townhouse sweet townhouse

It was a busy Memorial Day weekend for us here in Virginia. We finally have some walls painted in our townhouse! When we moved in, all of the walls were flat white, which was a bit stark looking for my tastes. Since we are renting, we opted to just put some subtle color on the wall (the landlord ok'ed this) to make things a little cozier.

Here you can see the dining area with the white walls:

And here after painting a pale celery green ("River Reed" in Olympic's no-VOC paint):

I really like this soft color. It's not a huge change, but it warms up the space a bit. We got this part done the weekend before last, and it was really exciting to have made a personal update, making the space feel a bit more like "ours."

Motivated by this success, we spent Friday and Saturday nights moving on to the living room. This time we had more of a "deadline", since I made a bold move and invited my new coworkers over for a Memorial Day barbecue. Yep, all of them - I emailed the entire office last week. I really thought just a handful would accept, but we ended up with close to 20 people coming over! My preference was to not have spots on the walls where we painted samples, so onward it was, to "Toast" (again, Olympic's no-VOC paint) for the living room. You can see a glimpse of the finished product  in the above photo. But for reference, here is the plain white "before":

Note the random column in the middle of the room. We tried a bunch of configurations with our furniture, and this seemed like the best solution ~ otherwise the couch ended up being way too close to the TV, which was uncomfortable due to its high positioning on top of those Ikea shelves. Needless to say I was a bit irritated with this column smack in the middle of things. It's supposed to be decorative, I guess - seems like a Southern thing? We've definitely noticed the abundance of columns in the architecture around here (they are everywhere on the UVA campus!), and while I can appreciate them on the outside of buildings, I just wasn't feeling it in the middle of the room!

We were in luck though: the landlord texted us yesterday morning saying he could come over and remove it, just in time for the party! We'd asked him about this when moved in 2 months ago, and had kind of given up on actually getting rid of it. But he got it done just in time.

As you can see, the beige is very subtle, but again it warms things up a bit from the plain white. And look how much more open the room is without the column! I was seriously so excited :)

It's a lot more space than we had in our Chicago condo. We added this little "reading nook" by the windows with some of the extra space.

It's become a favorite spot due to its prime position under the ceiling fan ~ very useful since apparently summer is here in full force with 90+ temperatures. Can't say I'm complaining though! 

So our downstairs area got some nice updates just in time for our first go at entertaining here. It was fun having lots of people over, especially with all this room. And these personal updates along with using the space with some new friends really help it to feel more like home! 

While I'm at it, here are a few more photos. Was very excited to move into a place with a garage. (Not that I expect anywhere near as much snow here.. but it's still exciting!) And I love the pink flowers that we had for a few weeks at the beginning of May.

Back deck that opens up from the kitchen. Love having all those trees to look out at over breakfast and in the evening.

We just have a tiny patch of back yard, but that didn't stop us from attempting a little garden! We have some tomato plants that have been making good progress since I took this first picture -hopefully they will keep it up!

So I finally got around to showing off some photos of the new place... only took 2 months. But it is nice to be feeling more settled! Next up - need to figure out what to hang on all the lovely painted walls!

settling in

This new life is getting more comfortable. Really hard to believe that it's a month since we moved in.

The people at work are nice. Quiet at first, perhaps. But then so am I. After spending some more time with them, I like them. They are nice nerds. Haha. My favorite kind of people :)

It is pretty here. It is warm and sunny much of the time. The trees and flowers and shrubs have been in bloom for awhile now; seeing the growth warms my soul. We are taking advantage of our new space and new climate. We planted herbs again, but this time also bought tomato and pepper seeds, and dug out a little patch in the ground in our "backyard" where we planted them. I am watering them every day. We have a view of woods from our deck, and the kitchen table. We sit and eat there and watch the birds flying around. Sunday morning we saw foxes! A little family, also eating their breakfast. I feel this sense of wonder at having nature so close. We were discussing our excitement with the outdoors, and how we don't see neighbors outside, and as an explantion I mentioned how novel it all is to us "city folks". Stephen laughed at that, pointing out that we both grew up in country settings. It's true. But man, 6.5 years in the city have changed me and I do not take the beauty of the natural landscape for granted. There are woods everywhere here, with trails running all around town. We've already explored some - gone for runs in the trails just down the street from our place; gone for walks around the woods next to the parking lot by my office; even went for a little hike detour in the big trail system next to the grocery store, before we went in to buy food for the week. I guess I am a hippy because I am seriously enjoying all this nature. Last week I was having one of those days where I was just frustrated by everything - didn't sleep well, and my computer code was giving me headaches and kept crashing, and some other things I don't really even remember now. After work I went exploring in the woods outside my office, as I mentioned above, and it was just so calming. Amazing how I could walk for 40 minutes and see only one other lady with her dog. Anyway. That's me getting in tune with the earth, or something. Whatever it is, it is nice, and I like it.

