It's that time of the year...

Hmmm, only 5 weeks left in school with three research papers to write and a large stack of books still to read...time to do some home improvement! Because I would rather chew off my own leg than do homework. For reals.

There are only 3 spaces in my house that still have the paint from the previous owner. Only 3!! One is this little pass-way that goes from the great room into the master bedroom (soon to be the same Silver Birch as the kitchen area) and the two bathrooms. I'm a wee bit stumped on what to do with these spaces since a) they are itty bitty and b) we don't have the moolah to do the major projects we would like to do (including ripping out the linoleum floors and builder-grade vanities and replacing them with tile and something more custom.)

I've put up some shower curtains and thrown down some bath mats, but other than that I just haven't been able to wrap my mind around putting any work into a room that we want to overhaul within the next 2-3 years. I mean, isn't that just throwing money away? Maybe?

Anyway, I still don't know what I'm going to do in the guest room, but the master bath has been going through some transitions lately. Here is the quick breakdown:

1. Find cute towel at World Market--ooh! This is what I want to base the bathroom scheme on!
2. Oh joy! I have seeeeveral "tester pots" of paint that totally match the colors of the inspiration towel! I will use these pots to paint a mural that mimics the floral pattern on the towel but in a LARGE scale that will take up a whole wall!
3. Duh! I HATE murals!! And floral patterns!!
4. 3 weeks pass with crappy mural (oh yeah, I can't paint stuff like that freehand) still on bathroom wall, mocking me every time I look at it, laughing at me while I shower, talking some smack while I do my hair in the morning...I. Hate. Mural.
5. Solution! I will just paint over mural with blue-ish, green-ish color I have! Brilliant!
6. Blarg, this color looks like chlorine. If chlorine had a color. Just as bad as mural.

7. I find some frames I bought two years ago...these are good frames and they have a nice peacock color in them. Hmmmm...

8. At Home Depot I color-match peacock color to paint. Should I just buy a sample to try it out? NOPE! I will take a quart please!

9. Get home. Start painting. Good hell...this is a mighty, mighty color. Am afraid.
10. First coat is drying...is not making fun of me...okay, maybe it's not so bad.
11. Second coat is going on. This is looking good...

12. TV is calling me. No third coat tonight. Shutup.

Anyone else ditching homework (or housework?) to throw paint on the walls all willy-nilly?

***EDIT: Just kidding, TV failed me and after Biggest Loser nothing else worth watching was on, soooo I finished the third coat. There are some spots that need touch-ups, the edges need to be cut in, and that bald spot is where a nail is stuck in the wall and I can't find my hammer to pull it out, but other than that I think I'm done! Woot! And the color isn't really true in my pictures, but it is most like the color in the bottom picture (taken from the bedroom looking into the bathroom.)*** 

C goes swimming

I bought a baby pool for C today and since the weather has been in the upper 90's (blech!) we took it for a spin this afternoon. It was a HUGE hit with C and I have a feeling we'll be getting our $6 worth out of this thing. Also, I don't know how to turn this video the right way...

 

Also, is there anything more adorable than a baby girl with a swimsuit wedgie? I don't think so.

Dear C

I looked through my past posts and it looks like I completely forgot to do a six-month letter! One of these days I am going to get my act together and my pre-baby brain is going to start working again (right? RIGHT?!!) but for now here is C in all of her 7 month glory!

Dear C,

Last week you turned seven months old and you really hit the ground running! Almost overnight it seems like you have gone from a "mostly-still-baby" to an "I'm-practically-ready-for-my-driver's-license-little-girl"!

On March 19th the Reid family was gathered together at Aunt Amy and Uncle Jason's to celebrate your cousin Tucker's baptism. I set you on the floor with a few toys and all of a sudden you popped up on your hands and knees and started crawling!! We were crazy excited but super surprised because before this all you had done was roll around the living room. I mean, you were REALLY good at rolling, but you hadn't really tried crawling at all yet. I guess you were tired of not being able to get exactly where you wanted to go! We get such a kick out of watching you zip around the living room, and apparently you do too because you often crack up laughing while you crawl!

Just a few days later I went into your room to get you up from a nap and you had pulled yourself up in your bed and you were standing! Now you pull yourself up on chairs, on the couch, on the dresser in our living room and on mommy and daddy. You can "walk" yourself down the length of the tv dresser (about 7 feet) and across the couch...I wouldn't be surprised if you were walking by 9 months, especially because although you like to crawl, you often seem frustrated that you can't move faster or reach high enough.

You continue to talk away (not surprising given how chatty your daddy and I are) and you are working hard on consonants: bababababa, dadadadada, mummm-mummm are some newer sounds, and you like to "whisper" to yourself (this is my favorite!) You aren't screaming for fun as much but you do talk LOUDLY!

You are a champ at eating solids and you are sloooowly getting used to "chunkier" foods. You love sweet potatoes the most, and you like pretty much any veggie and some of the fruits but you H-A-T-E bananas! Just today you have figured out how to "chew" the rice puffs and you really seem to like smacking the pieces around in your mouth. You are down to just 4 bottles a day and you drink water out of a sippy cup with our help.

