Room for a Little Girl

After many years, we finally got to create a nursery. Since we are renting, there was only so much we could do but I think that fact just helped me to keep things clean and simple. I came home from shopping at one point with lots of pink and white. Adam was less than thrilled, but willing to deal with it. Then I saw a vinyl decal online that changed everything. Lots of fall colors for my fall baby.

When we first got the nursery put together, I loved walking past it and seeing this…

It made me feel excited to think about bringing home my little girl one day soon.

See that tree peeking out? Since I couldn’t paint, I wanted to get color on the wall somehow. At first I bought the same wall decal but with pink leaves. It was cute, but after a little web searching, I stumbled onto this one and fell in love. It also has some green and blue leaves if we ever want to change things up.

The letters were from Michael’s and painted with a lovely pumpkin-hued paint. The crib was from Babies’R’Us and was a storage bin up until a few weeks ago when we moved Nora out of her pack’n’play in our room.

This shelf used to hang in our entryway, but seeing as we have no entryway in this apartment this is a good place for it. The animals are some of my old favorites. The cows are old bookends of Adam’s. The adorable red dress was for my brother-in-law’s wedding in December. It no longer fits, but is just too pretty to sit in a box. The sweater was knitted by my grandmother. It’s a little big now, but it also is too pretty to sit in a box. :)

Many hours have already been spent rocking here, and a few stories have been read, too. The nightstand is actually from my childhood bedroom.

We bought this recliner back in June to be used for rocking and nursing, but to stay in the living room. My parents had my old wooden rocking chair that we were going to use in the nursery. When we got to Vancouver at the end of the summer, we found a small tear in the footrest. I called to get it repaired with our extended warranty, but instead they just sent me a check to replace it!

Having a black dog, that light-colored recliner was always dirty so we decided to move the original into the nursery (since there was nothing wrong with it) and buy a darker color for the living room. So now we have two recliners for the price of one!

View of the other side of the room…

I LOVE this dresser from Ikea.  We looked at dressers in the “baby” collections at other stores. A lot more expensive for a lot less space. We’ll spend a little time in assembly if we can end up with a nice piece like this. It has room for all of her clothes, cloth diapers, linens and a whole drawer just for clothes in the next size up.

I found this phrase online and fell in love, but I knew a white decal would not work on a white wall. After some brainstorming, we ended up buying a couple pieces of 1X4  molding, securing them together and then added a little more of the pumpkin paint.

This cross hangs on her wall just as you leave the room. I found it in a gift shop and thought it looked pretty, but when I looked up the verse that was written on it I knew it belonged in my little girl’s room.

5 Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding;
6 in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.
                                                                                              Proverbs 3:5-6

Time for a Tub

So here's the problem with digital cameras: they hinder my blogging.

Just stay with me here. The camera takes a picture whenever you push the button, then it saves that picture. Then you can take another, and another, and another...as long as I want. It doesn't cost any more to take one or one hundred pics. But then you end up with way too many pictures of a bathtub. So many that you load them into Photoshop and leave them there for two weeks because the thought of sorting through all of those pictures and then editing some of them is just too overwhelming. Therefore you never can put those pictures into a blog post, which ultimately hinders your blogging. Right???

Okay, so I'm being melodramatic. Let's just get on with the remodel...

Once we (Adam and Dale) ripped out the old tub, we (they) worked to level the floor so that the water actually flows down the drain. Who knew that you had to worry about that? (Probably everyone but me.) I also didn't know that you have to put it in several times before you finally install it. Probably the reason I took so many pictures, I kept thinking, "This is it!!" only to be disappointed.

So finally here is our new tub! It's white and clean and glorious! I love taking a bath and knowing that some stranger's butt hasn't already been there. Okay, maybe that crossed some blogging line, but it has always weirded me out with other tubs to know that someone else had been there. I know, really logical, right?

As far as the current progress of the bathroom, we're almost done. Adam's finishing moulding for the window and mirror. Then we'll touch up paint and be done. Woo hoo!

The picture below was taken as the boys were looking at...well...I don't really remember but I just think it's cool.

P.S. I'm getting really annoyed with my camera (for real) because it's been taking really grainy pictures. Not able to invest in a new one now, but bothered to put up photos like this.

Destruction

Thankfully this weekend finds us at the end of a *fairly* normal week. Finally feel a little under control at work, the house is back in order and Adam turned 27 this week! I tried my hand at homemade orange chicken for his birthday supper, and it turned out pretty darn good!

For those of you wondering about my grandpa, he's doing pretty well. Mom told me that the nurse says that he is gaining a little strength! She even had the OT come out to work on goals.

Now on to the bathroom...

I'm going to be showing lot of picture of "stuff" but thought you might want to get a look at my contractors. Of course, my very studly husband...

...and Adam's dad, Dale. (I really thought I had a better picture, maybe I'll find one later.) Dale was here for a week and half and worked his butt off. Most of the time in a Charlie Brown Christmas t-shirt.