I am soaking up the warmth. And the flowers and the leaves on the trees. It's like May, a month early. So funny how a few hours' drive south can change the landscape so much. Spring and summer are my absolute favorite, so I am loving it all. Especially when I hear that Chicago got snow last week (sorry guys!). Truth be told I definitely still deal with feelings of loneliness and missing that community sense - you know, feeling like I *belong* - that I had in Chicago. But the warmth and woods help.

I am sorry I have not been taking more pictures. I hope to get to that soon, though.

transitioning, Part II

So continuing after leaving off at the first night in Virginia - The moving truck showed up on Tuesday, a day early  as promised. This was really exciting, because one of my fears about loading all of our stuff onto a huge truck (that carries up to 5 other people's things at the same time) was that the delivery would be delayed and we'd be stuck without furniture for a week or so. Plus, it meant we had almost a whole week to get settled in before I had to start work. We managed to have most of the boxes unloaded by the weekend, when we had time to do some cleaning - and my amazing husband even sorted our the basement den which had been the dumping ground for the random storage type boxes and empty boxes/packing material. Good things about the new place: twice the size of our old condo, lots of closets - and a garage, and the basement den, a front porch and back deck that looks out into woods. Oh and it is quiet!! So excited about that. Seriously, I've been sitting on the couch all evening and the only sound has been the hum of the heater. This is a big change from the condo - we were on the 2nd floor and while we liked our neighbors - who really are very nice -they could be loud. We heard the downstairs neighbors talking and yelling almost nonstop, since they have 2 kids under the age of 3 who are rather mischievious. And we could hear the husband snoring at night! Ack. The upstairs neighbors weren't bad except that they had recently started wearing shoes inside which meant hearing their footsteps a lot. Anyway. Definitely appreciating the peacefulness of having quiet in my evenings now.

Work started on Monday (2 weeks ago at this point) and I think it's going ok. All of the newness makes it hard to buckle down and focus on work, but I did manage to accomplish some things each day, so I'll take it I guess. Already I can see that the opportunities at my new position are much more abundant than at my old one. That's what I was going for, so, hopefully this means I made the right choice!

I am having moments of missing Chicago. I keep dreaming about being at work in my old lab. Ha I guess I just can't get away. But while I don't miss the job, I had some fantastic coworkers who I will most definitely miss. Then there were the other friends I made in the city (and a few old college ones who lived there too) - it's kind of hard being in a place where I don't know anyone outside of the few people from work. But I know I just have to give it time. I moved to Chicago without knowing anyone and ended up with some great friendships. So, we will be settling in over the next few months. A lot of times I am not very good with change, but this one feels really positive. We shall see how this adventure ends up :)

transitioning

Well I have survived 1.5 weeks in Virginia and 4 days at my new job. Things are going well for the most part. Am slowly getting used to life in a townhouse, figuring out the new locations of old belongings, driving to work, and being back in the eastern time zone. Lots of updating to do and it just poured out of me tonight, so here ya go. I wrote a lot so I'll split it into 2 parts so as not to bombard the world with too many words at once :)

Moving sure is an adventure. Putting all our belongings into boxes… letting a moving company load them onto the truck… sleeping on camping mats/sleeping bag on hardwood floors because everything except the items coming in the car are on the truck…. Fun times. See the previous post for photographic evidence. Oh and can't forget about the day of frantic cleaning - that was supposed to take just a couple of hours - so that the condo would be ready for the renters (we are still crossing our fingers that our agent finds someone soon!). And loading the car with all the important stuff, like all the plants that weren't allowed to be transported by truck. And then driving 800 miles, stopping at both parents' houses along the way, and unloading the plants each time because it was too cold for them to sit out overnight.

