It's currently 49°F here at the Prairie Box, and I'm freezing my buns off. I'm at that lovely stage of pregnancy (the end!!) where nothing fits, not even my maternity clothes. Since I didn't get big enough to wear maternity stuff until summer, I have NO cool weather clothing that even comes close to fitting. I need to go steal a sweatshirt from Shayne. Even some of those are too small. How's that for a self-esteem boost? I swear I'm going to have a 15 lb baby...
Last night we went to Lowes and bought a closet organizer for "my" closet in the office. It's a modular system from Rubbermaid that should almost double the hanging space available in my 63" wide closet. It's also supposed to be easy to install. We'll see how that works out. I haven't opened the package yet, but the instructions I saw on the website made it seem straightforward. Everything hangs from a top rail so that you only have to drill 1 set of holes into the studs. We'll install it this afternoon and see what happens.
Also at Lowes, we found pine "door jamb" planks that are the exact width of our door and window trim. It's stain-grade pine, the edges are already routed, and they're returnable if they don't work out. Our walls are thicker than those of new homes, so we'll have to find something wider to frame in the door jambs themselves, but these should work perfectly as trim. That's also on the agenda for this afternoon.
As for this morning, I'm continuing my "from-the-bottom-up" cleaning and organizing blitz. Thanks to my mom's help, the storage section of the basement is now much-improved, and we started on the dining room. Since I've been doing some shuffling of the furniture, quite a few odds and ends have ended up homeless... I just need to rehome or trash them, then vacuum and dust the living room. I feel like I'm doing Apartment Therapy's "Complete Cure" in 2 days. Thankfully I already reorganized the kitchen and bathroom, so I just need to do some cleaning in those rooms. Wish me luck!
9/13/2009
9/12/2009
It's kind of ironic; I'm busier at home on the weekends than I am at "work" during the week. Now that the upstairs is almost as organized as it's likely to get before the baby arrives (we're still going to buy two closet organizer systems and install them in the "new" closets... One of them will be in by tomorrow), it's time to move elsewhere. So, my wonderful mom is coming over today to help me organize the basement storage area. Not sure why this is important before having a baby, but I want to get it done. I'd like to have more space for food storage especially. Ever since canning all that corn, jam, peaches, and spaghetti sauce, I'm really running out of room. And I still have to do applesauce and blueberry butter. And I hardly have any staples stored. So today I'm on a mission to find some space.
In case you're wondering where my hubby has been during all the help from my mom... Today he's taking our nieces and nephews to the AirZoo in Kalamazoo as a reward for helping to clean up our yard and garage yesterday. I guess hubbies "nest" too, since he suddenly decided the garage needed to be cleaned... NOW. The rest of the time he's been working like crazy at part-time jobs. Since I'll be off work for 12 weeks, we're trying to build up our savings account as much as possible. He's not slacking, I promise!!
Our bedroom upstairs has walls again, and the drywall only needs 2 more mud applications and to be sanded. Then that's done too. We're not going to paint until spring I don't think, since we can't seem to find a new bedding set we like. So we'll just prime the room and closet, then paint the closet and call it good. I'm SO ready to be done with house projects for a while...
One of the up-sides of working on the house so much, though, is that I'm MUCH happier with it than I was in the spring. We still want to move before the kidlet goes to school, but it seems much less pressing than it did. Working on the house makes me feel like I have some control over my environment. So even though the neighbors killed our privacy, I'm finding other things about our house and property to be satisfied by. Like our little veggie garden. Or the patio-to-be next to the garage (it was a jungle of weeds, but my mom and I ripped out all the weeds, then Shayne spread landscape fabric and mulch until we can add paving stones or something more patio-y). Even fixing the closets upstairs has helped, since I know I'm adding value to the house, plus making sense out of something that was ruined.
And hopefully soon, we'll have a new little project to take up all of our time...!
In case you're wondering where my hubby has been during all the help from my mom... Today he's taking our nieces and nephews to the AirZoo in Kalamazoo as a reward for helping to clean up our yard and garage yesterday. I guess hubbies "nest" too, since he suddenly decided the garage needed to be cleaned... NOW. The rest of the time he's been working like crazy at part-time jobs. Since I'll be off work for 12 weeks, we're trying to build up our savings account as much as possible. He's not slacking, I promise!!
Our bedroom upstairs has walls again, and the drywall only needs 2 more mud applications and to be sanded. Then that's done too. We're not going to paint until spring I don't think, since we can't seem to find a new bedding set we like. So we'll just prime the room and closet, then paint the closet and call it good. I'm SO ready to be done with house projects for a while...
