Decorating the Nursery: If It Can Go Wrong, It Has (or Probably Will)

After months of working on our babe's nursery, I would have expected to be posting pictures at this point. If not "After" pictures then at least "Pretty Close to After" pictures. 

Were I to climb the dozen or so steps to the room at the top left of the staircase and snap my digital camera a few times, however, all I could show you is this: white walls. 

That's right. No baseboards, even though we nailed them up a month and a half ago. No brown paint on the upper 1/3 of the wall, even though Brad painted three coats in January. No crib. No semi-organized closet. No dresser. No chest of drawers. No hoard of pillows. No stacks of baby clothes. Nothing nothing nothing. 

Why?! 

B/c we had to take it all down/out/apart and paint over it all. B/c all the clothes/pillows/pieces of furniture are sitting variously in my hallway, office, Brad's office, our bedroom.

Why?! 

I could recount this renovation nightmare in its painful entirity a 12th time. I could cry hysterically for a 4th time. I could become infuriated for the who-knows-how-many-eth time. But I won't, b/c I'm sick and my shower's tomorrow and I want to try to sleep for one night this week. 

So instead, I'll give the barest bones acount. In January, I spent nearly 5 hours researching VOC-free paint - the supposedly healthy, low-odor choice. We made our pick, spent a bunch o' money buying the stuff, tons of time painting, and all was well. No smell, looked pretty good. Great. As expected. 

Yeah, it's great - in theory 

Until we got back from my parents' house over spring break (a month ago) and the room reeked. Like, chemical smelling. Like bad. Except VOC-free paint ain't supposed to have those horrible chemicals. And especially not a month and a half after painting. 

Nothing worked to get rid of it - heat, air circulation, Citrus Magic. Nothing. It didn't get better. In fact, the warm weather made it worse. The customer service rep at the company was nice, but he pretty much thought I was nuts. Then the smell started going into the hallway. Then down the stairs. 

This stuff is no joke - and it ain't cheap 

That was it. We couldn't wait any longer. Last weekend Brad and I spent a nightmare day and a half clearing all the stuff out of the room and taking down every board and every batten we'd spent hours nailing up. (I pounded out EIGHTY nails.) Then his dad, my mom, and the two of us spent a nightmarish Sunday covering everything - every wall, every bit of window and door trim, every side of every piece of board and batten - with $40 a gallon Zinsser Bin odor blocking primer. 

And now, with a baby coming in 6 weeks, all the work we've done for the past three months has been undone - and we've got to do it all again. 

Any guesses as to why I got sick? The stress, as you might imagine, has been unreal. When I think about all the time, effort, money, and sheer exhaustion that went into the nursery the first time around - well, I can't really bear to think about it. Which is why I'm going to bed.

My house will never be ready to sell, will it? Will it?!

No, we're not crazy - we're not about to have our first baby and putting our house on the market. In fact, I have no desire to sell my house, buy a new one, or move anywhere else. Yet. 

But in time, as we outgrow the space and I graduate and, hopefully, find a job, we're going to be looking for a new abode. And when that time comes, is my house going to be in sellable condition? I worry it won't be, despite all the time, effort, and money we put into it on a rather regular basis. 

Perhaps I'm just being paranoid. But things seem to move at a snail's pace here - even when we're spending hours and hours a week on a project (or 3). For instance, we've been working on the nursery for-ev-ever (forever-ever? Forever-ever) and still the projects continue and pile up. I've been joking recently that we should have the room done by the time the kid's five. But as my due date approaches, I'm finding that less and less and less humorous . . . . 

There are just soooooo many projects on our to-do list. And sometimes I think of it as a to-do-before-we-could-ever-reasonably-try-to-sell-this-house-for-a-good-price list. (See? That's a really stressful list title, isn't it?) 

Brad, the babe, the kitties, and I (and any other babes and kitties that come along in the next few years) will be staying put for oh, I don't know, the next 3, 4, 5+ years. Which is a lot of time, I realize. But it's also not a lot when you consider how busy we are and how much busier we'll be with a tot on the premises. 

I really do love working on our house though (and Brad at least loves the results of working on our house) and I'm proud of everything we've accomplished so far, from installing a new sink/plumbing to refinishing floors to even just painting all kinds of walls that used to be pink or boring old white. 

