Our first big renovation project and the BIG 30!

Today I’m 30.  I am not scared or nervous about what this decade has in store for me, but rather excited.  We’ll welcome our first born, we’re doing our first major renovation, and I’m sure there is much much more good to come! 

I feel like in your 30’s you are really able to come into your own.  You know yourself better, you’re hopefully making more money than you did in your 20’s, and you should be more content with yourself.  I feel that the older I get and I hope it just continues.

I have fantastic family and friends and my support system is amazing.  30 will be amazing!

Here I am, 30 years old, large and in charge!! Haha

 

Now, onto the renovation stuff!

This weekend was rough.  I probably shouldn’t have done as much as I did, but you know I can’t help myself. A baby belly won’t slow me down!!

We emptied the main areas of our house of all furniture and tore out all the damn carpet. I was disgusted.  I’m so happy they’re gone. To think that our child would have been crawling on them skeeves me out.  The tile by the front door is gone, and all the carpet tack strip and nails have been removed from the subfloor.  Thank goodness we’re having someone else do the install because I was exhausted by the end of demo day.   Again, I probably shouldn’t have done as much as I did.  My older sister questioned me and asked if I was actually ripping out carpets and of course I lied because she doesn’t even like it when I go to my workout classes.

Monday we had a snow day so the house projects rolled on!  We painted all the doors in the house and I also started painting the fireplace.  The surround is done, but I couldn’t do the mantle because we have to use a deglosser on it first so that the paint will stick to the finished wood.  Very toxic, Ben is doing it while I’m at work today. So tonight I’ll put on the new door hardware (going from brass to oil rubbed bronze) and I’ll paint the mantle.  Meanwhile Ben has to work on detailing the step up from our sunken family room up onto the kitchen/dining room level.  It used to have carpet on it, but now it will look like a normal step. Why the people that built the house didn’t do this is beyond me.

And here are some pictures!!

The family room after demo (notice the fireplace)

 

The dining room after demo

 

 

The fireplace in process….after hopefully to come tomorrow

 

 

The nursery – phase 1

Phase 1 of the nursery was emptying it of a twin sized bed, a wall of bookshelves, and the closet. Once that was done I promptly filled it back up again.

The new dresser went in, and then I needed to move the chair in there to see how it fit.  Those two items are great right where I planned them!  The chair needs to get covered, but I know spatially it works. 

 

Then came the carpet samples, because that HAS to get done.

 

 

And now we have presents! A rocking horse, a crib mattress, and the list goes on.  Oh, and notice the 3 black trash bags? All baby boy clothes that my sister was getting rid of:)

 

This weekend I will empty the room again because all that stuff must go to get the new carpet. 

 

So we’re stuck at phase one.  Hopefully phase 2 isn’t that far behind.

21 weeks!

Last week was an especially exciting week. We know that baby R is a boy, and we were able to surprise and celebrate this with some of our family and friends.  Passing the half way mark of this pregnancy has been such a relief and at the same time given me some anxiety.  We still have so much to do before this baby boy makes his grand entrance into the world, but I know we’ll get it done.  We must!

Here are several pictures from our gender reveal party. Really it was just going to be our normal family dinner with either a blue or pink filled cake at the end but my mother in law was clearly excited and turned it into much more.  She had balloons, napkins, party favors, and a game where everyone guessed the size of my belly.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And here I am today at 21 weeks!

 

 

· How far along are you? 21 weeks

· Total weight gain: last week it was 4 lbs. I’ve grown it seems since last week so I wouldn’t be surprised if that numbers changed!

· How big is baby? The size of a spaghetti squash, 8in long and 1lb

· Maternity Clothes? Yes. same as last week. All maternity pants but still some regular shirts

·Sleep? I love sleep still and am racking in quite a few hours a night, although that early morning insomnia is rearing its ugly head again.

·Best moment this week? Registering for baby stuff with my husband! I never would have thought he would do that with me, but he did!

·Movement? The movement continues! And I swear I felt it on the outside at 20 weeks 3 days. The husband still hasn’t felt it yet though.

·Food Cravings? All food tastes good to me:)

·Food aversions? Nothing

·Labor Signs? Nothing

·Belly Button in or out? IN!

·What I miss? Nothing? Not waking up and wondering, hmmm what will I fit into today?! ha

·What I’m looking forward to? My bed tonight and a book…..

·Milestone? Hmm I don’t know? We’re getting closer to V-day. And that’s not Valentine’s Day its viability day!!!

· Stretch Marks? Nothing yet, I’m lathering on lotion like crazy and drinking mass amounts of water. Both my mom and my sister got stretch marks so I full anticipate I’ll get them, but if I could help them hold off for a little while that would be nice.

 

Otherwise not much happening around here. My sister moved out this past weekend and I know she’s missing us because she’s sent me numerous texts saying so.  I’ll see her tonight at family dinner though, she’s going to be fine.  Also I’m working really hard on not worrying about needing a level 2 ultrasound. I haven’t brought it up to my husband at all and I try to just keep it at the back of my mind…..Oh and I haven’t googled about it at all. Amazing right?

