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The BeltLine Is Coming

I once again admit that we have been slacking in the house renovation department. That’s not to say that we haven’t been working hard in other ways though! The last few weeks have involved lots of neighbor get togethers to work on certain projects to improve the neighborhood. Aside from the work aspect it’s been really fun sitting together with a few neighbors in the evening. It’s evenings like these that make us realize that this already wonderful neighborhood is that much stronger due to these wonderful people. We couldn’t have asked for better neighbors!

Ok, so schmooze talk aside…Atlanta has been working on this project called the BeltLine for a few years now. It was the thesis project of a GA Tech student (in 1998 I believe?) and is now slowly becoming a reality! Atlanta already has the somewhat laughable MARTA subway system that has two lines: north to south and east to west. (I say laughable because anyone that has experienced true subways systems like in London or New York wouldn’t consider this a real subway system.) The BeltLine will create a loop around the intown Atlanta neighborhoods and will, among other things, connect to MARTA. The project is made up of three aspects…paths, greenspace, and a light rail. The rail part is still a few years off, but Westview and West End make up the first segment of the path and greenspace construction. The first part was started on January 22nd and is slowly heading up the blocks towards us. So we truely are the first BeltLine community!

Since construction has now started, but planning for our segment is far from done, the BeltLine was drumming up volunteers to go around the affected neighborhoods to inform them about what is happening. Even though the BeltLine has been talked about for many years, many people still haven’t heard about it. Patrick and I volunteered to go around nearby streets to hand out the flyers. I’m not usually one to be up and ready to go at 9:00am on a Saturday, but we decided to take one for the team and set the alarm on this Saturday *gasp* to spread the cause. For the sake of walking paths and an arboretum just a few blocks from our house! :)

BeltLine canvassing

We are now back and even got T-shirts and a reusable water bottle to proudly display our volunteer spirit! (Early Saturday morning spirit, that is.) We can’t wait to see what the paths turn out to be like.

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Steffi Strips!

Last Saturday it was snowing, so we decided to make an amateur video of Steffi stripping! ENJOY!

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Our trusted paint stripping technique starts with the heat gun to remove the easy stuff. We then use a chemical stripper to get rid of the hard parts and the detail. Lastly, we sand the remaining stain off with 180 grit sandpaper. It’s a pretty involved process (that looks easy in the video), but the results are worth all the effort.

The music is by Jack Tuttle. He has some wonderful MP3s on his website, and he even gives lessons if you are in the San Francisco area. His website is www.jacktuttle.com. Thanks Jack!

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Snow Bungalow

I know people in the north are going to laugh at us, but….it snowed!! Atlanta like never has snow. Last night the news announced that there may be some sleet, but I think the snow wasn’t really supposed to come down as far as Atlanta. Well, sometime around 4:00pm I saw itty bitty flakes. Then it got harder, then it let down, then it got harder, then it let back down, etc. Eventually it came back with really large snow flakes! And at that point they were actually starting to stick! I think the last time I remember there being enough snow in Atlanta to do anything with was…uhmmm…7 years ago or something? And when I mean “do anything with” I mean like half an inch to an inch. Needless to say we were getting really excited about it! :)

Snow in Westview

Little flakes coming down earlier on.

Patrick catching snow

Patrick catching the snow. (You can see a little getting stuck in his hair.)

Me getting excited about the snow in the back yard:

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The front of the house as the snow is starting to pick up a little more:

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The snow got heavier as it got darker, but unfortunately it was too dark to take pictures anymore. But all the ground was pretty well covered (for Atlanta standards) by 7:00pm! Then it turned into rain and I think by morning nothing will be left. Well, that was our annual snow day, I guess! Haha. :)

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Some Visible Progress

Lately Patrick and I have had the problem of project skipping. I’m sure everyone’s pretty familiar with this…you start one thing, get fed up or bored with it and move onto the next, etc. Since we were working for months on the kitchen built-in butler’s pantry and got stuck and fed up with it we started various other things. One of those projects has been removing paint from the built-in in the bathroom. Another one was the plan to paint our bedroom. Except for the kitchen and bathroom (which were the main rooms that were re-done) the rest of the house is still a sterile and dull white. We had received a $10 off coupon from Lowe’s, so we thought we’d take the opportunity to buy the paint. We went there on December 31st only to realize the coupon had expired on the 30th, haha. We wanted to proceed with the project anyway and went ahead and bought some paint.

Painting always seems like such a quick and easy thing to do, but it wasn’t until we got to doing it that we realized that it wasn’t so quick and easy after all. Moving all the heavy and bulky furniture, taping off corners, wiping the dust off the walls, making sure you don’t paint the ceiling…it all takes time. In the end it took us a week to finish it. We immediately got used to the painted room and realized how much it helps to make our house feel like a home. The white paint just has that generic renter’s feel, so adding the splash of color was definitely what the room needed. Plus painting it actually made us feel like we’re making progress! The project skipping of course isn’t helping with getting anything done. But the other thing is that the other projects are mostly paint removal, which is a very time consuming task. With the cases of the butler’s pantry and the bathroom built-in we’re just removing paint to put a fresh coast of paint back on, so to outsiders they probably don’t even know the difference or that we’ve been spending 3 months working on one piece of furniture! It’s a little frustrating, but hopefully in the end it’ll make all the difference. In the living and dining room, where we intend to remove the paint and stain the wood, people (and us too) will truly be able to tell that work has been done.

A last glance of the white walls, taped off with blue tape…

Painting bedroom

And then the painted room…

Painted bedroom

Painted bedroom

Painted bedroom

The wall above the bed is still a bit bare, but we’ll hang up photos soon. We just have so many we haven’t been able to decide what to put up yet!

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European Christmas

Since I’m German, and German’s celebrate Christmas on Christmas Eve, I decided I wanted to do something nice on the 24th to preserve at least a little bit of my German tradition. (And since Patrick’s family takes care of the American tradition side.) Some traditional meals for this day are goose or carp, so we decided to try the goose this year. And to keep things in more of a European Christmas spirit we thought it would be nice to invite some of our Polish neighbors from neighboring West End! As we figured out they have several similar traditions to Germans, such as celebrating Christmas on Christmas Eve and eating carp as the main dish.

It was our first time cooking a goose, but it really wasn’t too different from cooking a turkey. Here’s Patrick stuffing the goose with onion and apple slices…

Stuffing the Christmas goose

Stuffing the Christmas goose

Look at that beautiful crispy brown goose!

Christmas Goose

Christmas goose

And here’s us devouring the goose. On the left is our brother-in-law Justin, then neighbor Darek, then his wife Ewelina. Note Ewelina is holding a glass of water! (Just for you Ewelina! :))

Christmas dinner with friends

Christmas dinner with friends

With all the holidays, and this, that and the other going on it feels like on one hand we haven’t been very productive with the house, but on the other hand we did have extra days off were we were able to focus on some projects. I’ll try and post some of those soon, like progress in the bathroom, progress in the bedroom, and a little 4-night getaway between Christmas and New Years where we saw some inspiringly cute cottages. So stay tuned for those updates!

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