UsBrowns + Dozer...: 12.09

12.26.2009

Christmas... with a TWIST! :)

We did Christmas a bit non-traditional this year...
instead of a fancy dinner, we had appetizers!

Southwest style wraps... YUM!

Tomatoes w/Mozzarella and Basil... YUM!

Lime, garlic, bacon wrapped shrimp... YUM!

Cucumber Sandwiches!

Fruit Kabobs!!

Deviled Eggs... MMM!

Meatballs w/Apple smoked Sausage... MMM!

Then we made cookies... Lots of them!

:) :)

... and here's who we did it all with! Another friend, Mark came too, but we didn't get a photo before he left. :(
SUCH a fun night!

Hope y'all had the best Holiday you could wish for!

12.20.2009

Let it snow!

This weekend brings more snow!! We woke up this a.m. to about 8 inches of fluff, and it's up to around 12 now!!! Beautiful!!

Dozer is not entirely convinced that this is going to be fun! :)

Radio City Rockettes!

Liesl and I had a girls night last evening to go see the Radio City Rockettes Christmas show! We had a great time!!
It was COLD... in the low 30˚'s!

See the sign for the Verizon Center in the background? That's where the show was! :)

Their first dance, they were dressed as reindeer...

Then their signature dresses...

The cannon blew and they sllllooooowwwlllyy started falling backward...

More...

And more...

Ooof! :)

New York City tour... the set was pretty amazing!

Their final number... doing their signature perfectly synced kicks.

A FUN night!!!

Central Vacuum Project

Peter's been working hard lately on installing the central vac!
This was the first wall cut so he can see what's going on inside the walls & figure out where to run the plumbing.

Drilling into the foundation wall to mount the vacuum...

Mounted!

Main plumbing line - this run connects the attic, upstairs and two outlets on the main floor.

He's back at it this morning!! I can't wait to try it out!!

12.12.2009

Where there once was a wall...

...Now there is NOT! Yahoo!
We both have always despised the way they partitioned off the dining and living rooms. (Also don't care much for the plenum running through it, but there's not much we can do about that, aside from re-routing all the ducting to the attic... maybe later.)
Anyhow... we had some cold weather, which meant our projects had to move inside, so Peter got busy tearing out the wall. He did ALL the work in the photos below in 3 nights. After work. Just call him superman. :)
Before: You can see in the reflection on the wall on the left, where there used to be "windows" in the wall that someone else sheet-rocked over...

Tearing into the plenum... to find out the wall we want to take out is load bearing... Ugh.

View from the living room - Sad... my new wall stickers had to go. :(

More demolition!

Peter putting the post jacks in place to hold the substitute header.

Post jacks in place - check.
Substitute header in place - check.
Ready to find out if it's going to work - um check?

Taking out the first stud. Whatta stud.

The header's gone and the roof hasn't caved in!!!!!!!!! Success!

Looks like the post jacks are working. :)

Look, no walls! The header's in place... good to go!

This room looks SO much bigger now. We're thinking about moving the dining room to another space & using all of this as the living room... Whatcha think?