October 30-31, 2010

Happy Halloween from Nails and Whales!

This year marked the first Halloween in our new home, ending my seven-year apartment living streak, and even longer for Mike. We were a touch nervous when about five different neighbors introduced themselves in July with something along the lines of, "Hi new neighbor! We are really happy you moved here! Let us know if you need anything at all....OH! And be prepared for Halloween. We bought 9 bags of candy last year and ran out."

I instantly visualized a swarm of children it pint-size costumes parading down our street, and a rainbow of candy streaming from my bowl into their cute little pumpkin-shaped candy buckets.

Not so much.

Fast forward to last Sunday. You know that feeling you got when you hosted your first party? You told everyone to come at 7:00... it's 7:02 and your are nervously fluffing the chip bowl and incessantly checking your phone to see if anyone's tried to get in touch with you? That's what we looked like. 

All in all, we probably got about 30-40 trick or treaters, which sounds like a decent amount. HOWEVER, I know it's only because our neighbors have a nice, big, new house (you know know, the house where you parents said, "I know we don't know them, but I bet they give out full size candy bars! Go on up and ring the doorbell!")  The part that made me sad is when I watched at least 15-20 kids standing on the street, hesitating to knock on our door, deciding it wasn't worth the candy and running down the street into the night. 

You know that feeling you get the first time you go on a date and he doesn't call you afterwards? It was like that, except for the questions we were asking ourselves were more along the lines of:

"Do you think our house ACTUALLY looks scary?"

"What if the person who lived here before us gave the kids crappy candy?"

"What if the people who lived here before us were really mean and people don't know what they look like and just head about them and think we are them?" 

"Do people think we're just a new set of creepster renters?" 

I don't know the answer to these questions. I'm sure a few of my thoughts were a little over-exaggerated. I'm sure most of of the parents were just being smart parents and knocking on random doors.  But it still made my heart hurt a little.

I guess next fall we should steal someone's kid for an afternoon before Halloween and introduce ourselves on the playground.

In other more house-related news, I couldn't stand the wallpaper in the bathroom any longer and I saw a little corner of it curling up. I knew from previous de-wallpaper experiences that this could be a horrendous and time-consuming task and prepared for the worst.

Before: our glorious plaid and seashell wallpaper and border combo (not to mention, the only and *extremely* convenient outlet in our bathroom.)

What happened next was surprising and not surprising at the same time. If you have ever adhered something to a wall, whether it be wallpaper or paint, you should always WASH YOUR WALLS so that things can/will actually stick to it. But as with any DIY project that has been done in this house before we purchased it, it looks like people actually rubbed dirt all over the walls before putting this stuff up.

30 seconds worth of work.

It took about 10 minutes to take down all of the wallpaper without using any tools. I can't believe we lived with with this stuff hanging up for 123 days before realizing how quickly we could take it down. 

We took a little trip to Lowe's (surprise!) and I bought a gallon of mis-tinted beige painted for $5. If you've never explored the mis-tint section at your local hardware store you're in for a real treat! Mis-tints are great foror projects that don't need a specific color of paint (i.e. a bathroom that you want to remodel as soon as possible) and are happy with some sort of general color, it is by far the most frugal way to get perfectly good paint.  

My aunt Diane was the first to introduce me to this little hidden gem when she needed four gallons of pink paint for her daughter's playroom.  They didn't care about the *specific* color of pink, so every time she went to Lowe's she would pick up any mis-tints that were in her "pink" range, and ended up spending $20 to paint a room instead of $80. If you want to mix different mis-tints together, just make sure it has the same finish and you aren't mixing a gallon of glossy with eggshell together.

I'm excited to finish the bathroom project in the following weekends!

October 16-17, 23-24, 2010

Things have been fairly quiet around here the past two weekends. And cold. Very cold.

Did you know that having holes in your house doesn't help it stay warm? Did you know that people shove insulation up in the ceiling to hide the fact that there's missing floorboards? And did you know that if you do not set up your gutters correctly (and keep it that way for 2039589 years) it will rot *really* important pieces of wood and turn it into a pile of dust?