It was a crazy, jumbled, sleep-deprived whirlwind, but it was actually kind of fun. We left Chicago on Saturday around 6 pm - about 6 hours later than we'd intended, but we were determined to get the show on the road, now that the condo was empty and sparkling clean. That night we drove west with the supermoon ahead of us - I hadn't heard about it at all, and was pretty amazed at how huge it was looming ahead on the horizon with its red tint. Then some smartphone browsing revealed that it was an astronomical event. Seemed like a promising start :) We were listening to Guster's Ganging up on the Sun, which seemed rather appropriate for the occasion. In any case the moon guided us safely to our first stop. The next day we squeezed in some visiting with the in-laws before making our next, shorter jaunt to my own parents house. That was a shorter visit, because we got a call from the truck driver asking if we could be there a day early. So Monday, we drove the 4.5 hours south to Virginia. Suddenly, it was hot! The a/c in our little car couldn't keep up. This was a totally new drive for us, through Maryland and West Virginia and into Virginia. It was definitely a charming entry into our new town as we wove our way around the mountains. We made it to our new home, unloaded our car's worth of stuff, and stretched our legs by walking over to the grocery store to stock up on some food and necessities. Was quite pleasantly surprised to realize we still have the ability to walk to buy groceries - possibly even a shorter distance than we had in Chicago. After almost 7 years in the city it would be hard to give up all of our ambulatory ways, so I think we picked ourselves a good location. Then it was another night on the camping mats - though I did find it easier to sleep the second time (and having 2 nights of good sleep on comfy beds in between definitely helped!).

Stay tuned for Part II of the big transition!

makeover fun!

Happy valentine's day! It has been lovely in Chicago: we were treated with above freezing temperatures (even into the 40s!) and sun, which feels absolutely glorious after the crazy blizzard and sub zero temps. The whole city is thawing out, the huge snow mounds are melting away, patches of grass are breaking through, frozen layer on top of the lake has vanished. Feels like spring!!

It was a good weekend, highly productive along with fun times including dinner at a favorite spot Saturday and our Valentine's home-made pizza tradition last night (with goat cheese - extra fancy!). But most romantic of all was the completion of our crazy master bathroom makeover project! We decided to jazz it up somewhat on a whim… call it cabin fever. The "before" was decent enough - on the small side, but it came with an enormous luxurious shower that won us over. The rest of the room being just a boring beige square didn't exactly contribute to any luxury feelings though.

Here's the before:

[great shower, but otherwise kinda boring]

We had the bedroom painted a deep blue before we moved in, and I had it in my mind for awhile to paint the bathroom a lighter blue shade. After seeing some pretty bathroom pics of blue walls and white beadboard, we decided to jump in and see what we could do.

We looked at a bunch of paint colors, and finally picked a sample. Going with a sample first turned out to be a good idea, because when we got it on the wall, it came out like a really bright pastel, which was not what we wanted.

So we went back and ended up with "Misty Surf", a blue that's slightly darker, and with a hint of gray in it. A moodier blue, if you will… which seems to mesh better with our personalities :) The brand we went with was Olympic because of the low VOC paint - no fumes! Seriously a good call since it was too cold to open the windows for ventilation. With the paint selection complete, we took lots of measurements of the walls and did some calculations to figure out how many beadboard panels and trim pieces we needed.

First step: remove the current baseboards.

Then, time for painting.

While we waited for the primer/paint to dry, Steve tackled the challenge of cutting all the beadboard and trim to the correct sizes. This meant lots of careful measurements as well as googling some videos to be sure that he did the corners correctly. Also, doing all of this in a small condo meant being creative with the setup.

[note: we quickly moved this setup out of the bathroom, since it's not a good idea to get sawdust everywhere with wet paint on the walls!]

Then it was a matter of attaching panels/trim to the walls (with wood adhesive and trim nails), constantly checking that everything was lined up and level.

Finally, we painted the beadboard a glossy white. And, voilà: a bright shiny new bathroom!

Isn't it pretty? I find much more cheerful than the previous version. I'm glad we tackled this project! It certainly kept us busy for the past 2 weekends - but was definitely worth it.

bits of Christmas

from the last weekend:

cookies!

snow!

tree!

cozy.