Before you can make something new, you have to destroy the old (well, at least in this case!). Here's the first hole in the drywall. You can see the original plaster lath in the kitchen wall...

Then, for some reason, the drywall is all over the floor! :)

Man did this project make a lot of trash. Enough to fill the entire bed of Adam's truck and then some.

Here's after we pulled the vanities out. Don't you love the duct tape on holding the exhaust pipe together? More on this another day.

This was probably the worst mess of the whole project. This is our office that connects to the bathroom. During destruction/construction, this was the staging area/dumping ground for everything bathroom related.

As I tried to figure out the best way to share the renovating process with you, I decided to go start-finish with each part of the bathroom. Then I'll share the complete finished project. Hopefully we're DONE by then!!

Hope that you are having a great weekend. :)

One Last Peek

If you have been watching my Twitter or Facebook in the past month, you probably already know that the picture above is now a distant memory. After months of saving and planning we finally remodeled our bathroom!

Now as you look at these pictures, you may think, "That's not so bad." And for those of you reading this that used to own the house, this is no reflection on you.

And for the former owners years ago that updated the entire house, I hope to never belittle all of the work that you did on our house. (Creating an open floor plan in a 90+ year old home, adding closets, attaching the garage, etc.) You did a lot of great work, a lot of hard and expensive work.

That being said, Adam and I knew that the bathroom would be our first big project. As you look at the pictures below, I promise you that we DO clean!! Here are some of the top reasons for a new bathroom:

• Top Left: This is what all of the tub seams looked like. It's really nasty. So nasty that I always tried to shower with my contacts out so that I wouldn't get grossed out.
• Top Right: The tub spout. Just look at how nicely attached it it! ;)
• Middle Left: The old tub was a whirlpool tub. I know that people pay really good money for these (it's now cleaned up and for sale if you're interested!!) but we could not keep it clean. Adam would get it all sparkly and days later it would look gross again.
• Middle Right: Grout. Grout and I are not friends. I used to say that I didn't like tile floors. What I really don't like is grout. It just never looks clean to me.
• Bottom Left: Isn't this a lovely box? The exhaust pipe comes up from the basement, goes into the wall for a while and then pops back out to continue up through the house. The pipe needs to be there, but we just had to do something about that crazy box.
• Bottom Right: This one isn't quite as bad, but for a number of reasons, our window couldn't have any trim on the left side. This has always bothered me.

My next post will show the total destruction! I never realized that when you take a bathroom down to the studs, rip out all of the old wiring and plumbing and take up the floor just how much debris is created. If I didn't have such a clear vision for the finished product I probably would have cried a few more times during the process.

As of today all we have left is a little trim work and finishing touches. Hopefully by the time I am finished showing you the progress, we'll have a finished product to share!

One Year Later

Today we have officialy been homeowners for one year!

June 2009

June 2010

Our “New” Hutch!!

If you follow me on Facebook or Twitter, you know that I was busy painting last weekend.  This week we finally finished this project.

Last fall we went to an estate sale of an old gentleman that passed away.  He was a carpenter and had a few pieces that were left.  We scooped up this hutch for $50.

Then it sat in our garage until Christmas.  Then we had company help Adam move it into the basement so I could work on it during the winter.  It sat there for another month.

In late January, we finally pulled the cabinet apart.  The bottom panes of glass were cracked, so we (Adam) pulled them out.  I decided that this was a great first use of bead board in my house.  So Adam used his mad skills and created these beautiful doors!

We sanded some of it down.  Then it sat.  Until April when we had company to help Adam carry the hutch back to the garage where I could work on it in the spring.  It sat there another month.

Finally, last weekend, I decided enough was enough.  My house was a mess and there were mountains of laundry.  But this hutch was going to be finished!

I started to finish sanding.  Then realized I HATE sanding.  I was ready to quietly move this hutch back into the corner and pray that the sanding fairies would come some day.  Not that I am calling my husband a fairy, but let’s just say that the hutch was magically sanded an hour later. :)

Then I started painting and realized that painting furniture is exponentially more difficult than painting a wall.  I really am glad that it took three coats.  Each coat was different: roller only, brush only, then roller with dry brush on top.  Is is the best painting job ever?  Nope.  But as long as you sand a few inches away, it look pretty darn good.

When it was almost dry, (I only claim to be patient with kids, not paint) we moved it back into the house.  I filled it up and then we started to hang the doors.  I don’t know what possessed us to think this was a good idea.  The door was so heavy that it was hard to hold still and the hinges scratch up the sides.  So we unloaded the hutch and did it the right way.  Well, I unloaded, Adam put the doors on.  (Apparently hand-made pieces tend not to be square and make it really difficult to hang a door so that it doesn’t look crooked.)

Wednesday evening we finally finished, but it was dark, and I was gone all day yesterday, so here, finally, are some pictures…

View from the kitchen:

And the comparison:

I love it SOOO much!  I’ve been reading magazines and blogs for two years now, drooling over white furniture.  But there was always a part of me that wasn’t sure if I’d actually like it in my house.  After this project, I know this is what I want my house to look like.  We can’t do everything right now, but I know we’re on the right track.

