Home Improvement Continued...

I looked through our RE/MAX folder that the realtor gave us and I found some before shots of the basement.  The picture quality is terrible (and is a photo of a colour copy), but will give everyone an idea of what the basement looked like before!

This is the wall next to the stairs.  It made for a very narrow hallway to the laundry area and the back door of the basement.

This room was behind that set of book shelves.  Complete with shelving, a de-humidifier and a sump pump.

The Laundry area.  I thought the tile looked cool, until we discovered that it was a vinyl panel on the wall.  The cabinet has become part of the work space in the garage.  Oh, and UNDER the cabinet and the walls we found some great linoleum tile.  I feel like an archaeologist at times in our house as we discover layers of things and try to figure out the reason why things are the way they are.  The house is quirky and we love it!

And again, the after shots.  You can sort of see on the floor where the walls used to be (in an 'L' shape)

Now we can see through this area all the way to the back door!  The basement is definitely not beautiful, but will hopefully be functional!

Home Improvement

I have realized that I am not very good at taking the before photos because I get so excited about a project that I just jump right in!  I thought I'd share some of the work that we've done on our house over the last few weeks.  It is so nice to be able to get things ready at a slow pace before we move in at the beginning of May.

Before: Lacy Curtains.  We had these all over the first floor of the house.  The previous owners had also found some creative ways to hang curtains using pipe and nails.  Needless to say, they've all come down.

After: The curtains from our apartment have made their way over to the house.  They are still in need of hemming but I haven't quite had the motivation to do that yet.

Our bedroom upstairs got curtains as well.

Before: Where there was once snow... 

After: ...there are now daffodils beginning to grow.

Before: In the basement we've torn out some things including part of this wall.

After:

And there used to be two full walls dividing a work/storage area and the laundry area.  Now it is one big room.

And I hung the first pictures on the wall in the kitchen.

And you can see the colour I am thinking about painting the kitchen on the left hand side.

Outside the weeds are growing!  This past week things have sprung up that we had no idea existed.  We've also decided that weeds must actually be the BEST plants since they can survive almost anything and flourish almost anywhere.  They are growing faster than we can keep up with, but this view through the porch makes the yard look nicer than it really is.  :-) 

This was my project this morning.  Since no one has lived in this house for well over a year, things are pretty overgrown.  I found all of these bricks under the grass and dirt in the flower beds, so I thought I'd use them too.  It took me a few hours to clean up, but we are ready for planting in a few spots.

And this is the view from the second floor.  The yard is not finished yet, but you can see where I dug started to define the flower beds again around the garage.  We've bought seeds to start planting some flowers and veggies.

I'll work on taking more before photos in upcoming projects.  We have many ideas, we're just needing to find the time to do them in.

Norwegian Mittens

If you guessed that my previous post was mittens, you would be correct!

I have known how to knit for a while now.  Mrs. Million taught me how to knit so I could make a scarf for Cricket when I was in elementary school.  I picked it up again shortly before moving to Minnesota and it was there I fell in love.  Minnesota has some of the best yarn shops I have ever seen.  Most are quaint shops with inspiration around every corner.  It was in Minnesota that I discovered Dale of Norway and other Norwegian-inspired patterns (and it doesn't hurt that Minnesota has a high population of people with Scandinavian roots).  It quickly became a goal of mine to knit a Dale of Norway sweater.  Now, I don't actually have any Norwegian roots, but as a knitter I feel like I just might be!

I got a book a few weeks ago called Selbuvotter: Biography of a Knitting Tradition that is filled with patterns for gloves and mittens from Selbu, a small area of Norway. Although I have never been to Selbu, knitting these mittens took me right back!  I imagined myself sitting on the porch of a small, rustic cabin overlooking a fjord while knitting.

Pattern: NHM#7 from Selbuvotter

Yarn: Knit Picks Palette in Pimento and White

Size: Women's Medium

Back to my Norwegian Roots

Are there any guesses for what this might be?

The Inaugural Event

I learned something today.  I love our house even more when it is filled with people... especially some of my favourite people!

Thank you RA's for all you to do to love and serve others.  We love you and it was a privilege to host all of you for our first meal in our new house!

The large table in the middle of the living room

And what dinner party wouldn't be complete without a full kitchen?