So for now I'm just going to try to enjoy the projects as we do them, work to improve my renovating/DIY skills, and appreciate the upgrades and changes we make to our space. Because, ultimately, we're not making these changes for someone else to enjoy when we sell our home - we're making them so we can better enjoy the space while it is our home. 

Though, hopefully, when that "For Sale" sign goes up in the yard in years to come, all our work will have paid off in that sense, too. 

Nursery Woodwork Plans and Inspiration

So, as I mentioned yesterday, our nursery decorating plans have been tweaked (okay, so more than tweaked; how about slightly turned on their head). I'm so excited: we're going to install board and batten! 

Originally we planned on putting chair rail about 3 feet up the wall and painting the bottom half white and the top part a color. But then last week I saw a lovely nursery from Cottage Modern featured on House of Turquoise, and . . . the wheels started turning. Kristen from Cottage Modern and her husband did this board and batten themselves over the course of a few weekends. 

From Cottage Modern 

Some Googling of "DIY board and batten" revealed to me that Brad and I were definitely up for the task, and, happily, that's it's very much within our budget (as much as anything else is, haha :)). 

(Side note: weeks before even seeing this pic - and the map-covered letters of Kristen's little boy's name - I bought cardboard letters for our little guy's name at JoAnn's with the plan of covering each with a different color/print of scrapbook paper - I bought the paper this weekend and started with the first letter Saturday night!)

Here another lovely inspiration photo, this one from Beneath My Heart. I love this one b/c it features dark brown on top, which is what we're planning to use as well: 


Mudroom from Beneath My Heart 

Brad and I did some pricing of 1x4s and 1x2s at Lowe's yesterday (very reasonable prices, btw), though we've got to determine our exact needs before we buy. Although we haven't purchased it yet, we've settled on a shade of white for the board and batten second of the wall; it's a Behr color called (if I remember correctly) "Snowy Pines," a very close but softer white than the really-really-true white of the crib. And we're still in the process of picking out the brown for the upper part of the wall - we've got 4 maybes up there right now. 
At any rate, we're going to start the painting and b'n'b-ing project this weekend with the help of my very helpful mother, so stay tuned for progress pics!

Bass-ackwards

For most efforts - from cooking to organizing to remodeling - there's a proper, reasonable order in which to tackle the steps. Like, when baking a cake, you mix the ingredients and put the pan in the oven before icing. Or when getting dressed, it's socks first, shoes second. 

When the project is pretty much a total room overhaul, as with our nursery, it's wise to have a plan in place so that you can go from step one to step two to step three in a logical order. For the most part, we had a general sense of how things would go: 

1.  refinish the floor 
2.  paint the walls, closet doors, and the back of the bedroom door 
3.  paint the pieces of furniture we plan on painting. 

And as we go we've been dealing with details like wall hangings and lamp possibilities, and as we found furniture we liked, we picked it up/ordered it. So great. Sounds like a plan. But then I saw a few pictures online that I simply fell in love with (more on that later!) and Brad loves them, too. Suffice it to say, the plan has necessarily changed. 

Basically, the crappy little baseboards had to go. 

Don't mind that crack 

Which sounds all fine and good until you consider that this baseboard removal involves a utility knife, putty knife (I broke down and bought a cheap one at Home Depot the other day, raising our household total to 5), screwdriver, and pry bar - not the friendliest tools for your newly refinished hardwood floor, if you know what I mean.

A girl's best friend? 

(Although, I have to say I loved that pry bar - it was like the best thing ever. If I can concoct other ways to get my hands on that thing, trust me, I'll be pry barring all over my house.) 

As we literally pried the baseboards off the walls last night, Brad must've said 3 times, "We should've done this before we did the floors." Well, yes, dear, yes, we should have indeed. But, it would've been hard to remove the baseboards before we'd even considered removing them. 

At any rate, those suckers are off. And while I didn't look too closely for fear of what I might see, the floors seem to still be scratch-free. Now onto the next step in the newly designed plan . . . . 

All ready for something new! 

4, 3, 2, 1, none

4 is the number of putty knives/painter's 5-in-1 tools we've purchased since the beginning of summer 2010. 

3 is the number we were able to locate at the start of the kitchen wallpaper removal project in summer 2011. 

2 is how many I saw during the rest of the summer as we engaged in various house efforts. 

