Late last month, my parents made the 9-1/2 hour journey from their house to ours to spend a week with us. So naturally, after such a grueling trip, we put them right to work.
The big project of this trip was replacing the garage door.
So my dad and I made a trip to Lowes and $240 later, we had a pretty, new, white metal door that was a whole lot more secure and weighed only a fraction of the old door.
Like all major home improvement projects, it took longer than inspected to install, but my dad and Chris remained in good spirits throughout the morning ... and the afternoon ... and the evening ... and the night. But eventually, tah dah!
Pretty big improvement!
On a different day, my dad also did a little electrical work for us. Remember the old light in the half bathroom? Talk about another safety issue. This light had an open socket just waiting to electrocute someone. Plus, it was the only outlet in the room and it could only handle a very dim bulb because of the silly old-lady shade that sat directly on the bulb. So yeah. Way past time for an upgrade.
Not only did my dad replace the light with a brighter, newer, much prettier light fixture, he also installed a working light switch (OMG! A rarity for our 1930s house) with an outlet! Fantastic!
While my dad was busy working upstairs, my mom completed quite the laundry list as well. She fixed the hole in the back of the couch where the cats had ripped the seam open. She sewed us some gorgeous linen curtains that have very faint gold stripes on them.
She helped me reupholster new cushions for the dining room chairs.
And she made me a new tablecloth out of this gorgeous material by David Tutera (the guy who designs the high-end Disney weddings). She also brought out some gorgeous nightstands for us, which she refinished out in Michigan. Pictures of those bad boys are still to come. :-)
Oh, and my dad also replaced a few boards on our fence that had split.
At this point you may be wondering if we let my poor parents rest at all. Well, no not really. We stayed pretty busy, but not always with work related things. We saw a movie, ate at a hibachi table, ate at about a dozen other restaurants, visited the Regional Market, shopped at Destiny USA, and more. We also took them out to some awesome Syracuse restaurants, like Empire Brewing.
The day before my parent's departure, we also took them on a wine tour on one of the Finger Lakes with Chris's dad and Lisa. We had such a nice day for it and we all really enjoyed ourselves, even if I did start to feel so full it was painful after our dinner at Melting Pot.
Oh, and did I forget another project? My dad also removed our front screen door!
As you can see, our front steps are in desperate need of repair. Since we didn't really have the time to demo and rebuild them, we decided to address one small problem the stairs caused: since the landing is so small, it's impossible to stand on the top step and open the screen door at the same time. So you have to back up and stand one or two steps back, putting the door knob at eye level. Awkward. So with no screen door, there's no awkward entry. You can just walk right up to the storm door and head inside. Much better. Plus, my new red door paint looks pretty awesome out in the open in all its glory.
Also, Oreo was a big help throughout all this house work.
The crazy thing is as busy as we were, Chris and I still had a big list of things we wanted to do with my parents. I guess a week just isn't long enough! But I'm so happy they came out and we got to spend the time with them. We had a blast and we really appreciate everything they did for us and the Capers!
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