Saturday, November 15, 2008

DIY baby


My husband is amazing. In less than a year, he has replaced all of the windows in our house. Now, at times he had support (mainly moral) from me or his Dad or capable friends, but most of the windows he did solo. Talk about DIY, baby.

Front of house, windows looking into the basement. There's some space for a very shallow flower bed in front. Not that pretty now, but I can't wait until next Spring.

In addition to the new energy saving windows, we are now firm believers in insulation. Much fun was had insulating our house over the course of a few weekends. We started (with the much appreciated help of Tom's Dad and sister Eileen) by doing the 'green' insulation thing. We rented a blower and bought 24 bales of recycled material to blow in the walls as insulation. Doing so covered everything (including us) in a thick layer of grey dust. I wish I had taken pics of that so that you could also feel the hilariousness of that situation. We followed up the 'green' insulation with some pink money. This is a pic of our fully insulated attic. So, I'm counting on much lower heating bills this winter. Please oh please oh please.

The kitchen: Part One

The kitchen: Part Two

Tommy getting down with some trim paintin'

This is the 1st floor bathroom (see Scary Before Pics) that Tom renovated. New tub, toilet, sink and tile. Quite an improvement, no? Check out that tile work.


Our back yard is much more hospitable now. The over-grown thorny rose bushes are long gone...only to be replaced by basil, tomatoes, mint and rosemary.

And the star of our tiny backyard: this pink-flowering crabapple tree. In the winter, it retains those pretty red berries. It flowers for a few short weeks in the Spring, but it's just lovely.

A little DIY of my own: I bought the wrought iron table and chairs at Salvation Army and repainted them with a little white Rustoleum