1 is the number I had to pick from when initiating the hall wallpaper removal debacle in December. 

And . . . none - the exact number I found this afternoon while searching my dining room craft zone, the huge tool space in the garage, and the various places we keep tools in the kitchen. And so I was reduced to trying to remove baseboard molding with a butter knife. You can guess how swimmingly that went.

The Friday 4: House Projects 2012

So, 2012 is going to be a nutso year. But in a good way :). Even so, I've got some projects on my radar. Actually, a bunch of projects, but I've included the four most pressing below. Some are before-baby projects, and others are fine to be after-baby projects if that's how the cookie crumbles. 

Here goes - in the order they need to be tackled, not the order of importance: 

4.  Turn the second bedroom into a nursery. 

This is a continuing project over the course of the next few months. And there's lots to be done! 

The floor's finished, but we haven't moved all of the stuff back in yet b/c we wanted to give it extra extra time to dry since the weather is so brrrrrrcold. We did put the crib together in there tonight, though, which is so exciting! 

Next comes painting the walls (I have a color in mind, but right now it's a secret!) and painting the thrift store dresser we bought a few months back. I've got plans to revamp two of Brad's old bookcases (and make them into one bigger bookcase if possible - ?). Plus I've been doing some online searching for ideas about bedding/window treatments/etc., and Brad ordered the quilt for the crib today. And of course, there are all the little things like lamps and wall hangings. I even got an adorable old-school garbage can from the ReStore yesterday for a buck. So much fun stuff! 

3.  Refinish the upstairs hallway floor and replace the dangerously unsafe wrought iron banister with a new oak one. 

This is going to be a massive (un-fun) project. 

Our current banister is not suitable for man nor beast (well, Cookie actually loves it; she does a little gymnastics routine that Brad fondly calls "the bar routine"), and certainly not for baby. It's loose, too low, and the spindles are too far apart. So, yes, it's going to be replaced. We're not in any way equipped to do such a task ourselves (believe me, I've researched it quite a few times but I usually get lost at the word joist), so we'll be biting the money bullet (hopefully with the help of our tax return) and bringing in a carpenter, likely sometime in February. 

Before that, we're going to remove the old one and have our floor guy come back to sand the hallway, then Brad and my mom will undertake the same (arduous, absurd, agonizing) process they engaged in with the nursery floor. (Cue: collective weeping.) This will probably have to happen over spring break so we can be uprooted and scoot over to my parents' house with the least disruption to our schedules. Hopefully by the time baby arrives, our upstairs will look less like "hovel" and more like "home." 

2.  Remove the hall/stairway wallpaper and paint the walls. 

Gag. I already started this. Months ago. Nevermind the fact that it was part of our plan for summer 2011 . . . . Anyway, a few weeks ago, I scored a ton of the wallpaper, making it even uglier. But my sister's steamer stopped working about 35 minutes into the removal project. So now the wall along my stairs looks . . . about as ugly as you can imagine. 

Yes, this is really what we've been looking at daily 

But it has to get worse before it can get better, right? RIGHT? 

1.  Get frames (with things inside them) behind my couch. 

Until this summer we had two large frames behind our couch. But the wall is hugely long (something like 19 ft.) and two frames just looked lost. So I moved them to the left of the TV piece, where they look a lot better. They've still got the stock photos in them, but . . . things take time . . . sometimes, lots of time. 

Anyway, now we've got this (don't mind the mess). 

You know, a big empty wall that stretches on and on and on. There's even about four empty feet to either side. 

I searched and thought and searched and thought some more about what to put there that would be nice and cost-effective. Big picture frames ain't cheap, and I was having a hard time parting with something like $125-$200 just for six or seven frames. Add the matting and stuff to put into the frames on top of that, and the price tag could come in at well over $200. (And we're not even talking first-rate frames here.) 

Then my beloved JoAnn's had one of its million sales, and I had a few of their million coupons, and I hatched a picture frame plan. B/c my plan involves spray paint, we've got to wait till the weather warms, but those babies should be hanging in my living room by the end of spring - hopefully by the time our baby arrives in the living room!

The nursery is under way!

The floor is D-O-N-E! The house (though not the nursery itself) is smell-free, and we are back in our space (a day earlier than planned)! Love hanging out with my mom a bunch, but it's sooooooooo nice to be home. 

