UFO Landing at Robinhood's Hideaway

Both LD and I have been lusting over the George Nelson Bubble Lamps for a long time.  Unfortunately (or rather fortunately), our house came with a bunch of cool light fixtures and we could not justify replacing any of them.  About the only light fixture we were not very fond of was the one in the sunroom, but we were not sure about how the light fixture would do in a room that is neither heated or cooled.

A few weeks ago, I was browsing Craigslist and came across an ad for a George Nelson saucer lamp at a decent price.  I thought for sure it would be gone by the time I contacted the seller, but amazingly it was not.  We settled on a price, and a couple of days later we picked up our new light fixture.

It sat in the box for about a couple of weeks before we finally got around to installing it.  We had been busy, but I think subconsciously we were both afraid of placing such a nice lamp in an unheated room.  The minute we flipped the switch, however, all of our worries were forgotten.

Retrospective on 2011

With 2011 over, we thought we would review our punch list from last January, and see what we were able to cross off. 

• Finish installing baseboards
• Install vent grills
• Refinish built in cabinets in family room to match kitchen cabinets
• Transform sunroom into a home gym (partially)
• Continue working on landscaping
• Paint bathroom windows
• Purchase and install vanity in hall bathroom
• Repaint our home office and family room
• Restore 4 Eames shell chairs we purchased last winter
• Find a table top for the Eames table base we purchased last month
• Maybe get started on Black Dog Bar

We got started early last year with a couple of items that were actually not in our punch list.

Fixed the pressure relief valve in our water heater

Organized utility room (doors were donated to Habitat for Humanity)

Those two minor projects, motivated us to tackle a couple of projects that were actually in our list:

Refinished built-ins in the living room and had new countertops installed.

Repainted the family room, and even managed to get a couple of trees to grow.

LD volunteered our house to host the neighborhood's winter social.  Nothing like a party to motivate us into completing more projects.

Had vents sandblasted, and sprayed on a new coat of paint

We were so pleased with how the vents turned out, that we also got our big UFO light  sand blasted  to remove the multiple layers of paint that were covering up the beautiful brushed aluminum finish.

We got creative with some chalkboard paint and chalk.  We love it, not sure that the KU alumni in our neighborhood appreciate it as much as we do.

Our hall bathroom became more functional with the installation of our new vanity by StudioBuild.

We took a short break from remodeling at the end of May, while LD and Katy responded to the F5 tornado that hit Joplin.

Hall bathroom was still being worked on:

 Our new vanity top got installed, and we tiled the backsplash

 We had our new faucet hooked up, no more dirty hands!

Took a break from the bathroom and finally restored the Eames Shell Chairs.

Then took a really long break, and completely fenced the back yard:

We had vinyl coated chain link installed on the majority of the yard.

With the help of friend Rollin and our "burro", we installed the privacy fence.

In September, we got crafty with a mirror for our hallway bathroom and finally put the finishing touch on the hallway bathroom.

Our upcoming Halloween Party motivated us to:

Finally complete all the baseboards

and repainted our office. 

We found a table top at Room and Board for our table base, and LD gave me a pretty cool chair for my birthday.

After all that hard work, we celebrated by having a Halloween bash.

We slowed down after Halloween, but I am itching to start planning our next project.  Maybe this year we will finally get around to working on Black Dog Bar, and finish converting our sunroom into a home gym.

Here's hoping that 2012 brings you happiness and prosperity!