Happy New Year!

Milestone alert...we had our first overnight guests in our new home!  The hubby's cousin and his fiancee recently came to celebrate the new year with us.  Of course the night before and day of their arrival consisted of me frantically unpacking boxes/shoving the items wherever I could to make space in our guest room for them to sleep, but LOTS of fun was had by all once they got here!

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Well, fun and (unfortunately for them but fortunately for us!) work.  ;)  You see, the hubby's cousin is incredibly handy.  Me and the hubby?  Not so much!  So we took advantage of the visit as an opportunity to cross a couple items off of our ever-growing to-do list...

(1) After several frustrating trips to Home Depot to purchase, then return, and exchange several different items, we were finally able to get our hands on and hang a mirror in the guest bathroom (after a couple days of our poor guests using a hand mirror)!  Pretty, isn't it?!

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(2) The kitchen faucet we had definitely saw better days -- although it was fully functional, it had paint all over it (which we won't talk about) and the sprayer button had literally been worn through to a hole!  Not attractive.  But now we have this beauty!

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Oh how I love it!

(3) We swapped out the ugly gold door hinges for softer nickel ones that actually match our new door knobs!  It's a small thing but the mismatching was totally annoying me.

(4) We swapped out a light switch in the master bathroom that shorted out after we moved in, which allowed us to see our new vanity lights in action for the first time!

(5) We removed an ugly low-voltage converter that buzzed whenever it was on and was connected to some tiny recessed light bulbs that were half burned out and impossible to replace in the guest bedroom and instead placed some rope lighting above the molding.  Since there is no electrical connection in the ceiling of that room, our options for ceiling lighting are pretty limited.  This will work fine for now, and we'll obviously supplement with floor and table lamps.

(the lighting is more of a yellow tone in real life)

(6) We bought a cordless drill/screwdriver so we could accomplish all of the above, and more!

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And by "we", I mean the hubby's cousin.  Thanks so much, Best Man!!!

Now on to the other 54 items on our to-do list...

Happy New Year everyone!!!!!!!!!!!!