Brad snapped these pics in imperfect lighting, so they're not 100% accurate representations of the redone floor; the huge improvement is, however, still noticeable, and once we're able to move some furniture in there, I'll hopefully be able to get some great shots. 

Speaking of furniture: I ordered the crib tonight! 

From the beginning, I've had my eye on a Jenny Lind crib. I love the old-fashioned spindle look, and the style is timeless and simple without being dated and boring. As another benefit, several brands make Jenny Lind, and they're all relatively reasonably priced as far as cribs go. 

We got the DaVinci Jenny Lind stationary side crib in white through Amazon. DaVinci is one of the better brands that makes the Jenny Lind style (though they all seem to get generally good reviews), and while it's normally about $200, it was discounted on Amazon to $150 with free shipping. I was beginning to doubt that we'd be able to avoid paying $25 or more for shipping - which was infuriating and totally not my style - and I couldn't find it in a conveniently located brick-and-mortar, so the free shipping was a major score. 

Why not a secondhand crib? This was a decision that Brad and I spent a lot of time discussing and researching, and I'm glad we did. My original plan was to buy a crib secondhand on Craigslist - as is my general trend whenever possible. I searched for months and months for a Jenny Lind, and I found a few within a reasonable distance. They were all drop-side, though, which meant they would require a repair kit (to make them stationary) from the manufacturer given that drop-side cribs went through major recalls in 2010 due to injuries to babies. In the midst of this search, one of my older sisters offered me her children's old crib, and when I learned that it was a Jenny Lind, I was like, YES! 

But upon researching, I found out that the manufacturer had gone out of business and thus there was no repair kit for her crib. And after reading that site, I started reading another about the not-so-great aspects of secondhand cribs, especially older and drop-side cribs. The more a crib is put together and then taken apart (like, for a second or third child), the looser the hardware becomes and the more likely that hardware pieces go missing. With a drop-side that's been "repaired" to be stationary, this is especially problematic, as the side may not be as stationary as it's supposed to be. 

In general, the recommendation is to not use a crib older than 10 years old b/c safety features change so much over time. But even for those newer drop-side cribs that I could've found through Craigslist, there was a distinct chance that the crib had been dis- and re-assembled one too many times to be ideal. 

Ultimately, it's a risk I didn't want to take, and Brad couldn't have agreed more. There are a lot of ways we're saving with this nursery - we got a steal of a rocker, we did most of the floors ourselves (okay - "themselves"), we bought a vintage dresser ($25!) that we'll paint and use as a changing table, etc. But when it comes to issues of safety, the extra $75 for a new crib is more than worth it, especially when you think of all the many many hours baby will spend sleeping in that crib over the next couple of years.

Nothing Can Ever Be Simple; or, Displaced Persons

That, I believe, is a fitting motto for Christmas Break 2011 - however, right now I'm only talking about the floor re-finishing project, AKA, the Winter Headache '11. 

The plan was (relatively) simple, especially given all the alternatives we had laboriously considered: 

1.  12-22 - have the floor professionally sanded on 12-22 while we are out of the house for the morning/afternoon; 
2.  12-23 - Brad and my mom apply two coats of stain over the course of the morning and afternoon, while I hang out downstairs and away from staining smells; 
3.  12-24 - Brad and my mom apply polyurethane coat #1, then Brad and I vacate the house for the holiday (to my parents' house) until late on the 26th; 
4.  12-29 - Brad and my mom apply poly coat #2 in the a.m., then Brad and I go to WV for the Christmas celebration with his family and eventually head back to my parents' house through the New Year; 
5.  12-31 - Brad and my mom apply the 3rd and final coat of poly in the a.m. Then it's done! 

Numero uno went great, and it only took the floor guy about 4 and a half hours from start to finish. 

Look at those bare oak beauties! 

But, of course, we didn't even get all the way through #2 without a problem: the stain reeked, and I had to get out of there all afternoon; then after they did the second coat, we packed up in a jiff and went to stay at my parents' house a day early. 

Fine. No biggie. Except when Brad and my mom went over on the morning of Christmas Eve (boo! Who wants to do work on Christmas Eve?!), the second coat of stain was not completey dry despite having 17 hours. The first coat was dry after 4 hours, so we figured 4 times that (the can says 4-6 hrs.) was sufficient even in non-ideal conditions (i.e., December in Southwestern PA). Wrong. 

