The House on the Hill

Renovating a house from the 70s in the South.

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Fall 2022 One Room Challenge – Week Five

October 27, 2022

It’s Week 5 and I’m posting for the first time since Week 1. WHOOPS.

Kids, man. That’s my excuse. Between stomach viruses and biting issues I’m not sure we’ve gone a full week this month with all 3 kids in daycare. Could this week be the one? MAYBE! But I’ve also been exhausted this week and have gotten zero done.

Since my last post, we decided to keep the navy walls and just freshen them up with a new coat of paint. We’ve also decided to bring in some bright colors in other ways and scratch the beams (at least for now). This weekend we’ll be working on patching the wall where the old closet was and figuring out how we want to build our closet doors.

Here’s a tiny glimpse of a few of my favorite elements so far:

And here’s how our list is looking:

-Patch subfloor where closet was removed
-Finish installing new floors – In Progress
-Remove old sconces
-Patch drywall where necessary – In Progress
-Paint walls – In Progress
-Build faux beams
-Stain faux beams
-Install faux beams
-Install Pax wardrobes

-Build upper cabinets for above wardrobes
-Paint upper cabinets
-Install upper cabinets
-Build wardrobe doors
-Paint wardrobe doors
-Install wardrobe doors
-Buy light fixture
-Install light fixture
-New bed
-Install sconces
-Buy rug

-Trim out bedroom doors
-Paint bedroom doors
-Decorate
-If there’s time, build/paint/install bathroom doors
-Color project

I still think we can get it all done but our time has been limited so I’m hoping that changes for these last few weeks. Be sure to check out everyone else’s updated here.

Fall One Room Challenge 2022

September 29, 2022

It’s that time of year again!

The One Room Challenge happens twice a year and encourages community over competition. It’s an 8 week challenge to make over one room or space in your home. We’ve participated several times but have probably only finished two or three projects within the time frame. Never stops me from trying!

This time around we are working on our bedroom. We pretty much never give our room any attention but it’s finally time. And don’t ask me about our bathroom because no, it’s still not finished. It’s fine. Everything is fine!

Anyway, here are the listing photos of our bedroom from many moons ago:

And here’s how the space looks now:

 

Just kidding! I’m not going to show you because it’s an effing disaster. Normally I would post it anyway but it’s just too bad. Honestly the now is much worse than the listing photo but it is what it is. Our room is usually where stuff gets thrown when we’re cleaning other areas of the house. We’re definitely due for a whole home purge but that’s another project for another day.

I’m not 100% sure which way I’m going to go with paint colors but here’s the overall plan:

Not included: built in wardrobes instead of a closet. I cannot find my original inspirations but I’m sure you’ve seen something similar.

We already purchased and assembled our IKEA Pax systems as our wardrobes but we still need to actually install them and I’m planning on building custom doors for the fronts and as of today we’ve already installed most of our new flooring to prep for the delivery of our bed. The rest of the list looks like this:

-Patch subfloor where closet was removed

-Finish installing new floors

-Remove old sconces

-Patch drywall where necessary

-Paint walls

-Build faux beams

-Stain faux beams

-Install faux beams

-Install Pax wardrobes

-Build upper cabinets for above wardrobes

-Paint upper cabinets

-Install upper cabinets

-Build wardrobe doors

-Paint wardrobe doors

-Install wardrobe doors

-Buy light fixture

-Install light fixture

-New bed

-Install sconces

-Buy rug

-Paint bedroom doors

-Decorate

-If there’s time, build/paint/install bathroom doors

 

That list is a lot longer than I thought it would be and I’m positive I’ve probably forgotten some things. Thankfully we don’t have any travel plans for the next 8 weeks because we’ll need every single weekend we can get!

Be sure to follow along with the other guest participants of the challenge right here.

One Room Challenge – Spring 2022

April 6, 2022

Today starts the One Room Challenge Spring 2022 Edition!

If you’re unfamiliar, the ORC is an event that happens twice a year as a way to promote community over competition. The challenge is doing a room makeover in 8 weeks! The last ORC that we completed was Spring 2020 when we made over our patio which you can see here.

I’ve had to sit out the last few since I have either been too sick or too busy wrangling babies but I want to try to jump back in now that the twins are (almost) 1 and we can manage things a little better. And if you follow me on Instagram, no, we are not doing our bathroom for the ORC; yes I am still also working on it and one day it might actually be finished.

Let’s talk about the space we’re actually going to be making over and why.

This is the listing photo of our smallest bedroom. If you are a long-time follower you might recognize this room as the one we turned into our closet.

It has served us well as a closet or most recently as a dumping ground for all things that don’t have a home but the time has come to give this room over to the kids. Ever since OG was born we’ve used the largest room in our downstairs as the playroom. This worked great for a while when the toys were minimal but as she has gotten older and the toys (and children) have multiplied, it has become overwhelming and I want to move it all to a room where I can close the door and pretend the mess doesn’t exist.

Could I just pick it up regularly? Yes. Will I? No. So upstairs it goes!

You might be wondering what’s going to happen with all of our clothes and the answer is, we’re going to be living out of bins and shelves in our room until we can get around to building wall to wall wardrobes. It’s not ideal but the need for a dedicated playroom upstairs is a higher priority for us right now.

