Let’s Gab: March 2023

Well, I blinked and then it was March. So anyways, welcome to the first Gab of 2023! I hope your year is off to a great start!

My January began with something very exciting…I bought my first house! It all started in November when I naively checked Zillow to pay rent to our landlord, with no intentions of buying a home. It spiraled into a few months of obsessing over each new house to hit Zillow, weekends spent at open houses, and eventually finding my bungalow, a 120 year gal in one of my favorite neighborhoods of Denver.

She was *basically* move in ready, though I probably touched a paintbrush to every surface in the house (well, me and every sweet angel friend who came to help).

She’s currently a 2 bed 1 bath, but we’re all set to begin construction on a master bathroom here soon. I can’t wait to show you progress pics!

She also doesn’t currently have a garage, and that project is underway as well. So much happening!

I love the curved ceilings in the living room, so I opted to paint those white to remove that awkward line between wall and ceiling. For the kitchen, dark green! Black cabinets wouldn’t be my first choice, but I like that the green helps the cabinets to blend into the wall a bit.

For our bathroom I went with a bold and beautiful black paint (who knew there could be so many “colors” of black to choose from?). I love how it pops with those tiles!

Once the painting was done, I took an electric sander to every 120 year old window frame to even out the decades of paint (at one point every window was, apparently, lilac purple). A fresh coat of white paint brought them back to life!

It was all hands on deck, with dad pulling up the sad blue carpet in our bedroom, only to discover linoleum under it, and the original hardwoods floors under that. My excitement about possibly revitalizing the original hardwoods was quickly demolished when I realized there was probably heaps of asbestos lurking under there. I matched the engineered hardwoods from the rest of the house and left the original hardwoods to rest in peace.

I also had the joy of learning just how many colors the front door had been painted previously. And not to be outdone by the lilac window frames, I went with a dark green for the door (someone take this green paint bucket away from me).

Rhubarb has become well acquainted with every dog-friendly home store, like Home Depot and IKEA. It’s fun watching her discover all these new places!

After two months of hard work in the house, I changed out of my painting clothes and put on ALL THE SPARKLES as we took on Vegas for my 31st birthday / the long awaited Taylor Swift concert.

Anyone who tried buying these coveted tickets in November will know just how difficult they were to get, and after trying to purchase them at stadiums all over the country, we finally snagged a few in Las Vegas.

Thirteen of us descended on Vegas and had the most colorful, musical, happy weekend that any of us have had in a while. My heart is full (and with my $40 poker winnings, my wallet is full too 😛).

But now things are settling down into a predictable pace. After about 3 months off from cooking new recipes (thank goodness for my chronic working ahead!), I’ve set up the new studio and have started planning out a bunch of fun new recipes for summer (including a Reader Recipe Week – I want to feature YOUR recipe, enter here!)

That’s all for now! I’m going to hunt for pre-season rhubarb (the plant, not the furchild). Happy spring, friends!