If I were a bird, I would totally want to live in this 1 square-foot, farmhouse-style, penthouse pad (complete with swinging privacy doors and cupola!! eeee!!) Even though it’s looking a little ramshackle right now, it’s nothing that a fresh coat of white paint can’t fix. Hellooo, potential! And as for the location, location, location, I can’t think of a better one than a schoolyard. The neighbors will never be around on nights and weekends, and they’re always gone on vacation for 3 months of the year. Plus, you’re only a 2-minute as-the-crow-flies from the hip, up-and-coming, H-St neighborhood. This is prime real estate!!

A few weekends ago I decided to take the lifeless kitchen walls into my own hands and add some color. Luckily, there’s a paint store just a few blocks from our house, and just enough room in Matt’s bike basket for two cans of paint. We went with Overt Green for the rear kitchen wall, hoping to pick up some of the light greenish tints in our table and chairs, and Portabello brown for the downstairs bathroom (still yet to be tackled.) The exciting thing about paint is you never know what you’re going to get. Sure, we held up the little swatches in the store, but the fancy light tester where you can view your swatch under different conditions was broken. Maybe it’s best that it was, because we probably saved ourselves another 10 minutes of color discourse. I then asked the mixer guy if he liked my color choices, only to get a confused look and another question as my answer. “Well do YOU like them?”

So yeah, the 2×2 swatch of green just doesn’t help show what it’ll actually look like on a whole wall… which makes me wonder why paint gets a bad rap for being boring to watch dry. I actually enjoyed seeing it go on and dry into its actual color. All in all, we were pretty happy with how it looks and now the kitchen is much prettier. Next kitchen task – curtains. Ooooh the excitement!

It started with some counter/island bases that were leftover from the apartment units of the construction project Matt has been working on for the last few years. He acquired two of these, and we decided to go in search of an old door to make the table top. Hardly an original idea, but we knew that finding the right door would really make or break it.

We took a trip to The Brass Knob Back Doors Warehouse, an old architectural salvage warehouse on New York Avenue, not too far from our new house. Holy cool place!! There were literally thousands of old doors, fireplace surrounds, mirrors, columns, trim, windows, EVERYTHING you can imagine, packed in this old, dusty, two-story building. So much potential for these things!!

We spent about an hour sifting through the old doors, which were loosely arranged by height and size, until we found the one we settled on. Just the right amount of history (and chipping paint) to it and the right size, too. For $20, a guy and his pickup truck delivered it to our house on the spot.

Leaving the warehouse with the door.

   

It’s home… uh, now what do we do?

   

Bowser approved.

   

Lining it up.

   

Minor alterations to fit.

   

All aligned.

   

Table.

   

The next step is to do some sanding, and then decide upon either a glass top or a resin top, but we need to do a little research into those options. Then, the fun part will be picking out some counter-height dining chairs to go with. Take that, HGTV.

Keys in hand!
   

First things first – up with the Christmas tree!
   

New space.
   

Homeowners!

It’s been a long while since we’ve posted anything… because we’ve been busy packing and moving into our first house!!! As of now, all the boxes and furniture are in and we’re slowly making it a home.

Since we put in our offer in November, the whole process went really smoothly thanks to our friends Redfin. We closed on December 9th and have been happy first time homeowners ever since!

On Saturday, a big crew of our family and friends helped us load the U-Haul truck and move out of our Q Street basement. We couldn’t have done it without them! After all the big stuff was done, there was lots of beer, pizza, chili, and cookies to nourish our moving arms.

I will certainly miss living in Dupont Circle and all the vibrant activity that’s constantly going on there, but I’m also excited for our quiet little street, all the friendly new neighbors we’ve met already, and our walls that aren’t crumbling in on themselves. The hardest part of packing up for me is not being able to reminisce through all of the parts of our lives as they go into the boxes. The old stacks of photos and travel souvenirs, film negatives and slides, and t-shirts and race memorabilia. It’s all there in stacks now, being relived a little as each part is unpacked.

As for the kids, they’re doing just fine. Bowser had a few minutes of whimpering in his new crate location, but he has since adjusted to his new space. Especially since it’s close to the heater vent, he can snuggle all cozy and warm under his blankets. And Moesha, well, after an eventful/scratchy car ride over in my dads arms, she seems to be queen of the castle once again and has even found the new litter box after only one accident.