OG is very excited about this and has already started talking about her new playroom and I’m excited to finally get started even with the bathroom project still looming overhead. Her only must have so far is a rainbow wall so that will definitely be making an appearance. We’re also planning on mounting a TV, possibly painting the ceiling a fun color, and building a window seat and hopefully a play kitchen.

We’ve already hit our first snag with a knock-off Nugget (basically a modular sofa for kids that can be turned into all sorts of fun stuff for playing) that has not decompressed fully even after leaving it out the required two weeks but hopefully we can return it and try again.

Actual work on the space won’t start until next week because this week is focused on party prep for the boys’ first birthday this weekend. Here’s hoping we can get this (and the bathroom) done!

Check out the other participants here.

Oliver James and Henry Lee – Twin Birth Story

October 8, 2021

A lot has changed since I last posted! A quick recap for anyone who doesn’t follow me on social media: a couple of months after we finished our patio we found out we were expecting twins. It was quite a shock (not so much the pregnancy part but the twin part) and has obviously been a major adjustment.

The week I gave birth we were desperately trying to get our en suite “functional” meaning a working toilet and sink. We had to gut the bathroom a while back due to water damage and just hadn’t gotten around to putting it fully back together. Anything we could get done after the toilet and sink would be a bonus. I wasn’t due until May 8th but because I was having twins I knew I wouldn’t be allowed to carry past 38 weeks (April 24th) and that they could really show up any time. We managed to get the vanity and sinks installed on April 4th and the toilet installed on April 6th.

My last “bump” photo taken April 6th:

The rest of this post is Oliver and Henry’s birth story. I’m going to throw up a warning for anyone who may need it: Henry’s delivery became an emergency situation and was a bit traumatic. He also had a short NICU stay and there will be photos of him in the NICU so if that is triggering to you, please avoid this post.

I’m terrible at leaving out unimportant details so this will be very long (like 3,800 words long) and wordy but I wanted to document it here.

Wednesday, April 7th, 2021

Just shy of 36 weeks, I was scheduled for a regular check up with my OB in the afternoon. My pregnancy was absolutely miserable to say the least; I was sick and in pain for pretty much the entire 9 months. At 1pm I sent this text to some girlfriends:

“I won’t lie part of me hopes when I go to my appointment today Dr. P is like ‘Get thee to a hospital!’”

Let me just paint a picture of how absolutely done with being pregnant I was. At this point I couldn’t move without being in pain and I was practically immobile 90% of the time. I couldn’t even sit or lie down without being in pain. My lower back was strained, I had hyperemesis (severe, unrelenting nausea), and I had SPD which is essentially when the ligaments between your pubic bones relax too much and cause pain when doing pretty much anything and especially things where you have to put more weight on one leg (you know like walking, putting on pants, etc.). Any time I wasn’t working at my desk I was either on the couch or in bed and I couldn’t even get into OG’s bed for her bedtime story at night. On top of that, I was still on Zofran for nausea and I had intense heartburn, restless leg syndrome, and insomnia. This pregnancy definitely made up for the lack of symptoms I had with OG.

At 3pm I went in for my weekly appointment. The appointment was supposed to consist of a blood pressure reading, bedside ultrasound, and GBS swab (if you’ve had a baby you probably know what this is and if not feel free to google it).

Side note: I love my OB and this time around we were both pregnant with twins. She had twin girls about halfway through my pregnancy so she gave me a heads up on what was coming and she understood what I was going through. She also happened to be the OB on the schedule at the hospital when I delivered which was comforting to me and with all that happened I was very thankful it worked out that way. I feel like I would not have handled the situation quite as well without her.

When I went in for my appointment my blood pressure was a little elevated but not alarmingly so. My OB decided that we would just check it again at the end of the appointment. I had a history of random high BP readings near the end of both pregnancies where it was slightly elevated at the beginning of my appointments but by the end of the it was always back in normal range.

After the nurse took my BP I had a bedside ultrasound to check the boys’ heart rates. I had these bedside ultrasounds at every appointment so that the heart rates could be accurately tracked for each baby. Their hearts rates were great but my OB could see that Baby A (at this point we hadn’t chosen which baby was which) was super low. I wasn’t very surprised because I had definitely felt more pressure the day or two leading up to the appointment and had assumed he had dropped but as she put it “If you cough too hard this baby is going to fall out.”

After my ultrasound she did my swab and asked if I wanted her to go ahead and do a cervical check to which I said yes. Here’s where things started to get a little unexpected. As it turned out, I was already 4cm dilated and 50% effaced. For anyone unfamiliar, hospitals typically admit you for labor and delivery at 5cm. Between the fact that I was already 4cm, Baby A’s position, and my initial blood pressure reading, my OB decided that she was going to keep me for monitoring either at the office or at the hospital depending on my final BP reading. The nurse came back in and my BP was even higher Not surprising. I mean, she had just told me my baby was about to free fall from my womb after all. She told me to go straight to the hospital to be monitored for 24 hours. She didn’t even want me going home and told me to call Kyle and have him pack a bag and meet me there. The problem there was that we had just sold Kyle’s car and hadn’t bought a new one yet so I had our only vehicle. So, she told me to go as quickly (and safely) as I could back home but that he needed to basically be waiting in the driveway and then we needed to get to the hospital ASAP. She also told me to stop by the check out desk to make a “just in case” appointment for Friday but that she’d be surprised if I left the hospital without the babies; I didn’t even end up checking out on my own because all of the clerks were busy so the nurse had me go ahead and leave and she took care of scheduling for me. Spoiler alert: I didn’t need that appointment.

