November 8, 2010
We don’t need no stinkin’ closet
So, in talking with Mom about a month ago, she revealed her secret plan for the guest bedroom where she and Dad stay when they are in town. Since I hope they’ll be spending more time here with me and Buster, I certainly want them to be comfortable. Her thought was to rip out the closet, which would give them much more floor space, which would allow for small dressers/nightstands on either side of the bed. Then, we’d also add an armoire on the wall opposite the bed for some hanging space. That seemed perfectly practical and do-able — nevermind that it had to be done before the new carpet installation (scheduled for November 10), or that I was four months pregnant.
I am surrounded by wonderful friends and Andrew was quick to offer his assistance. After hearing about the week he had had, I think I was doing him a service to give him the chance for some demolition therapy.
The closet is basically a box attached to the corner of the room, so it was relatively easy to rip out the corner bead, drywall and 2 by 4s. (I say relatively easy, since Andrew and his tools of destruction did most of the work and I just picked up pieces and put them in garbage bags.) It took us about two and a half hours, including a break for dinner. I’d say that the self-satisfied smirk on his face is from a job well done, but he pretty much smirks like that all the time. (Love ya, Andrew!)
Because I loathe drywall repair, I’m hiring my handyman to do the patching and repair where the walls and ceilings are exposed. And then with a little bit of paint and some new baseboard, we’ll be all set for a shopping trip to IKEA for furniture. Mom and Dad will be here for Thanksgiving, and we’re planning a trip for nursery and guest bedroom furniture.
November 5, 2010
Feathering my nest
There’s been a flurry of activity at my house lately. Some would say it’s nesting, but it’s actually a long chain reaction of events. It all began with Tazzy, the cat who peed all over the living room. Once she moved on to greener pastures in July, I needed to replace the carpet in the living room/dining room.
And if I was going to do that, I should replace the carpet on the stairs.
And if I did that, based on the width of the carpet stock, I was buying enough carpet to do the upstairs hallway (which is sporting a nice iron-shaped blemish from where I dropped, well, and iron.)
And if I’m going to do the hallway, I might as well do the four bedrooms upstairs so I don’t have a seam where the two different types of carpeting meet up.
I also had to treat and seal the concrete slab under the living room carpet so that any residual cat pee smells would not permeate the new carpet. So, for the last couple of weeks, I’ve had a very industrial-style living room, with exposed concrete floors.
Then, there was a list of things that should be done before the new carpeting goes in. For the last six years, I have been meaning to paint the stair balusters and handrails to match the paint color I’ve used on the rest of the trim in the house, but painting around the carpeting posed a bit of a problem.
Then Mom suggested that I replace the colonial balusters and newel posts with something more sleek and modern. Okay, so I’ll tear that out and have the handyman rebuild it (doing repairs and painting myself).
Then, she also suggested that we (and by “we,” she meant me) tear out the closet in the guest bedroom, patch the drywall and instead use small dressers as nightstands and an armoire for hanging clothes. Great idea! But that had to be done before the carpet, so the new carpet could fill in holes where the closet was removed. That means new baseboards in the guest bedroom.
My mother is my enabler. And don’t worry, I have plenty of great friends who have helped me with the heavy work.
I printed out two months’ worth of weekly calendars and filled in all my social and work obligations, and then started planning the cascade effect of what needed to be done. It’s been going pretty much on schedule, except that Home Depot is now five days late on their promise to have the new balusters and newel posts. I’m now under the gun to get them painted since the handyman arrives at 7 a.m. on Monday to start the staircase project. And today and tomorrow are tied up with the Indianapolis Monumental Marathon — so I think I have to squeeze in a late night or early morning to get the first coat on.
So, watch for some posts with photos and details soon! I’ve been meaning to write for a while now, but I’ve (understandably) been a little wiped out lately! I’m tired just reading the list!
October 25, 2010
Lordy, Lordy, look who’s forty!
Well, it was a big birthday weekend! I turned 40 on Friday and celebrated with a great dinner with even greater friends. I was roasted and toasted, and wishes for the next stage of my life were bestowed upon me. Special thanks to my bestest friends Jen and Robyn for helping organize. Here I am with the fabulous cake Jen ordered for my birthday. It was exciting to have a real, live bakery cake, not just a sheet cake from a grocery. And it was delicious — white cake with white chocolate ganache and strawberry filling, with buttercream icing. I am going to freeze a few slices so my parents and I can enjoy a celebration when they visit at Thanksgiving.
After working a race on Saturday morning, I headed down to Bloomington for the Laherty’s hopefully-to-be-annual fall fun and games party. There was a ton of food, a fun survival adventure course through the property, corn hole, horseshoes, bobbing for apples, and of course, hayrides on Matt’s tractor. It was a great time, and it ended with a small group of us chatting around the campfire into the wee hours (well, wee hours for me — 10:30 or so!)