They hung out for two hours with the heat jacked and a fan blowing, but still it would not dry. And putting poly on a not-completely-dried floor is just asking for problems. So they returned, and step #3 got moved to the afternoon of the 26th, when all went well. Thankfully. 

Brad and I went back to our abode about 24 hours later, however - really needing some in-our-own-space time - and this time the house smelled of polyurethane. We opened windows everywhere except for the nursery (despite rain), jacked the heat (again), and went out for a bit. But when we returned: no dice. It wasn't an awful smell, especially in the living room where I was - in fact, I could barely tell there was anything still lingering - but Brad the bloodhound could smell it, so we left for baby safety's sake. 

Thus, just 5 hours after having packed up everything we brought to my parents' house (and we do not travel lightly) and driving 45 minutes home, we turned around, drove back, and unpacked it all. I thought I was going to flip both my lid and Brad's lid and the lid of anyone else within my sight. I was sooooo exhausted, and I felt like a displaced person traveling around with pillows and blankets and Target bags filling the back seat of my car. 

We're not getting the 3 days at of rest and recuperation at home that we had planned on in b/t the holidays, and the sleeping arrangements here are NOT long-term solutions - by the end of this project, we'll have been holed up at my parents' house for TEN DAYS! (Yes, I consider ten days "long-term" in this situation.) Hopefully in about a week, though, this will all have been worth it, and I'll have some lovely fabulous wonderful great pictures of the floor to post. Brad and my mom got coat #2 on successfully this morning, and their plan is to head back Friday morning to finish this dang thing. 

With any luck, we'll be back in our smell-free house by Monday night and my mom can reclaim her living room from our computers/cups/Netflix and her upstairs from our, well, everything else. And, hopefully, the cats won't be too mad at us for our extended absence - we've loved them up during our near-daily visits back to the homestead.

Hired Gun

For as much as I like to do things on my own and for as handy as I consider myself to be, sometimes it pays to know when to bring in the pros. Which is exactly what we're doing for the soon-to-be-nursery floor tomorrow circa 9 a.m. 

This floor has been causing not a few headaches. It needs to be refinished in the worst way. Not only is it 1960s orange, but it's got a host of black splotches and gouges and random bits of carpet padding/glue stuck to it. 

You mean your husband doesn't use various saws to 
cut apart an old desk as a means of furniture removal? 

Until yesterday, however, I had way way more questions than answers regarding this whole refinishing business: like, when is Brad's dad off work so he can help Brad sand it, and how many days is it going to take? Will my mom and Brad be able to stain the floor (2 coats) the next day? Apply the poly (3 coats) the day after that? And, in the process, how long am I (we) going to be displaced from my home? 

It's been unduly frustrating to me that this huge project needs to happen without me having my hand in it; but floor sanding, staining, and polyurethaning - like almost everything else in the world, I swear - are no-nos for the pregnant chick. And being in the vicinity of the sanding dust and the poly fumes is likewise off-limits. 

Which means all I can do is plan and direct beforehand (and then cross my fingers and hope for the best - eeks!). And sit at my parents' house and twiddle my thumbs. (Alright, there are other things I can do there, but still.) 

Then enter Brad's tennis/golfer's elbow and the chiropractor's warning that manuevering that big sander could irritate things a lot. I was at the point of giving up - and had just about decided to switch rooms for the nursery to a room with a floor we'd already done - when I had a brilliant idea: 

Call around and see what someone would charge just to sand the floor. 

Brad resisted ("it'll be too expensive"), but I persisted, and he made the calls yesterday. And the happy news turned out to be that a nearish-by floor guy is available tomorrow and agreed to do the sanding for $160 - plus he can do the whole room (with the closet) in about 6 hours. 

This is a steal considering that renting the big sander from Lowe's for two days (which is how long we figured it would take) and buying all the necessary sandpaper (for the big one and the random orbital palm sander that you need for the edges and corners) and tack cloth, etc. would cost approx. $100. 