I called Kyle to fill him in and to let him know that he needed to make arrangements for OG to be picked up from school and for our dog to be boarded and then I called my friend at work to ask her to schedule me for PTO. My mom was originally supposed to stay at our house and watch OG whenever I delivered but she wasn’t back from a trip across the country yet so I called her to let her know that they boys were coming early. Thankfully we had already lined up Kyle’s sister and her husband as our Plan B so we were covered there.

Maybe it was because I was ready to be done or because we knew the boys could come at any time and were mostly prepared but I was surprisingly not freaking out about all of this. And I say “mostly prepared” because the bathroom was functional enough and our hospital bag was packed but we hadn’t set up the crib in our room or gotten a changing station put together or bought a car big enough to comfortably fit three car seats yet. I picked Kyle up and then we headed to the hospital. On the way, I called our doggy daycare to make a reservation for Barley to stay a few nights since Kyle hadn’t had a chance yet, we finalized plans with my sister-in-law to pick up/care for OG and take Barley to Camp Bow Wow, and we called Kyle’s parents to fill them in.

When we got to the hospital, my MFM OB (my high-risk doctor, different from my regular OB) happened to be around so I chatted with him while the receptionist got me checked in. We briefly caught up and casually discussed my birth plan.

Speaking of: I had always planned on attempting a vaginal birth if possible because that’s what I did with OG so that’s what I was comfortable with. In order to have a vaginal birth with twins, it’s important for the lower baby to be head down. Some OBs want both babies head down and some are fine as long as the first one is head down because a lot of times the second baby will flip after the first is out, they can attempt to turn the second baby, or attempt a breech delivery. For me, Baby A was head down but my regular OB had wanted to check on the growth discordance because we knew Baby B was bigger and he was breech. If the difference isn’t that much then there’s a lower risk with delivering the second baby breech but if there’s a large growth discordance (I don’t remember the percentage) there’s a higher chance of head entrapment which is exactly what it sounds like and something we obviously wanted to avoid.

Anyway, my MFM OB didn’t remember there being a huge difference in their growth so he was confident in my ability to attempt a vaginal delivery. Once we got settled in the room, it seemed like the hospital staff thought we likely were not going to deliver during my stay. They went ahead and gave me a steroid shot to help develop the boys’ lungs just in case (holy crap that is the most painful shot I’ve ever gotten) but they held off on starting the antibiotics my OB wanted me on. During the monitoring period they also had me hooked up to a machine that checked my blood pressure every 5 minutes and before I gave birth I was diagnosed with gestational hypertension which resolved immediately after delivery.

Later that evening, I started having regular contractions but I didn’t feel them (if you’re new here, I also didn’t feel them with OG and ended up showing up to the hospital at 8cm dilated and unsure if I was actually in labor). Because 36 weeks was early but not terribly so, the OB at the hospital that day (who I had a couple of appointments with when my regular OB was on maternity leave) decided that they wouldn’t try to stop labor but they also wouldn’t do anything to move it along (like break my water) so that the boys’ lungs could have as much time as possible to develop. At that point they started me on IV antibiotics (another “just in case”) since my GBS results weren’t back yet and then at the urging of the nurses who were monitoring my contractions, the OB checked to see if I had dilated any further and found I was around a 5.5 – 6cm. Since I was now officially in labor, the nurse and I chatted about whether I wanted any pain management and I told her I absolutely wanted an epidural but since I wasn’t feeling anything and was still only 6cm I would hold off for a bit.

Just before midnight, my nurse came back in and asked if I was feeling my contractions yet because they were right on top of each other (no, I wasn’t) and she was afraid I was going to miss my window for the epidural. I decided to go ahead and get it which ended up stalling out my labor overnight which wasn’t really surprising because the same thing happened with OG.

Thursday, April 8th

Around 8am I was still only at a 6 and they still weren’t in any hurry so there was still no water breaking or Pitocin to encourage labor and we just kind of lounged around. I probably watched tv and played around on my phone and Kyle brought his laptop and worked from the hospital room. My regular OB was scheduled that day and I was so happy to see her and thrilled that she was going to be the one to deliver the babies.

At noon I was 8cm and at that point I was essentially in a race with another pregnant lady who was about 7cm. Because I was having multiples and had to have teams of people in place for delivery, I was considered higher priority if it came down to it.

At some point, I realized my epidural wasn’t really working properly. My legs were numb but between the legs, eh not so much. I could feel my SPD pain coming back on and I knew if I was feeling that I’d definitely feel giving birth. The anesthetist came by to check things out and adjust things and I ended up getting some other pain medication (it’s been 6 months and while the length of this post would make you think I remember everything, stuff like this has left my memory) which worked wonderfully for a while. I also got another steroid shot at some point for the boys’ lung development and thankfully didn’t feel it this time around thanks to the epidural/pain meds.

