A view from the backyard – #tbt

By Brian:

I’m throwing out another Throwback Thursday. I know that we (read: me) never got around to posting some good before and after shots of our renovation, but here is my chance for redemption.

The impetus for our major home renovation last year was our miniature sized kitchen, pictured below.

Besides the fact that the kitchen was a 6×6 foot box with no counterspace, a baby sink (which we sold on craigslist for a hundred bones), no storage, no dishwasher or any form of heating/cooling, it was kinda falling apart. AND, there was no way to get into the backyard so BBQing and entertaining was much more difficult.

So, we (read: our contractors) knocked the whole thing down and started from stratch.

And after a few months, we ended up with this….

Not too shabby, eh?

We got everything we wanted out of our new kitchen! For a before and after of the inside, stay tuned. I promise it will be done WELL before the 1 year anniversary of the new addition.

Weekend Celebrations

By Dani:

What a weekend! Our cousin graduated from BU (we were there in spirit)!!! I celebrated a belated Mothers Day with my mama! And I got to meet my dear yaya‘s two week old son. What a cutie!

On top of all that wonderfulness, we also spent time with Brian’s fam!

Brian’s sister is moving to Portland and we are so excited to visit her on the west coast!

Picture of the Week – May 20, 2013

By Brian:

Since I am posting this week’s PotW, I figured I would focus on something that I am passionate about…my closet. Doesn’t it look so neat and clean! While this is the atypical state of affairs in the closet (piles upon piles are usually par for the course),  at least I can close the door and keep that mess out of sight.  Last week I installed some blinds so that the bright lights don’t wake up the neighborhood when I am getting my clothes together in the darkness of morning.

 

Front Door – #TBT

By Dani:

I was looking at my iPhone photos today and saw the first picture of us in front of our house. I’m so glad that my favorite parents-in-law took it (only three days before we closed on the house!). I decided to post it for Throwback Thursday (#tbt).

So here we are in October 2009. I hardly remember owning a white door!

And here is the front door in February 2012 after Brian screened in the porch and we had already started transplanting plants to the backyard in preparation for construction (but the tree is still there!).

And here is the same spot this evening. May 2013. After we turned the front window into a door, turned the front door into a window, built a portico and dormers, made the front stoop/screened in porch a side porch, and built a screened in porch and addition behind that.

And if your eyes are really good then you can see a large orange Gatorade cooler in the kitchen. My main squeeze is making his second beer in as many weeks. Now I’m going to go squeeze him because he finished another grad school class so he’s all mine for the next two weeks!

Springing Along

By Dani:

Here in the DC metro area, spring is a fleeting season. Maybe it’s my mind playing tricks on me, but our four month (December-March) winter transitions into only four weeks of spring before heading into Summer I (hot but not unbearable) and then Summer II (hot and unbearable). But this year, we’ve had two solid months of spring and its not letting up yet! I just love sunny days and denim jackets. I’m a child of the 80s, I know.

Weather is a pretty scary-crazy thing these days. Yesterday in Sioux City, Iowa, the low was 56 and the high was 106! French wines will soon be made in England! And have you ever seen anything like this ice avalanche in Minnesota? And last week it was hotter in Maine than Miami and hotter in Quebec than Atlanta. What?!?

So here are a few pictures of our very mild (knock on wood!!) spring. That’s our C street garden and blooming clematis. There’s a fox I saw on a lunch-time run near the World War I memorial on the mall. And an illicit cell phone picture I took of the cherry blossoms in full bloom along the tidal basin when I was flying home from a work trip in Portland. Fingers crossed that spring hangs around a bit longer!

Picture of the Week – May 13, 2013

By Dani:

Happy Mother’s Day to you all! Especially to those of you who are new mamas or expecting mamas! Can you believe this time last year, we were celebrating Brian’s birthday in our kitchen which didn’t even have walls?!? What a difference a year makes.

Brian and I have been keeping up with our New Years resolutions to work out 3 times per week and I’ve started tackling my 30 List. I would love to be able to report that we stained the deck this week but alas, we haven’t had 24 hours without rain. That’s probably good news for my newly planted garden.

Brought to you by the letter C

By Dani:

We often get asked why our blog is called C Street since we don’t actually live on C Street. Check out the picture below. When we were under contract on our house, we saw the original plat from 1937 which says that our house is on C Street. Our house was actually built in the early forties and the street name didn’t stick. B street is actually a street that starts with a B, but C Street got a whole different name.

While kicking around ideas for blog names, we decided tip our hats to the neighborhood planners and call our street by its original name, C Street. Coincidentally, we sublet an apartment on C Street on Capitol Hill when we were college kids with DC summer internships. Third floor of the yellow one on the left. Great location across from the Hart Senate building but we had roaches in the basement (laundry and bike storage) and the occasional mouse in the kitchen.