[yes the tree is slightly leaning. it's endearing. and those are my husband's feet clothed in warm socks on the table. and the hand weights? evidence of my attempt to counteract the indulgences of the season...]

am feeling much more ready these days :)

stair master and other home inspiration

I've become hooked on home renovation type blogs and discovered a new one today that is making me wish for a larger space with more fixer-upper options. Check out this gorgeous staircase re-do:

the before:


and the after:


Such a dramatic transformation! I love the new color scheme here. I'm a big fan of dark wood and white trim, not so much a fan of yellow-y wood tones, so I see this as a huge improvement.  I also love the paneling along the wall. (Is it weird that the math nerd in me thinks it would be fun to calculate the precise measurements of the angles for the shapes that they used??)

Read the details on Centsational Girl's blog: Part 1 and Part 2

On a more practical level, I'm a fan of this wall-mounted drying rack for her laundry room. Oh to have a laundry room! (Let alone a gorgeously girly one like this!) I feel lucky to have in-unit laundry, but the washer and dyer are in a small closet in the hallway next to the kitchen. I use a metal drying rack and still have not found a good spot for it - seems to always be in the way. I like this pretty drying rack alternative, especially since it saves space when folded up.



Now to figure out what kind of projects I could undertake in our little 1000 square foot condo.. hmmm...  :)

when you marry an engineer

When you marry an engineer, who goes into a consulting job that offers so many vacation days that he can’t seem to use them all over the year, and therefore he takes off random weeks in August** so as not to lose those days, this is how your back deck looks:

You see, the engineer-turned-consultant husband is not content to sit around on his random week off of work twiddling his thumbs. No, this industrious man needs to be *doing*. And the engineer who now works solely in IT tends to find himself with a need to build. Which means that now is the time to take some measurements, draw a few designs, buy some wood. And of course, break out the power tools.

The result: a cute little end table that matches our console and coffee tables, built to custom-specifications to fit the space between the wall and our couch. Ingenious.

perfect fit 

with console + coffee tables ~ custom set!

What can I say... I ♥ my engineer :)

** yes, these pictures - and the post - are from August. somehow I did not actually get around to clicking "publish post" until now. and while our living room looks much the same (I'm rather pleased with it currently!), our back deck is a bit sadder now, since we had to take our plants inside due to the cold temperatures that have arrived... alas. ah well, that means it is time to further cozy things up inside!

Post-holidays, Back to reality..

I was hoping to start the year off all refreshed and energized after a nice, luxurious two weeks off. Instead, I seem to be having issues with back-to-reality-blahs. I guess those two weeks spoiled me pretty good; sitting at work all day has been leaving me really antsy now. But more than work, after a week of visiting and constant people around, it’s been a bit of an adjustment getting back to my daily life with weeknights on my own, since Steve is back to traveling this week.

The highlight of the holidays was definitely having so much time with my favorite people. Steve and I are lucky that we grew up in hometowns separated by just a two hour drive, which means we get to stop by both places over the holidays. We had a good week of visiting. We saw many friends and family in a short time ~ the important people, the ones we don’t get to see frequently enough. Lots of family, and old high school friends, and college friends – with a couple new additions in the form of tiny people, as I guess we are hitting that stage in our lives now. Despite all our life changes, it is so good to see old friends and have it feel just as it did, the last time.

my nephew excited after learning to dunk with his new basketball hoop

Christmas is more fun with babies around :)

It was also nice just to have a small break from the city and be back to our more rural roots. There, it felt peaceful to watch the snow fall gently and blanket the world in white. The snow seemed like just an item of decor; an accessory for the winter, with its glittering white expanse across the yard (a yard – a large one, with two ponds, the likes of which is unseen here in the city). So funny being in a place where getting around just means getting in the car and perhaps driving a bit slower if the snow plows haven’t gotten there yet. It’s so different from the inconvenience snow becomes in the city.

 slightly different from the view out of our back window in the city!