Once I hit 10cm I started feeling the most intense pressure and it legit felt like the babies were going to fall out of my butt. This was all new to me since my epidural with OG left me feeling absolutely nothing from the waist down. I also got nauseous and ended up throwing up but thankfully I felt it coming on in time for my nurse to get me a bag.

Once I was ready, they took me to the OR. Even though I had planned on a vaginal delivery, hospital policy is that multiples have to be birthed in the OR in case of complications and that ended up being a very good thing.

There were 3 teams of people in the OR: one for me (my OB, nurse, a hospitalist, anesthetist, and a couple of other people), one for Baby A, and one for Baby B. Baby A, I think by this point we had decided this was going to be Oliver, was up first and once everyone was in place they broke my water. Holy Crap. The pain meds had worn off, my epidural wasn’t working, and I was feeling everything. I know some women want to give birth without pain meds but I am 100% NOT one of those women and that is totally okay. It didn’t take super long to push him out but it was so painful and I was caught off guard. I remember after a few pushes they said “Okay he’s ready to come out now let’s do some more pushes” and I started crying because I thought I was already pushing him out and that junk did not feel good. They gave me a shot of pain meds and thankfully that helped and soon enough he was out. He cried immediately, I got to see him briefly, and then his team of people checked him out. He was 6lbs and 20.08” which is a good size considering he was one of two and a little early. At this point I got the shakes and was freezing cold so they started covering my upper body with warming blankets which helped a little bit.

Since Henry (Baby B) was breech, our plan was to birth Oliver and then see if Henry would move into a head down position on his own. Once Oliver was out, the hospitalist did an ultrasound to see Henry’s position. Henry had moved but into a transverse position (sideways) so they decided to try to manually turn him. My OB worked internally while the hospitalist worked externally to try to spin him head down; this is where things went south. The hospitalist was trying to spin him to breech but my OB decided she wasn’t comfortable with that and wanted to turn him back the other way to try to get him head down. When they started turning him again, there was a cord prolapse.

For anyone who doesn’t know what that is, like me before it happened, a cord prolapse is where the umbilical cord basically drops through the cervix before the baby does. It’s a very not good situation and causes oxygen to get cut off from the baby and if it takes too long to fix/deliver it can cause things like brain damage or in some cases stillbirth.

When the prolapse happened, my OB told the room “I feel cord” and the entire mood changed. There was a massive energy shift and this very intense feeling of urgency. At this point, Kyle was ushered out of the room and they started prepping for an emergency c-section. My OB had a nurse take her place to keep pressure of the cord so that she could perform the c-section. She started slinging betadine (seriously, I was covered in the stuff) and I started to cry but she reminded me that we knew complications could happen and we were prepared and I was so immensely grateful in that moment that she was there. This part is all a little fuzzy but they had me remove my mask (yes, I had been wearing a mask; one of the joys of labor and delivery in the time of COVID) and I had to be put on oxygen for a bit.

During a planned c-section, a drape is put up and you can’t see them slicing you open, moving things around, and delivering the baby (although I think some places offer clear drapes now for the moment the baby is delivered) but in my case there wasn’t time for that. As one of the nurses put it “Wow you normally don’t get a front row seat for this!” at which point they asked if I was okay or if I wanted somebody to get a drape put up. I told them I was fine, and quite honestly, I was probably also in shock, so I ended up watching my own c-section which was um…probably not something I would encourage. I remember watching them pull Henry’s bottom half out first and while I’m sure it was only seconds, it felt like forever before they got his shoulders and head out and felt even longer before he made any noise. The relief I felt when I heard him cry was overwhelming. Unlike with Oliver, I didn’t get a chance to see him before they checked him out but they did announce to the room that he was 6lb 11oz (to which everyone went “Woah!”) and 19.76” long. Seriously though, no wonder I was in so much pain all the time! Thanks to being so sick during pregnancy I only gained 20lbs the entire time and if you add the babies, placentas, and fluid it pretty much evens out to that 20.

While they checked Henry out, Kyle was able to come back in. The doctors decided Henry needed to head to the NICU for some assistance with his lungs/breathing. I didn’t even really get to see what he looked like before they took him which was hard but Kyle got to go with him which made me feel better. After Henry was out, they put up a drape before stitching me back together and then I hung around in the OR while my OB ran out to deliver that other baby before she could come stitch my tear. Because having to have two types of deliveries a few minutes apart wasn’t enough, I had to get stitched back together for both of them.

Once they got me all put back together, we got settled into the mother/baby room where I immediately started my routine of nursing Oliver followed by pumping for Henry. I pumped after nearly every single nursing session in the hospital and it was exhausting and I think might be part of the reason I’m already burnt out on nursing/pumping after 6 months but that’s another story for another day. I didn’t get to hold or see Henry until the next day (I was allowed but physically I couldn’t do it) but he progressed really well in the NICU and was already off the CPAP by the time I got to see him and they were able to remove his IV the next day. He was able to come to our room a few days later and then we were all discharged together. I think when all was said and done we ended up staying for 6 days which was way longer than we thought we’d have to stay but thankfully we have great family and friends locally who helped out with OG and Barley is perfectly happy playing with the other dogs at Camp Bow Wow.

