Well here is the happy new home! Dusty spent most of the weekend raking pine needles and leaves: evidently the folks who lived here previous had never heard of a rake before. Our hope is that we might be able to eventually break through to soil under all the leaves and have grass this summer. I'll keep you posted as this excitement develops.

I have decided that the only way to tackle this place without going A) broke and B) insane, is to take things one room at a time. And the first room that will be getting an extreme make-over is the bathroom (see lovely pic at right). Believe it or not, that ugly green bath tub is my favorite part of the bathroom! I have a funky green shower curtain and when I saw this Dr. Seuss-esque tub, I knew this was the place for us!

I went ahead and cleaned the walls and taped the trip to paint tomorrow: I'm going to go with a deeper olive green (you can't tell in this picture, but the green tub is actually a light cucumber color). I'm a big fan of monochromatic, and I think if we do the floor in basic black and white tile for contrast it will look pretty nice. I'll be sure to update with pics as soon as I get the painting done.

At left is the next project I want to tackle: the kitchen. Surprisingly, the cabinets are in great shape and have a neat, blue-wash over the hardwood that's pretty unique. The flooring needs to be replaced, but I can live with it until I figure out what I want to do. You can't see it in this picture, but there are these big beams overhead and a tall ceiling that makes this little kitchen feel really open and spacious. As small as my kitchen is now, this looks like sooooo much counter space to me! Soon as I track down a stove, I'll be set.

At right is probably the room I love the best and probably will change the least: the living room. I love the hardwood floors and archways. I really hate blue walls, but I have to admit they're kind of growing on me. This picture doesn't do this room much justice because you can't see the five big windows on the westside of the room: it's great in the afternoon. I can tell this will be the perfect place to park with a book on the couch when the suns going down.

Lots of exciting projects: Dusty is off tomorrow, so I've got some things for him to get done while I'm at work. Most importantly, I'm hoping he gets the plumbing hooked up: it was a pain in the butt to work on the house and have to drive down to the gas station for bathroom breaks!