The Great Upstairs Scramble

In spite of not working much on the bathroom, we ARE working.  After moving Ethan into a "big" (twin-sized) bed, what little organization and order that was left upstairs completely fell apart.  Since we started seriously decluttering last year, I have a much lower tolerance for chaos.  I can deal with a few piles here and there, but the stuff-piled-everywhere-and-no-room-to-live types of clutter really get to me.  And my hormones are screaming that I need to get busy because I only have (at most) 13 weeks left before the new baby gets here.  So, I took a few days off of work, and we've been working to get the upstairs back in some kind of order.

 So far I've gone through everything in Ethan's soon-to-be room (formerly my office) and decluttered.  While we weren't able to move everything out due to space constraints, when we are done, only his bed, a dresser, a hope chest, and a bookcase will be in there.  I'll also probably move in a bin organizer and store a few toys and books in there.  I recently purged toys, so we don't have a lot, but I want some upstairs so I can put a gate over the stairwell and have him occupied in his room while I shower. 

 We've also painted.  His room is now light green, to coordinate with his Carter's Forest Friends/Tree Tops theme.  I bought the valances and flannel receiving blankets from the set, and my aunt turned them into an adorable quilt. 

New color!

Quilt-in-progress

I have 2 additional valances for the windows, and we'll get some kind of coordinating rug and maybe some decals for the wall.  I'm really excited with the way it's all coming together.

Ethan's current room will remain the nursery, no painting or modification necessary.  My aunt is making another quilt for Baby Girl, and we'll find coordinating curtains and a rug.  We'll just set the crib back up, and we'll be in business!

The best part is that once we're done with all this rearranging, painting, and organizing, the upstairs should be pretty much done!  If the weather is nice in the next few weeks, I'll supervise sealing, staining, and shellacking the woodwork, and maybe the hallway can get finished too  :)

The floors are done!

Floor sanding today!

And I don't have to do it this time!  Lately we've been taking the "Y" out of DIY and just paying people to get it done.  This was supposed to be finished last summer.  Before I had the baby.  Yeah...

But at least it's finally going to happen.  The crew will be here sometime after 11 am, so we emptied the entire upstairs into the living room.

Thank God it's temporary.  I cannot believe there are people who live like this all the time.  Granted, they probaby don't have 2 large dogs, a cat, a boxful of chicks, and a baby, but still.

And speaking of the boxful of chicks... The coop is nearing completion!  [insert happy dance here]  We're done painting except for the trim that we will put up over the exposed ends of the hardware cloth, and then we just have to staple up the wire and glaze and install the windows.  The girls will be in there within a few days.  I can't wait.  They're very cute, but the constant cheeping is making me crazy.  I've never had a bird as a pet, and I can now promise you that the only birds we'll ever have will be yard birds.  There's no way I would tolerate this all the time.  3 weeks is plenty.

I finally got the tomatoes planted (Thanks Mom #2!), and I'm thinking that another 6 plants wouldn't be a bad thing.  I'm going to have romas everywhere in August, but I plan on making lots of sauce.  I still need to get a pepper plant or two, and maybe potatoes if I can find them.  I'm kind of late...  As usual.

More later...

Wow, I really can keep a secret!

But today I decided it's been long enough...  As of this week, I am 20 weeks pregnant!! 

That's one of the reasons I went on a posting hiatus at the beginning of the year.  I felt awful for the first 15 weeks.  Morning sickness doesn't even begin to describe it.  Thankfully after about 12 weeks, I started getting some energy back, but the nausea didn't stop for another month or so.  Still, during that time we were busy squirrelling away baby bargains that we found secondhand.  So far we've managed to find a crib/changing table/dresser combo, bassinet, swing, bouncer, a Pottery Barn bedding set, a small dresser, a rocking chair, and a Jeep jogging stroller.  And I think our grand total is still under $500.  I'm so cheap.  Er, I mean "frugal".

Now that I feel better, we're working on the house a little more.  Tony the Drywall Guy has been dilligently working on the office walls, and he's finished the skimcoating.  This week, he's going to install the 4.5' by 8' "patch"  where the PPOs made a closet opening.

Tony also helped us find out that the knob and tube we found is indeed live.  Yay...  Fortunately, he also knows trustworthy electricians, and he's acting as a GC to get one here and working.  Tony is our new hero.  We're going to have the electrician remove the k&t as well as install wiring for a ceiling fan.  I might also have him look at the two outlets in the living room that suddenly stopped working...

The next stage of our project will be rebuilding the two closets between the bedrooms.  Considering the small space and the amount of damage done, I think we're just going to gut and drywall.  There's just not enough plaster left to even try to save it.  Considering how small the space is and how quickly Tony works, that should be a two-day project once we get there.

Amazing.  The end is near!

Hall closet recreation begun!

I came home from work today to find that John had finished framing over the opening from the office into the hall closet.  While I still need to use it as a closet for my stuff, it is on its way to becoming a hall closet once again.  Soon it shall house only linens, blankets, laundry, and a vacuum.  I'm so excited; this is the first substantial (i.e. not just cosmetic) step we've taken in unremuddling the house.

For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about...  This is what the upstairs of the house looks like right now:

There are three closets, two of which are noticeably...odd.  The former hall closet became a walk-thru closet with an unusable shelving unit and rods hung every whichway.  The master bedroom closet is only about half accessible.  Pretty goofy arrangement.

This is what the upstairs should be, and what we're returning it to:

Four closets, all of them perfectly functional. Even John the handyman thought that the previous owners were nuts to "rearrange" the openings the way they did.  But now, finally, we're on our way to fixing it.