Visiting was limited due to COVID but OG was able to come by the hospital for an hour or two a few of the days we were there and she immediately fell in love. It was hard for her to understand at first why she couldn’t go see Henry the first couple of visits but she seemed to catch on quickly and was still able to meet him before we all went home.

If you’re reading this and expecting twins, I hope my story doesn’t scare you! A combination delivery is pretty rare (I think it only happens in like 4-5% of twin births) and a cord prolapse isn’t common either. I’m just lucky I guess!

Today Oliver and Henry are six months old and adjusting to a family of three has been hard in a lot of ways. I don’t handle the newborn phase well and having two at once was extremely rough and I absolutely would not have made it through without Kyle being as incredible of a partner as he is. But as hard as it is sometimes I also cannot imagine our life without them. Seeing their bond start to form has been so amazing and Odessa absolutely adores them.

Of course, they’re also the reason we’ve barely gotten any work done on our house for the last six months! But things are getting easier (I think? For the moment anyway) and we’re starting to plan out finishing our current projects and thinking about what’s next.

Spring 2020 One Room Challenge Week Eight – Reveal!

June 24, 2020

REVEAL DAY!

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This has probably been the most physically demanding project we’ve done so far. Mixing concrete and shoveling gravel in 90 degree weather has not been the most fun we’ve ever had. We’ve spent the last several weekends working from morning to night on this patio and our bodies are wrecked but you guys, WORTH IT. Just as a reminder, the major things we had planned for back here were: expanding our deck, pouring large concrete pavers, painting the brick exterior, and spreading gravel.

We went from this…:

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…to this:

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I am so freaking proud of how this space turned out and we cannot wait to be able to sit out here and just relax.

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These concrete pavers were a major labor of love. We had planned on renting a concrete mixer to knock them all out at once but ended up spending 3 weekends mixing concrete by the bucket.

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For those that follow me on Instagram, you might remember we had an issue with a couple of pavers. I tried resurfacing one and patching the other buuuuuut in the end, they still didn’t turn out. You can kind of see them in this photo in the back corner.

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So we’ll have to bust those out and pour new ones but not anytime soon. We’re going to hold off on working on exterior projects until the weather cools off a bit. In the fall, we’ll work on Phase 2 of this project which will be to re-pour those two pavers, pour two concrete pads for our future outdoor kitchen, and build a step from the patio to the yard. We had planned on adding an outdoor fireplace but as of right now, we’re going to stick with our fire pit.

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We plan on painting our entire house white eventually, but for now we went ahead and started limewashing the brick parts of our exterior. We’ve never loved this particular brick and we’re not even sure what to call our siding color but I’ll admit I got really nervous when I started getting the limewash up. Thankfully, after finishing this wall, I’m really happy we did it! I do want to get some mats for the stairs from the garage though.

We decided to build this planter to hide the giant foundation wall and to add a little greenery back here. This space doesn’t get a ton of light so we picked up a few hostas and we’ll see how they do. This lattice is strictly to hide our outdoor meters but I kind of want to build one for the other side of the planter, too. I’m planning on hanging some potted succulents on the lattice. Unfortunately, Home Depot was out of the pots I wanted to use so I didn’t get that part done in time for reveal day but hopefully soon!

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We left our old World Market outdoor sofa outside uncovered last season and unfortunately, it did not hold up. The frame itself is okay but all of the woven resin covering basically falls apart at the touch. So, we used the cushions we had from that sofa and Kyle built an outdoor loveseat and two chairs. The chairs still need a good sanding and another coat of stain before I can seal them but I love them.

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We’d love to add a larger outdoor sofa in the same style so that we have even more seating out here. We love to entertain and although we haven’t done it as much over the last couple of years, we’re itching to start hosting again once we’re comfortable having people over.

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We’ve had that little elephant plant stand since our apartment days and I’m so glad to have a permanent place for her as a little side table out here.

Since our deck project ended up being smaller in scale than we originally planned, we used our leftover materials to build this outdoor table. I love how it turned out and it’s going to be great having some place to set food and drinks. Between the rest of the leftover decking and some other leftover lumber that’s been living in our garage for a few years, we were also able to build a boardwalk and step from our walkway down into the patio.

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It has been SO much nicer than the gravel and retaining wall situation we had. I can’t find a true before but you can see it on the right side of this photo:

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Of course we finished this space just in time for it to get uncomfortably hot and aggressively humid but you’ll still find me sitting out there with a box fan by my side while I enjoy all of the blood, sweat, and tears (and believe me there were all three) that went into this space!

Before:

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After:

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Check out all of the other guest participant reveals right here!

Spring 2020 One Room Challenge Week SEVEN

June 18, 2020

Week 7. That means there’s only one week left until reveal day!

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I kept meaning to post for Week 6 last week but I’ve been working non-stop either for my job or on this patio and I just didn’t get around to it. When we last left off, we had finished our deck extension and I had started limewashing the brick exterior of our house.

