Happy New Year!

Hope you all had a great Christmas, and that the new year brings new hope and prosperity to your lives.  All in all we had a pretty good year in 2010, but are pretty excited of what is yet to come in 2011.   Now that 2010 is over with, we thought we would review our home remodeling accomplishments and create a punch list of what we are hoping to achieve in 2011.

We finally managed to install baseboards downstairs, and in a couple of spots upstairs.

The master bathroom got a new vanity sink, and we completely gutted the master bathroom.  

We said good-bye to our pink Pepto Bismol bathtub.

And welcomed our new walk-in shower. 

After months of searching for backsplash tile for the vanity, we finally found some and installed it.

We managed to clear the overgrown vegetation in our backyard, and create a gigantic brush pile.

After getting some ridiculous bids for the disposal of our brush pile, we ended up enjoying some pretty big bonfires.

Once we completed our first bathroom, we decided to go ahead and completely gut our hall bathroom.

Other than painting the windows, and installing the vanity we managed to remodel this bathroom faster than the master bath.  

Now here is our punch list for 2011 (which includes a lot of the projects that we never got around to in 2010):

• Finish installing baseboards
• Install vent grills
• Refinish built in cabinets in family room to match kitchen cabinets
• Transform sunroom into a home gym
• 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

I am exhausted just thinking about it, but very much looking forward to the new projects!  

Herman Miller Eames' Table Base and Phoenix's First Christmas

Well, since we are at a standstill with the hall bathroom, what else could we do but shop!!!!

We need a dining table, so last weekend we went shopping at some of our favorite spots looking for one.  We have a list of several of our favorite table types: Saarinen tulip, Noguchi cyclone,  Eames round, Platner, or a current model with to die for lines.  We found a Noguchi cyclone table about 3 months ago, but it was too small!  We were sooo disappointed.

So we continued to hunt for a table that we could bring home.  Well we finally found one!  It was an early Herman Miller Eames table base from the aluminum group line.  Now all we have to do is find a top!  And we know exactly where to find one, but it will have to wait until the snow melts up north.

We also cleared the central backyard once again.  We also piled the leaves and burned them!  That's always fun.

This is Phoenix's first Christmas.  LD bought her our traditional Christmas stocking and placed it with the others on the fireplace.  I can't wait to for Santa to put some nice smelly treats in there, and see if she picks up on it.

We were afraid to put up the Christmas tree(s) because she has been getting into everything.  So last week, we finally put it up, but with no ornaments.  Then we let the Phoenix out.  She smelled it and walked under it several times, then left it alone.  So we decided to put up some of the ornaments, but left the lower part of the tree empty.  It's been 4 days, and so far so good!

Merry Christmas to All!