Yesterday we found that you had cut your first tooth! Hooray! Without extra crying/drooling/fussing/fevers/rashes it popped through and we are so excited! Hopefully the rest of your teething is just as easy for both of us (ha! we'll keep our fingers crossed anyway...)

Other things worth mentioning: we are still cloth diapering and I love it! You don't seem to care but I'm sure you appreciate diapers that don't leak and absorb more damp away from your cute little tush :) Today I bought you a little play pool for the backyard and you had so much fun! You laughed and splashed and crawled around in the water giggling, and I may be biased, but I don't know that I have ever seen anything cuter than your chubby little rolls in a swimsuit! Your hair is still pretty red, although I guess it looks more auburn now, and your eyes are still blue blue blue! You are tall and chunky: at your 6 month checkup you weighed 18.5 lbs (90th percentile) and you were something like 28.5 inches tall (97th percentile). The doctor said you were "very advanced" and was extremely impressed by how well you sit up on your own. I think she would be blown away by how much progress you have made in just the last 3 weeks.

You continue to be a happy happy girl. You still sleep through the night like a champ and you let us know when you need a nap (although Grammy says you are not a good at sleeping for her.) You are still very clingy sometimes and you do not like us to be out of your sight. Sometimes you are not happy unless we are playing with you, but as soon as we do you start talking and laughing. This makes it hard to get anything done (like housework or homework) but there is something extremely gratifying about how much you love us, and that usually makes it worth it. You love to see other children and babies. Other than your mommy and daddy, your favorite people in the world are: Pokey, Grammy, Aunt Carly and Aunt Abbie, Aunt Amy and Auntie April (pretty much in that order). You are getting much better about not crying when Gramma Reid picks you up and the last few times you have seen her you smile and let her hold you. I think you just need to visit with her more :) I don't know that you have any favorite toys, but every night and for every nap you like to have your sleepy-time bunny. I will lay you down to sleep and you put your thumb in your mouth and with the other hand you use sleepy-time bunny to cover your face (we love how sweet this is!) You usually sleep on your side now, and sometimes on your tummy.

Every month I think to myself "this is my favorite age" and I keep worrying that soon that is going to end...that it couldn't possibly get better than this, and each month I am wrong. We love you so much and I am endlessly fascinated watching your personality develop. I can't wait to meet the little girl you turn into but at the same time I hope you stop growing so fast because I am not quite ready to move on from this stage. We love you C-Saw! Happy 7 month birthday!

Love,
Mommy

Cuter Than A Box of Puppies

I need to write a full post about C at 6 months old, but until then please enjoy this shot of her popping up on her knees...she'll be crawling any day now I think!

I have a house under there?!

Maybe it's because my husband has been bugging me about it.
Maybe it's because I FINALLY have time off from school.
Maybe it's because I've been watching episodes of hoarders all night.
Maybe it's because I am avoiding my last bit of homework due before spring breaks starts.

Whatever the reason, I decided that now is a good time to clean out my guest room. Or rather, what used to be the guest room. For the last 8 months it has been the guest room/dumping ground for random stuff/room where Gary sleeps during the day because it is farthest away from the noise in the living room/all around disaster area.

Not that it always looked this way...it used to be nice-ish. Of course, the only picture I could find of it semi-done is one I am stealing from my SIL's blog (thanks Linds!):

That was when we had a queen bed in there, and the only real function of the space was for guests. That was a long, long LONG time ago (this was when I first found out I was pregnant, sooo...December of 2009? Yeesh.)

Now, I am NOT proud of this, and in fact I'm pretty darn embarassed, but please bear in mind that most of this mess happened when I was 9 months pregnant and while I had a newborn. Please, please, please don't judge me. Please.

Yeah, sign me up for Hoarders already. It's bad. It has completely overwhelmed me. But today is the day that changes. Today I start anew. I have a favorite cleaning method where I set a timer for 10, 15 or 20 minutes and pick one area to hyper-focus on for cleaning. I gave myself 15 minutes tonight, but ended up cleaning for an additional 10 minutes, but I got a good start on the room. And just to pat myself on the back, here are some before and afters.

 

In the process I filled two bags of garbage, got rid of a ton of gift bags from my bridal and baby showers, folded and put away my vintage bed linens into the dresser, found the missing breast-pump box (I can FINALLY get that back to you Amy! I know you really need it asap, haha!), put the last of the books onto the bookshelf we moved in there last month, and realized that I REALLY need to sell a bunch of my vintage stuff including that great mid-century style coffee table with the smoked glass top...so sad. I love this thing but it just isn't practical with a baby and two rambunctious dogs. And I guess I still have a piano bench even though we gave our piano away. Huh. 

So now that I have completely shamed myself, what about you guys? Anyone else working on their Monica-closet? (Does anyone else get that reference?
)

The First Step Is Admitting You Have A Problem...