It’s the little things…

…that make my day.

First off, I apologize for my long absence!  But I hope to have some time soon.  Today I was working in the kitchen on a few things, with my trust laptop on the windowsill for recipes. 

Now, when I am working in the house I need some good white noise, not a radio, but the tv or a movie.  Since my kitchen has no tv or is even in sight of a tv, this is pretty much impossible when I am baking.

Then today I stared at the laptop a little longer.

Why in the world couldn’t I pop a dvd into this machine?!  Now I get to look at my recipe, bake some bread, and watch/listen to “The Holiday” all at the same time!

 

And watch my handy husband move and re-assemble our playground in the back yard. :)

Hope you’re having a great Saturday!

Country Days, City Nights

One of the great things about our property is the countryside around it.  We are blessed to have this fantastic front porch that runs the entire width of our house.  Unfortunately the only thing that we had to sit on out there were camp chairs.  Fine chairs, but they were so low that all you saw was the porch railing.

So I found this beauty on walmart.com:

Of course we didn’t notice that it was designed to be hung from a stand.  Let’s just say that I didn’t want to have to use a ladder to get onto my swing.

So after a trip to the hardware store for more chain, we’ve got a working porch swing!  I think it’s a little odd  that it leans back like that so much, but it sits great.  (Is that really a verb?)

Excuse the poor quality of the next picture, but there is no way that I could have walked outside to catch her sitting like this.  Trust me, she doesn’t just sit like this outside.  I watched her long enough to realize that she was watching the farmer in the field across the road.  Apparently she need to keep an eye on him.

Yes, it’s Friday, so you are subjected to pictures of my trees again.

Would you believe that the picture on the left is two weeks old and the one on the right is from today?  Melting snow apparently makes for greener grass.  I can’t imagine what it will look like after one good rain storm.

We’re off to town tonight.  The local UNI Panthers are taking on Michigan State and it’s just too much of a big game to watch at home.  After last week’s crazy upset, fans are in a frenzy here.  (They even made it on the cover of Sports Illustrated last week.)  We’ll also watch the Ohio State game in honor of my dad.  If both teams win tonight, they’ll go head-to-head on Sunday.  Enough sports talk for you?  Me too.

Have a great weekend!

Come Back Spring

Last Friday it snowed.  I guess I knew it would, but I was just really hoping that it wouldn’t.  It really wasn’t that bad, not much accumulation, but it just looked dreary.  Especially after the previous week.  Here’s the progression so far:

I’m still waiting for this:

Rolling Along

Last weekend we borrowed this really big roller from a friend.  The plan was for Adam to hook it up to the the lawn mower and drive all over the lawn, hopefully flattening it out a little.  I was going to attack the old, ripped fabric in the flower beds. 

It all started out fine.  Then I started to see a lot of roots.  I decided that I really didn’t know what I was doing and I would like to have living shrubs this year.  So we switched jobs.

I think I spent twice as much time on the first half than the last half.  I was trying to go nice and slow, get some real good compaction.   Then hubby trots up and asks if he needs to attach some headlights, since at that rate I’d be going all night.

We didn’t really do the “rolling” thing in the ‘burbs growing up.  In fact I remember the lawn guys coming to turn our lawn into swiss cheese in order to aerate it.  So I guess I didn’t really know what to expect, but I didn’t think that most of the weight of the roller would be from water!

Truth be told, I can’t take credit for the fact that this “adventure” is documented.  While I was busy “rolling,” Adam walks out with the camera and says, “I thought you’d want to blog about it.”

Thoughtful and studly.  I am a lucky girl.  :)

Look What I Started

This morning Adam pulled our corn stove away from the wall to replace something.  We decided to take advantage of the opportunity to paint that last spot of the wall that we couldn’t reach.

Since I had the paint out, I decided to do some test painting in the kitchen!!

This shot shows a little of why I want to paint.  Somewhere in the line of previous owners, gorgeous bead-board was put in the kitchen.  But then it was painted dark red. 

Now, to be fair, it is are really pretty red.  But my kitchen is very closed in and I can’t take all of the darkness.  So it’s time to lighten up.  I really had to stop myself from painting the whole kitchen right then and there. 

The other reason that my kitchen is dark is from these brick walls that cover half of the kitchen.  And yes, I am painting them too!!

I have been wanting to do this since last summer.  Every time I tell someone, they’re like “No!  You can’t pain the brick!  It’s so nice.”  Yeah, sure, from far away.

This is all I see:

Yes.  That is why the brick is being painted.  In the grand scheme of our kitchen, we dream of taking down walls, moving doors and appliances, new floors, etc.  But that is far down the road.  In the meantime, I have decided that I need to lighten up my kitchen.

Oh, and remember my tree comparison from last week?  Well, here’s a new picture for you, exactly a new week later.