Brian "The Tool Man" Fitzgerald

Well it took a while for me to complete it and it took a while for me to actually get some pictures together and post about it but I couldn't not talk about my silly handy man skills. I'm not 100% happy with the work I did, because I'm anal, but overall the updates we did to our bathroom came out good and we did it much cheaper than if we had paid someone else to do it.

There used to be a gross three-fold mirror and medicine cabinet stuck in the wall and you can see the gross light in the second picture. So we pulled it out and had a hole that needed to be filled.

Here are a couple of before pictures...

Bathroom Before

So we filled the hole with drywall, patched it and painted it. Then we hung up the new mirror, new matching shelf and new matching light. Then just a couple weeks ago we found a nice cabinet that matched and we hung that up. We've still got some other stuff that we want to do in the bathroom with the floor but these were some seriously needed updates. Here are some after pictures...

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Bathroom After

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Bathroom After

Recap From Last Few Weekends

I'm just hanging around our place in DC tonight and decided that it was about time I pay a bit of attention to this website again. Tracy is up in New Hampshire celebrating her friend Weasel's 30th birthday at PJ's in Manchester. PJ's has one of my favorite dishes, a delicious chicken and cheese sandwich that I wish I was eating right now but I know the Danimal is having an extra one or two for me.

Last weekend (Memorial Day) was a ton of fun down here. On Saturday it was a gorgeous day and we had a bunch of people over to our place at Mclean Gardens and while the girls laid by the pool the guys watch the lacrosse final four games on TV. The final four this year was up at Gillette Stadium in Foxboro and while it would have been awesome to be there the games in HD on ESPN were a nice alternative. Later in the day we barbequed and then headed off to the Nationals game at their new stadium here in the city. Despite the fact that the Nationals suck and that the stadium was relatively empty it is a great place to see a game and the new ballpark is sweet. On Sunday a bunch of us headed to Annapolis for the day and ate and drank and had a blast. Check out the Memorial Day 2008 pictures for the full story.

Two or three weekends ago we were up in Boston/New Hampshire for the weekend to celebrate my sister's graduation from college and to celebrate Mandy's 30th birthday. Are you picking up on the fact that everyone I know is turning 30th this year? Well I'm happy to say that I am not yet 30, that day will be coming soon enough but until then I'm going to relish in the fact that I'm still 29th. Anyway, there are some pictures from the graduation in the gallery as well. That weekend trip home was a major whirlwind but it was a lot of fun and the fact that my sister is "all growns up" is a bit frightening but she has a sweet job and she'll now be learning what the "real world" is like.

I've spent most of today doing some work in our bathroom and I'll share some pictures of that when all my handy work is complete. I also took a well deserved 3 hour nap today. Where do you drawn the line between a nap and a night's sleep? I think 3 hours is borderline, most people probably consider a nap something like 30 minutes but not me. If I'm going to nap I'm going to do it right. Tomorrow I have a lacrosse game for the first time in while, I've either been traveling for work on Sunday or we've had rain so it will be nice to get out and play a bit.

Finally Some Pictures Of Our Condo

So Tracy is in California right now and I'm just hanging around. I'm heading to New Orleans on Thursday for a quick meeting and I'll be home on Friday night.

Finally we got around to taking some pictures of our place. I know that many of you have been asking for these over the last several months, so here they are. I've uploaded them to my new Picasa Gallery. I've also done a little bit of before and after for dramatic affect. Enjoy.

Bedroom Before

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Bedroom After

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Loft Before

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Loft

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Other end of loft before

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Other end of loft after

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Living Room Before

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Living Room After

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Moving Sucks Out Loud

I'm finally sitting on our new couch at our new place and watching our new TV. We don't have cable yet but our DVDs are unpacked so we are making due. I'm stealing a nice wireless signal from one of our new neighbors and I'm absolutely exhausted. I have one day in the office tomorrow and then I'm in Austin, TX for Thursday and Friday. I'm really looking forward to the weekend so I can relax for real and get some good work done around the new place.

I'd like to get a nice post this weekend of before and after photos, the place is really shaping up nicely.

Paint, Poop and Packing

The last few days have been full of a lot of painting and packing as we start to get settled into our new condo. The painting is coming along, I've gotten two full rooms done with two more to go. The mention of poop in the title of this post refers to my getting shat on by a bird this past Friday night. If you remember this happened not too long ago. I'm still not convinced that there is anything good luck about this type of incident.

I'm leaving for Newport Beach, California tomorrow for work so I'll be out of touch and and not able to get anything done at the condo which is unfortunate timing. I'm taking the red eye home on Friday night so I can get back for a full day of painting and cleaning. I'm already pretty wiped out so I can only imagine how I'll feel Saturday afternoon but it must be done. I won't be content until everything is moved and settled and I'm drinking a Boggs on our new couch.

Pictures From The Cape and The Vineyard

So the Cape Cod and Vineyard pictures are live, check them out in the gallery. I also stole the picture below from Joe and Courtney's online album. This is the seal that tried to bite Joe's face off, not really but this thing was swimming back and forth along the beach, eating fish and just hanging out. It was pretty cool and pretty friggin funny when it swam up within ten feet of Joe and it was even funnier when Joe shat in his pants.

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Seal about 30 feet from the shore

Have a great weekend, we'll be moving, painting and cleaning all weekend. If you need to get in touch with me I can be reached at the Aspen Hill Home Depot.

Crazy Times In The District

I was just laying down for bed and realized that I haven't posted at all this week. It's been a pretty crazy week and by crazy I mean I've been spending most of my free time getting caught up on the first four seasons of The Wire. I've got season 1 out of the way and look to start tackling season two this weekend. It is a show I would definitely recommend.

It actually has been pretty hectic, we close on our condo tomorrow so that is a pretty big deal and I've actually been at work for the last few weeks so I've been taking advantage of that and actually getting stuff done that has been hanging around for a while.

We were home this past weekend and got to catch up with lots of people and we got to see Robin and Bryan tie the knot. We have lots of picture, per usual, and I'll post those when I have some time.

Tracy is gone all week next week and so we have a bunch of stuff to take care of this weekend but we should be able to squeeze in some pool time and some US Open.

Wish us luck tomorrow and I'll be in touch.

What's The Good Word

Suppose you would call it a lifestream...By Brian Fitzgerald

Filed under: homeownership