Let there be light (and paint)

Only 3 years after I thought it would happen, we have a new light for our dining room!

The radiator covers are stained, but still are stinky from the polyurethane, so they will remain airing out in the garage for awhile more.

The dining room was completely repainted, as was the living room. All our halls are the same sand color as the top of the dining room walls.

Now we just have to hang everything back up! ugh

Over the Kitchen Sink

We finally put something up over the sink in our kitchen. In what is probably the only thing I would change if redoing the kitchen, the window's (which is the only thing remaining from the original kitchen) scale is off to the raised ceilings making it an awkward spot. I think these Target items fill the space ok and are kitchen friendly. Better than the $375 versions I saw in a catalog, that is for sure.

Painters are coming Monday!

New Ceilings..

They look so much better. Even though we lost about 1/2" of ceiling height, the consensus is the rooms look bigger.

As you can see, we need some new paint in the dining room - ripping off and replacing the molding doesn't do good things to walls, it seems.

A mess is coming!

Well finally, after 3 years the ugly, barely hanging on (really according to Steve!), fan is gone. We are having our dining room and living room ceilings re-plastered on Thursday. There has been a damaged spot (see below) in the dining room since we moved in and we finally got around to dealing with that too.



Of course that means we need the ceilings painted, which means we might as well do 80% of the rest of the house too while the painters are here;/ The living room walls, front hall walls, stairwell walls and upstairs walls/trim are all going to be repainted along with the 2 ceilings! Stay tuned for an exciting new living room color (hopefully we will like it!).

The new dining room light I have picked out (the room will be light-less for awhile since we haven't ordered it yet...

Dots

I finally got around to painting the dots on the our "accent" wall (to use an HGTV term). They are far from perfect up close, but I do really like how it came out! It took far less time than I thought it would, too. The trim of the bed skirt and the quilt have the same color polka dots, which is where the idea came from.

(If you are confused by the perspective, I am standing next to the glider when taking this photo - the crib is to the right of the door you see.)

We still need some more wall art, then again we need more wall art in almost all our rooms. I would also like a new lamp - I find the one in there a tad too bright, and short for the space.

We acquired an extra camera for our video monitor - it is pretty cool. We can now switch the channels to see each kid's room. Given how loud Jack is, we rarely need his anymore, but it is nice to check up on him now and again. We also find it useful to be able to see if he is standing and whining in his crib, or still lying down and whining.

Really looking like a room now..

Coming together...

After a foible with our new crib mattress (thanks Magic Beans for amazing customer service!), baby #2 now has a lovely place to sleep. Of course for a variety of reasons he most likely will sleep in our room in a pack n play bassinet at night for a few months. I am pleased to have this ready to go and organized though!

The crib came in even nicer than I had expected - the wood & finish are of such high quality.

Nesting - continued

Jack's room is substantially different too. We removed the glider to nursery #2 (see previous post) and in its place we put his train table (a hand-me-down from a coworker of Steve's!). Strangely the trains always spend more time on the ground. Oh well.

We also got a red chair from Ikea that works perfectly for reading bedtime stories. Not quite as luxurious as the glider, but at hundreds of dollars cheaper, it more than meets our need.

We also hung a Curious George/alphabet poster which he seems to enjoy (the monkey part, not so much the letters:)

Nesting - 1 month to go

Steve and I made great progress (Ok, mostly Steve) around the house this weekend preparing for baby #2.

#2's nursery has all the major stuff in it, except the crib which is ordered. The big boxes are actually Jack's birthday gifts (from a variety of people) so ignore those in the second picture below.

We have a new armoire (the room has no closet), new window hardware and new curtains. Misc. accessories and the rugs are to be placed soon. The radiator cover is drying in the garage from its last coat of paint. The lamp in the picture is, in theory, temporary. All of the tiny baby clothes are washed and in the armoire. The rest of the bedding, if you don't recall, looks like this:

I am going to be painting large polka dots on one accent wall that mimics the trim on the bedding. The crib blanket (on the chair in the photo below) will be hung above the crib.





Jack's room (pics to come) has a new chair (since the glider moved) and now has some toys and his train table in it.

Fenced

We had been thinking of tearing down the fence in our backyard as it was a) an eyesore and b) about to fall down. Luckily for our wallets it turns out the abutting neighbors actually own the fence and knocked it as an add-on to removing an ugly shed they had in their yard. (This family just moved in last August and inherited the 2 lovely features.

The good news is it is gone. The bad news is that a small part remains (the remaining piece is obviously not on their property, but lord knows who actually put it up) and there is a big mess remaining in the spaces that used to be hidden by fences.

