Thanksgiving....table is set!

We are ready for the guests to arrive!
We use our living room for feasting since it's giant size....and it's PINK...the best combination for eating, really.  Long term goal is to convert this room into the official Dining Room---yes, that means we will also be painting it a very different color.  There is no way we will ever need a formal living room in this house, but we love eating and hosting parties, so it makes more sense to call it a Dining Room.  It will be a grand space. 

It was a real treat to break out our china and use it for this very special occasion.  So elegant; love it!

We had room for 7 at the table we just built and then room for 5 more at the real dining room table that we moved into this room for the day!

We decided to use a separate table near the window for the food to rest on warming trays.  Buffet-style I guess you call it.  Worked out well for those who wanted hot seconds.

our delicious turkey....yum yum!....

Me and my niece Caitlyn...stunning red coat!

Getting Ready for Thanksgiving

We decided we needed to build a table with scraps from the garage.  The sellers left behind old closet doors that they actually used as shelving in the garage.  Then we had some 2x4's laying around that we put to good use as legs.  A couple of hours of labor for construction, throw on a table cloth and voila!  we have a table big enough for the big family!

Our house

Welcome to Turkey Day....the countdown is on...

Apple PIe....YUMMMMM

Brian made this from scratch....it looked perfect and it tasted amazing!

Using the fireplace

Bailey enjoying the morning fire.
We had the first fire last night after a long day of working around the house.
All the pets love a hot fire! And, so do we.

Bags of leaves!

There are 3 rows of bags here...it's neverending.

RED!

Love the bright red color!

Raking...the neverending saga!

So, we raked and mowed the back yard and it looks fantastic...until the wind blows again!

Now, to the front.  There are way too many leaves from the huge tree here.  We did about half the front lawn, maybe a little less, and filled 10 bags!  It started to rain, so we were done with that for the day. 

3rd beam installed under deck

Deck was slightly sagging, so we installed a 3rd beam in the middle.
All better now!

Firewood: a full cord!

so, we hope we have enough..!! Thanks to Brian and our brother-in-law Brian H, we have a lovely stack of a full cord of wood.  Very happy now.

For Sale on craigslist-Cast Iron Radiators & Random Oven parts

http://albany.craigslist.org/atq/1435188734.html

http://albany.craigslist.org/atq/1435184958.html

http://albany.craigslist.org/atq/1435182230.html

Fall Foliage!

Fall foliage in the backyard.

Free Garbage Pickup

Purging all the leftover stuff from the sellers.  Townwide pick up for free--perfect!

Bye Bye pool cover

Drying out the pool cover before it gets stored away in the garage for the winter.

Pine needle driveway clean up

Sliding Glass Door & Winterizing the Pool

Beautiful new door and winterizing the pool!

Photos: Sliding Glass Door & Pool Winterizing

Stay-cation Sept-Oct 2009

We took a week "vacation" from work and renovated our office.
It was a big job, but totally worth it!
Check out the pictures from the week on Picasa:
Photos: SeptOct2009 StayCation

Photos of The Office Renovation

Our wonderful new Energy Star water heater.

Front Steps

After Allison fell down these steps twice, we decided they needed some attention.
Most likely the steps were slippery from algae (or whatever natural substance feels slimey!) from all the rain we've had this summer and poor upkeep over the years.
So we bought a power washer and cleaned the steps and then primed them.
Painting is yet to be complete....haven't had enough successive days without rain when we are actually free and able to paint outside!
Soon..
Photos: Front Steps Outside Sept 2009...

Niskayuna Deer

So, as we drove to Brian's mom's house one August morning, we saw this stunningly beautiful deer in the neighborhood.

Inside

Welcome!
Photos: The Inside of the House

Outside

Pretty much we love this house cuz it's got a big pool!
Photos: The Outside of our House

Garage and Basement

2 car garage--Room for both of our cars. Pro: no more cleaning off our cars in the winter. Con: now we get to buy a snowblower and clear the driveway ourselves.

 

Workshop ready for all of the household renovations.

Plenty of storage space in the basement for all of the "stuff"...we would like to eventually convert this into a rec room complete with a bar and billiards table....or a treadmill, TV and sofa....there's a lot of potential!

Painting the Master Bedroom

Before and After.
Check out the pictures from before we moved in and then the pictures of the wonderful paint job we did!
Photos: Painting the Master Bedroom
Before:

After we moved in:  painting

After:

New Laundry Room appliances installed

Before: Old machines with poorly built shelves above them.


After:  Our wonderful new machines.
The LG front load washer is amazing.
Allison's mom gave us her old dryer--awesome!
We love the laundry room now.

Empty condo! June 24, 2009

We left the condo on Wednesday the 24th and stayed over at Brian's mom's house in Niskayuna until Friday--the day of the closings. For Wednesday thru Friday, the truck got to sit in the driveway at the Hemphills new house....only a couple miles down the road from our NEW house in Clifton Park!

Moving out of the condo

The weekend before closing on the sale of the condo and the purchase of the new house, we packed up a 26 foot Penske truck! It sat on the street full of our stuff until we officially moved out a few days later. We had lots of help from family and friends. Thank goodness, cuz we actually had a lot of junk stuffed away in the 900 square foot condo!

In the market for a house!

We went to see 5 houses the day before Mother's Day.  Loved this one!

The "pink room" which contained a doll collection was really what sold us on this house.

How can you say no to a pink living room?
Photos: Checking out houses with our realtor--here's our fave

So, the story goes:  we decided to put a bid on this house Monday morning.  Called our realtor and she told us the house went under contract Sunday night!  Ahhh....we were bummed.  Went househunting the next weekend and continued to hunt for the right home for us.  We found another great house and put in a bid only to find out that someone else also bid on the house.  48 hours later, we found out the owners flipped a coin to decide which bid they preferred and we LOST the coin toss.  At first we were bummed, but then another 48 hours later, as Allison scoured the real estate listings online, she discovered that the first house was BACK on the market.  It was literally listed as "Back on the Market".  Awesome.  So, we contacted our realtor to put an offer on the house and by 7pm our offer was accepted! We were so happy.

For Sale!

Here is the condo....we put it on the market on 5/3/09

Photos: Condo on the Market

The good news is that we had about 6 people interested immediately and then it sold after 5 days.
We never even had an open house.  Crazy!  Bailey hung out in his crate for most of the showings and we're still trying to find out what he heard people say.