So, for $60, Brad gets two days of his life back and doesn't hurt his arm; I get to stay in my house an extra two nights (since this guy will have all the dust cleaned up by the time he leaves tomorrow afternoon); and we don't have to work around Brad's dad's work schedule. My mom'll be over early on Friday so they can start the staining, and then early on Christmas Eve so they can get down at least the first coat of poly. It's the first coat that's so crucial to do ASAP - to ensure that the floor's grain doesn't raise too much - so if they get no further than that on Saturday, it's no big deal for them to do the remaining two after Christmas. 

I'm the first person to try to do stuff on my own to save a buck. But this time, it just made sense call in a pro and get 'er done.

Summer Show-Off: Re-Booted Bookcase (and window seat)

We're bookish folks here, and there seems to be no design notion more beloved by bookish folks than displaying their books. And beloved books deserve a lovely display space. So, it only made sense that our first major DIY project of the summer was a reboot for our living room semi-built-in bookcase. Well, except for the fact that it wasn't on our list of top summer to-do's. But whatever. 

Here's the before, first with books, then once we removed everything: 

I say "semi-built-in" b/c while the bookcase (and the window seat with it) were not movable, they also weren't true-blue built-with-the-house built-ins. How do I know? I looked at them, that's how. Legit built-ins are nice, high quality things, usually topped off with molding of some sort (crown or otherwise), and they typically look like they are seamlessly integrated into the room. 

Anyway, the project, from start to finish, actually took months b/c it involved making a valence and my mother making a (fabulous) new cover for the window seat which didn't happen for some time; but the bulk of it took about 4 days, one of which included my mother's effort. Here's what we did and then, of course, the results. 

First we painted the back of the bookcase the same color as the walls (a Martha Stewart color called Burlap in Behr paint*). Then we painted everything else white. We used leftover Behr interior satin paint in Blizzard Fog (BF). This alone was a huge improvement for 2 reasons:

1. The "before" color was a nasty shade of glossy "dinge" (short for "dingy"); and
2. The doors our friend Jack made for us out of the goodness of his heart (read: for free; we didn't even pay for the materials) had never been painted and obviously clashed horribly. 

Third, we used the BF on 2 pieces of decorative molding from Lowe's and 4 decorative wooden squares with a flower design. 

Everything was going smoothly until we tried to remove the ugly bracket-holder thingies that were holding up the shelves: they simply would not move. They and the screws holding them in had been painted over so many times that they were seriously ATTACHED. I thought short of risking ruining the wood by prying them off (which I was NOT prepared to do), we were stuck with them, when Brad ingeniously thought of the heat-gun. Boy, was that a bright idea. Those babies came right off.




Once they were outtie, we sanded the area and painted in BF.

I've kind of lost count, but we'll go with fourth: we measured the length and width of the bookcase, subtracted the size of two of the decorative wood squares, and Brad cut the pieces of molding to fit. We then used wood glue to secure a square in each of the four corners and to secure the pieces of molding to them and the outside of the bookcase. 

We next used leftover beadboard wallpaper to paper the side of the bookcase and make it look more upscale. I measured all the individual doors and cut and applied squares to fit the centers. We then painted the doors and the centers.

Finally, we determined where we wanted to place the shelves, screwed in new brackets, and painted them BF.

At that point the bookcase proper was done - except for the necessary books and other accoutrements. Styling was the fun part. I went with a sort of color scheme. But only sort of. 

We also made a bunch of other changes: 

-a new valence in Ralph Lauren Eleanor fabric (made by yours truly); 
-a new window seat cover in the same fabric (made by my mother, who spent - gulp - at least 20 hrs. on it); 
-two new pillows I'm not nuts about but that work well enough for now; 
-we switched the old horrible blind for a less horrible one from the upstairs hallway until we find something we like; and 
-we painted the wall (indeed, the whole wall, which stretches from the living room to the hall to the dining room) Bone Folder, another Martha color in Behr paint. (Don't ask me about this atrocious name.) It's a creamy color without two much yellow, and although it's hard to tell when it's nighttime (which is when I took the pictures), in the daylight there's a nice subtle contrast with the color of the bookcase. 

One more shot, this time farther back, just for good measure. (Don't mind the weird paint-less spot to the top right of the valence; that's getting painted very soon, my friend, very soon.)

So, that was our first big task of the warmer months, and we now looooooooooooove the whole area. It's much more "together" and makes the room more "complete" feeling, and it's definitely more convincing as a built-in. I'd say it's finally worthy of all those wonderful books that we've spent years acquiring! Now, we've just got to read them . . .hmmmm, that sounds like a lot of work . . . maybe I'll just admire my bookcase from the across the room . . . 