That said, once we get it clean and de-poison ivy parts, it will be, effectively, about 2-3 more feet of yard for us along the back. Also nice, they have 2 boys, one 2 1/2 and one 3 months, so I am sure there will be many playtimes to come now that we have easy access to their yard! Jack is already eying their basketball hoop.

Postponed...

Due to everyone's feet dragging (ours and some of the contractors) we have decided to delay the basement for least for 6-8 months. With baby #2 looming soon, and a busy time at the office (and out of the office) for Steve, construction would be too much chaos right now. We are going to clean out the "finished" part of the basement and see how that works as our office area for awhile. Given how much we learned from living in our old kitchen before renovations, this is likely going to change our plans down the road (for the better) anyway. So, no fun pictures of demo are impending I am afraid.

That said, a new armoire for the nursery should be here in a week or two and I hope to get going on painting some polka dots or stripes in that room too. More modest, but changes are still on the way.

Contractors have came...

and quoted (well 2 of 3 of them have)... It has been an interesting experience seeing how different the recommendations and process of the 3 contractors have been - all three are comparable in terms of reputation, standard jobs and all are based in our town. - so I expected somewhat less variance.

Steve and I have also redesigned the layout ourselves about 5 times - adding a 1/2 bath, removing a 1/2 bath, adding a closet, not adding a closet, moving the washer/dryer, not moving them etc. I think we finally decided on a really open, flexible layout. Due to our changing ideas, we have to get new quotes from the 2 that already quoted since we changed our mind on some substantive issues. The third should be back to us in a few days. All three come highly recommended so we will probably pick by their ability to start quickly. One looks like it is going to higher than the others too, so he likely is out.

We hope to have this decided by the end of the week (realistically the end of next...)

The contractors are coming, the contractors are coming..

We had the first of 3 (planned) contractors come today and look at our basement. He had a lot of good ideas and Steve thought he seemed very nice, knowledgeable and trying to be a good member of the community as well. We will have an estimate shortly.

We shall say what the other have to say on Friday and Monday.

Major changes in the planning stages..

So I think we have at least figured out WHERE things are going and what is going to change in terms of furniture for the arrival of #2. As I previously mentioned our current office will be the new nursery. It is sort of an L shape room on our second floor. It has the stairs leading to the 3rd floor in it. The second picture is the short length of the "L" shape. Storage will be an issue as there is no closet. These pics are from when we looked at the house, when it was being used as a guest nursery.







The basement is where the office is moving. The pics below are from awhile ago so in reality there is a lot more "stuff" being stored down there that will need to be reorganized/trashed/donated etc. The actual space where the office will be (you can see that area - it is the picture where the TV is) is pretty finished off. There are real walls, ceiling, a door, a closet and trim in that area. However, like the rest of the basement the floors are concrete.

We plan on removing the weird shower and replace with at minimum a large "work/laundry" sink and possibly a tiny half-bath. We also think we will closet off the furnace/hot water heater. And, separately, closet off the washer / dryer and finish the walls behind those. Shelving for detergent and platforms to raise them higher are planned for in the large closet too.

We also will add a door in a long wall where there isn't one to add easy access to some valves.

We also plan on finishing the floors in some way. This will require some work as the floors are not at all level. The ceiling in the presently unfinished area also needs replacement - it is cracking and crumbling in places.

A workbench area will be retained for tools/projects etc.

As I am sure some are concerned (knock on wood) there has never been water in the basement since we have lived here, nor is there evidence there ever has been. The old owners had a child sleeping down there, so I can't imagine they had any issues either.






Lastly, I am slowing reorganizing and cleaning the 3rd floor and making a play space up there. Jack and I are already spending at least an hour a two a day there and I think we may be heading in the direction to make it the main play space. This would be great as a) there is no TV there so no temptation for either of us, and b) would allow our living room to be slightly less toy-cluttered. Much of the floor needs to be retained at this point for storage, but it is a big room, thankfully!

At some point soonish we plan on replacing the carpet and painting the walls.

For memories sake, here is what the 3rd floor looks like empty(ish):

PS

The picture in the prior post is from a catalog - thanks to all who thought we might be that organized or talented to make a room that nice in this time frame. Our nursery is still very much an insanely messy office.

And no, we don't have a name yet - not even remotely close.

Long time..

And not much happening around the actual house...

However, with baby #2 on the way we have a lot to get done and very definite timeline:)

Our "office" will have to become a nursery which means a lot of cleaning, organizing and probably some contractors to fix up our basement to make it more habitable for office use.

I bought our first real item for #2 this week - bedding and decor. Our walls are already a baby blue, which isn't my absolute favorite, but I found cute stuff to match so it will save us the hassle of painting the room. It is a touch hard to see, but it has blue and orange monkeys on it and is accented by polka-dots.



Now we have to find furniture to fit the small, odd-shaped room with no closet!