Separating conjoined twins

So I've been thinking about this whole office/bedroom situation and about how we're slowly making the one big space into two separate spaces.

Here are exhibits A & B. The situation is interesting because everything is shared between the two rooms, much like how things are shared by conjoined twins. The process of dividing this room is sort of similar to separating conjoined twins in that we aren't doing it all at once, not because it would be a shock to the rooms, but rather because it would be a shock to our wallets. We put up a temporary wall as seen in the photos. It's not pretty, but it sorta does the job for now. Today we installed ceiling fans in each room. Now we've wanted to do that since we bought the house, but it hasn't been a huge priority. We chose to do it now so that we can take another step in the separation by allowing each room to have its own air circulation and light. The rooms are still on the same circuit, and one switch still controls both fans, but now we can leave the switch on and just use the fans to control the lights :) This also removes the need for the fan on the bucket since the air is being moved by proper means. Sorta. We are still pondering the next step in the great separation, but we're not in any hurry and it will happen whenever we randomly have the time and money to invest in it. Until then, I am going to enjoy sitting in my office in the mornings with the light off without fear that the light of the sun will suddenly shine down on me when the boys get up and flip the switch.  -Kellie-

Respecting your elders

During this last trimester of pregnancy, I've developed a whole new respect for old people. I find myself having more and more in common with them as the days go on. I'm telling myself that it's not that bad because unlike them, my life will start to go back to normal in soon. I hope. Here's what I'm talking about. I'm uncomfortable and that's only going to get worse before it gets better. I talk about how uncomfortable I am because it pretty much consumes most of my day. I can't bend over without feeling like I'm either going to suffocate or break something. I'm very thankful to the person who invented flip flops and slip on boots because I am so not wearing shoes with laces until after this is all over. I can't do the things I used to. Oh in my mind I can still leap tall buildings in a single bound, but here in reality land where there are physical limitations, not so much. This is wreaking havoc with my mind and self esteem. I was going to change a light bulb the other day, and actually did finally get the globe off and the bulb out, but then I was too exhausted to finish. Luckily Henry was home and I didn't have to sit in the dark. I got some ceiling fans for the office and boys' room. In my mind I can just put them up in nothing flat, but in reality I have to be happy with the fact that I sat in my little chair and put the little arms on the blades with a screwdriver so that they are ready when he gets home so that he can install them. This reminds me of those trivial tasks they give old people in nursing homes so that they can still feel productive. I'm telling myself that I got started and that I got busy and just didn't have the time to install them and when Henry comes home and really installs them I'm going to tell myself that he's just being sweet and helping me finish projects that I ran out of time to do. Actually, I'm probably going to try to take down the existing light because I refuse to believe that I'm that bad off  (I seem to be ignoring the whole thing about the light BULB!!) and I'll then be too exhausted to install the fan and I really will have to sit in the dark until he gets home. Boy am I glad there are two big windows in here. ;) I can't remember things either. I've always had to write things down because I have a very active mind that goes ten different directions at once, but I forget to even write things down now. It's sad!! :-P I actually overfilled a glass with water while standing in front of the fridge the other day, and just stood there continuing to pour thinking that someone really should turn the water off! Several seconds later I realized that I was the one who needed to stop the water and I then had to kick a towel around on the floor to clean up the water because as I said, I can't bend over. I also fear slipping on the floor and falling down. I used to run across hard floors in socks and purposely slide, but now the thought of doing that is like thinking about walking across the interstate. Are you crazy? You'll get killed! Or at least maimed! I actually thought the other night that I would lie in the tub while the shower was on and pretend that I was taking a hot bath. Problem 1. Getting down into the tub was not easy. I got most of the way down, but the rest was basically a controlled slide. Problem 2. I somehow managed to suction my back to the tub and it made it really hard to attempt what became... Problem 3. If I can't get out of the floor, what the crap made me think that I was going to get out of the tub? I was on my back, in the slippery tub, suctioned to the bottom, and it's not like there's alot of room to maneuver in there! I did finally manage to get up, but I seriously thought about yelling for Henry to help me. Talk about an insult to my self esteem. I will not be doing that again, I'll just stand in the shower from now on. If I wanna sit in there, I'll just take a 5 gal bucket and a towel and pretend that it's an elaborate shower seat. Hmm... that actually doesn't sound too bad... Hey Henry! Can you get me a bucket out of the shed?? :-P -Kellie-

The last of the renovations!!

