Fri + Sat

For the sake of blogging, I'm going to narrow the weekend down to Friday starting at noon and ending Saturday evening. This weekend, we became homeowners twice over as we *finally* closed on our loan for the West End house! Thanks, Ken, for all of your help up to this point. And a note to anyone who wants to get a loan out there - make sure you have at least 20% down or no one will give you the time of day. It's a sad market reality and it took us awhile to finally accept that we'd have to part with almost two times the cash we initially wanted to put down. Now we're broke and it's time to start building up the savings, once again, so we can go out in a few years and get another house to renovate, or in Juston's mind, an industrial building to convert into a loft.

This week, I looked at my house and decided I was ready to be an adult and actually have some furniture in my living room. Thanks to some Christmas disbursements, we're in the market for a couch. I've had no luck with Craigslist thus far, but I did find a great pair of vintage chairs that I bought on Friday.


After the chair buying frenzy, we went to the zoo and met up with our friends for some animal gazin'. Frankie absolutely *loves* going to the zoo and asks me several times a day to go and see the animals. (On a sidenote, if we're related to you, he might call you up sometime to talk about the animals. And if you live here and want to go to the zoo, we have a pass so give me a call!) No trip to the zoo is complete without a ride on the train and carousel (which means we make many incomplete trips to the zoo.) This time, I splurged.


William, Anna, and Frankie.


Frankie picked out the peacock.


Since I haven't found any used couches that are both cheap and attractive, we're probably going to splurge on a new one. It will be a first for both of us and be yet one more piece of furniture tying us down. We went to Ikea to check out their options on Friday night, but Frankie was so done. We ended up testing out the beds, since our plan is to get Frankie a low-to-the-ground double bed this year so that we can kick him out of his room and give his bed to visitors (initially we wanted a sofa bed, but we think this is a more practical option.) He was ready to nap on the spot.


I think he's ready for the big boy bed - we haven't been very quick to get him out of his crib.


On Saturday, Juston went all "Weekend Warrior" and put up our tile backsplash. We got this fantastic glass tile from Susan Jablon Mosaics and once it's done, it's going to make the kitchen really classy. It's definitely a 'mod' look and I love it. Go, Juston, go!


We'll have more photos after grouting and sealing later this week. It was a busy weekend and we even passed up the chance to go to a movie last night because we were exhausted. On to more work during the week!