It's OURS!

We're officially homeowners!  On Tuesday afternoon (after many trips to the bank, FedEx, the Post Office and even more phone calls) Grant and I took possession of a house here in Wheaton.  Even though I have a key, I still feel like I am trespassing on someone else's property.

I won't bore you with all of the details, rather I want to share with you the amazing gift that this house is!  On Tuesday we went to our closing, expecting it to be stressful and anxiety-producing and it was anything but.   The previous owners were missionaries in Africa for the first part of their marriage and moved to Wheaton when the husband was hired as a professor.  They lived in the house for almost 40 years.  According to their daughter, all of his students had dinner in their home and they were always inviting others in.  We are excited to own a house that has a legacy of hospitality.  We're excited to share the gift of this space with others.

We've had many requests to post photos of the inside.  I wanted to wait until we were "done" moving in, but I just couldn't possibly wait until May to share this with you.  Most of these are from the realtor, but I have added a few of our own too.  Here it is:

The front of the house

As soon as you walk through the front door you see the stairs up the middle.  The living room is on the left, the dining room is on the right.

Living Room

Doors through the living room to the screened in porch.  (It was warm and breezy here yesterday - I realized that I might actually love this porch!)

Living room again

The Kitchen

The dining room.  (Sadly, the corner cabinets will not be there long.  We have a china cabinet that probably won't fit if we leave them.)

The upstairs bathroom.

The downstairs bathroom.  (If you think it looks tiny, you are correct!)

The porch - obviously this picture was not taken in February!

The back of the house.  The garage is on the left.

The living room this morning. The only thing we have is our folding chairs and an abundance of candles. The light coming through the windows is my favourite part of the house.

The Master bedroom.  Note the giant ceiling fan which will not make it through the weekend.  (Unfortunately, this picture makes the bed look huge and the room look small.  Neither are true, it's just a hard angle to get a good picture.)

Second Bedroom.  This will be the library/office.

Guest Room.  We have the bed frame and the mattress will come soon!

The view through the kitchen door.

As most of you know, we currently live in a residence hall.  We'll continue to live here until the end of May when my 4 years as a GRA will (sadly) come to an end.  We're going to slowly move things over, mostly to get everything out of storage.  We'll also get to host a few guests as Grant's parents are coming for his graduation in May and my mom is going to come for a few weeks to help us fix the place up.  It doesn't need a ton of work, but we have a few projects that we'd love her help with!

So that's it!  We have plenty of space so if you're ever coming through Chicago or Wheaton, you'll have a place to stay.  And (of course), I'll post more pictures as we settle in.

new hat and cowl - the patterns

Two friends commented on the hat and cowl that I made for myself over Christmas (as seen in this photo) so I thought I'd share the patterns so others can join in the knitting fun!

The Hat:

Pattern: Selbu Modern.  (This is the link for the FREE pattern!)

Needles: 16" circular and dpn's in size 2.75mm

Yarn: Knit Picks Pallet in Cream and Pimento (one skein of each)

Total cost to make: $3.98!!

The Cowl:

The Pattern:  Inspired by the Improv Cowl from French Press Knits 

(although I modified the number of stitches and the width/amount of yarn)

The Yarn: Ella Rae Latte in Cream, 4 Skeins

Needles: Circular, US size 13

Instructions:

With the yarn doubled, cast on an odd number of stitches.  

(Somewhere between 91 and 101 stitches, depending on the length you want.) 

Note: this allows the cowl to be wrapped around your neck twice.

Join to work in the round.

(k1, p1) repeat.

Simple as that.  

Since you cast on an odd number of stitches, it automatically creates the seed stitch pattern.  Just knit in circles until you run out of yarn.  My cowl is about 8" wide but since the yarn is so soft, I'd prefer if it was even wider.  If you use a bulkier yarn you may like it a little narrower.

I also made this cowl in blue with a different kind of yarn:

Yarn: Cascade 128 Superwash, 2 skeins

Number of Stitches: 93

This one knit up much bulkier, although narrower.  The end result: comfy and warm and both are my go-to cowl's this season.

And... I can't resist posting this photo again (since I am wearing my blue cowl).  These needles and yarn at  Loopy Yarns made me SO happy!  I was also nice and toasty on a very cold and windy day in Chicago.