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Good golly miss Molly, but I’ve been a busy boy of late! I bet you’d just love to have some more detail to go with that sentence too, wouldn’t you? Well, here’s what’s been going on so far in July.

I ate barbequed or grilled things for seven meals between the 1st and 5th of July. Yay Summer, I guess. If you do the math, that means I was eating grill-food for far more than 50% of my non-breakfast meals during that span (and I did manage to avoid BBQ breakfasts).

On July 1, August Home celebrated its 30th anniversary. As a result, I got to hear a bit of the history of the company, and it sort of cracks me up. Our CEO left Meredith on June 30, 1978, and on July 1st he decided he still liked eating and whatnot, so he’d better figure out something new to do. Yadda yadda yadda, now I have a job too.

On July 3, the UPS guy delivered a very awesome, very large present from myself (and Amanda), to myself (and Amanda). We’re now the proud owners of Rock Band, which is a ton of fun.

Hannah and Tono also came over for dinner, drinks, and some Rock Band action on the evening of the 3rd. We had brats (one of my many grilled meals) and ate out on the back porch, which was great until the mosquitoes figured out where we were.

The 4th of July rocked in all manner of rocking. Amanda and I woke up and headed straight down for a bit of Rock Band fun, then got ready for the day. Then we met up with a bunch of friends (Hannah, Tono, Megan, Klay, Sara, Julie) and had a free grilled lunch courtesy of Meredith. And then we headed to the fantastic and huge 80/35 concert and had a fantastic time. We managed to see four bands in action: Public Property (a local band), Ingrid Michaelson (really funny), Andrew Bird (so good, I nearly cried), and The Flaming Lips (pictured above, rocking). It was, all told, and incredible experience. After the concert, we headed downtown for drinks and got to bed way too late.

We got up way too early on July 5th and drove north to Minneapolis to attend the wedding of Amanda’s friend Nicole. Originally, I was a little miffed to be spending my Independence Day weekend at a wedding for a girl I’d only met once before, but I ended up having a good time, and Amanda and I took lots of mental notes for our own wedding and reception plans. I discovered that I really like Black Russians, and it’s become my new cocktail hour drink of choice.

We got back into town late on the 6th. Grandma and Grandpa drove Miles back up for us (they’ve had him nearly every other weekend ever since we got back from Europe!). They also brought us Arby’s, which was pretty nice, since all I’d had to eat so far that day was cookies and gummi bears. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

The 7th and 8th were pretty low-key (which we needed at that point). On the 9th, we toured a reception hall that we liked a lot. The only negative, really, was that it’s a ways out of town, and we were originally hoping to have our reception in the downtown area somewhere. But the place is very pretty, so we may have to compromise on that one.

On the 10th we went to a Tweetup, which is a gathering of your friendly neighborhood Twitter friends. We only stayed out for a few hours, but we had a really good time, and met several new people. We also got to hear a live poetry reading, which I hadn’t done since college.

Ahh, the 11th… how’d it get to be Friday again already? We went out to Friday Fest with new couple-friends Tigon and Ben. We ended up having enough to drink that it seemed perfectly logical to ~keep~ drinking after the Fest bit ended, so we headed downtown to El Bait Shop. Ben is a huge fan of beer, but he’d never been to the Shop to witness their 160 Taps of Glory, so we figured we should remedy that. And after that, we headed back to our place for a little Rock Band action. On the way home, we stopped by a liquor store for even more drinks, and Ben bought a bottle of Iowa-made Templeton Rye. I gave it a try, and discovered that it’s easily my favorite whiskey, so I think we’ll be getting a bottle soon as well.

We were pretty lazy for most of the day during the 12th except a run to the Woodsmith Store for supplies, but that evening we headed to Lindsay Rees’s place for her third annual July barbeque. It was my third year in attendance, which made me the only true veteran there aside from Lindsay herself. We had drinks (well, I did – Amanda was driving, so she mostly behaved herself) and chatted, listened to music, played cards… all the fun mid-July barbeque stuff.

And then on the 13th we got up decently early, moved all our furniture out of the bedroom, and painted that bad boy. It ended up taking all day, because we were painting using three different colors (the ceiling is one color, the three walls another, and an accent wall a third), but I think it came out looking really great. Of course, the paint was still drying when it was time for bed, so we ended up sleeping on the futon in the basement last night. Tonight, we’ll pull off all the tape, put everything back in the room, and snap some pictures. So expect a post covering our handiwork in the near future.

