, as you can probably tell from those pictures! The floor was mismatched linoleum circa 1959. Some had these blue squares on them, some looked like a Jackson Pollock painting gone horribly wrong, and some had really tacky flowers on it. It was peeling off, too! Really gross. Our area rug did not sufficiently cover the ugliness.

On Sunday evening, we went down the street to RJ Crowley’s for some beer and dinner. We started talking about the attic, and Matt suddenly said, “When we get home, let’s tear off the linoleum from the attic floor.”

So, around 11 PM, we trudged on up to the attic, and ripped apart the linoleum! It was pretty disgusting, but we found lots of newspapers from 1959! A lot of it was department store ads which were actually really cool…so we’re going to do something with that. Some kind of collage might be neat…

Yesterday we went to Lumber Liquidators in Woburn to buy some hardwood flooring. We ultimately settled on bamboo floors, because it was not only very reasonably priced and attractive, it’s better for the environment!

But first, Matt decided that the attic could be insulated better to save on energy costs, both during radiator season and air conditioner season. So, we went to the dreaded Home Depot (which I despise, but it’s like going to a toy store for Matt) to buy insulation.

We bought this stuff (except the R-19) because we like the Pink Panther:

Donning the following:

and

and

we tore apart the floor boards and stuffed the insulation in. It took about 3 and a half hours. The attic was chilly but we were sweaty so our goggles kept fogging up. It got stuffy under the respirator masks and they smelled kind of funny.

Three and a half hours later we took VERY long showers to insure that we got every last bit of fiberglass off our bodies.

I think installing the insulation was the worst part and that’s over with…but this weekend comes the major work: installing the floor.

Can you believe it? ME doing hard physical labor in the name of home improvement?! I’m definitely the type to pay someone else to do things around the house instead of doing it myself. (I’ll admit it, I do have some JAP-ish tendencies, that being one of them!) It doesn’t help that I have tonsillitis and felt awful yesterday, haha. But I do think the overall result will be far more rewarding this way. We’re going to have an awesome looking attic! (It will also serve as our guest room, so come on and visit if you don’t live around here!) :-)