Central Perk, Pittsburgh Edition

We have a tiny kitchen.  We don’t live in a McMansion by any means.  Our kitchen is about ~11’x~11′ including the cabinets.  One section of our countertop is taken up by a microwave that I have yet to find another home for.  Then our Keurig and coffee parts took about another large part.  When you looked in the kitchen it was a giant eyesore to look at.  But it’s about as necessary as oxygen in this house.  No coffee and we’d all die.  No doubt.  So what to do.

Thank you Pinterest, I *Will* make an area in the house just for coffee.  Hells to the yes.

I don’t really have a before picture of where the Keurig was at the kitchen.  But in the “After picture” you can see it back in its original spot.  I also don’t have a picture of the coffee bar stocked and loaded because… because I never got past just putting the Keurig and the coffee in and on it.  I eventually want to add some shelving above it and some art and make it look nice, but for now it’s just coffee essentials.

So to do this, we took this IKEA kitchen island we had from our apartment (That has been living in a closet with no where to go since we’ve moved in) and sawed off the ends to make it fit in this awkward previously empty corner.  You know what awesome people do?  They saw things in their kitchen without covering things up because they are lazy and want immediate satisfaction.

Sawing in the Kitchen

 

Empty Coffee Bar (we actually have the other drawer too…but I was just excited and snapped the photo prematurely).

There ya have it.. our new coffee locale.  Without pictures of what it ended up looking like.  But I think its a great lil use of that nook.

When you’ve had too much family time…

We recently (Read: two days ago) came back from a long two week vacation with my husband’s family.  On top of that, I am in the process of setting up a home business.  Needless to say, it’s been chaotic and busy here so I apologize for the lack of updates.  I am hoping I can take some time today and schedule some fresh posts.  For now, here’s a picture from about a week after we moved in.  It’s suiting to share now since we just got done with another marathon family time. haha  It’s all in good fun, I promise.

When you’ve had too much family time…

What we found under the carpet in every room

Dirt Under Carpet

Under the carpet in every room in the house was just piles and piles of dirt.  This made me really appreciate hardwood floors and (must easier to wash/maintain/replace) area rugs.  Hello hardwood!  Stay tuned for a post on how we removed the carpet, then exposed & cleaned the hardwood!

 

A pic of the 1st night we spent in our new house

Our “Bedroom” the 1st night we stayed in our house

Since we were doing so much work to get everything cleaned & ready before we had to move out furniture in (we had approximately 9 days before our lease was up) & failed to meet that deadline, we just set up our bed in the living room until we got our bedroom cleaned out (it was the first project we tackled).  Just thought you might enjoy a picture of our luxurious digs while we settled in..complete with random trash bin.

So you think your ceilings are clean…

Kev painting the living room cieling

Kev & I differed on whether or not we thought the ceilings needed painted.

I argued, well, they might not look dirty now, but they are & if we paint the walls you are going to be able to tell how disgusting they are.
Kevin argued, painting ceilings are hard.

We were both right.

We Closed

I am backdating this post to the actual closing date.. but of course its 2 months later when I am actually writing this (May 30, 2012) because we have been SUPER SUPER busy getting everything livable & projects started (some even finished!)

 

But I promise from here on out, I will be posting things to keep everything updated!  Happy browsing & even happier home ownership!   In the meanwhile, any tips for new homeowners?  Things you wish you knew then and know now?  Thoughts of encouragement?  

UHaul as a Resource for more than just Moving Trucks

Let me start off by saying this isn’t a paid advertisement or any of that junk.  I don’t know anybody who works for UHaul, yada yada.  We just recently received our order from UHaul and are really happy with it.  I never knew UHaul offered anything besides trucks, so I wanted to share.  Besides, this is my 4th blog post, do you really think anybody is paying me to write at this point? … Now Carry on.

My husband has been obsessing (possibly too strong of a word) over “Forearm Forklifts” ever since we put an offer in on the our house.  (It’s still weird to say ours at this point.. especially since we haven’t closed, so maybe we shouldn’t at this point.)  I thought he was nuts because I always thought of them as an as seen on tv ripoff.  (Admittedly, I am a sucker for as seen on tv so this is pretty unfair of me.)

He started doing some Googling and it turns out, not only does UHaul rent out moving trucks, but they also have an entire store of moving supplies.  Who knew!?  We sure didn’t.

Kevin ended up ordering two back braces (don’t judge us – better to be safe than sorry!) and a set of Forearm Forklifts (should that be capitalized?  Sounds so formal like it demands to be capitalized).  Things we are sure to put to good use during our big move!

If you are unfamiliar with the Forearm Forklift concept (seriously, it sounds like a wrestling move), basically they are 2 long straps (3′ wide X 9’5″ long) that (according to UHaul) “encourages proper lifting technique” and “requires 66% less work to move objects.”  SCORE!  You are supposed to grab a partner (one of you on each side of the object), feed them under whatever big object you are trying to move, put your arms (up to the forearm, duh) through the holes in the end of the straps, and then coordinate with your partner when you are ready to lift.  Voila!

Kevin found this nifty video from Consumer Reports on YouTube…

Other than the Forearm Forklifts and the back braces, I also noticed that they sell bags for our Queen size mattresses. These are great because they keep the mattress from getting torn!  We’ve used something like this for all but one move, and the one time we didn’t, our (brand new at the time!) mattresses were ripped!

I think it should be noted that the website advertises free shipping on orders over $25 in the continental USA.  Kevin placed our order sometime over the weekend (I *think* Saturday) and it arrived yesterday!  Super fast!  I thought there was a shipping map someplace on the website, but for the life of me I cannot find it right now.  Additionally, if you forget a small thing in your online order (like our mattress bag!) or you prefer not to shop online, you can also pick up these items in a UHaul store!  Just check out the website to find the closest one to you!

Hope this information is useful to you!  Have a great day!

When Packing Everything You Own to Move…

…You should really take inventory of how much packing tape you have BEFORE you get started.  This is the very first box I went to assemble.  Really great, right?