Floored

Over this past weekend (Sunday morning through Tuesday morning for us) we finally took the plunge and started laying our laminate flooring. And we. were. stoked.

And then we started laying the floors and it became almost immediately apparent that what we thought would be a super-easy home improvement project was considerably more tricky than we anticipated. I distinctly remember the phrase "we should be able to knock this out in a two or three hours max!" being uttered. Hah. Famous last words, right?

61 boxes equaling just over 1200 square feet. Yeesh.

Yeah, and he's alllll mine.

Before. So very very gross.

Getting rid of the gross.

Lucky us, in the interim this is what our living room looks like. So chic, right?

And done! All installed, floors swept and cleaned and GORGEOUS!

We only put the laminate down in the master bedroom and closet for now and it gave us a chance to work out the kinks and establish a good system for getting this stuff down. Mostly our system consisted of Gary laying the floor while I directed. Shocker, right? Although to be fair I did do a lot of the "demo" while Gary was off making room in the garage for the carpet to sit. 

Now that the floor is in we have new baseboard to install, the walls to paint (yeah...should have done that first) and furniture to move in. And because I don't have enough on our to-do list I decided to tweak our bed and add on a proper headboard. And then paint it. And then we have to put the flooring down in the rest of the house. But at least we don't have school starting again next week.

Oh wait....

Daily Dose of C

Warning: Gratuitous Number of Pictures of C Ahead!

C loves to "help" me by pulling out all of her toys and clothes that I just put away.

Dusty floors, dirty windows...but who cares when there are doggies to look at outside?

C just can't get enough of looking out of this window...at the cinderblock wall outside.

She likes the tactile quality of books, but has no patience for sitting in my lap while I read to her from one.

Drooly chins= new tooth on the way.

On her way to walking!

And because I just can't help it...how perfectly does her cloth diaper match her little dress?!

The only thing better than playing with Daddy is playing with Daddy and his cell phone.

Not the most flattering picture but it does show off her one tooth...since this was taken last week she had a second bottom tooth come through!

You Can't See Me If I Can't See You!

Ready for a quick round of "Where's C"?

Hmmm...where could she be hiding?

Ah ha! Found you!

(nevermind the ragamuffin hair and crazy jammies...it was a lazy morning at home)

I dare you to find a cuter baby. I DARE YOU!!!!

Let there be light!

Gary and I have this list of everything we want to do to our house before we sell it and move on. It's our "put sweat equity into this place but also love what we end up with in case we get stuck here for 10 years intstead of 5" list. And this list is like eight pages long. Yikes.

But last week we got to cross off two of those items. One was the hot tub, and the second item was replacing the builder-grade track lighting in our kitchen with some pendant lights. You guys, I can't even tell you how happy I was to have this done. See, we have our stuff listed in a general order of priority so we know where to put our money first, and lighting was so far down on the list it wasn't even funny. But when Jordan and Trevor took the hot tub out, Trevor very generously offered to pay the electrician (who was already tying up the electric lines to the now-absent hot tub) to do some extra work on our house. Um, ok!

See the old lights there at the tippy-top? So gross.

Excuse the general mess and the sheet on the island. This was right after installation! So in love.

Stainless steel echoes the nickel hardware on the cabinets (and the someday hopefully stainless steel appliances!)

The lights are from Ikea, and though they aren't on the website they should be in your local store if you are interested, and the best part is that they are only $30 a pop! I looked around the interweb and not even HD or Lowes had something comparable at that price point. Sweet. They add just the right touch of outdoorsy-industrialness to the kitchen and my ONLY complaint is that the halogen light bulbs in them are waaaay too bright. I just need to track down some nice warm, soft CFLs and they will be complete perfection.

Up next in the kitchen? Butcherblock countertops and a white subway tile backsplash!

Hot Tub, Hot Mess

So for those of you who followed my last blog or who have been to our home, you may recall that a large portion of our *very* modest yard was dedicated to one very large hot tub. One very large, very nice hot tub. That we used once.

I really think that we would have used it more except that by the time it was cool enough to get in, I was pregnant and told that hot tubbing was a no-go plus, to be perfectly honest, I am not really a hot-tubbing kind of girl. It just smacks of communal bath to me, and that? That totally skeeves me out. Also there is the whole kid-safety issue...so. It had to go.

About a month or so ago I mentioned to my brother that he and his significant other should totally take it and that if they paid for an electrician to tie off the power to the behemoth, it was all his. Honestly though, I seriously didn't think they would take me up on my offer. But they did. I was floored. And ecstatic. See, they are super social. They will use it. This crazy-nice hot tub deserves a home like theirs. I'm so happy for the three of them. 

There really isn't much to say about seeing it go except this:
a) The slogan for the crane company? "We Get It Up Fast Every Time"  I. Love. This. Seriously hilarious. Especially because the owner is like a thousand years old. And super nice, in a grandfatherly way.
b) We all gathered outside to watch the crane lift the hot tub out of our yard like total nerds. I'm pretty sure that the kids next door were out watching too, but Gary was more excited and impressed than any of them. It's the manchild within.
c) Underneath the hot tub was a perfectly GORGEOUS slab just begging us to build a playhouse on top of it. Be patient sweet slab, your time will come.

Going...

going...

gone!

No Time Like the Present

I am so very, very behind on blogging. For reals.

School and finals wrapped up the second week of May and things around the house have been non-stop ever since. Gary had a week off right after school let out and we spent some time working around the house and even went out on a totally legit, 100% real grown-up date. Like, there was dinner and everything! So fancy. Then he used the second half of his week off on a boys-only weekend in California with his brother and brother-in-law while I stayed home, spent an evening talking shop and cutting out a quilt with my sister Amy, did what felt like too much yard work and generally tried to maintain my sanity while I had C for an ENTIRE weekend by myself. We both survived AND I got a little bit of a tan, so I'm going to call is a huge success.

Unfortunately, the last several weeks (months?) of school we were both too pooped to cook (or apparently to choose subway over Mcdonalds) and we ate waaaaay too much fast food. Needless to say, I've put on a bit of weight. Well, even more weight...I'm working on it people. Just so you know, I'm not too keen on being photographed in all of my Ruebenesque glory, so for now the blog updates will focus on what's happening around the house and on my increasingly adorable baby. Trust me, you're totally winning in this scenario.

And so, let the marathon of posts commence!

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.)***