*We got the Martha color, as with all the Martha colors we use, color-matched in Behr paint b/c the quality of Martha paint ain't what you would expect from the home goddess herself. It goes on too thick, and I can never get rid of the tiny bubbles despite endless stirring. Plus, it's more expensive. 

Up with the Birds

Well, I guess 7:45 a.m. is not really bird-time, but it's really early for summer (for us), and when that alarm went off this morning, our groans could likely be heard by the birds three houses down. 

I bet these awesome birds sleep till 7:45 in the morning. 

Today is officially Brad's last day of summer 2011 - big frown here: :( - which means tomorrow his alarm will go off at 6 a.m. and he'll start making that way-too-long trek to and from work once again. Then I'm back to the grind on Thursday, though I will, thankfully, have no such crazy alarm. 

This summer has flown by. Floooooooooown. (I guess I've got a bird thing going on in this post . . . . ) 

We've had so much fun, and I hate that it's winding down faster than fast, but in contrast to the typical end of summer, I'm not dreading the start of the semester. Don't get me wrong: I don't want summer to end, and I'm not particularly looking forward to teaching composition yet again (esp. b/c the head of my dept. once again offered me a creative writing class - but it was MWF and there's no way I can drive in 5 days a week and keep my sanity), but I have a kind of acceptance of the fact that it's back to business.

I think it's largely a result of the fact that this is the last semester in which I have to take classes; in the spring I'll finish up my credits with a directed reading in an area of my choosing and start making my lists for comps. I can't tell you how good that feels; I'm so tired of coursework, I can hardly explain it. I have, after all, been in school for the last twenty-four years of my life.

For Brad's part, although he's desperately lamenting summer's close, he's grateful to have a job in this economy, and equally grateful to have a job that he likes, that he's good at, one with co-workers who like him and whom he likes back. 

L&O, seasons 4 and 5: back when the best-ever
show had its best-ever cast 

And so it's back to the computer (and the attendent neck ache), but not without fond memories of all the summer fun. And, indeed, Brad and I had a ton of fun this summer. We watched a lot of great tv (old Law and Order seasons, Luther, True Blood); relaxed on the patio with our new fire pit; hung out with my mom a lot; spent an obscene amount of time in Lowe's and an even more obscene amount of time in JoAnn Fabrics; wrote and read at Starbucks; went to the movies; frequented Goodwill and the Habitat for Humanity ReStore (I'm *in love* with that place and Brad really likes it, too); sword fought in the front yard; got hooked on Words with Friends (thanks a lot, Shannon); took neighborhood walks; chased each other with sparklers (which I always somehow call "sprinklers") on the Fourth of July; and just generally had a good time. 

I spent time with Amanda, Shannon slept over a couple of times, I revised a paper. And I never once had to put on a bathing suit. (Which, to my mind, is a major score because I hate bathing suits. Nevertheless, I do want to go to the beach in the near future.) Pair that with the fact that I'm running 2 miles in under 18 minutes despite runner's knee (if not for that, I'd be running more!) and that I haven't bought a piece of clothing in exactly three months, and I'm feeling pretty good. 

Plus, Brad and I (and often my mom) have done a ton of work on the house. Ton, ton, ton. I feel like we've been eating, sleeping, and dreaming DIY home improvement for the past three months. I've got a bunch of fun projects to show off! The difference in my house b/t now and the beginning of summer is hard for me to believe - especially on the small, small budget we've got. 

All this DIY is largely responsible for me going AWOL from blog-land. Three phone conversations should serve as exculpatory evidence: 

A month ago: 
Me: "Well, we re-painted the dining room walls and I dyed the drapes and sanded and spray painted the faucet and fixed the paint on the light fixture this week." 
Amanda: "You've done more on your house in a week than we've done here in 4 years." 

About a week ago: 
Me: "All right, I've gotta go - I have to get to painting." 
Amanda: "What are you people doing now?!?!" 

A few days later: 
Shannon: "Hi. What's going on." 
Me: "I have to call you back; I'm sanding a vanity door." 
Shannon (probably shaking her head): "That sounds like the kind of thing you would do." 