I don’t want to give too much away (although if you follow me on Instagram you’ve already seen a few sneak peeks in stories and on my feed), but we have made a whole lot of progress over the last couple of weeks.

I finished limewashing the brick, we finished all of the concrete work and spread most of the gravel, Kyle built an outdoor sofa, we started building stairs from the walkway to the patio, and we built a table out of leftover decking.

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We were hoping to finish the stairs from the walkway to the patio over the weekend but unfortunately Home Depot was out of the lumber we needed.

It looks like an entirely different property back here and I cannot wait to finish up and show you guys the whole space!

Going into the final week, here’s what we need to do:

  • Finish building stairs
  • Build planter
  • Finish spreading gravel
  • Build outdoor chairs
  • Sand/stain stairs
  • Sand/stain deck
  • Sand/stain table
  • Sand/stain sofa
  • Sand/stain chairs
  • Stain planter
  • Limewash garage stairs
  • Clean pavers
  • Clean out gutters
  • Hang lights
  • Place furniture

It’s not a terrible list but I was hoping to have most of the staining done already. Unfortunately, the weather has not been great this week but it’s looking clear for the weekend so hopefully it stays that way so we can finish strong and take some photos before more rain moves in!

Don’t forget to check out what the other participants are up to right here!

Spring 2020 One Room Challenge Week Four

May 28, 2020

We’re halfway through! ORC-Guest-400white Here’s last week’s to-do list:
  • Test limewash
  • Set final two posts for deck stairs (using fast setting concrete for this)
  • Build deck stairs
  • Build more concrete forms
  • Remove second remaining brick walkway
  • Remove gravel from patio to prep for pavers
  • Cut and cap sprinklers (can only happen if we remove the gravel)
  • Start setting/leveling concrete forms
And here’s how well we did:
  • Test limewash
  • Set final two posts for deck stairs (using fast setting concrete for this)
  • Build deck stairs
  • Build more concrete forms
  • Remove second remaining brick walkway
  • Remove gravel from patio to prep for pavers
  • Cut and cap sprinklers (can only happen if we remove the gravel)
  • Start setting/leveling concrete forms
Not only did I test the limewash, but I ended up getting almost half of the wall started before a pop up thunderstorm washed me out. Thankfully, most of the limewash survived but I need to go back and wash some off where I went a little too thick. The nice thing about the product I’m using is that you can wash it off within 5 days of applying it to the brick. The not so nice thing is that it’s been raining most of the week and I’m on day 4.5. IMG_0557 I’ll also need to go back and get into the mortar better in a few spots. Our mortar is pretty deep set and it’s been difficult to get good coverage using the masonry brush. I remembered afterward that we have a paint sprayer so I might try that out for the rest of the wall. I was hoping I could leave the door to the garage alone but after painting the brick, I don’t think the color is working. My plan is to find a light gray but the gutters and downspout will likely stay the same color unless I can’t stand it and then we’ll see what happens. The gutters also need to be cleaned ASAP. We’re thinking we’re going to build a raised planter along the other wall (stained to match the deck) and plant some hostas to help hide the foundation and maybe help disguise our meters. Hopefully we can get that done during the ORC but it’s an extra project that wasn’t in our original plan. IMG_0549 We finished our deck expansion on Saturday with help from Kyle’s parents. Not sure if we’ll be able to get it stained by the end of the ORC but at least the building part is done! IMG_0514 IMG_0518 IMG_0519 IMG_0522 IMG_0523 IMG_0052 Kyle installed some temporary stairs down into the yard for OG and the dogs but Phase 2 of this project will include adding some big box steps and railings to finish everything off. IMG_0545 We are still planning on building an outdoor fireplace at some point but that will also be a Phase 2 project and won’t be done during the ORC. We’re planning on going ahead and pouring a concrete pad for it when we rent the mixer for our pavers but the actual building and plastering we’ll save for later. There are still a lot of details to figure out there. As for moving the gravel, we’ve gone back and forth on this but we decided to leave it all in place and just move it around as we need to. We have a lot of leveling to do this weekend since the patio is sloped about 6-8 inches and we’ll probably just use the gravel that’s there as a base layer and get marble chips to go on top and between the pavers instead of using the aggregate. We also didn’t cut/cap any sprinklers because we’ve only come across one so far and it’s not in the way so we can deal with it later if we need to. IMG_0544 We did start leveling out the first concrete form but got rained out. It’s supposed to be nice most of this weekend so I’m hoping we can get a lot of leveling done and most, if not all, of the forms in place. We weren’t able to build anymore over the weekend so we’ll start by setting the 5 we have and go from there. Here’s our plan for this weekend:
  • Finish limewashing
  • Finish building concrete forms (for pavers)
  • Dig/level patio area
  • Set/level concrete forms (hopefully all of them)
  • Choose a paint color for the garage door
  • Clean the gutters?
I can’t believe we’re halfway through and I’m so glad we have 8 weeks instead of 6 this time or else I’d really be sweating! You can check out all of the other guest participants right here.

