Life in Color Photo – Page 300 – Celebrating crafts, kids and the everyday through photographs.

Bits of this and that

December 28, 2008

I figured I'd better blog since people seem to think I've gone and had my baby already. I'll start to worry if it hasn't come by the end of January 🙂 We had a super low key Christmas. Like our other friends due the same day, our minds are thinking ahead and Christmas sort of creeped up on us. We exchanged really simple gifts. Bj got me a wonderful pillowcase from the awesome Stitch and Dye and I love it. Luckily this pack rat had a form just the right size in her stash:

I think it will go in the den (my new crafting space). Bj's mom was sweet enough to clean the floors for me today after the guys got their tools out this weekend (whoo hoo).

I didn't want to bring anything into the room until it was clean, so now I can start to organize a bit in there. I decided to put the drafting table in the basement for packing orders and bring this table up because I can sit at it (and thus use my machine). I have been sewing, but boring stuff really (blog wise at least):

I finished the curtains for upstairs (minus one, I'm still trying to figure out the rod situation for the alcove curtain). Out of the two curtains I had downstairs I made three big panels for the bedrooms, and two smaller ones for the bathrooms. I only had to buy one tension rod for baby's bathroom and some sets of rings to hang them on the bedroom rods, that's how I made them longer, by not having extra folds in the top. Speaking of the baby's room…

Bj went and picked up our stroller! I love it and we had tons of fun pushing it around pretending like our baby was in there. It's an Uppa Baby Vista that is a frame/component type stroller system. So on the frame you can lock in a car seat adapter, the bassinet, or a toddler seat. And all can face you which is awesome. The front wheels lock so you can run with it, and you can even get off-road type tires if you want to take it hiking. We love it and bonus: we're using the bassinet for the baby at the beginning since we don't have an actual bassinet or Moses basket.

The guys almost finished upstairs Saturday, but they have a little more painting/trimming out of the alcove to do. I can not wait. Be done I say! Then they'll tile the downstairs bathroom and caulk/prime the basement stairs. At the same time I need someone to come disconnect the old hot water heater and remove it. Besides that repairing a little bit of trim is all that needs to be done in the inside (by them, I still have lots of organizing to do!). We do have some cracks in our walls and ceilings, but we are going to give it a couple of months to settle more before those get routed out and filled. So it will be outside work only from now on, with the porch scheduled for now, and the siding/painting scheduled for April. The finish line is in my sights, and baby is being so nice and good waiting for them to finish.

5 comments on Bits of this and that
Merry Merry

December 24, 2008

The snow is thawing and it looks like it's going to be a traditional rainy Christmas. This is actually a good thing, we'll be able to get up to my dad's (we think). He still doesn't have power but that is not stopping us from being merry! I spent the morning cleaning up since we're going to have unexpected (but very welcome) visitors tonight. Sciarrino's flight was canceled a couple of nights ago, and she can't fly out until Friday so her and Ethan are going to come over tonight for game night, s'mores and a fire. It should be fun and low key, just what I love being this pregnant. I cleaned as much as I could with giganto-belly:

Yes the furniture is uncovered!!! This makes me oh so happy. There is still stuff to do for the remodel, but it's minimal and they shouldn't be in this area at all. I also cleaned out the den:

We stripped it for parts. 🙂 The old curtains and rods in this room are going to be used up stairs. If I could get my sewing machine to set the correct tension I'd have new curtains up to show you already. The old ones were very wide (see) so I figured out that I could take them apart and make all the curtains for upstairs. I cleaned them and ripped apart all the seams last night. The only thing I really need is more pull backs (our type is discontinued). I know a certain someone (um, you mom) who has a pair that I'm going to try and convince her to give me, in exchange for a brand new pair! What do you say? I have other plans for this room, I have to figure things out very carefully so that my craft-age doesn't spill out into the walk way to the upstairs. Could be tricky.

And I finished up on the presents, one still needs to come UPS (they say it's on the truck) and we'll be good to go.

Here's hoping you all get what you want!

