Around the House

These days, time for projects around the house is pretty limited. But I do have a few updates to share.

We finally purchased a new fridge and dishwasher about a month ago. Both are Kenmore Elite. Our old appliances were white, so for now we have a mismatched stove/micro, but I'm okay with that. I think we'll replace those within the year or early next year. For now, they both work fine (and let's face it, our oven doesn't get a lot of use), so there is no rush other than the aesthetics.

It is true what they say, stainless shows fingerprints much more than white. As you can see here...

I love the french door layout. Everything is at eye-level. No more forgotten and spoiled veggies in the bottom drawer. We moved our old fridge to the garage, so now we have a place to keep soda, water, extra juice boxes, etc. It is nice to keep this fridge clutter-free, with just what we use on a regular basis.

Same goes for the freezer. Most stuff is still out in the garage freezer. But we've got the essentials--popsicles galore, vanilla ice cream, and steam-cook veggies. Ben's faves! And Mike's very favorite Palermo's Italian Sausage thin crust pizzas. I'm not much of a pizza fan, but Mike claims these are almost as good as takeout. So give them a try if you are looking for a good frozen pizza. I get ours at Target.

Here is the matching dishwasher. So quiet. And the dishes are so much cleaner. My heart is just so happy with these two new additions to the family. :-)

I also bought a new Dustbuster. I hate the suction on our Dyson's attachment. The vacuum itself works great, but I feel like the attachment doesn't cut it. So I got this. I had a Dustbuster years ago, and I felt like it wasn't powerful. I looked on Amazon, and this one was the best seller and had good reviews, so I'm hoping that means that they have improved its performance. So far, so good. But we just got it a few days ago... But it is so nice to just grab this to clean those crumbs and things under the table after the kids eat, rather than lugging out the big vacuum.

I also finally made more progress on the kids' bathroom. I took down the towel bar and bought these hooks back when I was on maternity leave with Liv (who's now 15 months). I was originally going to use a painted board under the hooks, but that seemed like too much work once I started, so I just put the hooks directly into the wall using anchors. Now I just need to fill the holes (from when I was going to use the board and started drilling pilot holes) and paint. As you can see, I tried out the paint color in Ben's room, but it looks too purple in this room. So the hunt continues. 

Ben actually hung his towel without being asked after his bath last night, so we might be on to something.

That's about it, besides decluttering the guest room in anticipation of Grammy and Grampy's visit at the end of the month and moving things around in the master bedroom. And removing the doors/clearing out the closet by the garage in the hopes of making more of a "mudroom" out of it. I'll post if it ever gets done...