Bye Bye Baby Furniture

This was sad to do.  I've used the same "nursery" for all 3 kids and loved the furniture and decor.  I had a lump in my through watching it get carried down and Rory cried, clinging on to the crib rail, because "I've had such good memories in here!!!!".  Little does he know that his father had the same issue which caused his grandmother to keep the crib in the cellar so that he could "visit" whenever he wanted.  No can do in my house.  Now I just need to figure out how to sell this gently used, lovely set so that it can be removed from my front enclosed porch. 

Alas, Kelly is over 3 and calling me to help her get up so she can go pee in the morning.  Not okay.  So, I finally broke down, bought a trundle bed, dresser, and nightstand.  Kelly will stay in her room for a couple of months to get used to the big girl bed and not waking everyone up and then she will move in with Shelagh and Rory will get his own room.  Finally, he will be removed from the yellow and pink decor that has surrounded him for 3 1/2 years.  What a good sport.  To celebrate, he has been gifted with a huge Star Wars Death Star (thank you, Pottery Barn Kids, for ripping me off for this one) that has tiny pin lights that turn on and off and take up most of a wall.  He will love it.


















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Old House Parts

While in Kennebunkport, ME we also stopped by a store called Old House Parts which is INSANE!!  It is a 3-4 story huge barn with old house parts organized by type.  I walked around mesmerized for a bit while Joe worked with the guy there to get some door knobs for the doors he's been replacing around the house.  Then, I got supremely bored and played games on my phone.  Look at these pics, though!  If only I was a "renovator".  I'm clearly not.














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Bathroom Project

It has begun. 
Before...

Tub, Toilet, Faucets, lighting, and accessories have all arrived.  Tiles and Paint are chosen but not ordered yet.  All that is outstanding are the shower door and a possible custom "window" for part of the shower wall and some storage in the corner (I have 3 boxes of stuff that came out of the bath and nowhere currently to put it back). 

Demo

Showering at work wasn't so bad for Joe and I.  The sitter showered the big kids, but poor Kelly is just getting grimy.  I might have to stop at the pool after work just to scrub her down.

Heavy Labor Ice Picking

Beginning Final Result

Can you believe the insanity that was my driveway on Sunday???? Joe went away overnight on Saturday to Ski in Maine with a friend on Sunday. Of course the rain came and temperatures dropped that night and the next morning, while pulling the van out to bring Shelagh to a playdate, my brakes were useless and I slid down the driveway from the half-way point and landed in a snow bank. Thank you, snowbank (didn't think I'd be saying that), which otherwise is a total pain in my ass on most days lately trying to get in/out of my long driveway. I couldn't get back into the driveway when we got home so I managed to Rory and Kelly into the house in front of the TV so I could at least get some salt down before my Mother In Law showed up to sit the little kids after lunch.

The temp was up to the high 40's and I could see the ice melting and releasing from the driveway. It was an opportunity I couldn't let pass otherwise we would be in deep shit later on that night and poor Joe wouldn't have been able to get in. I grabbed the heavy metal gardening shovel and set to work. Thankfully, my neighbor brought over some dirt/gravel he picked up from the city yard to put on top and a gardening edger. The edger was my best friend. It was completely addictive. Loosen the ice from underneath, send cracks upwards to break the ice, shovel to the sunny spots to melt. Despite the fact that my MIL was coming soon, the kids hadn't eaten and were supervising themselves, and I hadn't showered or eaten yet, I kept at it until the whole driveway was done. Then, off to the Girl Scout Mother/Daughter dance with Shelagh!

And if my arms weren't jello enough, the Girl Scout cookie pickup was Monday - 74 cases from the church into my van and then from the van into my house and then sorted by order. At one point on Tuesday I could barely lift Kelly up. Not that she's so light anway! It's Thursday now and my arms are JUST feeling mostly back to normal. Seriously. Could I be wimpier?

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House Bathroom Situation

We are about to embark on a major bathroom project (hopefully). We live in a Victorian Gambrel house that is 110 years old. We have made mostly minor changes (landscaping, small deck, molding, some recessed lighting). We did only 1 major change which was the basement being turned into a playroom/laundry room as soon as Rory was born and I realized we'd have double gender toys overtaking my living room. We have 1 large living room rather than a living room/family room so playroom renovation took precedence over replacing my 1960's kitchen and ugly bathrooms. I do not regret it. However, now it's time to do the bathrooms.