See? It's not like I've been twiddling my thumbs over here. 

Powder. Room. Reveal. Finally!

I've been majorly MIA in the world 'o blogging as of late, but not without good reason - we recently undertook the Epic Clean of 2011 in preparation for what Brad calls the Great Validation '11. Which, in more colloquial terms, is known as my mom's birthday party at our house this past Sunday for which my sisters and their families came over and our house was on display and under scrutiny (at least in my mind). 

BUT ANYWAY, all of this is important with regard to this post b/c of the fact that it motivated Brad and me to finally finish the powder room remodel that we started, oh, like 3 months ago. Ah! 

In the long, long process, we were stymied (as my mother and my German teacher would say) by about every possible sink/plumbing problem that total amateurs might encounter. Otherwise, this whole thing would have been done in about a month. Brad estimates that we made, between the two of us, 7 total trips to Lowe's solely in relation to the sink. But it's too exhausting to even think of chronicling all those trials right now, esp. when there are pictures to show . . . 

So, quickly, here's what we started with (when we moved in in August '09): 

Then, here's where we were after we started removing the wallpaper (which turned out to be much more difficult and time-consuming - even in this 2x4 of a room - than we imagined) in July or August 2010 (it looked like this for the next 8 months): 

Finally, sometime this February, we got back to work. And where once there was this terrible yellow wall-mount sink 

now there was this disgusting-looking wall 

Here's my beloved with the reciprocating saw on one of the many, many days of sink tribulations: 

Once everything old had been removed/scraped/sawed/sanded/or-otherwise-dismantled, we began the "reconstruction process." Which went a little something like this:  

1.  Brad and I painted the top part of the walls with 2 coats of the same color as the living room. (It's an awesome Martha Stewart color in Behr paint, but I can't find it at Lowe's anymore and don't remember the name.) 

2.  Next my mom helped us apply paintable beadboard wallpaper on the bottom part of the walls (read: she applied it. Although to my credit, I did all the cutting with the utility knife). 

3.  Then the three of us had the most difficult time ever figuring out how to cut the chair rail accurately without a mitre saw and mitre box - or even a compass. After much folly, and some wasted chair rail, we figured it out, and affixed it to the wall with finishing nails. I filled in the nail holes with paintable silicon for a smooth look. 

4.  After the beadboard had been up for 24+ hours (I guess that's drying time - ?), we painted the beadboard, chair rail, interior door frame, and baseboards (which we didn't replace) with Behr paint in Blizzard Fog. It's a soothing white with (I think) gray undertones, and it matches the sink and toilet pretty perfectly.

5.  Next came the faucet and sink drama installation. Through eBay we'd gotten a brand-new Price Pfister faucet, towel ring (perfect for the small space), and tp holder - all for $65! The pedestal sink (which I'm in love with) was under $50 at Lowe's - the smallest and, conveniently, cheapest one they had. 

Getting the faucet properly installed was more than a bit of a challenge. I can't tell you how many different times I had silicon on me (yes, Diplo, Brad was quite wary), but we managed to make it happen eventually. Attaching the sink basin to the wall was likewise a sh*t show and not easy on our backs. I installed the new tp and towel holders with ease though. 

6.  Bullcrap, etc., annoyance, dysfunction, etc.: that about sums up getting the sink in working order. But it's done now, so let's (please) not dwell. Although I should note that there exists unanimous agreement in our house: our plumbing adventures have come to completion. Even the cats concur.

7.  Brad painted the nasty, greasy-looking ceiling the same color as the beadboard and totally brightened up the room. 

Okay, now that you've indulged me, here is is (!) . . . 

Doesn't the floor look so much less unstylish now? 



Like those blurry babies? I made 'em using two of my thrift store frames and pressed flowers! (More on that in another post.) Regarding the blur:  it was hard to get a clear pic. from that position in the bathroom. 

And another . . . 

So - what do you think of our thirfty powder room remodel?! We LOVE it, and every time I'm in there, I'm amazed that Brad and I accompished everything on our own (with, of course, a bit of physical labor courtesy of my mom, some plumbing advice from Amanda's plumber bro, and lots of discussions with Lowe's employees). Soon enough I'll estimate the costs - you'll be impressed, I swear - but right now I'm still recovering from all the cleaning of last week and this weekend . . . yawn.