If the rest of my forties is as great as the first few days of my forties, I will be a lucky woman. I have never felt like my life is more on track. Between my big promotion to VP earlier this year and the birth of my son next year, as well as being surrounded by great friends and family, I feel happier and healthier than I ever have!
October 18, 2010
19 weeks
I’ve been feeling great lately — more energy and stamina than in the first trimester, so I’ve been getting a lot of things done around the house. I cleaned the garage out over two weekends and did a lot of purging of empty boxes, useless construction materials, and other things I will never need again (like the shoebox of photos and letters from the guy I broke up with 1997). My garage is probably about 50% empty now, which is just delightful. My parents might actually be able to pull their car into the garage when they are here in March for Buster’s arrival. (That’s what I’m calling him for now — still no progress on a “real” name, but I’ve got plenty of time for that.)
I am tearing out the old staircase railing, painting all the trim and installing new, more modern balusters and newel posts. (Well, I’ll admit that I’m having a handyman do the install. But I’d never pass up a chance for demolition.) I’m also tearing out the closet in the guest bedroom, an idea that never would have occurred to me, until my mom said, “You know, I have a secret plan for that room.” We had been talking about some old furniture I have and whether it should be moved into that room. So, her dream is to rip out the closet and to buy some dresser-type furniture to go on either side of the queen bed as storage and nightstands. Then, with an armoire on the wall opposite the head of the bed, she and Dad will have a much more spacious guest room, where I hope they’ll be spending lots more time.
Look for more pictures as those projects progress! In the meantime, here’s the last photo you’ll probably see of me in my thirties!
October 7, 2010
Fireplace facelift
Now that I’m enjoying that great second trimester burst of energy, I have a long list of little projects to finish around the house. The major work, like bathroom renovations and such, are complete, but there are a handful of little things that I’d like to get taken care of before I get too cumbersome or am busy taking care of the baby.
In order to make sure I get everything done, I’ve actually printed out weekly calendars from a couple of weeks ago to Thanksgiving, when my parents come for a visit. I’ve marked on each day what needs to get done, breaking projects down into planning/shopping/prepping/executing, so that I’ll have all those projects done and I can focus on the nursery in the last four months of my pregnancy.
Something I’ve wanted to do for a long time is paint the fireplace. I bought the paint a long time ago, but didn’t get around to it before the successful IVF attempt. Once I was pregnant, I wanted to wait out the first trimester, just to be on the safe side (plus, I was too exhausted to contemplate getting off the couch). I’m using latex paint, so it’s perfectly safe for me and the baby, so it was the first project I decided to tackle.
Here’s a before picture of the “naked” brick:
And here’s the after picture, painted Behr Polar Bear white, which is the same color as all the trim in my house:
Overall, it was a very easy job. I love painting, so it never seems like a chore. I googled “painting fireplace” to find some sites with detailed instructions and sort of blended suggestions from a couple of locations. Here’s what I did:
- Vacuumed the brick, brushed with a stiff brush (I used the brush I use to wash my car tires), and vacuumed again.
- I used soap and water to wash a part of the hearth that had some soot stains, but I didn’t wash the entire brick area. Call me lazy, but it didn’t seem to need it.
- Used some grout leftover from the master bathroom project to fill in some big cracks and minor holes in the grout. (The beautiful thing about painting the brick is that you don’t have to get a matching grout color!)
- After the grout had cured (two days), I taped off the walls and the firebox to keep paint off them.
- I used a brush to fill in the grout on the first coat of paint. (I should have tried using the roller, as I think that might have filled them in just fine.)
- I used the thickest nap roller I could find at Home Depot (I think it was 3/4″, designated for rough surfaces.)
- It took three coats of paint to completely cover the brick (a little more than half a gallon). I did two coats on Sunday and the final coat on Monday night, keeping the paint brush and roller in the fridge between coats.
My fireplace didn’t have a lot of soot or dirt, so I skipped the priming step that was recommended by one site. However, I was using the new Behr paint that claims to “prime as you paint.” I don’t know how much of a difference this made, but when I was shopping for paint, I figured it couldn’t hurt.
Over the years, I’ve discovered a few fabulous tools that I think make painting (or more importantly, the clean up) go really fast:
- An official church key tool for opening paint cans. No more using a screw driver to pry the lids off — spend a couple of bucks to buy one of these as the paint counter. Or, in my case, buy several because you can never find them again.
- A spout that snaps into the gallon can of paint. This makes it super easy to pour, and keeps paint from dripping down the outside of the can and in the lip where the lid fits in. When I am painting something that requires multiple coats of paint, I leave the spout in place, put the lid on top of it, and then cover the whole thing with aluminum foil. I wouldn’t do this for a project that takes two weeks, but when you need to use a can of paint every 12 or 24 hours for a couple of days, it makes it easy to access the paint.
