A little better, eh?

I'm really just in this for the before-and-after pictures, you know :)

(Look out, couch (and random displaced faux flowers), I'm coming for you next!)

Since March (and, more accurately, in the last few weeks), we have:

- Removed kitchen wallpaper
- Removed stairwell/hallway wallpaper
- Replaced all outlets & switches in the house
- Hung, finished, and painted new drywall ceiling in the den
- Painted all of the trim in the house
- Painted 6 rooms (kitchen, living, dining, den, 2 bedrooms) and the stairwell/hallway
- Ripped out 6 rooms worth of carpeting
- Removed the built in desk in the den
- Removed window coverings

And, of course, had the new carpeting and hardwood floors installed (upstairs and downstairs, respectively).

I'm excited (ok, honestly, giddy!) about the progress to date.  But don't worry, we've left plenty of projects (besides just unpacking!):

I'll try to keep you updated with more pictures, but be forewarned about the sappiness that might come next week when we finally get to be ... HOME!  For good!

Exhausted...

I am trying to come up with coherent sentences to bring you up to date since we last chatted house progress.  But, exhausted brain. 

So much list crossing, so little blogging.  

Yes, that's the (wall-paper free!) kitchen! (!!!!)  Stop what you're doing and do a little happy dance for me!  Or a happy conk on your pillow, that's how I'm going to celebrate the accomplishments of this week ;) Goodnight!

The Goodbye Tour: The Kitchen

I think I've finally reached the point where I can look at pictures of the old house without crying (although, man, does it feel weird to call it the "old house!")  As I mentioned in our update post, I'm still sentimental about the house, and I miss it most especially in the sense of having things organized and having a routine (although I think my memory has failed me in remembering that the day-to-day wasn't always quite like photo-shoot days!)

Before it's too long gone, I want to finish my "good-bye tour" of the house so that we have a complete documentation of all of the renovations.  Writing these posts is good incentive because I also want to work on printing a photo book, and these posts force me to sort through all of the pictures.

The kitchen was by far our most extensive renovation on all fronts (scope, time, money, type of tasks, etc).  It is also one of the only projects that I actually documented consistently on the blog, so if you want to revisit the full play-by-play, all of the links are below.  Today, I'll give you the cliff-notes version (where, by the magic of the Internet, walls are stripped and rebuilt in a single scroll).

When we bought the house, every remotely absorptive surface had collected years of cigarette smoke.  One of the biggest offenders was the foam panels on the kitchen ceiling.  Less than 8 hours into home ownership, we made the (potentially rash) decision to remove the panels, thinking we'd just live with whatever (theoretically better) surface we found above until we were ready for a full renovation.

Weeeeelllllll, (first lesson of renovation), nothing is ever quite as easy as it sounds.  We discovered that the beadboard ceiling above the drop panels was sagging and leaking insulation, so we made the (potentially even more rash) decision to remove that too.  And then the weekend was over and I needed to go back to Harrisburg and my job, and Justin was left with a house where the ceiling was literally all over the floor.

See the bulging panel that remains?  That's because insulation is sitting on it.

I'll spare you the you-can-see-the-roof-joints pictures and fast-forward to the Fourth of July, when Justin and I spent the hottest possible day doing the hardest possible job (and thus completing the best possible marriage preparation) hanging drywall on the ceiling.

With that project done, we cleaned things up, and when Justin's lease ended at the end of July, he moved into the kitchen (the rest of the house was either too dirty or too actively being renovated to host him).  I rented a basement apartment across town, although I really only slept there, as I'd go directly from work to the house to have dinner and work on projects.

Everything he owned (and, he'll point out, everything he needed) was in the kitchen.  It was around this time that we had a contractor over to look at the roof, and we offered him a seat, at which point we realized that the camp chair on the porch was the only one we had.

We got married in October and I moved in to our newly renovated bedroom in the den.  I was thrilled to be permanently in the same place as Justin and very excited to be making a home.  I set up the kitchen and decorated it the best I could.

I was proud of my little space, and I didn't let the lack of function or the ugly paneling stop me from cooking fancy dinners or even from hosting friends.

Maybe not the most glamorous location for Easter dinner?

We knew that renovations were coming, and we added this conversation-starter we called "the panel list" - a list of the things we wanted to do before the paneling was removed, inspired by the bucket list concept.

Eventually, the other house projects were completed and the (non)charm of the paneling wore off, and we were ready to renovate!

The house lay-out, with the kitchen being the passageway from the upstairs to the rest of the house, made for a more complicated renovation, but we made-do with a plastic sheeted tunnel.  The refrigerator was banished to the back porch, and we would traipse from our temporary dining area in the den, out the front door to the back porch whenever food (or ice cream) was needed.

First round of demolition:

Second round of demolition:

Lots of (photograpically boring but very time intensive) projects related to plumbing and electrical commenced, and finally we could insulate and hang drywall!

The excitement of having walls! (and someday washing dishes somewhere other than the shower) got me through lots of spackling and sanding.