Until next week:)

My day is looking pretty bright

Even though its 34 degress here and we’re experiencing freezing rain.  My sister moves out today!!  She and my husband already loaded all her stuff into the box trailer and on Sunday they’re moving it into her spot!  She did say that she was planning on staying at her boyfriend’s house tonight and tomorrow night, so I think that means my husband and I officially have our house back to ourselves.

Gone are the days of this:

 

I cannot wait to get my hands on her room so I can clear it all out, replace the flooring, and have my nice guest room back. Ahhh.

The nesting has begun.

Last week I was asked several times when my younger sister was moving out of our house. The plan was for this to take place on December 15^th, but she’s moving into a new construction apartment and they told her that she’d have to wait until after Christmas…and now they’re saying February.  Which is no good for me.  Let me explain why. 

We have two guest rooms in our house.  One is the room she’s been occupying for the last year and a half, and the other was our office/guest room which will be turned into the nursery.  I cannot wrap my head around tearing the room that will be the nursery apart until I know that I can regain complete access to the room my sister has been calling hers.  Let me show you why, this is her room and what it looks like all.the.time.

 

I have anxiety over this room.   Wouldn’t you.  It used to be this cute little room, that now needs a complete overhaul in my opinion. First, she removed the bed skirt on the bed like 6 months ago. I don’t know why and haven’t seen it since. Let’s just hope she didn’t lose it?  second, I recently kept finding her bedroom windows open. Its rainy, snowy, and we just cleaned out our garden beds so the backs of her curtains now contain a layer of dirt, and I don’t know how the hell you clean roman shades? Anyone?

I love her, but she has to go.

So since I have no control over her bedroom at this point and I’m biding my time, I cleaned and organized other areas of the house.  Over the weekend I completed reorganized/cleaned under the bathroom sinks, the linen closet, the laundry room closet, the front hall closet, the kitchen drawers….and I made a huge dent in organizing all the books that I’m going to sell since the bookshelves in the office will be moved to the basement. Oh and we took down and stored all the Christmas stuff and did all the laundry.  The one thing I didn’t get done was moping the kitchen floor, but I’m OK with that.

My poor husband is in for it if I keep going like this.  Next up, I’m picking out new carpet for the house and need to decide what kind of flooring I’ll put in the dining room/kitchen/family room….I’d love to do hardwood but I’m not sure that’s in the budget, we’ll see.

I nap, you clean

That’s what I hoped was happening on Saturday. I worked out, tried to nap, ate lunch and saw a movie with a friend, and then actually took a nap.

While I was doing my thing Ben was supposed to be cleaning.  Let’s just say his idea of cleaning is a little different than mine. ‘Taking care of things’ as he calls it, means making breakfast, rigging up his fishing rods, cleaning out the chicken coop, and folding his laundry.  So he was helpful…but I can’t imagine all of that made him tired?!

But I woke up from a nap with the dogs to see this.

 

Him taking a nap on the dog bed…I mean it is a baby mattress we turned into a dog bed so its not all that uncomfortable, and I was taking up the entire sofa.

Eh. I guess we’ll all be getting a lot of sleep around my house the next couple of weeks.

Oh and just because they shocked me here is a photo of my newly improved boobs.  Who knew pregnancy = free boob job!

 

Our new bedroom changes

Get your minds out of the gutter, I’m talking decorating, not you know what!

Ben and I recently purchased a flat screen TV to hang on the wall at the end of our bed which means that we now have an entire dresser top that hasn’t been decorated! Please ignore all the wires, hiding those is phase two of this project.

 

Here is the new TV, and hanging nicely on the wall! We did have some issues with finding the correct mount but in the end we ended up withthis and are very happy. And for a very reasonable price!

 

And now to the dresser top.  I have no desire to go buy anything to take on this decorating project, so all of these items are things we currently own and were stolen from other locations in the house.

This is what Ben wanted to do with the dresser…..and that got vetoed.

 

Here are several options I came up with. Which one do you like??

 

 

 

 

Also notice I have a serious love for books. Not only do I read them, I decorate with them. But because this is Ben’s dresser I incorporated his books into the décor! I’m not reading about fly fishing and tupac.

 

And while I’m showing you photos of our master bedroom, here is a much better photo of our new ceiling fan. Because the one I showed you here was a disgrace.

 

And our bed. Ignore my water glass, crooked photos, and messy pillows.  Clearly staging photos isn’t my thing.

 

Through my lens

So here it is again! Take a look at what I’ve been snapping photos of

Beautiful day at my in-laws farm!

 

My husband after spending the morning in a tractor

 



The dogs at the pool with me

 



And my new nail color, sent to me by a dear friend

 

Through my lens

I’ve been snapping photos on my phone and I never share them.  Here’s what’s been happening this past week in my world!

What I see when I wake up:

Building the new addition for the chickens:

 

Ribs Benny made in the crockpot, soo yummy:

What I see when I’m headed to bed:

A sweet ‘thinking of you’ gift from a friend:

 What I’ve been wearing:

 

 

 

 



Me and my new niece!