That's what we've been learning about while preparing the basement for winter. Well, to be fair, Mike has been the one down there the majority of the time by himself, to save me from discovering creepy crawly things in the basement (what a saint!) Now our basement is a disaster again, but I'm hoping to get things back in order next weekend. Or the weekend after that. Or three years from now.

We also covered the old windows in the office, guest bedroom, and kitchen with one of those plastic kits. It was a night and day difference! It really helped decrease the draft and house also stopped "whistling," which I never really noticed until the sound was gone. After the windows were sealed, we turned on the heat.

We tried to think of it as a contest - you know, to make it... fun - to see how long we could go without heat. It wasn't too terribly bad at first. But when we were drinking hot chocolate, wearing three layers of clothing, clutching onto the dogs for additional warmth, and were STILL cold, we realized it was time to surrender to the oil tank.

I'm pretty warm-blooded and I think Mike was born in a volcano, so we agreed on 66F. I'm sure that seems chilly to most, but we get a fair amount of sunlight in every room of the house during the day. We also thought our dads (and dads around the world) would be pretty proud of us if we kept it down that low.

Welp, if I talked any longer about insulating a house you would probably fall asleep at your computer. So I'll stop here.  Until next time, dear readers!

October 9-11, 2010

This weekend we traveled down to Connecticut for a pig roast benefit hosted by some of Mike's friends and family.  Everyone had a good time, and the pig was delicious (Slick and Ted can verify this if you would like a second opinion!)  Here's a few photos from the roast:

Mike's favorites: beer and fire!

Mike's brother Dave, and friend, Frank, serving the pig.

The smartest dogs hang out under the table.

We came back to Hull Sunday evening, and spent our day off (oh yeah, thanks Columbus) at Lowe's playing the "OH MY GOD HOW ARE WE GOING TO KEEP THIS OLD CRAPPILY-INSULATED HOUSE WARM THIS WINTER?!!?!" game.  It was lots of fun.  And by fun, I mean I wanted to murder someone.  But after spending 2.5 hours at a home improvement store, I now know that "pennies" means the letter "d" when referring to nails.  I'm sure knowing this will save my life someday. Nonetheless, I'm really happy that we have a lot of supplies to help keep us warm.

Well, this entry was short and sweet, but I'm sure that next weekend's "Operation: Insulation" will be full crammed full of awesome stories.

October 2-3, 2010

Mike and I enjoyed an *almost* task-free weekend (I got a "The Inside of a Toilet Tank 101" class on Sunday.)

We made our way to Hanover to exchange our papasan frame at Pier One. It seems like our frame was a turd and broke in two places in one month, which upset us.  However, after calling Pier One and explaining the situation to them, they told us to come in and exchange it for a brand new one, no questions asked or receipts needed.  We are quite pleased with their customer service!

We also went to the Derby Street Shoppes and were pleasantly surprised by the number of stores all smooshed into one area (and only a 20 minute drive from our house, hooray!) When we bought our home this summer, we knew little (if anything) about the towns around Hull; it's nice to know that we don't have to travel all the way to Boston to seek out civilization.

We also stopped at a few yard sales and I found this book for 25 cents, and it did a great job of exciting me, the "never-had-a-garden-in-my-life-but-have-always-wanted-one-and-can-now-have-one-but-don't-know-the-first-thing-about-gardening" gardener. I spent my Sunday morning at the dining room table designing a garden for our backyard, while Mike was at the other end of the table working on sketches for a chair he wants so build.  We haven't been able to have a "creative" morning and months, so it was a treat.

Lastly, we didn't lift a finger in the yard this weekend, but the grass seed we planted a few weeks ago has been working hard and growing a fine new tuft of grass in the old firepit area.  We used Scotts Turf Builder Sun and Shade Mix and threw it down in the middle of a light rain a few weeks ago, covered it with grass clippings..... and, uhm, never ever watered it. Whoops. And then it was really sunny for about a week straight and still never watered it. Double whoops.  But this stuff is amazing and pulled through!  We will be sure to use it again next year when we till and level the yard.

Yay for neglected grass seed taking care of itself!