Home Improvements

Yesterday was a fun-filled day of working around the house (with my mom and dad's help) and doing minor updates on things that have needed to be done for quite a while. The first update? Buddy's haircut. He gets his hair cut every 10 weeks, and he was starting to look like quite the shaggy dog. He looks completely different all shaved down, but it grows on you, and he doesnt pant as much! I included a "blooper" shot of Buddy too, silly dog! He was a very upset yesterday, and pretty much whined and barked for the 1st half of the day.....can you say attention whore?! I think it was because no one sat down on the couch for him to chew on his bone. True story.

Outside Improvements

On the left we have the front screen door knob. You see, it was broken off last winter. My sister came over and the door was frozen shut, so naturally she tried to pull the door open and brooke off the door handle. It was pretty funny, but not so attractive for our house. We finally got a new one put on, and now the door locks too!
On the right we have a massive nail. Our gutters are falling off our house. Everytime it rained, they were so clogged that even the lightest rain shower would overflow our gutters. We have already re-attached the ones on the back of the house, and yesterday when DH was mowing, this nail fell out of the gutters right past his head. Yup. Definitely time to be re-attached.

Inside Improvements

On the left we finally put up our new track lighting in the basement, which we bought from IKEA all the way back in May. We put up 2 sets and it looks alot better. We need to angle the lights in the right direction, but other than that, it really finishes off our basement.
On the top right, we have our ever-wonderful toilet handle flusher thingy. Ever since we have bought our house, this toilet handle has always acted funny. Sometimes flushing on the first try, and sometimes on the second or third. In the 2 years we have been here, it has progressively gotten worse. Just the other day it took me 18 tries to get the toilet to flush! We figured out the inside mechanism slips which causes the toilet not to flush. My dad rigged it up so that a wire attaches to the flusher thing, thus flushing the FIRST TRY every time! It's amazing! I didn't know what we were missing!

On the bottom right, this is our only screened-in window in our bedroom's window crank. The windows in our house need to be replaced someday, so they aren't the greatest things in the world, but this window always gets stuck. Especially when its humid and warm out, its almost impossible to shut because it warps so much. So to get the window shut, we have to crank it hard! Well apparantly DH cranked it a little too hard a couple weeks ago and SNAP! It broke off. So we are excited to have a new crank that actually works!

Nursery Improvements

On the left, we have our changing table cover. We also bought the changing table pad at IKEA, but it never quite fit into the changing table. Since changing table covers are hard to find anyways, I went and bought some $3/yard fabric and my mom made a custom one. It is white with dots and I think it turned out great and matches the nursery! Its a little big, but I figured once I wash it, it will shrink a little bit (its flannel).
In the center, we have the trim where the ceiling and walls meet. There wasn't any trim before, so we thought it would look nice to finish it off. My dad wasn't too thrilled about putting it up, but even he agreed it looked better.
On the right we have the shelf that DH bought at a garage sale about 1.5 years ago. He bought 2 of them and we painted one green that has been in our bedroom for about a year. I just painted this longer 2nd one for the nursery. I think it will work great to either display the paintings, or to put blocks that spell out the baby's name.

Thats about all the improvements we did so far, and it feels great to cross a few things off my list. We still have a few more things to do, but it will be done eventually...we only have 9 more weeks!