It has finally happened, the last of the major renovations is over! The whole house has been repainted and the flooring is done. I'm really glad that it's over. We can just live here now and not have to think about all the things that we hate. There are still little things that we'd like to do, but the major things are finished. It's been 3 years in the making, that's alot of renovation! So I've been blogging our progress, and yesterday and today I did the 1/2 bath downstairs which was the last of it. Now I admit, it's not perfect. I should have sanded a few areas a little better than I did but I'm 6 months pregnant and we've been renovating the entire 6 months and I'm tired! Henry is on vacation and due back tomorrow, so he has no clue what the bathroom looks like now. Here's a before and an after. :)

 Ok, so I painted the walls purple not long after we moved here. It was due to a desire to cover the hideous wallpaper and no money left in the budget due to the massive exterior renovations we were doing. The pink outside trumped the floral inside :-P I had some paint left over from other projects so I mixed it together and this is what I got. Now I didn't hate it, but I was over it, sick of it, and it didn't go with the rest of our new "back to neutral" color scheme. It was also time for the "what was I thinking" black accents to hit the road, and the clown light was long since overdue to be banished back to the circus.

So, I painted the walls a nice "lemongrass" green that is cool and soothing and a little spa like. The hardware all got a fresh shot of nickel spray paint to match the faucet and new light, the mirror frame went tan, and the clown light got fed to a tiger. I was going to paint the picture frames tan too, but too much of a good thing is still too much and did I mention I was tired? :-P It really brightens up the space and goes nicely with the latte color in the hall. I am mostly excited about the new light. It was only $25, and took all of 10 minutes to install and I feel that it was totally worth it. I am so glad that this is all over. We still have some trim stuff to deal with and some caulking, but those things literally take minutes instead of weekends. Hope you like the renovations, party to follow!!
-Kellie-

The Great Flooring Project- Part Deux

So the floors are all finished now. They aren't perfect, and we don't have the baseboards back down, but whatever. We'll get there eventually, and then the remodel will be pretty much complete. We still have to paint them but we wanted to take a little break and it's been too humid for them to dry anyway so that's our story and we're sticking to it! So here are the pics that I took of the kitchen since it's finished. It's amazing how much bigger and more open the house looks now that the floors are all the same downstairs. I'm also amazed at how updated the house looks since we went back to basics. I think of hardwood floors (even our fake ones)  as old school. I think of beige paint as builder basic. I think that back in the day, hardwood floors and beige paint were the only options people really had to choose from. It was that or nothing. Fast forward many years to a time when you can have almost any color and type of flooring and wall covering you want, and people are scurrying back to basic. Maybe it's because life has gotten so complicated that we need some plain basic things to even everything out. Anyway, the flooring project is done for now and we're settling back into a normal routine. We did have one last tiny detail to hammer out the night that we finished the floors, and it really didn't have anything to do with the floors. Well, sorta but anyway. You see, we got a new fridge a while back, and it barely fit in the space allotted. Since it fit, we were good. The problem came when, you guessed it, we installed the new floors and ate up some of the fraction of an inch of space that we had between the bottom of the cabinet and the top of the fridge. So there we were, 8:00 at night, high-fiving because the job was done, we slide the oven back (which had been in the middle of the floor cooking pizza while we worked), things are looking great, we slide the fridge back, thud. I mean the fridge was hitting the cabinet like maybe 1/16 of an inch too high. GRR!! I got out the sander and we mostly fixed the problem. It's not as good as it should be, and it's not even, but it was late and we were tired and we just wanted to go to bed. So here is the tiny gap between the fridge and the cabinet. I think it may actually still be scraping there in the middle but we don't care at this moment. That's another one of those little things we'll eventually get to, maybe. All in all we are happy with the floors. It drives me nuts that they are kinda loud when you walk on them, and that the slab isn't even so the floor isn't even in some spots, and that they have to be cleaned every day or you get crumbs and dust on  your feet, and that we have to keep a mop handy for doggy drool and spills, but the fact that they are new, neutral, not pink carpet, and can actually really be cleaned is worth it. When Henry gets big enough to be in a walker he's going to have a blast. That statement makes me laugh because it could be thought of two different ways. Anyway, when we get a few more things done in the house, we're having a party! A thank the Lord that we have the skills to pull off everything that we have, and that we found a way to pay for it all without taking out a loan. Yay debt free!! -Kellie-

The great flooring project

We thought it would only take a weekend, we were wrong. Mostly we were not accounting for the learning curve since neither of us have installed laminate prior to this. We have learned some truths and some not so truths about laminate flooring.

