Tuesday, December 21, 2010

And I came to welcome y'all to the Kitzmmer's Dungeon

J.J. Whitt, this entry is for you! 


As Jenny pointed out on the ol' stalk-book, our home, like most old homes, has a cellar. Our cellar happens to have entry through the guest bedroom due to it being an addition. There are many reasons to have a cellar, such as a place to store coal in the olden days, a safe haven if a tornado rips through the city or if a bomb is dropped nearby. In modern times, we use cellars for storage, hiding spots during hide-n-seek tournaments and home brewery setups (just to name a few examples of how I plan to use our cellar.)


As Jenny also pointed out, cellars are scary with precarious stairs. Our is no exception. Let me show you:


Welcome to the Dungeon, we got fun and games. 
You pull up on the handle, swing the trap door over and descend into darkness. 
(I would like to note that we will be removing this lovely carpet and adding wood floors.)

This is where I have visions of me plummeting to my death. 


Exhibit A: Cracked Stair Base
I just moved the Stairs of Death up a notch on our ever growing "To Do" list. 

Doors, windows, molding, oh my!!! 

Dead body? Maybe. 

Furnace Monster! <squeal>
(If we ever have children, I plan to make up terrifying stories about the Furnace Monster. Maybe you should never ask me to babysit.)  

Potential storage space or brewery station
   
(Yes, the title of this blog entry was lifted from the title of a ridiculously stupid rap song.) 

Friday, December 17, 2010

Without further ado, the before pictures!

I would like to apologize for the delay in posting these pictures. I don't know if you know this, but homeownership is hard work. We have spent the majority of our spare time cleaning, painting, going to Home Depot, unpacking, moving things around, going to Home Depot and drinking beer. There is a reason that the end of a paint can opener doubles as a bottle opener. 


Look, it's a bottle opener... It's a shiv... It's a paint can opener!
  
We closed on the house on Monday, November 29th and that evening we went to walk around the house and have a glass of champagne to celebrate. Unfortunately I was quite sick and had no voice so it was not a raucous celebration. On the plus side, Kristina had one opportunity to experience the house in silence without my constant rambling, lame joke telling and sailor like cursing.  

Owning a home is all champagne and cavier.

Standing in the living room
(We turned those lovely curtains into paint drop clothes.)

On December 1st we had my fam over to help us clean because the folks that lived there prior to us were, well, disgusting. Friends, if you ever decide to sell your house do everyone a favor and clean your house. People will judge you when they see the squalor that you apparently lived in. And by people, I clearly mean me. I judge. So we cleaned like maniacs and then we made our paint color selections. Stressful City, USA: population 2! Picking paint color for a house is stressful business. I know you can always repaint but the image of your first poor choice will be forever burned into the psyche of those that visited your house. All this judgment can be paralyzing.

I am going to give you a taste of what the house was like before Kristina and I put our stylish and awesome touch on the place. It will help you appreciate our stunning, stylish and beautiful choices. And if we are being honest here, I am only showing you before pictures because our house is still a bit of a mess and it is not ready for it's debut. All in due time, friends. All in due time.

So without further ado, here is a visual "before" tour of our humble abode.

The front of our house


Standing in the living room looking towards the kitchen.


The fireplace and windows.
We believe this to be the original wood.
And if it is not, we will still continue to claim that it is.


View from the kitchen towards the front door.


Kitchen appliances.
You may think that the oven window is tinted black, but you would be wrong.
That, my friends, is a caked on nastiness. <insert judging face>


Kristina standing in the kitchen. The backsplash is indeed copper.
Good eye.


The office/front bedroom.
This it the first room to your right when you walk in the house.

Inside the Office/Front bedroom
That door on the left leads to the bathroom (and yes, it is a very tiny door)
and the door to the right is for the closet.


The Bathroom. (This picture was from the real estate brochure.)
The picture was taken from the door between the bathroom and master bedroom.
You are looking at the tiny door that leads back to the office.

Master Bedroom
From the door off the living area

Back corner of the master bedroom that leads to...

This beautiful walk-in closet. It is huge!
(That's what she said.)

The Guest Bedroom.
This room is an addition to the house. What you can not see is
that they painted the brick wall that used to be the outside wall 
(to the right) white. White. Don't paint your brick, people.
 But if you must paint your brick, don't paint it white.

The Mudroom.
It makes me feel fancy to say I have a mudroom.


Backyard/Patio
The white box is the guest room. The open door leads to the mudroom.


The massive tree and part of the yard space in the back.


This is the garage/game room.
It is 750 square feet of pure potential.


Monday, November 1, 2010

First things first...

So here we are in Denver, CO and so far it has treated us well. Hello, it has been 65 degrees plus almost every single day since we arrived. The weather gods knew that they owed us a solid after the subpar Seattle weather the past year.






We left Seattle on a Monday morning and headed east on I-90 to Missoula, MT where we stopped for beer at Big Sky Brewery. The brewery was so awesome that we decided to cash in on their $7 growler refills. Thank you, Big Sky, don't mind if we do. (Um, yeah we had a growler with us in the car. What of it?) 


mmmm, moose drool

We loaded our growler into the subaru and headed to Butte for the night.  As I am sure you know, Butte is quite the cosmopolitan town so we grabbed ourselves some delicious food and cheersed the first day of our road trip in style...


 nothing says classy like pouring a beer into a Super 8 styrofoam cup

that is, until you drink said beer on the bed with curly fries

On Tuesday we headed towards Livingston, MT and then we cut down on highway 89 to Yellowstone National Park. What can we say, it was a beaut (not to be confused with Butte.)






 in case you are wondering, you should not let your children jump on the geysers

mmmm, moose
or buffalo.  Whatever.


There she blows!!!

After Yellowstone we continued on highway 89 to Jackson, WY. We loved our time in this region;
tetons - check


 fish themed hotel room - check




and delicious beer at a local brewery - check!



Wednesday we continued south on highway 191 through Wyoming into the corner of Utah:


pretending to be sister wives in Utah

We stopped for lunch at Wendy's in Vernal, UT and when we sat down we discovered that they had two HUGE flat screen televisions hanging in the dining room - both airing the Glenn Beck Show. It was there that we decided to get the heck out of dodge (a.k.a. Utah) and get to Denver as fast as possible.






So here we are, in Colorful Colorado (can't you just see all the color!) In the short time that we have been here we have placed an offer on a house and are currently waiting to close. (Yeah, we move fast.)  So this blog will chronicle our adventures in home ownership, home repairs and living the good life. Stay tuned for pictures of the future Chez Kitzmmer residence.