We have 2 full bathrooms. One of them is on the 2nd floor near all the bedrooms that we all share (linen closet, then my bedroom to the right of the bath in the 1st picture below). It is narrow and has the fireplace chimney going up through the middle (behind Kelly's back). The 5 of us squeezed into that room during the morning rush is a complete nightmare - Joe trying to do contacts, Rory pooping, Kelly trying to brush her teeth (she loves brushing teeth) and Shelagh and I doing hair...it's truely ridiculous.

The 2nd bath is mid-level between the kitchen and basement/playroom. It was added on to the original house, is not insulated, is ICE COLD from Fall through Winter and most of Spring, and the shower drain pipe is not connected and therefore is just sitting there unused. Even if it worked you couldn't shower in there - I'm not kidding - it's ICE COLD.

Here's the plan. Renovate the current bath so that we can 1) reorient it for better space usage, 2) get rid of the floor to ceiling tile and rotted moldings, 3) update the bound-to-fail-soon plumbing, and 4) replace the nasty runners that the glass doors use that do nothing but collect disgusting goopy slop. Simultaneously, build a new master bath in our pretty sizeable bedroom flush up against the current full bath (to the left of Kelly in the back left corner) and take advantage of existing plumbing being open. Next to the new bath, create an enclosed space for a shared closet as the new bath will go where 1 closet resides and the 2nd closet, across the room, will need to be removed to reorient the bedroom furniture (this is good since the closet doesn't even support the full depth of a hanger).

Eventually remove the downstairs shower all together when we very long term do the kitchen and surrounding area and hopefully replace with some sort of mudroom and 1/2 bath.

We are ready to start, but I have to get estimates; learn about tile, showers, fixtures, bathroom flooring, etc; and figure out what I want in both baths. Overwhelming.

Kids Bathroom:

• Definitely want a tub
• 1 sink only
• MUCH better toilet (we clog constantly)
• Better orientation around the chimney
• Pocket door to preserve space
• Storage - either a vanity with bottom cabinet and no shelving or a pedestal sink with some sort of very small closet/shelving area.
• Probably white tile and a single color or maybe some sort of 1/2 wall on the bottom and a single color on top.

Our Bathroom:

• Shower only (Joe wants glass walls)
• 2 sinks (This is a must have. Joe likes to trim beard, etc and the little hairs drive me nuts)
• Pocket door
• I like a large slate looking tile similar to a friends house we stayed at in Canada over several summer vacations
• If we can manage a heated floor since it's a small space that would be cool

Other:

• We will probably lose our linen closet in the hall for bath space but can replace it with another one in our bedroom to support all linens.
• We do not have a backup shower since the one downstairs is broken and we don't want to fix it since we will likely remove it. Therefore, it would be best to wait until Summer to do this project so we can shower at the pool. Or, we will proceed now and shower at the Y then we can - oh boy do I DREAD that.

Wish me luck!

New Carpet Runner

After almost 7 years in our house, and a mean fall down the steps while holding 2 babies, we finally got a carpet runner for the stairs. I cringe at the thought of house projects - I have no design eye and everything we do is for the first time, thereby requiring in-depth research. All that requires time without children, a sense of style, and a basic idea about what you want - none of which I have. Stress!

Anyway, I finally went to a few carpet stores and after some struggle picked a runner I thought would work. I think it looks great if you are looking just up or down the stairs. However, pulling together multiple rooms? I don't know. We decided against going all the way up from the 2nd to the 3rd floor to save some $ and b/c only the guest room is up there now. I will regret that decision. It is almost guaranteed that the carpet will be discontinued by then as is my luck. That was basically the reason we had to pull up the carpet squares in the laundry room and put in wall to wall there. The cat peed on too many squares, they were discontinued, and we had to start over. Typical.

Oh well. Here it is...I just want to lay down on the stairs now...they are so plush.

Another Bat - Holy Crap

There I am sitting at dinner with a friend on Thursday night, enjoying my first sips of Chardonnay. The phone rings and it's my house/the babysitter. Big sigh. I answer and get "There's a bat in the house". Oh, any Joe is away at a work conference. I actually have to find a way to deal with this. Shelagh is hysterical, Kelly is sleeping in her room, Shelagh and Rory are hiding with the babysitter in the playroom. Thank GOD both of my neighbors were home and I could borrow some men to deal with this for me. Otherwise, I think I would have grabbed Kelly screaming hysterically through the house and driven to a hotel. Seriously.


