Yesterday and today, we’ve had painters here working on the house. This company was recommended to me by our realtor, and they did a great job. Our foyer, stairwell, and upstairs hallway are all freshly painted. Also, the ceilings in both the dining room and kitchen have been re-painted. (Both of them had some messy places from various other painting projects that Dave and I had done ourselves.)

On the one hand, I’m a little irritated that I spent so much money (don’t ask) for these guys to do what amounted to about four or five hours’ worth of work for them. But at the same time, I can honestly say that it is such a huge relief that I didn’t have to do any painting myself, I almost would’ve been willing to pay them even more. So, whatever. The job is done, I didn’t have to do it, life is good.

I’m trying to talk Dave into going appliance-shopping with me this weekend. Our microwave is missing a handle and is generally sort of god-awful looking, so we need to get a new one. And our stove/range also looks pretty ragged, so I’d like to get a new one. The main problem with the stove is that it’s gas, and one of the burners always hesitates to ignite, then it suddenly goes FWOOOM!! And almost sets you on fire. I’m terrified to have Cate anywhere in the kitchen when I have to turn on the stove. And it turns out that ranges are a lot cheaper than I thought they were. So hopefully we can replace our old, busted, originally-white-now-stained-to-hell appliances with some pretty, shiny, stainless steel ones, and start making the kitchen look a little jazzed up. Kitchens and bathrooms are supposed to be the two rooms that really help sell houses, right?

It feels good that we’re starting to gain some momentum with the home improvements. Our realtor friend and her husband volunteered to help us out with a few of the other projects, so hopefully that’ll save us some money and keep things moving along. Yay!