One of the up-sides of working on the house so much, though, is that I'm MUCH happier with it than I was in the spring. We still want to move before the kidlet goes to school, but it seems much less pressing than it did. Working on the house makes me feel like I have some control over my environment. So even though the neighbors killed our privacy, I'm finding other things about our house and property to be satisfied by. Like our little veggie garden. Or the patio-to-be next to the garage (it was a jungle of weeds, but my mom and I ripped out all the weeds, then Shayne spread landscape fabric and mulch until we can add paving stones or something more patio-y). Even fixing the closets upstairs has helped, since I know I'm adding value to the house, plus making sense out of something that was ruined.
And hopefully soon, we'll have a new little project to take up all of our time...!
9/07/2009
Upstairs cleaning/organizing extravaganza
Yeah, what a perfect way to spend Labor Day Weekend - painting, cleaning, and organizing... Oh well. I'm too gigantic to do anything fun - like go camping - so cleaning it is!
My mom finished painting the trim yesterday, so we moved most of the furniture that belongs there into the office. I have a small desk-ish table that my aunt and uncle gave me a few years ago that we still need to put up there, and some of the shower gifts are still piled in the living room, but we're really making progress. Too bad we'll still be living with paper Redi-Shades and unrefinished floors for a while yet...
In other happy news, we finally got our check from the insurance company. It's going to be socked away in the bank at least until next summer, but we'll have about 2/3 of the bathroom remodel paid for when we're ready to start. I can't wait to have clean, new tile and a shiny, deep bathtub to soak in!
My mom finished painting the trim yesterday, so we moved most of the furniture that belongs there into the office. I have a small desk-ish table that my aunt and uncle gave me a few years ago that we still need to put up there, and some of the shower gifts are still piled in the living room, but we're really making progress. Too bad we'll still be living with paper Redi-Shades and unrefinished floors for a while yet...
In other happy news, we finally got our check from the insurance company. It's going to be socked away in the bank at least until next summer, but we'll have about 2/3 of the bathroom remodel paid for when we're ready to start. I can't wait to have clean, new tile and a shiny, deep bathtub to soak in!
9/06/2009
Down to the wire
In the final push to get the upstairs habitable (and CLEAN!) before the baby arrives, my mom is coming over today to paint the trim in the office. Tony put up the sheetrock in our bedroom, so as soon as he tapes and muds, that room will be ready for some fresh paint as well. I hate painting this close to the baby's arrival, but maybe we can get some VOC-free paint to assuage my conscience. Or we'll just keep the windows open (which we already do anyways).
After the trim is painted, we'll start moving office stuff into the office. I want the nursery set up by tomorrow. Yes, I'm a slave-driver. I already put the bedding in the crib a few weeks ago; I was dying to see what it looked like. All we really need to do is hang the curtains, arrange the furniture, and bring in the glider. Oh, and get the pile of baby shower gifts out of the living room. Not so bad.
And then, maybe, I can relax. Cause right now my impending due date feels like the day the world will end. At least in terms of accomplishing anything house-related, including cleaning. There's all this pressure to get EVERYTHING done in the next week. I'm sure I'm driving Shayne nuts, but he's been extremely tolerant. I'd have never thought he could be so patient. I'm probably good practice for raising a toddler...
More later...
After the trim is painted, we'll start moving office stuff into the office. I want the nursery set up by tomorrow. Yes, I'm a slave-driver. I already put the bedding in the crib a few weeks ago; I was dying to see what it looked like. All we really need to do is hang the curtains, arrange the furniture, and bring in the glider. Oh, and get the pile of baby shower gifts out of the living room. Not so bad.
And then, maybe, I can relax. Cause right now my impending due date feels like the day the world will end. At least in terms of accomplishing anything house-related, including cleaning. There's all this pressure to get EVERYTHING done in the next week. I'm sure I'm driving Shayne nuts, but he's been extremely tolerant. I'd have never thought he could be so patient. I'm probably good practice for raising a toddler...
More later...
9/03/2009
Office photos
We finally got some paint of the walls... The first photo shows the color more accurately. It's a subdued greenish-blue, which is kind of funny since it's sort of close to the original color of the walls in this room. We weren't aiming for that detailed of a restoration, but that's how it worked out.
This second photo is of the new-and-improved closet opening. This is where the closet was originally, before the PPOs decided to sabotage the linen closet into a partial bedroom closet. We did double the width of the original doorway, but the closet dimensions have been returned to what they should be. The hall closet is again a hall closet (or will be once we have hanging rods and such in the "new" closet and move our clothes back where they belong).
The trim is going to stay white but will get a fresh coat of paint, probably this weekend. I'll also be sorting through the salvaged trim in the garage to recreate the missing pieces on two walls.
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