We've Moved!

This is the moving announcement card I sent out several weeks ago (photo kindly supplied by Ellen, who snapped it post-postal service journey).

I don't have a picture of the back, but it involved a line drawing of a dirigible... oh! And there was sort of a little seal or stamp:


Anyway, as I mentioned earlier, the old place flooded one too many times for me. (There are those who would argue that even once was one too many, but the rent and location were both excellent, and I do hate moving.)

What we found is the top floor of a duplex owned by a terribly charming young couple who just bought the place in October. It was remodeled before they bought it, so our kitchen and bathroom are brand new, as is the carpet in the bedroom and tiny office. (Ordinarily I try to avoid carpet, but I'm actually quite liking it here.) The kitchen is big enough to fit multiple cooks(!), there's a private garage, and there's free laundry in the basement. It's all very exciting.

Here are a few pictures:



I'm still in the process of decorating (and, admittedly, unpacking!), but things are coming together. I re-covered a bunch of pillows last week, so I'll try to post some pictures of those.

Oh! A bonus picture:
This is the St. Vincent de Paul dining set that I'd been "monitoring" in my last post and finally bought last weekend (set for brunch with the downstairs neighbors + friend). I haven't done anything to it yet, including reupholstering the chairs (aside from cleaning/disinfecting it and some Old English Scratch Cover). It's a fairly nice wood, but the tabletop is quite scarred, so I'm debating various options for improving it (including the trusty black spray paint method, which, as I believe Adrianna has addressed, can be quite addictive.) The great thing about the table is that it has two drop-down leaves, so it can be tucked away under the window when we're not entertaining, and can expand to fit six or more. Good times.

Chair

Things about which I should have blogged by now:

• Wedding On A Boat
• The Move
• Moving in
  
• Housewarming party

That should about cover the flybys, right?

For now, here's a chair, to match my new writing desk. I found it at Saver's with a $7.99 price tag, but it rang up at $4.31. Score! The cashier told me it would be .99 if I waited until the next day, but I figured the extra $3 was worth it to have it in my possession immediately.

I took off the seat, lightly sanded it, spray-painted with two light coats of semi-gloss black spray paint (enough so that the brown of the wood barely shows through), recovered the seat with upholstery fabric I found yesterday at my favorite fabric warehouse, and put it back together. David helped.

I got enough fabric to reupholster the seats of the dining set that we don't yet have, but which I am hoping to find--one cheap, but with potential! I saw a contender at the St. Vincent De Paul this weekend, and am sort of monitoring the situation.

Anyway, the chair is not a super-dramatic update, but I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out. I'd been looking for a bolder, more geometric upholstery pattern, but fell in love with the tiny bubbles on this one. When I got it home, I realized it might be simultaneously too posh and too boring... but for the present I think it works fine.