And as for this week… it’s looking more sane and sedate. Which is good. Our only big plan so far is we’re going to a midnight showing of The Dark Knight with a bunch of Twitter friends on Thursday night (technically 12:01am Friday morning). And as a result, Amanda and I are going to take Friday off from work to have a nice, relaxing day to ourselves. Unless something really cool comes our way, of course. :)

Because I know everyone must be insanely curious, I decided to post a quick before-and-after comparison of our kitchen work. Even if this does make this article the second photo comparison in a row. Sorry about that.

On the left, we have our before-kitchen. There was nothing wrong with it, per se. Actually, that’s a lie. The linoleum was peeling up off the floor and the ceiling fan’s pull chain had broken, which was a problem because it wasn’t hooked up to any switch anywhere. Which meant you had to twist the bulbs on and off to ensure you had enough light to avoid tripping over the linoleum.

But other than that, we were mostly all about making the kitchen feel more modern, with clean lines and bright, strong colors. We couldn’t afford to replace the cabinetry, or even buy new appliances, so our options were limited. And by options, I really mean money, which meant options.

So here’s a list of the final improvements:

• New vinyl tile on the floor is slightly less hypnotic
• Cabinets now marble white instead of anonywood brown
• Walls add vibrancy instead of sucking life from souls
• New knobs and hinges match the walls nicely and still complement the remaining wood tones
• Benches got a new coat of paint. Err, tablecloth of fabric
• Old and busted: ceiling fan. New hotness: track lighting
• Wood baseboard replaced previous old vinyl wraparound
• Valences hide our vinyl blind shame
• Tablecloth on the table covers remnant of kitchen fruit motif

And all of this work was done on the fairly-cheap. While I don’t have an exact number (and I’m not counting sweat equity), I’d say we were able to complete this renovation for right around $500. Not bad for such a big change, eh? In my opinion, the difference is night and day. And not just because that’s when the photos were taken.

Patient readers! A lot has been going on in the Land of Rob in the last few weeks. I’ll try and catch you up as painlessly as possible.

The Kitchen – Work on the kitchen is nearly complete! I pulled up all the linoleum, only to discover an entire new floor that also wasn’t wood. So I had to pull that up, too. Then there was the tiling of the new floor. Went smoothly-ish, if slowly. My sanding set off the alarm, and the fire department showed up. That was cool. If you’re into fire engines and large bills, anyway.

Then we took apart the cabinets and painted them Benjamin Moore’s Marble White (you can look it up yourself, if interested). We reattached them with bronze hinges that my parents had half-installed and fully-purchased, so that helped keep the cost down. And we found matching pulls on sale at Lowe’s, so we lucked out there.

After that came the painting of the kitchen. Benjamin Moore again, of course… this time in Sesame, which is a sort of pale green. Not at all the color of sesame seeds. But it looks really nice against the cabinets.

Then, Amanda and I installed the new track lighting and I got briefly wicked smart and figured out how to add the track lighting to the existing three-way switch circuit by just running one new 2+1 wire. There may have been some self-congratulatory fist-shaking immediately afterwards. :) I was pretty stoked that my first attempt at rewiring did not result in fire.

Last night, we got ambitious and reupholstered the kitchen benches. We bought a couple of these tablecloths from Bed, Bath & Beyond and cut them to size. They look pretty nice against the green walls. We also bought a beige tablecloth to go over the kitchen table, a beige curtain to go over the window above the sink, and beige valences to go over the two other kitchen windows.

Today, we ordered the Anise wall decal designed by Ilan Dei from Blik (the graphite color). So in a couple of weeks, we’ll have that decal growing up our green wall from behind our black benches. It should look really nice.

So really, all that’s left is to is lay down the new baseboard. We’ve bought it, and I took a swing at it last night, only to realize that 1) I don’t have a proper adhesive, and 2) It’s a lot tougher than one would think to get one’s miters cut to the perfect length. So that project is going to take a while. But I’m still hoping to have it done by Saturday! Because we’re moving forward with the pre-Thanksgiving dinner. We’re expecting around a dozen friends Saturday evening… we’ve rented a couple of banquet tables and a bunch of chairs, and plan to briefly turn the living room into a dining room, and the kitchen into the serving area. Fingers crossed.

