Haunted Happenings

Hope you all had a very Happy Halloween, with more treats than tricks!  At Robin Hood's Hideaway we celebrated Halloween a couple of days early.  After foregoing our Halloween party last year due to our bathroom remodel, we were not about to let this year go by without celebrating one of our favorite holidays with friends.

In preparation for our party, however, we were busy trying to get some projects completed.  Here are the much overdue updates:

We are happy to report that after having settled on a new paint color for our office over a year ago, we finally got around to painting our office.  I am glad that Benjamin Moore still carried the color!  Unfortunately, the walls looked nicer and they made my desk and bookshelves stick out like a sore thumb.

My World Market Konrad desk and Riley bookcases did not really go with the style of the house (they had been a perfect fit for our other house).  So we ended up going to Minnesota and LD talked me into purchasing a walnut table top from the Room and Board Outlet.  We bought legs and a drawer kit from Ikea, and we ended up assembling a one of a kind desk that fits the room much better.  We also bought some Gallery bookshelves from the Room and Board Outlet.  

I celebrated my birthday in September, and LD bought me the chair that I fell in love with the first time I saw it at Room and Board.  

Hmmm, something about my birthday and chairs (last year she bought me an Eames shell rocker).

We also picked up a glass table top for the Herman Miller table base we had purchased a while back.  The round table looks much better in our dining area.  It has a few scratches that we will have to address, but for $9.99 it was too good of a deal to pass up.

To top it all off, we finally installed baseboards upstairs!  It was tedious work, but it sure finishes up the rooms.  I can't believe we lived without baseboards for three years!

LD also managed to purchase ALOT more decorations while I was away on travel.  We really need to build a storage shed, unfortunately that will probably have to wait till Spring.

The house looked quite festive, and it really set the mood for the party.  

It might have been a little too festive, since it actually attracted a "mystery" guest.  

One of our friends called me over and brought to my attention a phantom/grim reaper who was standing by himself/herself in a corner.  I walked over to welcome them to the party and to figure out who it was.  I really could not tell who it was, so I asked.  The only response I got were growling sounds and a husky voice that said he/she was hungry.  So I told him/her to help himself/herself to some food and drinks.  A few minutes later Mark asked me if I had figured out who it was because he/she had walked outside and left.  At that point I got a little worried and went to ask LD if she had interacted with the mystery guest.  She pretty much had the same interaction, and he/she never did identify himself/herself.  We felt it was quite creepy and we had Katy search the house to make sure that our mystery guest was not hanging around.

Nothing like a party to motivate us to get things checked off our 2011 to do list.  This party helped us accomplish three of our goals!

It's Starting to Look Like a Bathroom Again!

Well we have been busy since our last post, and our efforts are starting to pay off.

I did not have any luck finding a seller with a small section of Kerdi locally, but I did find it online by the square foot.  After I placed my order, however, the company told me it was back ordered.  Not knowing how much of a wait that would be, I emailed the company and told them to cancel my order.  I then started searching Craigslist, and found someone in Columbia who happened to be selling a Kerdi drain.  Wishfully thinking, I contacted him and asked if he had any leftover Kerdi fabric that he would sell to me.  Luckily he did, and I picked it up last Saturday.  On Sunday we went to work and finished the last of our Kerdi install.

On Wednesday evening we installed the first two rows of tile.

On Veteran's Day we finished setting the tile, and we grouted today.  In 3 days, we'll be ready to seal!

At first we were planning on painting the bathroom gray, but we could not find the right shade of gray and finally decided that we did not really want to walk into a gray bathroom.  So we picked up a few more paint chips. 

We finally decided on Home Depot's no VOC Freshaire's "Still Moment". 

I have to wait for a warm day to finish priming and painting the windows.  Our next immediate steps are to purchase and install baseboards, and reinstall the toilet.