Finally it was time to paint:

When I came home from work to see the cabinet installer's first day of work, I cried at my little dream house coming together:

From there, there were plenty of other little projects (the kitchen sink, the dishwasher, the microwave/range hood, etc, etc, etc) until it was fully a functional kitchen.  Here's a photo tour from just before we started packing:

It came a long way, wouldn't you agree?

 A few last before-and-afters for good measure:

 Lots (more) detail about everything that we did...

• Final touches (curtains, decor, etc)
• Glass canister storage: dreaming and doing
• Kitchen day 49: And then we feasted
• Kitchen day 45: Everything AND the kitchen sink
• Kitchen Day 43: Exploring my play house kitchen
• Kitchen day 42: Excitement has tuckered me out
• Kitchen day 41: All coming together
• Kitchen day 36: Storing our storage
• Kitchen day 32: And then I cried.
• Kitchen Day 28: carrots & tomatoes
• Kitchen day 24: the exile is ended
• Kitchen day....? (too tired to think)
• Kitchen Day #17: a big swipe
• Kitchen Day #13: Spackle, round 1
• Kitchen Day #8: Wonderful whirlwind
• Kitchen Day #6: Exhaustion
• Kitchen Day # 4 - 5: Thankful for friends
• Kitchen Day #3: It's Electric
• Kitchen Day #2: D-Day!
• Kitchen Day #1: Movin' Out

Anna's new shirt! (and various ramblings thereupon)

Just popping in to share Anna's new shirt (in a blurry cell phone picture, which ended up being the best I have, even after a photo shoot with the good camera):

Frequently asked questions:

I'm due October 1, so I'm about 8 weeks along now.  I'm feeling, well, like I'm 8 weeks pregnant, which is marked most notably by the extreme exhaustion that plagued my first trimester with Anna.  I'm a bit more sick this time around (I basically wasn't at all with her), but much less dizzy.  Last time it felt like a light switch was switched and I had my energy back the day my second trimester started (I felt so much better I thought, hey, I bet that second trimester is coming up, so I looked at the calendar and literally the day I felt better was the first day of the second trimester) so I'm hoping that will happen again this time, especially since we'll be putting the house up on the market right around that time!  (Translation, my housekeeping will have to step it up a notch from my current lounge-around-eating-Rice-Chex-with-Anna-all-day standards.  You can tell how tired I was in a day by how many crumbs I let her leave on the couch/bed/other random places where food is usually a big no-no!)  

Speaking of moving, all of the biggest changes (house sale / packing / moving) will occur when I'm in the (energetic!) second trimester, and we should be settled in time to be set-up in time for Justin's semester to start (in his new role as professor!) and to get ready for baby #2.  The pregnancy has made me (surprisingly) far more calm about the whole moving thing, and much less sappy/emotional about leaving our house.  I think having a new little someone to look forward to has made me realize that this chapter (while a very sweet chapter) was only one in our book of life, and - God willing - we have lots more to come for our family.  With my limited energy, I've found myself allotting it more practically to a to-do list of preparations (and napping) and less to all of the associated emotions.  

We plan to find out the gender again as soon as we can, although our Italian neighbor and her (remarkable 11 for 11 prediction record) says that it's a boy.  Last time I had a strong (and obviously correct) feeling that it was a girl, and this time I think boy, but with less conviction than I had about Anna (although my thoughts are probably heavily influenced by aforementioned gender predictions from across the street).  We've been tossing around names and have pretty much settled on a boy's name and have 3 or 4 favorites for a girl.  We'll probably chose around the time of the 20-week ultrasound again and begin referring (publicly) to the child by name.  I have to admit, I thought that idea was totally weird the first time I heard someone doing it, but it felt natural and made sense to us with Anna - and I think it was a reflection of our strongly-held pro-life belief that the baby is a baby from the moment of conception, and doesn't become one at birth.  I respect that not everyone wants to share their chosen name before the baby's birth, but it just works for us.  Calling her by name gave me such a connection to Anna as a little person even before she was born, and I find it really weird to now be back at the stage of pregnancy where there's a little someone inside but I don't know who it is (or really how to refer to him or her besides "baby," which feels awfully impersonal for a beloved child).

Speaking of baby (isn't that what this is all about!?), we had an ultrasound on Monday, and saw the little heart beating away.  The awesomeness of that just blows my mind - there is a tiny little person (about 1/2 inch from those measurements) who has been alive for only 6 weeks AND HAS A BEATING HEART.  Amazing.  Amazing.  Yay God.

The kiddos will be 2 years and 1 month apart (perhaps exactly, if this one is a few days late like big sister).  We think Anna is primed to be a loving and helpful sister, if her behavior with her dolls is a good indicator (with the exception of the vigor with which she tosses them out of the crib to climb in herself, but a taller crib for a real human ought to solve that one ;))  I don't think she "gets" that there's a baby in Mommy's belly, but we talk about it enough for her to remember that we say so.  If she's so inclined, she'll come over and give the baby kisses (very sweet), or will look down my shirt (and sometimes her own) if we ask her where the baby is (slightly awkward, but still cute).