1. You can't get it wet and leave it wet for any period of time. Yes it's a thin layer or wood on top, but what lies underneath is basically compressed sawdust/cardboard, and we all know what happens when that gets wet and it isn't pretty.
2. If you do get it wet, the best course of action is to dry the area as quickly and thoroughly as you can and stack some heavy books or something on top of it to compress it back into shape as much as possible. These 2 points we have not experienced yet, but we were told by others.
3. Snap together laminate, while it does in fact snap together, does not "just snap together". The pieces do fit together in those little grooves, but they have to be juuust right or your snap together is more like a train wreck. You will need a little persuasion on most pieces to get them together right.
4. When you drop stuff on laminate, it's really loud. Much louder than linoleum or bare concrete.
5. You will learn how uneven your sub-floor really is when installing this. We're just choosing to ignore this since we are definitely not going back to fix it now. 
6.The tools you will need for this project are:

• A good saw (thanks to our neighbor for loaning us his)
• Lots of blades for said saw because this flooring eats them
• A jig saw (also with lots of blades) for those tricky areas
• Kneepads!!
• A rubber mallet
• A pro pull bar, but we call it a "squirrel" since we didn't know what was really called until we broke the one our neighbor loaned us and had to buy another one.
• An oscillating saw- you'll use this to cut all the door frames that you have to go under (thanks to our other neighbor for loaning us this along with the squirrel we broke)
• A couple of scraps to use as protection against "persuasion"
• A tape measure, a sharpie or other marking device, a chiropractor, some ibuprofen, maybe some icy hot... 

I'm sure I'm leaving out some supplies but those are the most important ones.

Here's how our schedule went:

• Day 1 (which was a Friday evening after he got home from work): We got very little done, but learned alot. 
• Day 2- Saturday: We motored through flooring like no body's business. We were armed with a little knowledge and an intense desire to git 'er done!
• Day 3- Sunday: We were so sore we could barely move so things went really slowly. We did manage to get probably the hardest areas in the house done- 2 closets and the hallway which had to join the living room and dining room and we were a'scared that things would never line up but they by some miracle did. YAY!! *happy dance*
• Day 4- Monday after work: this hasn't happened yet, but we are seriously hoping to finish it tonight. We don't have that much area left to go and the cuts will be easy compared to what we had to deal with yesterday. 

We will not really be completely finished with this project for several more days because we still have to paint and reinstall the baseboards which in theory should go pretty quickly. I'm hoping to get them painted one day and install them all the next. When that actually happens... well we'll just have to wait and see.

Hallway to Living Room

Front door to kitchen- ignore the laundry basket, I've been busy! :)

Living room

Dining room

You probably can't tell from this pic, the the area between the bar and the table looks HUGE now!

All that we have left to do in the kitchen :)

I can't think of a good reason why we shouldn't get this done tonight other than the fact that our jig saw has issues and I need to either fix it today or borrow one to finish up. Either way, I really seriously hope that tonight sees the end of this project. After this, we will only have the baseboards & some random trim to paint and install and painting the half bath, then we are DONE for a while. :) The projects over the last few weeks have really changed the house. The outside has been done since spring, and now the inside is almost there as well. It finally feels like we have arrived. It feels like OUR house now since we have pretty much redone everything including the kitchen sink. I personally feel like a huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders, one that I've carried since we bought the house 3 years ago. Sure there are other things that we'd like to change and do, but none of them are huge issues at this moment. We're ready to think about something other than the house for a while. We're ready to enjoy what we've done and just live here like normal people. -Kellie-

All things baby Henry-part I

So I've been really busy trying to remodel the house and get work stuff closed out and trying to get everything finalized before baby Henry gets here, and I really haven't updated anyone on him. This post might confuse some of you because my husband is Henry, and our new baby will be Henry. They will both go by Henry and neither have a nickname or middle name or go by their suffix. Just for the record, Henry's dad goes by Hank and is a Jr. (but really the V), Henry is the III (but really the VI), and Henry will be the VII to correct the lineage number thing. I thought this was weird too, but we have friends who have done the exact same thing with their new baby, George, not to be confused with my other friends who have twins (6 mos) named Henry and George. Confused yet? Good. :) I will add here that I sort of jokingly submitted that we put 007 on the birth certificate just for kicks, but I was denied. I just can't have any fun. hehe O.K. back to the facts.