So, the doors were propped open and we searched for 10-15 minutes to no avail (with my hair piled into a tight bun under a hat!). We settled on "it must have flown out" and I, nervous-on-the-inside-chirpy-on-the-outside, shepherded the kids to my room to sleep with me. Shelagh would not calm down or rest to fall asleep, so I brought them downstairs with me at 830pm so I could shove some food in my mouth. As we came down the stairs I spotted it out of the corner of my eye circling the living room. I hustled the kids outside and ran back to my neighbors house. While I spent the next 10 minutes explaining to Shelagh that I hadn't lied to her before when I said it was gone, my neighbor found it on the floor of the fireplace and calmly picked it up with a towel to bring outside.


I'm pretty sure it came down from the top floor. The door had been otherwise closed other than the one time it was opened that morning, so I stuffed a towel under the door and the 3 of us hid in my room for a night of thrashing, tossing and turning, moaning, and overall completely shitty sleep.


All of yesterday was spent looking over my shoulder and mistakenly looking at testimonials and pictures of bat excavations from the company that is coming today to inspect the roof/top floor for entry point(s). This is top of the list of the things that creep me out the most. So happy Joe is home!!

New Driveway

So exciting...I just want to put on roller skates and zoom around on the fresh black top. Okay, flash forward to the 2000's and leave the headbands and wristbands behind. Rory and Shelagh want to go cruising "Cars" Movie-style. I can't wait for that and a grand sidewalk chalk celebration. Adios ant hills, weeds, cracks, and falling children. Hello, burning feet and smooth sailing.

I don't have "before", but here's "during" and "after"...

It was a hot, very humid, and 11-hr work day for these guys...please note the shirt removal and the view I was able to admire while working from home today. Yum-yum, sir. Thank you for the lovely display of manliness. I will be kind and leave it at that. Oh, also I will add "Ewww".

New Refrigerator!! Old Kitchen :(

The constant leaking of water from the freezer into the refrigerator finally got on my last nerve and we bought a new refrigerator. We are not even close to redoing our kitchen unfortunately (thank you shitty real estate market for devaluing my home and screwing up my refi). But, the frig couldn't wait so stainless steel beauty, welcome to our crappy kitchen. You will shine and glow and overpower everything else in this run-down cabinet, no light, terrible floor, and so much potential locale. Joe had to saw part of the cabinet off to make it fit!


Look how full I got the frig already! I like the bottom door freezer, but it's taking some getting used it. As you can see, I've been as strategic as I can and now need to eat some food out of that freezer so there is room for stuff.


By the way, the door is not working right and the water hookup hasn't been set up yet. Both should happen today so fingers crossed that we can, in fact, hook up to our water by weaving copper behind our shitty cabinets to our sink and that the door on the BRAND NEW frig can be fixed to seal properly.

A New Level of Nesting

I have seriously accomplished so much in the last few weeks...I'm pretty proud of myself!

1) Attended the Kindergarten Orientation for Shelagh and organized all her registration paperwork. Hopefully I'll make it to the tours before I deliver. Our town has school choice so we have to pick 1 of 5 elementary schools for her.

2) Organized all our 2008 paperwork for taxes

3) Organized all paperwork for a refi (what a pain in the ass)

4) Everything for baby is washed and ready. The crib is ready, bassinet and pack n plays are out and supplies are stocked! Nursing stuff is ready and my bag is packed!

5) I did a last house cleaning this weekend which is taking me about 3 different days to do nowadays.

6) Bills are mostly paid for this month since I'm due on the 2nd.

7) Getting last haircut, successfully have cleared out most of my freezer to make room for my mom coming up and re-stocking it :), added TiVO software to my cable companies DVR (this is possibly the best thing EVER. I LOVE TIVO and am so happy I can have it again!), and booked our 1st vacation to Disney for the end of my maternity leave with another family (house, airfare and princess lunch).

Yeah, me!

New Closet & New Room !!