Spring 2020 One Room Challenge Week Three

May 22, 2020

Week Three! ORC-Guest-400white Over the weekend, we got ready to knock out a bunch of progress on the deck expansion and start getting the patio ready. First up, we removed the first half of our current wonky brick walkway to make way for a new 5ft x 24ft deck expansion. IMG_0259 Then, before we could even start digging out holes for the new deck posts, we had an idea that ended up changing our entire plan: What if we built an outdoor fireplace? Not a fire pit, but an actual wood burning fireplace with a hearth and a chimney. fireplace (Ignore the measurements) How does that change our plan? Well, we don’t have enough space for the full deck expansion we had planned and the fireplace where we want it. The whole reason we were doing the deck expansion was so that we could eventually replace our dining room window with a sliding door that would lead out onto the deck. Moving the doors from the kitchen to the dining room would have given us enough space for 3 more sets of drawers and another 4.5ft of counter space in the kitchen. So we could either keep our original plan or we could add in the fireplace and scrap our plans to expand the kitchen and the deck. In the end, we decided to scrap our original plans. We have plenty of storage in the kitchen and while we have slightly less counter space than I’d like to have, the island makes up for it. So instead of a full deck expansion, we are just adding on large box steps down into the new patio area and we’ll add another set down into the yard. Now, I’m not thinking we’ll be able to build the fireplace in the time frame of the One Room Challenge. If we had this idea from the beginning and had started on time instead of two weeks late, I’d feel pretty confident, but we already have a huge list to get done and we’re battling the weather (remind me to never commit to an exterior project for the ORC again, mmmmkay?). Plus, we need HOA approval and I haven’t even submitted our request yet. ANYWAY. We weren’t prepared for that change of plans and basically lost half of the weekend but we did get two of our new posts set before the rain hit (we’ll still need 4 posts for the steps we’re building). IMG_0366 We also ripped down a sheet of plywood to use for our concrete forms. We used 2x4s last time and that’s what I would rather use but we already had 2 sheets of plywood that were just sitting in our garage with no purpose so we’re using those up first. We ripped enough material to put together 7 forms (I think we need 14 for the pavers and we’ll need more for the concrete pads for the kitchen area and fireplace) and Kyle built 5 of the forms over the weekend. IMG_0353 We started playing around with the placement to make sure spacing will work. IMG_0356 On Monday, we got hit with crappy weather and it rained every day until Thursday. We’re supposed to get more rain on Sunday so we’re hoping to get a little bit of work done after work today (Friday) and knock out the deck stairs with some assistance from Kyle’s dad tomorrow. Here’s how it was looking near the end of the weekend (before we got our second post in): IMG_0344 Yikes. I can’t decide if that’s better or worse than how it looked a couple of years ago… img_5480 In better news, we got our approval from our HOA to paint our brick. I’ve been having the hardest time finding the limewash I want to use in stock due to the shutdowns in Italy but I managed to find a local paint store that carries it and has two of the color options in stock. The store also happens to be on my way home from work (my company recalled everyone to the office this week) and is offering curbside pick up so I’m going to swing by on my way home to pick up some to test out. Eventually we’d like to add brick around the rest of our foundation and maybe above the garage door around front and paint the siding white as well but those things will be done down the road. Here’s what I’m hoping we can get done this weekend (majorly dependent on weather):
  • Test limewash
  • Set final two posts for deck stairs (using fast setting concrete for this)
  • Build deck stairs
  • Build more concrete forms
  • Remove second remaining brick walkway
  • Remove gravel from patio to prep for pavers
  • Cut and cap sprinklers (can only happen if we remove the gravel)
  • Start setting/leveling concrete forms
Be sure to check out the other guest participants here!

Spring 2020 One Room Challenge Week Two…No, you’re not crazy. I skipped Week One.

May 15, 2020

It’s that time of year! If you don’t know what the One Room Challenge is, you can read all about it right here and make sure you check out the other participants here.

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You guys, we have gone back and forth so many times on whether to participate this season. Originally, we decided to sit it out and just keep slowly (painfully slowly) working on finishing the trim work in the kitchen and dining room. Then we decided to join and redo our family room. We were all in on this plan…until we weren’t. So then we decided again to not join. And then we started spending a butt load of time outside trying not to go completely bonkers from staying home 24/7 for the last 9 weeks and decided it would be nice to finish out deck/patio and give ourselves a nice outdoor retreat. And since the ORC just happens to be going on right now, we may as well just go for it, right? Right?! So here we are joining in Week 2 and we’ve got half a plan and no work done. Sounds about right.

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We attempted to do our patio a couple of years ago for the Fall ORC and it was a massive fail. We still have a pile of gravel in our driveway from it that we never finished spreading; it’s only a slight hazard with a two year old running amok. It was the rainiest fall I could remember at that time and I swore off ever trying to do an outdoor project for the ORC ever again. And yet here we are. Attempting to finish an outdoor project in 8 weeks (LOL more like 6 because we’re starting 2 weeks late). In the Spring. In the South where it’s sunny one minute and hailing the next. Should be fun!