Hi, my name is Holly and I'm a decorating addict...or rather, I have a severe (and seemingly incurable) case of decor ADD. You can ask my mom, I've been weird about arranging and decorating "my space" ever since I was a kid. It would drive my mom nuts when I wanted to completely re-do my room every year, but I've come to embrace that as part of my need for a creative outlet. It would be nice if my outlet were something inexpensive (or free) like writing, or painting, or gardening. Believe me, I've tried all of those things and many many more, but I keep coming back to my space. Call it a sickness, but I have made my peace with it.


My latest victim is our living room. The one that I finally had "done" as of a few months ago. At least, it was as done as it was going to get without new flooring, a new couch and some recessed lighting. And we liked it. A lot. And then I got tired of it.

So. I've been mulling over what to do about our "entertainment center" setup...the bookcases were too much visual clutter and waaaaaay too much horizontal surface for my taste (it took like 40 minutes to dust that sucker! No thanks.) I've been trolling craigslist and thrift stores looking for a great dresser to take the place of the bookcase under the tv, but everything I found was either a) too ugly or b) too expensive. I did tend to find great potential pieces, but they always popped up right around the times when dropping an extra chunk of change was just not feasible.This is the look I was going for:

 

I know it's pretty standard fare these days, but I like the idea of drawers (keeps dust off of dvd's and video game crap) and it's affordable, and frankly, while I love me some ikea (like, I'd marry it in a heartbeat love) I have always felt like it was starter furniture. It is the kind of stuff that is great in small doses, but too much feels like "hi, I just graduated college and am finally getting into my first 'grownup' place so I'm on a limited budget" kind of thing. And while we did  just get our first grownup place (a year and a half ago) and we are almost college grads, I'm ready to move on from the ikea life. We already have a tried-and-true ektorp couch in the room, and it was more fiscally feasible to replace the bookshelf setup, so the hunt was on for a new dresser/tv stand.

And then, THEN I found what I thought was an amazing deal on CL for a great big hideous dresser with matching mirror and headboard, for 80 BUCKS! It was still more than I wanted to pay but with the money I made selling our two bookcases I was able to grab it and still have a little cash left over for the supplies to repaint it. Sweet. I say "I thought" it was a great deal because it looked like solid wood in the add, but when the Mister got it home, it turned out to be part wood, part composite, part plastic. Yeah, plastic.

Yikes.

Do you see that glorious brassy hardware?! I'm pretty sure this is not something you want your kid banging their head on, but we will cross that bridge when we get to it. Because I'm a good mom like that.

                                         
The dresser is still going to work just fine, but I'm not sure what to do with the headboard and mirror. I had planned on selling them to bring in a little more cash to make the small bookshelves to flank the dresser, but who is going to want to buy a PLASTIC headboard and mirror?? Even if they do have a great vintage feel...would you?? Maybe if I paint and spiff them up first?

 

 We got started today while C went down for a nap. I took off the hardware and the Mister took a brush and vacuum to clean the dirt and dust off the drawer faces. There are a ton of nooks and crannies in the faces, which is what I love about them, but they were kinda gross from sitting in the previous owner's home.  

 After we taped plastic garbage bags around them (which was one of my more brilliant ideas...worked like a charm!) I threw on a thin coat of primer, because in case you forgot, the drawer faces are PLASTIC. Sheesh. Usually with primer I use regular old kilz in a can, but while we were picking up painting supplies I noticed that there was kilz IN A SPRAY CAN!! Genius. Pure genius. It ended up going on pretty well...we did have to wipe down the nozzle after each  face because there was some buildup that caused dripping. However, I only got primer on ONE fingertip (I have a knack for getting primer all over my hands for some reason, and it is just the most impossible thing to try and clean off) so I'm calling this one a success.

Primer on the drawers has dried so in the next couple of days we will prime the dresser and then slap on some paint thanks to a sprayer we borrowed from friends (fingers crossed it works better than the one we bought to do our kitchen cabinets with!) After that all that is left it putting it back together with a new top we are building from 1x4 planks and we're done!

Times, they are a changing...

Before. Waaaaay before. Before new tv, before tree mural was finished, before the big black armoire went white and came inside, before we realized that the record console looked good there, but as there was no plug nearby it wasn't functional. But the bookcases are what matters:

My house is in a state of total chaos right now...we are breaking down and selling off our trusty old ikea shelves. We've had these since we got married, adding one each year, but now it is time to say goodbye. With this house being exponentially dustier than our previous places I'm trying to limit the number of horizontal surfaces that requires weekly cleaning. That, and while you can't beat the shelves for function, they are big, dark and my collection of books makes my room feel more cluttered than it is.

Maybe this is some kind of early spring cleaning, but I feel the need for a fresh start on this room.

So goodbye sweet Expedit shelves! I hope you go on to homes that love you as much as we have, but to be honest I'm really looking forward to the cash you are bringing in, and in the interest of full disclosure you should probably know that I already have your replacement sitting in my garage...