The closet project in Shelaghs room is finished and came out just as I had envisioned it. Yeah. This is a huge leap b/c 1) I have no design sense WHATSOEVER and 2) there was a slight disagreement in the house over the priority of this project. In short, Rory and Shelagh are going to move into the Shelaghs room. Rorys room has been the revolving baby room and will be so for Baby #3 come 1 month after her birth, or sooner. It is gender-neutral therefore I only had to go through the torture of decorating a baby room once. The torture being the designing and deciding, not the buying.

Poor Rory will be living in a room drenched in yellow and hot pink. I did get him some semi-coordinating sheets with cars all over them which he seemed to like and b/c yellow is his favorite color, he seems not to see the pink, butterflies, or flowers otherwise surrounding him. In order to fit both kids clothes and not have to squish the room with dressers, we opted instead to open up the closet door to better utilize the existing closet space. Then, I spent a lovely afternoon in the Container Store (heaven) working with someone to design a shelving system (Elfa). Joe painted the closet and put up the curtain "door" and installed the top of the shelving and Shelagh and I did the rest during Rorys nap yesterday. She not only helped me put the brackets and shelves up, but she then coordinated the entire clothing move process. She took it upon herself to refold everything in the closet and in the drawers (absolutely my child). Finally, she made space for Rory in her bookshelves and in her "guy" buckets (stuffed animal containers) so he would feel welcome.

And, without further adieu...

After all that, of course they wanted Rory to move right in. I figured if I was going to be forced awake at 5am, better it be a work day so I relented and they actually went right to bed and slept until 715 this morning! Glory! I was up 3 times over the night with them individually but they miraculously did not wake each other at all. It could be the warp speed with which I darted out of bed and into the room upon hearing the beginnings of a peep from either of them. Between 3 awakenings and the late time to bed b/c of the disappointing ALCS game (damn those Red Sox for blowing it!), I am toast today. Chocolate, here I come...Wait. How is that different from any other day?

the Container Store & my New Dyson

I LOVE IT! I've always loved organizing, but walking through a store like this really just does it for me. I spent some time there yesterday working with a closet specialist to design some closet shelving for Shelaghs room. With the baby coming, Rory will move into Shelaghs room, but we don't have room for any more dressers and hers is full. So, we have a guy coming in today to widen the closet doorway for us. I went to the Container Store to figure out the Elfa shelving inside the closet so I can fit both kids stuff mostly in the closet (and then hopefully get rid of or replace Shelaghs monstrous long, low dresser with something better suited for the space in her room...eventually). It was so easy to figure out and it looks beyond easy to install (remind me I said that later). I'm not going to put doors on it, but rather got some curtain panels and a curtain rod to put up instead that match her current window treatments. Poor Rory will be surrounded by pink!

Also, I ordered a new Dyson vacuum and I'm insane waiting for it to arrive. I purposely haven't cleaned so that I can do amazing things with my new vacuum. Dyson is a client of my company so I get 45% off which made this an affordable option. I'm so pumped. A friend at work got hers, vacuumed with her regular vacuum and then vacuumed with her Dyson and had to empty the container 4 times!!! You should see the dust bunnies floating around my house and accumulating in corners (on my stairs, under the radiators, cat hair everywhere!).

Rejiggering the Home Theater System

We finally installed our A/V shelving on the wall thanks to Joe and my brother in law. Followed by having successfully given away the huge A/V Shelving unit that took up the whole corner of our living room. Unfortunately, this meant we actually had to unplug and figure out how to reinstall the whole home theater system. Normally this would scare the shit out of me, but, happily, when we originally set it up I mapped the whole mess with color-coding in Microsoft Visio (my tech-geek side is coming out now, I realize). There was a little part of me that was kind of excited to unplug everything and then plug it all back in correctly. We all have to get our jollies somehow!

Other than the frustration of getting the cords all weaved within the hiding spot for cords (we have a million cords and really thick Monster cables at that) and of Joe and I manuevering on a ladder and step stool respectively with a headlamp, a flashlight, and contorted necks and arms while the kids were yelling for the Peanuts Easter Beagle movie (seriously), all went fine with some minor bickering and 1 major exception. No sound for the DVD player. Disaster of all disasters...how on earth would we feed our Netflix habit WITHOUT SOUND! We wisely pushed a chair in front of the horror that was the cord pile and hoped the kids wouldn't play on the ladder and gave up for 2 days.

