One year update

I thought it'd be nice to post a new set of pictures about a year after showing up.

Over the last month we have done a lot to the place, in part because we are thinking about getting our place refinanced. But it has also been an excuse to do a lot of things we have been wanting to do for a while.

The most visible changes were that we painted our kitchen and bedroom. The kitchen, in particular, was looking pretty bad. Alison's parents came up to help us paint it -- it was a big job!




We recently bought a new felt rug from Peace Industries in San Francisco, before they are shut down by the newest sanctions on Iran.



Buying a new couch for the living room (around last Christmas) allowed us to move our old couch into the sun room, which is now a very nice place to sit and read.


We really have done a huge number of smaller chores, like replacing a toilet, caulking around the house, and repainting the entryway.


Well, I start school next week. I hope everyone's doing well and will visit us soon.

new floors

Alison's been teaching for over a month; me, for a week.

I've gotten some request for pictures of our new floor. So, below you'll see pictures of our old floors and then of our new ones. Enjoy

Well, I wouldn't be surprised if this is the last update. Alison did end up with a full-time job at Malcolm X College in Chicago and has had to be at school from 9-5 pretty much all of last week and this. We are still trying to get things done around the house (fix Dryer, get rid of Wasps on the roof, wait for Garden Window to be replaced, decide who to use for hardwood floors).

One of our recent projects has been finishing up the dining room and I think it looks really good now. There was a problem with the paint -- we ended up having to put a sealent coat on top. It is now glossier than we'd like (we wanted semi-gloss and this is full gloss), but still we are happy. We also restained Alison's grandmother's old Danish-modern table and chairs AND recovered them with a new fabric. I'm really happy with how the dining room has turned out.

I feel like it never ends. Our next project, I think, will be to clean the windows, replace broken screens, and put weather stripping on them. And for the condo we are also going to see about getting a watering system and replacing the doors on all the garages.

Sorry for not doing more updates -- things have been going slowly.

We've also been a bit depressed because we found out on Monday that Alison's full time job, which seemed like a sure thing ("So do I have the job?" "Well, you are the remaining candidate."), is not so sure. She showed up for a meeting with the president on Monday, which turned out to be an interview. I guess they may need to cut the position for budget reasons.

On Monday, she was told she would be told for sure on "in a couple of days." She called back on Friday, but the president was in a meeting and never called back.

So anyway, that has cast quite a shadow on the week. Also, somehow cleaning up/setting up is taking a lot longer. I think the easier things are done.

Unfortunately, I ordered a 50" flat screen TV (Pioneer Kuro -- considered the best and being discontinued) right before we found out that the job was uncertain. So anyway, we re-arranged the living room again. I think this is the final arrangement. It took a long time to set up: mounting the TV on the wall, getting a surge protector to go behind the record case, etc. But it is set up now!

Also, we finally got the concrete work done on the garage and we can pull the car in. We certainly appreciate our garage more having tried to park on the street for a couple of weeks.


I'll post again once the condo is really set up. The last major thing to do is to paint the dining room, so we can set up the furniture in there.

Out and about

Well, I was hoping that today we'd be done unpacking everything but the dining room. We aren't quite there, but we are getting close. Hopefully by the end of tomorrow. We are planning on painting the dining room before we unpack the stuff there.

We've been cooking recently, but tonight we walked down to Argyle for dinner. We went to a new place -- Pho 888. We got a tofu banh mi (sandwhich), vegetable soup, and spring roll. It wasn't our favorite Vietnamese place, but the soup broth and soup vegetables were exceptionally good.

Some pictures from our trip out:
Front of our building:



Big Chicks and Tweet (at the end of our block):



City-run Mental Health clinic across from Tweet:



Argyle:






Our el stop:

Found battery

I found our second camera battery, which has just a little charge left in it.

The only thing I can think to say is that we are going to put some sort of curtains up that will go under the sink and under the cabinets, so you won't see the Cuisinart, etc.

Brief update

Sorry not to have posted much recently -- we have just been unpacking, unpacking, unpacking. Unfortunately, the battery on the digital camera died and I don't know where the charger is.

It is unfortunate, in part, because we finally finished setting up / unpacking the kitchen and it looks good! It's nice to have one room that is really done. We've also been doing some easy cooking recently, which is definitely nice.

We've decided to set up the living room quite differently than in the previous picture. The problem with the old set-up was that there was really nowhere to put the TV except right in front of the fireplace. Now the TV and stereo is turned 90 degrees to the left and the couch is across from. This actually works a lot better, but it was a bit depressing to move a bunch of records that I had just unpacked and shelved. Again, I'll post pictures when I can.

Anyway, things are moving quickly. If we really work on this hard for the next two days, we might be basically done.