You need to watch this!

Grant was skeptical when he heard the music and walked around the desk to look at the video on the screen.  You should watch this, you won't be disappointed.  Even Grant loved it.

Grant thinks he knows how to knit...

A few weeks ago we went to Loopy Yarns on our day in Chicago with Grant's parents and my mom.  Grant demonstrated on the BIG knitting needles that he has learned how to knit just by watching me.  The result was a new favourite series of photos!

Before and After

The last month or so has been FULL.  Grant graduated with his Master's, we said goodbye to our RA staff for the summer, I finished my job at the school, we moved out of our apartment (which has been my home for the last 4 years) and into our house, and we enjoyed the company of Grant's parents and my mom who each came to visit for 2 weeks (and who helped us SO much with all of the moving, settling-in and projects around the house).  Phew!

We have worked on so many projects in the house I don't think I could count them all!  I have tried to take some before and after shots of some of them (and even some in-progress pictures) and thought i'd share a few.  There will be more to come as we finish unpacking and deciding where we want to put everything!

Before: VERY old "matching Maytag's"

After: Beautiful NEW washer and dryer.

Before: Dirty, old doors with dirty, old doorknobs.  

We wanted to try to polish the doorknobs (they were brass plated), but it was impossible to get 60+ years of guck off of them.  So we painted them too!

After: Clean and pretty white doors (that now match the rest of the woodwork in the house) and black door knobs.

Before: Corner cabinets in the dining room and old light fixture.

(Some people seem very upset that we took these cabinets out so we feel the need to explain!  :-)  They looked great, but didn't hold much and were also pretty flimsy and poorly made.  They also covered up the vents for the room.)

I received a phone call one morning telling us that the dumpster was going to be removed later that day.  We asked if it could be delayed and my mom and I decided that that day would be demo-day.  We took out the corner cabinets and the ceiling on our porch (pictures below).

Sorry... I had to include this.  This was inside the dirty, dirty vent that was covered from the cabinet.  Eew!  That alone almost made taking the cabinet out worth it!

After: New light fixture (that was a wedding gift), room for our china cabinet and two corners!  The room surprisingly seems much bigger now!

We also hemmed the curtains in the house so they are no longer 20" too long!

Before: The musty, damp ceiling tiles in the screened-in porch.

While we were taking this down, several old Christmas cards and other strange things fell out of the ceiling.

After: Open rafters.  Eventually we will paint them (and the inside of the porch).

Like I said, there are even more projects that we have been working on so I'll post more pictures soon!