I'm happy to report that after reviewing the setup section in the receiver manual and talking with my friend at work who just bought the same brand receiver, we moved 1 plug back there and TA-DA! SOUND! We celebrated by watching 2 movies across Tuesday night and Wednesday night. See next post for details. I will update this with a picture of the cord nightmare just b/c it's ridiculous and needs to be shared.

UPDATE: Here's the picture of the cords...ridiculous.

Notes on a Scandal & Boston Home Show

Pretty mellow weekend all around. I babysat for a friend on Friday night and after the kids were asleep watched Notes on a Scandal with Cate Blanchett and Judi Dench. Really good movie about a teacher (CB) befriended by an older teacher (JD). The older teacher is strict and rigid and lonely and you get the impression she is a lesbian, but has never acted on it physically. She seems to have had emotional relationships (one-sided) with women friends in her past, but when the feeling is not returned in a deeper way, she is alone again. She has a cat and she is constantly writing detailed analysis of her friend of the moment in her journals. CB has an affair with a student and JD finds out and sort of blackmails her into a deeper friendship before CB realizes how much more she really does want. It was really good, but a bit disturbing watching CB make-out with a teenage boy. I just looked the actor up on IMDB and he's 18, but obviously he was younger when this was filmed and he looks even younger than that. It must have been weird for CB and the kids mother I would imagine. Solid movie though. I gave it 4 stars on Netflix.

Saturday night we had our Supper Club. We had the babysitter come a bit early so we could go to the Boston Home Show first. It wasn't as big as I thought, but we got some information related to driveways (pavers vs concrete stamping), solar power panels (just curious really), and kitchen design and renovation. A girl can dream, can't she?

New Furniture!

We've been in our house for 4 years. Our living room used to be a combination living room/den/playroom until after Rory was born. Then we decided the basement was a priority and we had it renovated into a playroom (and laundry room). It was the best decision - the kids love it and have lots of space to play and their stuff is out of the living room now. I actually have space to do things in the laundry room which looks out into the playroom. I'll take a picture and post it when I get home (yes, blogging at work again).

We got an awesome TV for the living room and just a few months over a year ago got a great leather couch. It took until yesterday to find a coffee table we liked, but we did! I went to West Elm and got a coffee table, 2 side tables, a small bookcase piece, and some accessories. HUGE difference...we may actually finish a room in our house! All we have left is a media shelf for the TV components and some lamps and then I think we might be done. Then again, hanging things on our walls always takes us awhile...hopefully we can do it next weekend. I promised Joe that once we got the rest of the furniture I would finally do some window treatments. We have these terrible vinyl window shades that just ruin the room. We have nothing in the windows in the dining room at all (which is kind of freaky at night), so now I think we can do both and start to get somewhere decorating. I'm thinking Faux Wood blinds or maybe shutters.

My New Laptop and 'Akeelah and the Bee'

I FINALLY got a new laptop. The old one was 8+ years old and was a work laptop I've just always used for personal stuff too. It was painfully slow and we finally decided it was time to get a new one for our personal use. After a good 3+ hours spent loading software and playing with it yesterday I can confirm that it was a good decision and I am officially in heaven. My new digital camera was not compatible with the old laptop, which helped clinch the decision, so I hadn't downloaded pics since Thanksgiving. There were 431 pictures on my camera that I just downloaded...I apologize in advance to those people on my monthly picture distribution list and I will try to break them up into more reasonable albums so as not to bore you to death with pics of my adorable kids over the holidays and in the Bahamas last month.

While I was working on this laptop project, I was watching the movie Akeelah and the Bee. While it was predictable, it was a really lovely movie. It helps that I enjoy Lawrence Fishburne in almost anything he does. The little girl that played Akeelah was quite engaging and since watching that Spelling Bee documentary a few years ago (excellent by the way), I was riveted to the process of watching her prepare for the Nationals. Shelagh woke up from her nap while I was watching it and I was trying to explain that the girl was really smart and could spell tons of big words and that she liked school so much. If I keep showing her these types of people and telling her how fun school is, will it guarantee that Shelagh will become a good and interested student? Just kidding, but it did cross my mind. If it happens to come on or you have room in your DVR and you'd like to see a nice feel-good family type movie, watch it.