now we know what we are not missing, at all

i just found some old images of our house from the time we moved in with yellow windows, and shiny gold patterned wallpaper.

soon after the wallpaper was removed, the place became the "house of tools and mess". this is an image of the entrance area (door is to the right, not visible). i hope not too many people came over or stopped by, ... or if they did, they could forgive this unsightly "welcome".

the walls were so dirty, at places the white washed wood appeared to be greasy and wet. the color of the original carpet is a mystery we never could solve. it didn't matter after all, for we only had to look at it before we actually moved in.

the new railing

glass panels and stainless steel framing; the closest thing we could come up with to having nothing here at all.

i finally found some time today and glued down the screw caps too. thank you rcr for our cool new railing and the installation.

the old railing is out

the wall-to-wall carpet was removed from everywhere before we moved in (2002).

the house had a heavily paint-splattered subfloor for about 3.5 years. at one point we actually cleaned the areas where the sanding machine could reach but never found the time to go over the edges with a hand sander.
the old wrought iron railing was so awkward in an interior space we actually preferred not having a railing at all.

... and so we didn't, for 2 years. it took about that long to get the new one in after the flooring was replaced. we really liked the open space; it's too bad the drop at this area of the house is about 6 feet, there must be a rail.

and the new colors are...

kelly moore's "slippery shale" (a greenish gray) on the main body, "end of summer" (soft yellow) under the eaves, "hamlet" (beige) on window frames, and side doors, and finally "defense" (dark gray) on the beams and roof edges.

we are still undecided about what to do with the entrance door and the old painted porch's (not shown) colors but the house is almost all the way painted!

even the dog's door (side garage door) looks so much nicer.
we hope our neighbors will like the new look.

thank you e.h for the beautiful paint job!

mustard yellow

after more than 5 years of waiting, we feel very ready to change this mustard yellow color on the house and we believe our neighbors feel similarly...

laundry area in the garage

our new laundry corner of the garage is finished; complete with a pull-out faucet and a fold-down table (to fold our clean cloths). no more dropping piles of t-shirts on the ground. thank you p.l for the beautiful wood work and thank you cj for moving the walls here so we can have such a nice laundry.