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Our house in the winter! We've been getting tons of snow already in mid-December.
And we got some lights to put on our very own (hole-of-a) house! We actually found the last three sets of large blue LED's in town, which was very exciting. But then R discovered one was broken (even though they say they're unbreakable). And you can't replace any if they break or burn out. So back to the store they went. We ended up getting some regular old blue lights for the roof. I also found a whole bunch of green and blue strands on Freecycle that will go great with these ones. But those won't be going up until next year (assuming we still live here!).

Not a good day!

A short video clip from home renos in the summer...

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Normally we get lots of birds in the trees around our balcony. But now and then we see some other kinds of critters. A few weeks ago we found a young raccoon in one of the trees. And every now and then this little critter stops by to hang out for a while. Last night he was up high on a branch and barely noticeable. When we opened the patio door to get a closer look, Luigi came running out. Well that got the owl's attention! He flew over to a much closer tree and sat on a low branch hanging very close to the balcony. He must have been thinking Luigi would make a nice tasty evening snack. Even with us there, lights on, and camera flashing at him he wasn't budging. Eventually we got Lui back inside. We're not sure if the owl is quite big enough to drag him off the deck. But he sure could have done some damage.

The downstairs bathroom is finally starting to look a little bit like a bathroom. The many, many hours of plumbing are finally complete and the shower stall is fully installed. We've also got some drywall up and the vanity is sitting in place, though not attached quiet yet. Looking so much better already!!

It's probably hard to imagine that a sweet, adorable little kitten like this could grow up to be such a nightmare. But I can assure you, he has. He's already destroyed a number of things that were very important to us, including a glass piece from our wedding. And remember those wonderful new carpets we just had installed? Well it seems he found a long string of mesh from the bottom of one and ATE it. So now it's slowly working its way through his system. And as that process started he spent Friday night leaving skid marks all over our new carpet in effort to remove the string from his behind. (No pictures available for obvious reasons). I was out of town (oh, darn!), so R was in charge of clean up. We now own a nice new carpet cleaner. It does do a nice job, I'm happy to report. As for what we are going to do with this menace of a cat (if he survives the string fiasco) is very much up for debate.

We decided to put carpet in the bedrooms and hallway downstairs. So at the same time we decided that it would be a good plan to replace the fake wood vinyl in the upstairs living room with carpet and put the vinyl in the downstairs kitchen instead. It's good vinyl, but looks funny next to the old hardwood flooring upstairs. In addition we decided to cover the hardwood in the bedroom with carpet. The hardwood would clean up very nicely, but we wanted to have the extra sound barrier between our room and the downstairs. Having rented basement suites in the past, we both know how frustrating it can be hearing every little noise upstairs. So it was a tough decision because the original hardwood is so nice. But we think it will be worth it in the end. And one day when we sell, the new owners can still take out the carpet and clean up the hardwood easily.

The carpet guy came Monday to do the upstairs. We're very happy with his work.

Living room after! Our wonderful thick new carpet. We love it! And so do the cats!

The bedroom hardwood flooring



And the new carpet in the bedroom