My blogging will probably continue to be very sporadic (not that you've come to expect anything less!) but you (and I) never know when I might get on a roll again.  Until then...we'd appreciate your prayers for continued health for our littlest member!

Stepping it up

Every time I get back on a blog kick, I realize the many things that I never took the time to post.  This is particularly evident if you look at the House Tour page, which still sports a healthy number of "coming soon" lines in regards to the current photos.  Actually, many of the "current" photos make me cringe, too, because we've come a long way from there.  Now that I've resolved myself that the blog is more for us to remember than for any external audience (although you guys are great, too!), I wanted to make sure things are a bit more up to date.

I'm going to start stepping up my act with...the stairwell.  As renovations go, it wasn't that exciting.  There's not a whole lot you can do with stairs (particularly steep, narrow ones like ours), and there's not furnishings or even a lot of decor to put in the "after."

Here's how it looked when we bought the house:

Then I got the brilliant idea that we should refinish the wood stairs instead of redoing the carpet.  I owe my sister big time for the amount of time she spent scraping those steps.

Eventually, I came to my senses, and we had it carpeted along with the rest of the upstairs.  We painted the walls & ceilings and painted the hand rail.  Some of the paint is chipping on the railing, so I'd like to redo it in some of the darker brown we have left from the front door.  When I originally did it, I used the chocolate brown from the den, as I didn't find it worth buying new paint for such a small job!

Given Anna's super-rolling talents, we now also have a gate at the top of the stairs.  I'm very happy with it thus far, as you don't need a mechanical engineering degree to get it open, and there's no bar at the bottom to make you trip.

The picture at the bottom of the stairs says "My home will have no windows, doors, or floors, nor bricks or mortar.  My only home is in your arms and no where else."

In other stair news, as I mentioned I'm working (when not derailed by leaking ceilings) on finishing the basement stairwell to make it less ugly and a bit more functional.  Here's how it looked when we moved in - and it's not much different now (except that there's a bunch of our stuff haphazardly stuck there!)

Stay tuned for that update...

One room, mastered

Sometimes, despite all of the renovation progress that we've made, I have trouble seeing the progress, and still focus on all that I want to do before the house is "done."  One of my goals for the summer (post-work and pre-baby) was to go room to room and finish a lot of the little things that have been on my mind for a while.  The master bedroom was the first to get this treatment (and, besides the nursery will probably be the only room that I completely finish before Anna's arrival).  The little changes have made me fall in love with this room, and its much cozier and functional.  The nursery transformation obviously required that my sewing table be relocated, and incidentally I like my new space even more than the designated "sewing room."  But - I should back up, since the last time I shared pictures of the master bedroom, it looked like this:

It's embarrassing to admit, but since I was never completely happy with the room, I never got around to blogging about it - even a progress post!  So, let's go back to the beginning!

Here's the room when we bought the house:

It wasn't the worst of all the rooms (that honor is difficult to bestow, but most likely would go either to the kitchen or upstairs bath).  Basically, it was a poorly painted and dirty big box.  With lots of little issues, like random neon splotches on the ceiling, a taped-over and painted-over junction box that should have been a light switch, and NO storage.

 First things first, Justin built a closet (still one of his projects that has impressed me the most) for Christmas 2010:

Then, we fixed the many problems with the drywall, primed, and painted:

Had carpet installed:

And made some curtains (the last you heard a peep about this room!)

Somewhere along the line, we purchased some grown-up furniture.  ("Grown-up" meaning that it was not only a step up from the mattress-on-the-floor solution, but also came from a legitimate furniture store, and isn't made of particle board).  It was exactly what we wanted - and also on clearance (thus the thumbs-up!)

And....now's now:

I made the quilt for Justin when he was a bachelor.  I have another quilt in-progress for our room, and that will eventually become our summer-time quilt (the flannel one is a bit much for the warm weather!)  For now, though, I really like this one.

Sewing machine AND Jo-Ann the fish relocated as part of the nursery transformation.

Art between the windows is an original painting (of a house and bicycle built-for-two) from Justin's great-aunt.  She gave it to us as a wedding gift with the sweet note saying "There, now your house is all done and you can enjoy!"  I recently got the console table at Pier 1, and had fun decorating with finds from around the house, including our wedding cake topper.

The art above Justin's dresser are pictures he took at his family farm.  You can tell who's the more talented photographer in the family!  Incidentally, the farm was home to his great-grandmother, who is pictured in the framed photo, bottom right.  Although she's no longer living at the farm, she is still living - and 101 years old!  We can't wait to get some 5-generation photos once Anna arrives!

Our room is still door-less (and thus my behind-the-door jewelry board is still functioning as basic decor!)  Once we can find another suitable door (we purchase them used to maintain the same look throughout the house), we'll get one up.  Until then, it's an added perk that we can see Anna's crib from our bed!

So, there she blows, the first room we've completely "mastered."  I'll leave you with one final before and after reminder!

Keep checking back; I feel like I'm on a blog roll now, and have several more posts planned (and even photographed already!)  I'll keep putting them up until it's baby-time...no promises after that :)