Improve Don’t Move

Of Head Colds & Door Handles

/ Ally Bean / 11 Comments

Last week both Zen-Den and I had bad head colds.  Z-D soldiered on going to work with a determined attitude and a box of tissues by his side.  I took the opposite route to renewed health and became a hermit at home, nesting with a book on the sofa in the TV room.  With a box of tissues by my side, too, of course.

By the weekend we were on the rebound– moving slowly with stuffed-up noses, not tired enough to want to sleep through the day.  We had some energy and the relaxed calm focus that comes from not hearing very clearly.  We wanted to do something productive that wasn’t too mentally complex or socially interactive.   So…

We decided to start replacing the handles and hinges on all our interior doors.  Good-bye cheap shiny brass.  Hello stylish satin nickel.  This is a project that I’ve wanted us to do almost from the first day we moved into the house 13 years ago!  I’m not a fan of shiny brass as the featured metal in northern homes;  imho, it’s much more tasteful as an accent color here and there around the house.

Turns out that this project was easy enough for two sniffly, tissue-toting adults to do at their own speed without much need for thinking.  It went smoothly and provided instant gratification– unlike so many home improvement projects that drag on for months.  And the results of the transformation are stunning.  Perfect, even.

Oddly enough we’ve never done this sort of hardware change before in any of our houses.  Now that I’ve seen how much better everything in the house looks and how much calmer I feel with the proper color and style of hardware on our doors, I know that I’d do it again in a heartbeat if a new home didn’t have [in my opinion] the proper hardware on its doors.  Happy is in the details.  And blessed are they that make it so!

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Home Sweet Satin Nickel Home

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Five Senses Friday

/ Ally Bean / 5 Comments

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Feeling:

rather calm considering that:

there are half-finished drapes hanging on the kitchen windows… the house is three-fourths decorated for Christmas… I haven’t begun to figure out what to serve at a party we’re having in two weeks… the handyman guy for the leaky bathroom window is dragging his feet while tightly clutching our money and not doing the repairs… we have a huge muddy mess in our basement where there is a crack in the chimney foundation or a leak in the chimney cap [or both I suppose]… and we have now hired some company to fix our foundation/chimney/cap mess before winter sets in.

Hearing:

the sound of the [new] furnace blower as it keeps our house warm

Tasting:

freshly brewed black coffee

Seeing:

strewn in front of my computer on my desk:

clipboards – white paper printed with info – small yellow legal paper scribbled with ideas – one blue pen – one book – many pink & blue 3×5″ index cards – dust

Smelling: 

not much of anything because allergies have my nose stuffed up

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{This wonderful idea is from abby try again.   If you wish, you may play along in the comments below or on your own blog.}

Our New Entry System Is Here

/ Ally Bean / 7 Comments

Two weeks ago we had our new front door [oops, I mean] entry system installed.  We like it very much.  I can already tell that it is going to save us money on energy costs.  [More about our decision to get a new door here.]

We both find it pretty to look at– and to look through.  Neither one of us has ever lived in a house with beveled glass, so this is new to us.  Pretty, pretty.

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Knock, knock!  Look at the satin nickel hardware on our door.  No more ugly, worn-out, formerly shiny brass.  For this alone, I give thanks.

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Hey, look at what I can see standing inside the house and looking out through the sidelights.

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And then, there’s this view above the door.

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And this funky view through some of the beveled glass on the sidelights.

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And finally, just so you know, here’s what I’m looking at through the glass outside the front door.

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We Have A Backyard

/ Ally Bean / 11 Comments

[Sub-titled: The Big Dig Ends… And Not A Moment Too Soon]

Today as I reflect upon the inability of the 112th US Congress to do anything constructive about job creation, I am happy to report that our backyard project is complete.

As you may recall, in mid-August we began a very involved and expensive backyard landscaping project which happened in three parts.  To sum it up, in Phase One we had trees knocked down and dirt hauled in.  In Phase Two we had a concrete wall built to create two levels in our backyard.

And now, here is the rest of the story.  Welcome to Phase Three.

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Below is a photo of the stone steps in process.  These large steps allow us to get down into our lower level.  Without them we’d be slip sliding away every time we went down there.

Here’s a photo of our deck and the newly formed backyard taken from the second story of our house.  This project was massive. 

And here is the finished product.  The oval that you’re seeing down there is about 12 feet x 9 feet.  It is large enough for a full size picnic table or a medium size fire pit with chairs around it.  We haven’t decided exactly what we’re going to do with this space yet.  

One last photo of the side of the house where many of the machines came around to the back of the property.  The replanting of Pachysandra looks good and will fill in the area quite nicely.

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While the results of this project are wonderful, the process was stressful.  In total about 30 men worked on this backyard.  They showed up [usually without warning] when they felt like working on it, anywhere from 5:30 am to 7:00 pm on any day of the week.  Some weeks the weather made it impossible to work back there.  Other weeks the landscapers were too busy elsewhere to bother with us.  So we waited.

And with that, I’m signing off on talking about this project here in my blog.  It’s been something good to share with the world, but now it’s time for me to go down into The Spoon and enjoy communing with nature.

After all, that was the original reason we did this to begin with.