Life in Color Photo – Page 306 – Celebrating crafts, kids and the everyday through photographs.

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Celebrating crafts, kids and the everyday through photographs.

Patching

November 13, 2008

Once your house gets ripped apart it's the waiting for it to be put back together that seems to drag on and on. Today things really seem to be turning more towards that putting back, and I am so grateful. First of all that arch that I've missed, it's back!

He asked me if it looked like it did before, and I looked for pictures, but turns out I need to zoom out more when I shoot the house. This was the closest I could find (looking back through the my cottage category makes me miss the tidiness so badly). I think it's the same. It looks good to me. The other thing the master sheet-rocker is doing? Patching all of those "oops" holes people have been making ALL OVER THE HOUSE. Turns out it's hard to get between these old walls.

Hey look there's one right behind the computer screen. This makes me so happy because they "leak" dust and I don't like dust. I know dust is usually mainly skin cells and stuff, but I bet 99% of the dust in my house right now is pure plaster baby. The rest of the upstairs is starting to really take shape too:

We passed plumbing inspection upstairs so the green board (sheet rock treated to resist moisture) is going up in the bathrooms (here the kid's bathroom). The bad news? We didn't pass in the basement. The drain did not have enough fall so that can't be covered yet. The plumber says he'll be back right away (or he said he would two hours ago, I haven't seen him yet). The cuteness of the alcove still tickles me:

The highest point there is 6' 8". The two middle boxes under the window seat will be cupboards, and then along each side built in bookcases. A little library for our little human. Taking advantage of all the little spaces was something I really wanted to do. Okay so the built-ins under all the eves didn't work out (hey turns out that costs tons of money). But we are going to put one in this room:

(the "airlock" between construction and actual finished house) We're utilizing this space:

That's our old closet. It will have two side by side chests of drawers with an open box that I made tall enough for my cardstock collection. And speaking of cardstock, and thus scrapbooking and paper crafting and all that goodness. I seem to have caught the bug again. At the worst time too. I tried yesterday to work on the floor of our clean room (bedroom/home office/closet/scraproom/knitting nook), but I've got way to fat pregnant to make that work. I had to take a bath last night (well, had to, more like wanted to, I love the new tub) to get the tightness to go away. But I still managed to get a start on this:

The baby probably won't come until the new year, but I figure December is still going to be nutso crazy. I mean I'm going to nest people, you know I'm going to. The house will be done (1 month… really!). I will be decorating and sewing and CLEANING. I'm even going to have my grandma over. She's the cleaning/pillow fluffing/furniture re-arranging guru. So things will be moving along. I'll have weekly midwife appointments, holiday things, presents to make. I'm sure lots to write down. So I decided to do Ali's album idea again this year. I've done it before (gah was I an over achiever than or what?) but I'm doing it simple this year. I picked out four colors of 8.5 x 11 paper, halved it, cut up the back of a drawing tablet for the covers (hey my supplies are all buried downstairs) and punched holes in a few more random things to add interest (like the Alaskan journal). One thing I do love about having a bunch of my stuff in storage is that I use what I can get at. I'm dreaming of my new craft room now (the room that was our bedroom, with the built in drawers). I have to keep it SERIOUSLY tidy (it's also the walkway to upstairs) so I'm contemplating new organizational and design options.

Oh the plumbers just got here, gotta go!

5 comments on Patching
I’m over it; or plumbers are messy

November 11, 2008

Oh you guys. I want a clean house, like yesterday. But instead yesterday I got the messiness that is plumbing work. And um, yuck. I mean, good, I'm glad we're getting it done, but ewwww. The bathroom received more holes:

Which may not look like it, but is actually a good thing. We did think we were going to have to move the toilet, push out that wall and have the pipes go down that way. But with a little clever work on the plumbers part we were able to do this. And this:

This is in the stairwell to the basement. We thought these were going to be exposed pipes, but they squeezed them in here. All the old nasty pipes in the basement are now gone (well we're still waiting on getting a new hot water pipe to the existing bathroom).

The pipes here stuck down really far. That thing in the floor is our mini pump for the utility sink down there. I'm having a built in cabinet/bookshelf combo to conceal this. On the other side:

This is where they let my bathroom sink drain on a rug.

Said rug, with said pipe. Old nasty pipe by the way. After they removed it I discovered why it wasn't draining so well. The pipes had rusted closed to leave only a pencil-width's opening. The plumbers were all, "wanna see, wanna see?" And I said yes, and then I regretted it. Double ew! This morning when four plumbers showed up I had to have a talk with them. I said, "listen, if you are going to make a mess on something just tell me. I'm here, I'll move it. It is way easier to clean up bare floor than rugs, boxes covered with stuff, or sinks full of plaster." We'll see if they take that to heart. In better news:

Bj survey's our bedroom. I think it must be nice to be gone all day and come home to see progress. We picked out our carpet (assuming the price is right), and tile (ditto) so that we could finalize our paint choices since they say they'll be painting by middle of next week. It goes paint, then electrical fixtures (and our mini split heat/ac units), then cabinets, then carpet/tile, then trim. Then they'll work on the outside. And finish up the random patching along with the basement. A lot of work ahead, but I can see the light. And I guess the plumbers aren't so terrible. I mean I did take another fantastic shower this morning. Still I will be a happier girl once I can clean and it stays that way 🙂