Still, after the week of traveling, it was so nice coming home and having some quiet time to ourselves back in our condo. I always cherish the time we have together, just the two of us. There is this restful comfort of being in each other’s company and the simple pleasures we can get from some quiet nights with books, movies and Christmas Ale.

mmmmmmmm........ a Christmas classic ;)

On New Year’s Eve, we spent a good part of the day doing some reorganizing in our closet. Not sure how much you can see form these pictures, but we have a big closet in the second bedroom that serves to store all our excess stuff… it tends to get pretty messy after awhile. So Steve had the genius thought to shift things around to a more efficient configuration (he is good at that… I think he got the 3-d spacial skills which I seem to be missing much of the time). This meant moving the huge Ikea bookcase (actually the second one of these that we own, thanks to good deals on Craigslist!) – and of course, taking everything off of said bookcase, giving us the opportunity to throw out a lot of unnecessary items.

 [closet before: those plastic drawers blocked off a lot of the space, making it hard to get to the shelves]

[closet after: shifted the bookcase to the left and moved filing cabinets/drawers in the space on the right. makes more sense... and it's now a walk-in closet again!]

All this was done while listening to my favorite dance-y Pandora station; with the new-found space from the rearrangement, we had quite the dance party in the closet ;) Afterwards, we went to a New Year’s Eve party with some of our Chicago friends and drank champagne and stayed out til 3; guess we still have a little partying left in us.

Anyway – those were just a few of the highlights from the holidays. Of course it is hard going back to reality after that! Hopefully I will get back in the swing of things quickly enough… I am thankful that we were able to have such a great Christmas break this year.

settling into the season

Thursday night: lots to do. Attend work holiday party, intending to stay “just a little while”. Have a holly jolly time. Hard to make myself leave. Stay longer than planned; don’t finish everything I had in mind. Oh, well, it’s that time of year.

Friday morning: alarm goes off early, still very sleepy. Still lots to do. Bustle through my morning routine, notice I am feeling lighter than usual, for the morning and heading to work. Merry and bright. It’s the last day. One day of work to get through before I can declare it officially the holidays ~ for if there is no more working, surely one is on holiday. Thus, am energized despite lack of sleep.

Friday commute: put energy to good use; on the train, manage to get cards written, envelopes addressed/stuffed/stamped. Christmas cards are posted by 9 am, same time as they’d have been mailed if I had done them the night before.

Friday work: told a friend I’d be a subject in his experiment. This means the morning is spent in the lab. Always feels more social than sitting at my desk. Especially when we put Christmas music on Pandora. The guys may roll their eyes a bit, but in the end they are bopping their heads, or even singing along. Attend afternoon seminar, on restoring eye blinking for people with facial paralysis issues. Quite interesting. Do some organization at my desk. On gmail chat, Husband asks me out on a date to go see the Nutracker on Sunday. The excitement is growing.

Friday evening: get my hair cut at the curly salon. Now even my hair is festive. Then quiet night at home with husband as we make pizza and watch a movie.

Today, so far: luxurious sleeping in. Omelettes as brunch. Brainstorming what else to do with all this time. Excited to put finishing touches on decorating/shopping/wrapping, and to begin baking. It feels extravagant to use my vacation days for this time off before Christmas; I have not had this much time since college, I think. But I will still have 4 days remaining for the year – not too shabby considering the trips we took in the summer and fall. I am hoping that the time off will restore my brain functions a bit :) It feels so nice to have things finally quieting down, for the home stretch to Christmas, instead of frantically rushing to finish the last holiday tasks. For now, I settling into the period of comfort & joy with some hot chocolate while looking up new recipes to try… so many tasty options!

decking the halls

Can you believe there are less than 2 weeks til Christmas?? We had a productive weekend here~ Friday night consisted of pizza and a movie, followed by hot chocolate with peppermint schnaps and tree trimming! Our condo is becoming more and more Christmasy :)

This is our little tree - there isn't much extra space in our condo so we make do with this little guy. But he is a good size for the space.

 Saturday we went downtown to check off more of our shopping, amidst the crowds on Michigan Avenue. We are almost done now! And I even managed to start wrapping some gifts to put under the tree.. I don’t think I’ve ever started the wrapping so early; usually I’m trying to finish it on Christmas eve, or even Christmas morning… I feel so ahead of the game now, plus putting the wrapped presents out makes things look even more festive.

Tomorrow begins the last full week of work of the year, with holiday parties on Wednesday and Thursday – gotta love this festive season and all the merry-making that entails!