 Baby Facts

Henry at 16 weeks

 Henry is due November 15th and we have elected to attempt to have him naturally instead of scheduling a c-section. We have switched from an OB to a midwife to increase our chances of having said natural birth. So here's a pic of Henry at about 16 weeks when we found out what we were having. In case you can't see it in this 3D ultrasound picture, this would be his back. You can see his little hand on the side of his head near the top left, and his legs and feet near the bottom right of the picture. I think he may have had his other hand near his mouth. Anyway, all parts were present and accounted for in this pic. Ten finger, ten toes, all of his organs, his cord, his boy stuff, all there and functioning like they should be. :) We will go back to the 3D place later on to get good pics of his face provided that he turns to a better position than he was in these pics.

Pregnancy Facts

24 Weeks

We knew really early on that we were pregnant. We didn't tell anyone until after we knew what we were having. We thought this would be fun, and it totally was when we finally told. We told my friends sooner than we told our families because 1. it was kinda hard to hide by that point, and 2. one of our nephews graduated high school, and another got married right about this time. It would have been super convenient to tell when we had everyone together, but we didn't want to upstage anyone, so we just kept it a secret a while longer. During the 2nd and 3rd month I was kind of sick. I found that if I took Prevacid every morning and then ate breakfast before I did anything else, I was ok. I hated the smell of tacos during this time which was really unfortunate because we have tacos about once a week. I also craved carbs like mashed potatoes and mac & cheese, they seemed to soothe my semi angry tummy. My bellybutton flipped at about 16 weeks, something that I think comes from 4 pregnancies. I find that with each pregnancy feelings of physical strain appear sooner. Stuff just isn't as firm as it used to be, and I feel like old elastic. Emotionally I'm good, but physically I think all of the renovations are getting to me and I'm tired. I've been telling everyone that all of our kids were planned and we love them all, but we don't want anymore. Henry will be the last, and we're happy with that decision and a little relieved that we know where we will stand as a family unit after this.


Nursery Photos

Ah the nursery. I'm really glad to have it finished except for some details. I'm still waiting on some special order stuffed animals to arrive and I might add another shelf and some photos, but all of the painting and artwork is done. This is the bedding that Kinsley had. It's very neutral and I decided to reuse it. This is the first time that I have ever reused the crib or bedding. That's mostly due to the fact that both boys were in cribs at the same time, and then we decided to get a new style of crib for Kinsley. Kinsley's room picked up on the dandelion details in the bedding, and we painted them in pink to add a splash of definite girliness to the room.  Here's what her nursery looked like.

 Obviously pink flowers and her name on the wall wouldn't work for Henry's nursery. We decided to go more woodland themed with his nursery.

Top left: Crib wall
Top right: Changing table wall
Bottom left: Window
Bottom right: These are close-ups of all the details in the tree. The fox and name are over the changing table, and the stump with the bunny and skunk are under the window. 

I'm not a fabulous artist, but I think the nursery turned out ok. I'm pretty happy with everything and I'm looking forward to doing normal nesting things like sorting and folding baby clothes and hanging out on the couch. I have some other small projects to do for Henry before he gets here, but at least the majority of the big stuff is done. -Kellie-

Weekend updates preview

So I still haven't pulled all the photos off my phone, but I have taken a few shots that I can share. I'll have the full blown before and after shots later, so think of these as previews.

Henry's mural

First let me start with the nursery that we actually started weekend before last I think. It made us both a little sad to paint over the things that were painted on the wall for Kinsley. We were able to make it through because we had just painted her new "big girl" room the weekend before. This is really making me realize how long we've been at this reno thing this time. blah. So the room used to be yellow with pink "murals" on the wall. As  you know, we are having a boy this time so that wouldn't work. We painted the room a nice pale blue and as with each child, he too will have a mural. We didn't really plan on the "theme" for his nursery, it just sorta happened. More on that in another post. Colin's nursery was airplane themed, Jonas's was ocean themed, Kinsley's was meadow themed, and Henry's is woodland themed. We are reusing the crib bedding that Kinsley had, something that I have never done before, because I like it and it's neutral and once again, the whole theme just sorta happened and it fit. So here's a sneak peek of the nursery. This is the beginning of the mural. I think this was on day 1 of its existence, so there's been alot more added and obviously you can't see the top of it but it goes to the ceiling. As usual this project exploded to a level far above what I originally intended, but I've learned not to fight the urge and to just go along with it. :-P

Cotton, flannel, & fleece, oh my!