Oh and my walking/yoga (and due date) buddy had her baby last night. I'm so jealous! It's so so so so so so cute, and a boy. Everyone is having a boy, what are you little baby in my belly? I'm dying to know!

5 comments on Merry Merry
It’s freaking crazy outside!

December 22, 2008

Or as the local stations like to say: STORM WATCH ARCTIC FREEZE STORM 2008 or something like that. My cottage looks so cute!

I mean icicles, we never get those! They even make the garbage can look cute. And snow does wonders to all manners of things you wish were not in your yard, like trailers of trash.

The bad news is the ice accumulation:

while pretty, this is a bad combination with tree branches. Bj and I are pretty sure we will loose our whole laurel hedge in the backyard. But that's nothing compared to some trees around here. My brother took us out last night in his big 4 wheel drive and we had to go all the way around the neighborhood to get out. The hill by our house the road was completely closed, and the other direction had a downed power line one way and a huge branch the other way. I know lots of cities get more than our foot or so of snow, but they have loads of plows and crew to take care of it. They can't even keep up on the interstates here, and one of them is closed for 50 miles. I mean it is CRAZY. Our city just put out a bulletin to stay in unless you must go out.

So this has slowed progress on my cottage a bit, but we now officially live upstairs, yeah! I took a ton of photos so instead of making this the longest blog post in history I'll just give you the link to my cottage set over on flickr. Here are some highlights:

The baby's room. It's a sort of grey/blue/periwinkle color that I think is pretty gender neutral. I'm just so freaking excited to have all the baby's stuff at our house. Everything you see here was given to us, we are so lucky! Of course I had to make it our own. My mom painted the changing table and cradle white, and I recovered the swing. It was hard to do, I had to totally dismantle it and then use the fabric that was on it (a cream and black print) as a sort of pattern. I'm pretty sure the 15 warning tags would say not to do this, but it sure does look cute!

Oh but, if anyone does have a swing like this can you tell me where those little clear plastic tab things go? It's the only thing I can't figure out how to get back together (in this picture you can see one hanging out on the right where the seat and back come together). The baby's changing table is ready to go:

Bj and I like to just be in the baby's room and last night we were in here and Bj wanted me to go over the diaper situation. It was fun, we can't wait to have the little baby here (only we can so stay in there baby). Note the old door knobs, our whole upstairs has them to match the downstairs.

I also love our master suite. The bathroom is so awesome.

We don't have sconces yet for next to the mirror because of discontinued stuff, and not being able to find anything else, but we have something coming now, so hopefully we'll get those up soon. I have drawers, DRAWERS in my bathroom. This is the coolest thing, and they are mostly empty because I don't know what to do with all my stuff, I'm not used to all this space. I love our counter tops and tile floor, but I need to find some more bathmats, brrr! We get to try the shower tonight, as it just got caulked today. Another favorite section:

Somebody has a ton of clothes (not me), and told me that I had a lot of clothes. Well this was yesterday when I was all pissy and I got all upset because hello, I've been wearing the same two outfits for the past two weeks. So don't tell me I have to many clothes mister! Behind the door:

Bj does this thing where he'll wear jeans again and in the mean time just toss them somewhere, it drives me nuts! So I came up with this behind the door hook system. It will save my sanity, I'm sure of it. Two stories down I finished up this:

Mmm yummy green paint. I love it. I love it. And I love it some more. We're going to move the book case and things over tonight because they just have little touch up things to do. Oh and I have been knitting:

Little leggings! (Ravelry link). And yes, I am still pregnant.

And lest you think I'm nesting, I'm pretty much always this busy, and I've just been "chomping at the bit" to get the go ahead to get things organized, so I've had most of these projects ready to go for weeks. Hopefully I'll continue to update you, but who knows with all these trees, the power could go out at anytime. Oh and more pictures on my flickr.

10 comments on It’s freaking crazy outside!

Bits of this and that

Merry Merry

It’s freaking crazy outside!

recent posts

helpful info

archives