- Disposable paint tray liners are my favorite time-savers. They’re 50 cents a piece or something ridiculous like that, and instead of spending a lot of time and water to rinse out the paint tray, you just pull that baby out and throw it away.
- Use a putty knife or utility knife to score the paint at the seam of the painter’s tape to make it easier to remove the tape without damaging the newly painted surface. If the tape rips and leaves you with a tiny shard of blue tape, use needlenose pliers to pull those off.
I recently saw a commercial for a new type of painter’s tape that I’m eager to try, but I didn’t think about it before I started this. It claims to form a better seal to the area you are protecting. The blue tape is great, but I find that the paint still bleeds a little bit behind the tape. I’m not sure what the point of taping is if you still have to go back and touch up with the original wall color!
October 6, 2010
Twister update
When I posted about the Twister counted needlepoint project in mid-September, I was a little nervous about the whole project. But I’ve found it really enjoyable to work on, and it is going very quickly. Here’s a photo of my progress to date:
I’ve been keeping track of the hours spent on the piece, something I’ve never done before, and I’m up to 34 hours.
The piece is a lot of fun because each color block is done with a different stitch, so even though the finished piece will be huge, it doesn’t get boring or repetitious. (I might feel differently when I get to doing the border — 72 linear inches of the basic tent stitch.) And the stitches are relatively each variations on basic needlework stitches, so it’s not too difficult.
I’m happy with the colors I selected and think it will look great on the wall between the kitchen and the family room. And it looks like it will be done sooner than I thought! However, I may have to take a hiatus later in my pregnancy. The frame is so huge that it’s already hard for me to negotiate myself behind/underneath it. Either I’ll start using the baby as a table, or I’ll have to give up until I’m skinnier again.
October 5, 2010
17 Weeks
It was hard to figure out when to start posting pictures of the baby bump. I’m never going to be a swimsuit model, and the hormones for the IVF procedure had already padded my belly a bit, so it was hard to tell when it stopped being me and started being the baby.
But I can certainly tell a difference, at least in the way it feels, if not in the way it looks. Last week I was laying on my stomach trying to coax a cat out from under the bed, and things were definitely firmer than they had been, like there’s really something besides donuts and beer.
On Friday I’ll have an ultrasound to get a good look at all the internal organs and bones, measuring things and making sure that everything is developing the way it should be. And I’ll also find out the gender so I can stop referring to it as “it.” Look for an update soon!
September 18, 2010
Another big endeavor
Okay, so it’s nothing like single motherhood, but here’s another big project I’m embarking on. It’s a counted needlework project called Twister. It’s huge — the canvas is 24 inches square and the design area is 18 inches square. I bought the pattern book a long time ago — it’s 102 pages! — but I’ve been a little daunted by the project. But, I have worked my way through a lot of smaller projects and decided I was ready to jump in. A few months ago, I spent a lot of time at my favorite stitch shop, Persnickety Stitchers in Zionsville, figuring out the colors and threads I wanted to use.
The canvas, stitching book, and my selected colors.
I decided to use regular DMC embroidery floss, in part for the range of colors available and the cost — each skein is less than a dollar. Other fibers can be a lot more expensive, and with as much canvas as there is to cover, I thought I’d economize there. Twister uses two ranges of colors from light to dark, with seven colors in one range and eight in the other. I decided on light blue to royal blue and light gray to black.
I’m not sure how long it will take me to finish the project. I found an old Flickr stich-along group with a schedule that suggested nine months. I had originally been envisioning that it will take me years, and it may still do that, as I have a number of other stitching projects that need to be completed, including two Christmas stockings for my youngest niece and my baby. But, it’s nice to have some frame of reference. Most of the people who commented on the stitch-along group also took longer than the planned nine months.
The first step was to trace the pattern on the canvas and get all my threads prepared and organized, so now I’m ready to go! Each section in each block is stitched with a different pattern, so I can’t wait to try them all! I’m going to try to keep track of the number of hours I work on this, so I can see how long it really took. I’ll post updates as I go!
September 14, 2010
The next big adventure
13 weeks, 3 days
Many of you have asked what I’m going to do now that I’m done renovating my house. I’ve been working on a little something for the last several months and I’m very excited to announce that I am 14 weeks pregnant! The baby is due in mid-March. All the early tests have come back clear and it looks like the baby and I are in great shape. I’ve been feeling mostly okay, with a few days here and there of not feeling so great.
I’ve always wanted to be a mom, and as I approached my 40th birthday, I decided to join the growing ranks of single mothers by choice. I worked with a great fertility doctor and used an anonymous sperm donor from a bank in Virginia.
So, there’s the big secret I’ve been keeping for a while — and it’s been killing me to do so! I do plan to blog about the process, the decisions I had to make along the way, and the developing pregnancy. Right now, I’m home sick with a cold, so the words aren’t exactly flowing smoothly today.