3 comments on I’m over it; or plumbers are messy
It’s good to be home

November 9, 2008

Yes, it's good to be home, no matter how much of a disaster home is right now. Bj and I got home very early on Saturday morning from a trip down to California. We went down to take grandpa's remains to rest with his wife at Riverside National Cemetery. It was sad, as I knew it would be. But luckily we were not alone. Grandpa's two nieces and one of their sons joined us for the ceremony. It was a very short affair, as somehow the honor guard did not get scheduled. I felt horrible about this since grandpa had written down quite a few places that he just wanted taps to be played (he qualified for gun salutes and a fly-by but didn't want it). They did play a recording of taps and Bj's 3rd cousin (?) helped fold up the flag which was presented to Bj. Bj said a few words and that was that. Then we went out to a late lunch with his relatives:

Bj has relatives on his dad's side! This was a first meeting for all of us. I found them to be very nice and it was interesting to hear what they remembered about grandpa.

We spent the rest of that day resting before meeting up with Bj's cousin (on his mother's side) for dinner. It was so much fun to hang out with them, and I felt so grateful for other family down in the area. Plus a 2 year old second cousin is quite the treat after dealing with sadness. I think children this age only know happiness: "I play at Gymboree! I have dollies! That color is pink!" That plus fresh guacamole, yum! We were also able to meet my dad, Kim and Emilie the next day for dinner, as they were down at their California home. Saturday was an early flight, but despite all my fears, it went well. I did as my midwife said and drank tons of water. I had to hurry back as a dear friend of mine was having a bridal shower that I could not miss.

Kathy was tortured in all the normal ways. Here she is getting fed a stick of gum after missing a question about her fiance. I had to play this game at one of mine, and I can tell you it's much more fun to watch! She was a great sport though:

And super cute of course, as all brides tend to be when in love. Her wedding is a few weeks after my due date, so I'm working on being supportive now. I'm guessing I'm a mess in January! Better get the gift now. Lots of the crew girls were there and I actually got some good pictures:

Baby and Sciarrino (yes the belly touching is a rare thing, don't try it, I might bite you!). Proof to the baby that Sciarrino was always around and so lovely to us.

When this girl gets married next summer there will be four little babies at her wedding, crazy! We'll try to keep them quite Kristen!

While we were gone our house was still being worked on. In fact I insisted that they do a few of the really noisy messy things, like this:

Removal of old tub. He said they might have to break it to remove it. I would call this broken all right. Good riddance to cold baths! You never did me right tub, never. Behold our new tub:

And more importantly to Bj, our new shower head that is above his head. Our old one came to his chest (I had to bend to fit under it, and I'm short). It was funny (to me), but so annoying for him. This is covered in plastic so we can use it. It won't be tiled until one of the new bathrooms is functional. Tile has to set for a week or so before getting wet, and we don't want to be without that long. I took a bath in here this morning. It's still short, but it was warm. And I was comfortable enough to soak for an hour with out even realizing it. Added bonus? Bye bye constant leak. Of course the real progress continues upstairs, so let me take you on a tour.

Stairs that come up through our old bedroom (the back bedroom) and up into the new second floor landing. This tall "entry" was a weird space to try and find a fixture for so we went with a set of can lights. To the right you can see the kid's bedroom door. Behind the stairs is it's closet. To the right of this is the kid's bathroom:

The tub/shower is not set yet, it will be pushed to the left and the short wall has the vanity and sink. The toilet is tucked into a little nook, much like downstairs. In fact this is right above the downstairs bathroom. The landing opens up to my favorite part:

It's our alcove! If you look out this window (on a really clear day) you can see Mt. Jefferson. The nook is tiny, six feet wide and just tall enough for Bj (6' 6" I think) at the highest point. The window seat will have two little cupboards in the middle. And then we'll have built in bookshelves on each side. We already have a fabulous rug to go right here and I can picture sitting there with baby when I close my eyes. I can't wait. To either side of this are attic voids that we'll use for storage:

They will be decked and have cupboard doors for access. I had plug ins put in there, so I'll string up Christmas lights or something to be able to see in. My mom has a couple of these and she covered the insulation with oilcloth, I think I'll do that too. The other side of the upstairs is our master suite.

Oh and in the hallway there is a linen closet. So that slanted opening will have a slightly shorter door than normal. That door leads to a little hallway. The hallway goes back to the bedroom area, with separate doors to the bathroom (you can see the shower there, it needs to be set). I'm excited for the bathroom but the one thing that I'll miss is a big soaking tub, there just wasn't room for one. So instead we got a big shower, with a seat for shaving. Not that I can shave right now with this belly, but I figure I"ll want to some day in the future :). The other door goes to our walk in closet. Right now our clothes are on a bar that keeps falling apart, so it will be quite the upgrade. Behind the closet in the bedroom is a nook:

We are going to put baby there for the first little bit. It's bigger than I thought it would seem. Big enough for a cradle and changing table at least.

So I'm showing you these pictures now, because after our insulation inspection tomorrow they should be rocking and rolling on the sheetrock. Then it will really look like rooms. It's already so much warmer having the insulation up. It should be four weeks until it's finished up there (and in the living room, and the basement). And after that the siding and porch will be done. I dream about cleaning, I can not wait until I can really clean this place. The dust is the most annoying thing in my universe right now!

4 comments on It’s good to be home

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