The Job – I scored an interview with Workbench, which I think went decently well. The next day, they gave me a test assignment: write a four-page article on building a room divider screen. It was a pretty interesting assignment… I’d never written exactly in that style before, but it was a fun challenge. And now I have a half-finished room divider screen sitting in my garage. :) I plan to finish it once the kitchen is put back together. But the good news is, I turned in my article last night, so that’s taken care of. Now all I can do is wait and see.

The Future – I’m slowly moving into the 21st century. Last weekend, as part of my randomly ambitious wiring stint, I installed a programmable thermostat. It’s just a cheap little $30 model from Lowe’s, but good lord is it awesome. The house automatically cool down at night the way we like it, which helps us sleep better (and saves energy), then starts warming up half an hour before our alarm goes off. It’s a lot easier getting out of bed in the mornings when the air isn’t frigid. Then it cools down during the day, and warms up again half an hour before we get home. Kick. Ass.

Also, I think I have Amanda mostly convinced that Roombas are not (completely) scary or (entirely) evil, so maybe I’ll be able to get one of those someday. At the moment, I most definitely can’t afford it. Refinishing the kitchen has pretty well taken care of any excess monies I might have had. ;) When I can afford it, though, I’m grabbing myself this model here. You can’t schedule it, but it knows to go home when the battery is low, and that’s key to me.

Well, that’s that. Tune in next month (or hopefully much sooner) for another exciting adventure in the Land of Rob.

So the move went well, dear readers, but I still don’t have an Internet tube hooked up to my house, so I may be slow in blogging/responding to emails in the immediate future. In case you haven’t already noticed. ;)

Last weekend marked my first home improvement weekend in, literally, forever. On my own home, at least. I focused all of my mental and most of my physical energies (and quite a few of Danar’s energies, too) on the basement living room (henceforth referred to as the living room… I’m thinking about calling the upstairs one the library or parlor or something). The result being, it’s now a different color. Yay. :)

Two-thirds of my basement is now a really rich reddish-orange color called Tucson Red. The other third is an off-white called Timid White. Not the best names ever, really, but the colors are pretty. For your viewing pleasure, they’re available yonder. RGB approximations thereof, anyway. I happen to think it looks really good, but it did take a ton of work.

I woke up around 9:30am Saturday, got dressed, and headed out to the Woodsmith Store. One of the benefits of working at August Home is an employee discount at said store, so I figured they were a pretty good place to start. Especially considering they’re a Benjamin Moore carrier (which sounds very disease-like but is much happier in reality). $160 and 90 minutes later, I was on my way back home with two gallons of paint, a gallon of primer, accessories (such as plastic dropcloths) out the wazoo, and a new random orbital sander. That’s right… baby’s first power tool purchase! :)

Once I got home, I moved all of the furniture out of the living room and got to sanding. Dana got there around 1:30pm, and she starting wiping down the walls behind me as I sanded. Once all the sanding was done (which took a few hours and two pads of sandpaper), we started taping off the walls and laying drop cloths. Once ~that~ was done, it was time to prime. We each took turns, one with the roller while the other “cut in” (I’m told it’s called) the edges of things. Once the walls were prime, we headed to Menards (I bought a dozen compact fluorescent light bulbs for $12!) and Home Depot (two floor lamps and half a dozen wall outlets to replace the hodgepodge assortment in the basement). When we got back, it was time to start painting.

Two and a half hours later, the first coat of paint was on the walls, and we realized we were going to have to wait a few hours for the paint to dry before we could put on the second coat (four hours, according to the paint can, the resident expert on said matters). So, we went out to dinner at El Aguila Real (or as Amanda calls it, the Regal Eagle), stopped off for some beer and ice cream on the way home, and then watched a movie on Dana’s laptop. Four hours, three beers, and half a pint of ice cream later, it was time to start the second coat. Once that coat was completed, we staggered back upstairs and headed to bed. Lights were out around 4:30am Sunday.

So I learned this weekend that, with just one person helping, we can prep, sand, prime, and paint an entire room in just one day, as long as you’re comfortable with very large values of “day.” It was a great experience, all told, and I had a good time. I’ll post some pictures when I get them. Dana snagged a bunch of before and after shots. Next up: the library!

I was supposed to play paintball on Sunday. I was inexplicably not in the mood. ;)