So in addition to the mural, I've picked up a few other things to go along with this woodland theme. There I was, cruising Joann, when I spied this fabric. Now I wasn't even looking for fabric for myself, I was just there with a friend and when I saw this I knew that I had to have it. I didn't even know what I was going to do with it when I saw it. I grabbed all the fabrics and headed to the cutting counter. While I stood there in line, and thankfully there was a line because I had no idea how much of each to get, the uses for this adorable fabric came to me. I knew that I didn't need bedding for the crib and I already had the matching valance so all that was out, but what I didn't have was bedding for the pack and play that will live in our room for a while until he can bunk in his own room. I also didn't have boyish covers for the boppy, or the Moses basket. The light blue fabric at the top left is flannel, the green one to its right is cotton, the animal print one is standard fleece, and the other two are cuddle fleece which is super soft but a bit of a pain to work with because it stretches and sheds like mad! I've also ordered some custom stuffed animals to keep him company, and his "baby/lovie" will be in keeping with the theme also. I so can't wait until all this is done, it's going to be so over the top!

The boys' closet, sorta.

Henry had a special project to do that I had nothing to do with other than to suggest it. He found the time during all this to make the boys a closet. There is a large utility closet in their room, so we decided that we could section off 1/3 of it for them. We have 1/3 for our stuff, the water heater has 1/3, and they have the other 1/3. The closet isn't finished yet, but here's a preview of it. Henry made a new raised floor so that in the event of a water leak, maybe their stuff won't get wet. Smart thinking I think! We still have to finish it off and add the shelves, but there will be no door. This serves one major purpose and that is that it will keep them from leaving it open and slamming the bedroom door into it. That door is just to the right, you can kinda see it in the bottom right of the pic.
So we've also been working on more adult spaces/ the entire first floor of our house. The cabinets have been painted, the hideous pink carpet is gone, the baseboards have all been removed, the laminate and underlayment are piled up under the bar, and we bought seven, yes 7 gallons of paint at the Depot the other day. We had such a space to paint that we were pretty confident it would take most of it and leave some for touch ups since we do not intend to repaint for a while. I don't have pics of the actual rooms painted because all of the furniture is still in the middle of the rooms so you couldn't really see anything anyway. What I do have is a picture of the swatches side by side so that you can see where we're going with things. Before any of you say "omg, that's builder beige, that's hideous, that's what I want to stay away from!" let me say that we have already experimented with the bold and questionable, and we feel that going back to basics is the sane choice at this juncture. Let me also say that while the color on the right is one of our original choices and was one of the ones painted on random walls in the kitchen for the last 2 months, the one on the left is new. I couldn't find the original swatches in the house and when we were at the store I only found the darker swatch "spud". I had been discussing using a "parchment or oatmeal" color on the way to the store, so I took it as a sign to go with it when we couldn't find the original lighter brown swatch "caramel something or other". The color on the right was painted in the kitchen/dining room. We feel that it was a wise choice since all the trim, doors, and cabinets are white. We wanted something adult like that would warm up the space and not wash it out. The crisp white looks amazing with it, and our dining room furniture is sort of a blonde wood so it pops as well. The color on the left looks like parchment in certain lights, however our house does not typically have said light so much to my surprise when I cut in upstairs it is a much darker taupe-y color than what I thought I was getting. Note to self: bring home the swatch and tester before you buy gallons of paint. I do like the color, and now that it's up I realize that it's a better choice than the super light color I thought I wanted/bought. It won't show crud as well. :-P This color is painted everywhere else downstairs. The entryway, the stairway (yay! goodbye yellow that I thought I loved), and the living room. We also have enough left over to do the boys' room and office later on. The half bath will get a soothing green color in a week or so because I'm so over the purple that was a "mix these buckets together and paint" choice. The light color makes the darker furniture in the living room pop, and also looks awesome with the crisp white trim. Our goal is to install the flooring not this weekend but next, since we already have a full schedule this weekend. (Happy Anniversary to us, this remodel turned out to be our gift!) The flooring is kind of a medium tone that we really hope will play well with the furniture and wall colors.
Overall, we're really happy with the choices to go "back to basics". There are multiple reasons that model homes are painted these colors, and that's because they are soothing, neutral, and appealing to a vast array of individuals. From now on I think I'll stick to crazy throw pillows, curtains and accessories if I feel the need to be bold and daring because this whole repainting the entire inside of the house thing, it's not happening again for a looong time. -Kellie-