Thursday, November 22, 2012
Thankful
Posted by Wendy

Together, We’re Thankful for:

  • Our health
  • Good friends
  • A loving family
  • Lulu and Mel having had successful tumor removal surgeries in August
  • Living in a country where we’re awarded many freedoms, including political and religious
  • Our education
  • For discovering Old Town Alexandria back in 2000, and being lucky enough to call it home
  • Having had Oliver in our lives, albeit for too short of a time
  • Having the means and jobs that allow us to travel to many parts of the world
  • Being gainfully employed
  • All of you. We’re thankful for those who read and/or comment on Old Town Home, and make this hobby such a rewarding and enjoyable one. We especially appreciate the tips and advice you share, so that we can continue to refine our DIY skills.

Wendy

  • Earlier this week, I fell when out for a jog with Lulu and lost control of the leash in the process. Lulu kept on running. I’m so thankful that when I called to her, she stopped, and ran back to me on the sidewalk rather than in the street. I’m also thankful I’m only bruised and not broken.
  • Having a spouse that knows how to fix things, and goes along with my hair-brained ideas, i.e. let’s renovate our kitchen even though we have several other large projects already in the works.
  • Good television that provides a laugh and/or an escape, including Homeland, New Girl, and Happy Endings.
  • My happy places: Napa Valley and London
  • Puppies

Alex

  • The opportunity to work on our house, and to be able to transform it into the home of our dreams
  • Projects that leave me feeling fulfilled, both professionally and personally
  • My ability to grow a goatee, which I didn’t realize was possible until this “Movember”
  • We believe the thieves that stole our copper down spout have been caught. (More on that later.)
  • That our home and our town were spared the devastating effects of Hurricane Sandy
  • My somewhat patient and accommodating wife, who is my partner in crime and is the reason I do most of what I do including many of my over-the-top home improvement endeavors.

For those of you who are celebrating, we’d like to extend a heartfelt happy Thanksgiving from our family to yours. As we officially kick off the holiday season and a new year is just weeks around the corner, do you stop to reflect? What are you thankful for?


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Wednesday, November 21, 2012
Out with a Bang: Installing Magnetic Door Stops
Posted by Alex

Ever since we finished our vestibule reboot last year, we've absolutely loved the flexibility the reconfiguration of the front doors has offered. By moving our old outer front door to the interior, and putting glass French doors in the outer opening, it's added a sense of depth to the front of the house that wasn't there previously.

Beyond the depth, we've been able to open various doors and the transom at different times of the year and day to allow greater cross ventilation through the house as well as light into the front room and hallway.

And best of all, Lulu and Mel can sit up there to people/animal watch. It's like their very own TV.


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Comments 22

We have curtains!

Ever since we moved into our home we've we been using the sun porch as a mixed use extension of our kitchen. And through that time, due to the large and very open windows in the space, the window treatments (or lack of) have clearly set the tone in each incarnation of the room. 

Here's a look back at where we started, shortly after moving into our home in 2003.

We lived with this look for several years, until we saved up money to tackle the space. During our next phase of sun porch decorating, we had custom window treatments made, bought a new sisal rug, added a couple new pieces of furniture along with existing and hand me down pieces, and painted over the ugly brown tile. Needless to say, we were happy with the improvements.

And now it's confession time. We haven't been forthcoming with y'all about why we started the sun porch makeover in the first place, so here's the back story. About this time last year we were thrilled to be chosen to be featured as an Apartment Therapy home tour. The online tour featured photos of our home, top to bottom. Though the comments were overwhelmingly wonderful and positive, there was one slightly negative comment about our sun porch window treatments.

The commenter said "Fantastic job! Not really my taste, but it all looks great except for the window treatments in the kitchen and sunroom - that fabric screams 1980s to me."

Ouch. We were hurt, shocked, offended, appalled, crushed, and sad. Okay, maybe we weren't really any of those things, and the commenter did say "Fantastic job," but our eyes were at least opened, and we knew we needed a change. (Well, Wendy had been talking of making a change already, so this was really the catalyst we needed to get started.) So I say (read in your best "Real Men of Genius" jingle voice):

Today we salute you, Mrs. Anonymous Apartment Therapy Commenter.

Anonymous Apartment Therapy Commenter!

Though you hide behind the invisibility cloak of the Internet to lay judgment on the homes of people willing to share them, your criticism helped us to realize the flaws in our ways.

Constructive criticism!

Our "1980's" sun porch was being held back by our own familiarity, and you delivered a digital blow of reality...when you probably should have been working.

You laid the virtual smack down!

So we thank you, oh baroness of the blogosphere, because we can count on you to share your uncensored opinion on our taste...even if we didn't ask for it.

I hope you enjoyed my jingle, and if you know the duo responsible for the real jingles, let them know I have a recording job for them.


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Comments 40

The List. Capital T, capital L. Sadly I'm not referring to what I want for Christmas, but instead the punch list of items we're looking to cross off before our home is featured on Alexandria's Scottish Christmas Walk Weekend Designer Tour of Homes. (If you're going to be in or around Alexandria, VA on December 1, today is the last day to enter to win two tickets to the tour. If you haven't entered, be sure to head over and leave a comment...well...after you read today's post that is.)

Get ready, as the next two weeks of our blog posts might be a little bit manic. We're going to be keeping you up to date on the efforts we're putting forth to whip our house into shape. I think we need a little theme music over the next two weeks.

Last week when I was having my freak out about how much there's still to do in just two short weeks, I was so grateful to receive so many words of encouragement as well as good advice from those of you who commented. Taking this to heart, I took a step back, took a deep breath, and took pen to paper in order to identify what still needs to be done, and what no one else will notice if we simply run out of time.

Here's the list we've been keeping, in all its glory. Keep in mind, we've already completed several of the items.

Wow. That's what I call a list! I think we'd be hard pressed to check everything off even if we had two months left before the home tour, let alone less than two weeks.


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Friday, November 16, 2012
A Little Less Freaking Out - A Little More Doing
Posted by Alex

As Wendy so eloquently put it during yesterday's post, she's "totally freaking out!" Honestly, I don't blame her all that much, and at least she's being totally honest and owning up to her feelings. It's much better than if she were flipping out and telling everyone "Oh, I'm fine, I'm fine." The fact of the matter is that our house is being shown on a designer tour of homes in just two weeks, and we have a lot to accomplish on regular projects before we're even ready to start decorating for the tour. But I'm confident we can get it all done, or at least everything that we consider high priority.

Before you read any further, please realize that I'm being the typical moron male in this situation, and I'm well aware of my shortcomings and significant personality flaws that come along with simply having a Y chromosome. That being said, I'm not freaking out, I'm feeling good, and I feel like we just need to take on one project at a time. (Wendy is rolling her eyes at me.)

As it currently stands, we have essentially eight days to complete our sun porch renovation and miscellaneous to do list of the problem areas in the house that we've been ignoring for years. Eight days from now our house will transform into a Christmas pumpkin and we need to then turn our attention and focus from working on completing our projects to decorating our house for Christmas. Throw in a full week of work, and celebrating Thanksgiving, and we really don't even have the full eight days.

In hopes of checking off several items from our sun porch to do list, last night Wendy and I mustered the energy after a long day at work to set out on an accessory hunt. We were determined to find a new lamp for the Asian table as well as some frames for art on the wall.

Our first stop for the night, a whole 40 minutes prior to their closing time was HomeGoods!


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