Tag: house renovations

Weekend Things

Lauren1 Comment

Guys, I was this close to getting tickets to see Jimmy Fallon at the Buell on Friday night.  Sadly, they were already sold and it was probably for the best considering I was fully asleep by 9:30.  I was not kidding about feeling exhausted on Friday.  So instead of Jimmy, I spent Friday at our favorite place… Home Depot (kill me), then snuggling up on the couch with the Sound of Music Live.  Cold winter nights are the best excuse to be a total homebody, amiright?

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As for the Sound of Music, it definitely fell flat.  I get that it was formatted like the stage version not the Julie Andrews version, but I felt angry every time a song was “in the wrong place” and Carrie Underwood did a terrible job acting.  Her singing was phenomenal but the acting… just no.  Also, Rolf’s jorts.

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Anyways, it was probably also good that I went to bed at 9:30 because we woke up at 5:30 the next morning to 1) Take our fabrication shop workers some donuts and 2) Head to Boulder for the annual KBCO Studio C CD release.  They start selling the CD at 8 AM so we are usually in line by 6 AM, but it was below zero this year so we opted to go to breakfast then get in line once the doors were already open.  It made for a much shorter wait.

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Plus I didn’t have to sit around for 2 hours feeling crabby and hungry 🙂  No joke, my mom managed my breakfast order from across the table with some subtle suggestions and facial expressions to execute her plan of having us share a short stack of sourdough pancakes (the best!) and a California omelette.  She’s sneaky, that one.  Plus a soy latte the size of my head.  Much needed after a 5:30 AM wake up call.

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Check out the temperature on Joey’s phone in this picture!

I can tell I’m getting older by how many songs I recognize on the CD.  I think I’m up to about 80% this year.  I can’t decide if that’s depressing or relieving.  I would say KBCO plays the more “mature” hit songs, rather than anything that’s performed at the MTV Music Awards.

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Afterwards we did some Christmas shopping for my niece and nephew.  My niece is now Barbie age which is really fun for me (I get to re-live my childhood!) but also terrifying.  Like Barbie just always has to wear a skirt or short dress?!  I searched high and low for CEO Barbie in a smart pant suit to no avail.  But I did locate Mid Life Crisis Ken.  Dude is way too old to be dressing like that.

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Back at home, I put up our one and only outdoor Christmas decoration (so far anyways) then promptly hid in our room so as not to be a part of any soldering (<— who knew that’s how you spelled that!) that was going on to fix the leaks in both our kitchen sink and our main water line.  A problem that we definitely did not have in our budget. Ooh, I just had a brilliant idea to add a “not in our budget” tag.  I bet it jumps to the most tagged item by the end of all our house renovating.

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Anyways, all the leaks are now fixed so I’m happy.  The rest of Saturday included a lot of me reading in bed, then we tackled some more painting and got our hallway done before calling it quits to eat dinner, put up our Christmas tree and watch How the Grinch Stole Christmas.  Serious question: what happens to Whoville when that snowflake they live on melts?!  I was hellbent on staying up to watch SNL.  When did it get so hard to stay up till 10:30?  We pretty much laughed through the entire thing.  Paul Rudd is the best!

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Today has been a very relaxed day.  As in I have no idea what I’ve even done today besides sleep in till 9:30, work out and watch the end of John Mayer’s 2007 concert at the Nokia Theater (seriously the best!).  Oh and we did just have “linner” at a little marketplace on Larimer (which is always so pretty during the holiday season), and I made a giant mess with this portobello mushroom reuben.

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Happy Sunday!

Adventures in House Renovating: The Bathroom

Lauren1 Comment

Before we get to the bathroom renovations, can I take a minute to complain about my first world problems?  Yes?  Okay, great.  Yesterday morning I woke up at 5:30 (after going to bed at 11:30…), worked out, rushed to get ready, dashed to the coffee shop for breakfast since our kitchen is disassembled, got to work late because of Tuesday night’s snow storm then proceeded to exit the car and drop my coffee in the snow and splash in all over my coat and white purse.  I think I was just running on not enough sleep and was hungry because this seriously almost had me in tears.  Bad mornings are the worst, aren’t they?  Okay, I’m done. 🙂

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So, have I mentioned that our house is A) TINY! and B) OLD!  Oh, I have?  A million times?  Okay, well it’s still true.  We don’t mind as we wanted a truly Denver-esque house and that’s what you’ll get in Denver (unless you’re tearing down and building from scratch), but it means limited space… everywhere.  Our bathroom was one place we knew we’d have to be space/storage savvy so Ikea to the rescue!  I often think their stuff looks kind of cheap but I can’t knock them on their space efficiency…and the price.

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Here’s the “before” shot.  Please forgive me for giving a horrible picture but in case you didn’t believe me when I said the space was small, this is proof — I can’t actually stand inside it and take a picture.

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And here’s the “after.” TA-DA!  It’s amazing what a fresh coat of paint and some new fixtures can do to a space.  I am loving this fresh, clean, modern look so much better than the dark wood and such that was in there before.

What We Did:

Paint: stripes in Baja and Roman Plaster (I think?) from Lowe’s.  We did pretty good considering our floor and ceiling were both uneven!  The laser level we found at the office worked wonders.

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Toilet: installed by “Plumber Joe.”  He came up with that, not me.  I think I’ll spare you a picture of the toilet and our un-emptied trash can 🙂

Shower curtain: We got this curved curtain rod and liner at Target and it works so you get more shower space which was just what we needed!  Plus the white liner really brightens the space up, especially when the sun is shining through the tiny shower window onto it.

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Sink, vanity & shelving unit: all from Ikea.  I’d like to pretend that sink was an easy task but it was anything but.  The pipes coming from the wall were done really weirdly and the sink connection tubes from Ikea weren’t long enough and it was a pain to fix because they were European.  On the plus side, the plumping takes up no space so those are full drawers!

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Mirror: I’m sad to say I lost the oval vs. rectangle battle on this one, but Joey was right, oval looks perfect!  This was the final touch and it was so fun to see it all come together.  Oh and to be able to see my own reflection.

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If you’re wondering how I took a mirror picture without being in it, it’s because I’m a ghost.

Now that all is said and done I’m so glad we did a little bathroom renovating.  Even if it didn’t actually make the space any bigger, it feels bigger.