My House Project #1

When we were looking at our new home, Christine and I noticed that the fence to our back yard didn't have a gate on the north side of the house.  Christine asked me to build a gate, so that is the first project I set out to do.  I purchased supplies a few weeks after we moved in, but after having surgery I wasn't able to work on the gate for a little while.  About two weeks ago, I finished the gate and Christine helped me hang it in place last week.
I feel really proud about being able to build something.  It was a fun project.  I even used my CAD software at work to design it and show Christine what I had envisioned.  I think it turned out pretty nice.  So without further a do, here is the before picture and the after picture. I think time and weather has faded the color of the fence, so we'll need to re-stain it to match.

Before

After

Fun Pictures

I thought I would share some fun pictures and moments from our lives recently.

Play-doh has been a fad recently.  I let Cosette play with it in the play room at first, but after smashing it (accidentally) into the carpet, it has now been regulated to the table.  She especially loves making pancakes that she breaks up into tiny pieces and feeds to her stuffed animals.

We drink a lot of smoothies at our house, and Cosette often enjoys them to the very last drop.  She's gotten pretty good at drinking from a cup, but she drinks the majority of the smoothie through a straw so it doesn't get too messy.  But I let her drink the last little bit "like a big girl" (without the lid), as you can see in the pictures below:

Tapping the bottom to get every last drop

Happy mustache 

Mmm, yummy

The other day Cosette found one of my t-shirts lying around and decided that she wanted to wear it.  She called it a dress, which I guess it is on her.

Overall we're enjoying life and all it has to offer.  I can't believe how big she's getting!

New Couch

We've been keeping an eye out for deals on furniture since we moved into our new home.  For the past few weeks we haven't had any seating in our front room besides the piano bench, and the leather couch in our family room downstairs is getting pretty run down (the cushions all have rips).  We've been looking for a love seat and two accent chairs for the living room and a sectional for the family room.
Our family room isn't very large, so I really wanted to have a sectional to be able to maximize the seating.  A lot of the sectionals we looked at were way too big, too deep, or not the right style.  For example, I didn't want the type that looks like a whole bunch of chairs put together, because it limits how many people can comfortably sit on the couch (and my goal was to maximize seating).
We were thinking that investing in a quality sectional was going to be a year or two down the road, and then we found one at Costco this past week that was both functional and economical.  So we decided to go ahead and get it.  We rented a truck to get it home, and then my brother and a neighbor kindly helped us get it in the house.
Here are some before and after pictures:

I love our new couch!  I'm hoping that it will last our family for a good long while.  We're not letting Cosette jump on this couch, for starters.  She wasn't too happy with this new rule, but we really should have enforced it long ago.  I just didn't care enough about the old couch to make her stop jumping on it, which probably led to its sad demise.
For now, we've moved our old couch into the front room.  It's really nice to have somewhere to sit when you first walk in our home.
Another reason I wanted a sectional in the family room was to divide the room into two spaces.  I've always wanted a computer desk in a high traffic area in my home rather than an enclosed office, and I thought that along this wall beneath the dining room would be a good spot for one.

This may be a space that evolves over time to meet our needs.  It could be an office/homework space, a reading nook with a bean bag or video rocker and bookcase(s), an area for toys if we convert our toy room into something else, etc.  We may build in shelving along the wall, to match built-in shelving we're planning to add around the fireplace.  But that's way in the future - probably 10+ years.  For now, I'm not exactly certain what we're going to put there, except maybe a video rocker for Cosette to play with.  But if you have any ideas or suggestions for this space, feel free to share.