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There’s a lot going on back here. Our grass is always way overgrown, we need to extend our fence another 20ft back, and there’s ivy taking over everything. I’d love to one day replace our murder shed with a garden house and add a plunge pool. But none of that is going to get done right now so let’s just talk about the patio/deck area.

Back deck

First up, the deck. A few years ago we took down our original deck and built a new one. The old one was in very poor shape: the paint was peeling, the joists were undersized, some of the frame was rotten, it wasn’t attached to the house, and none of the posts were actually in the ground; they were either sitting on pavers or random pieces of wood. It took me literally ONE swing of the sledgehammer to take the entire thing down and I almost knocked the spigot off the house in the process. We are going to extend the deck about 5ft into the patio area, basically replacing the brick walkway, plus a step or two down to the patio. Eventually, we’re going to replace this window with sliding doors and a couple of box steps down onto the deck.

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We won’t be able to stain the deck during the ORC since the boards will need to dry out first but eventually it will get the same stain as the rest of the deck which could use a new coat, too.

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As for the patio, we are planning on doing a mixture of large concrete pavers and gravel. The gravel we have here now was supposed to be temporary and is usually used for drainage so it’s pretty sharp and doesn’t feel great if you step on it the wrong way without shoes. We are going to keep/reuse this gravel though because we already have it and most of the surface area of the patio will be large concrete pavers that we pour ourselves. We are also going to pour two narrow concrete pads along the tall section of our fence to eventually build an outdoor kitchen area. For now, we’ll be moving our grill and smoker down there. I’m not sure that we’ll have time to do a kitchen build during the ORC and we’re not 100% sure on what we want it to look like or exactly how we want it to function yet. The arbor was trashed by a storm before we got to finish it and we don’t need/want it anymore so we’re going to repurpose the posts from it to be used for the new section of our deck. We’re also going to put in a more permanent set up for our café lights. The patio area is sloped but instead of filling it and leveling it, we’re going to level the pavers and then fill in with gravel where we need to.

arbor

The other thing that I’d love to do back here is to limewash the brick wall (eventually we want to paint our whole house white). TBD on whether we can do this during the ORC because I’m still waiting on HOA approval and then we have to test a sample to see how we feel before committing since it’s not the cheapest product. So let’s see if I can break this down into a nice handy to-do list that will probably change 12,000 times over the next 6 weeks:

  • Remove bricks
  • Extend deck (this is a big to-do list on its own)
  • Install ledger board
  • Set posts
  • Build frame
  • Install joists
  • Add blocking
  • Cut/install deck boards
  • Build stairs
  • Pull weeds from patio and try to blow out pine straw and broken acorn bits
  • Remove ivy that’s growing through the fence
  • Remove railroad ties in patio area (to be replaced with retaining wall at some point)
  • Build frames for pavers (ripping down existing plywood to use materials we already have)
  • Place/level/stake frames and rake out gravel where needed
  • Cut and cap sprinkler feed line (we don’t use our sprinklers but they run under the patio area and don’t want any issues for future homeowners)
  • Pour pavers (we’ll be renting a concrete mixer this time instead of mixing by shovel in a plastic baby pool)
  • Remove frames from pavers (once cured)
  • Fill in with gravel where necessary
  • Hang wire for lights
  • Hang lights
  • Limewash brick?
  • Paint door to garage?

That somehow doesn’t seem like that much and also seems like a whole heck of a lot all at once. Thankfully we’re going to have some help building the deck and the concrete mixer should speed up the concrete work so maybe it won’t be so bad? Now let’s just hope our weekends stay dry.

Let’s do this!

Odessa’s TWO-tti Frutti Birthday Party

January 17, 2020

We are finally back to making progress in the kitchen but not enough for a full blog post so I thought it might be fun to post pictures from the birthday party we threw for our TWO (how??) year old.

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My original career plan after college was to be an event planner. I pretty quickly realized I like having my nights and weekends to myself though so I’ve settled for throwing themed parties instead. Last year, we hosted a Winter ONEderland party and this year I decided on a tropical TWO-tti Frutti theme. In case you’re wondering, the plan for next year is “Odessa’s 3 Ring Circus” unless she decides she’s done with my ideas and wants to choose her own theme.

Here’s a glimpse of last year’s party. I bought out the silver and rose gold bottle brush trees from the Target Dollar Spot every time they restocked for months and used them all over the party.

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We knew a large chunk of our family wouldn’t be able to make it this year so we decided to send out invitations to OG’s classmates. Kyle found a template in Canva and then tweaked it to fit the theme.

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I spent the week leading up to the party blowing up balloons and putting together balloon garlands and other decorations throughout the house. I had planned on putting one above our front porch but since it was supposed to be rainy the day of the party, I decided to nix that one and just go with the three I had planned for inside the house. Outside, we blew up flamingo and pineapple floats that we already owned, hung a garland I ordered from this Etsy shop, and put up a “Welcome” poster mounted to foam board. We had the poster printed at Staples and grabbed the foam board at a craft store.

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Inside, we set up the goody bags and a “Thank You” sign on the entry table along with another one of those flamingo and pineapple garlands, one of OG’s stuffed flamingos, and a little wooden pineapple we bought in Haiti a few years ago.

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We cleared probably about 80% of her toys out of the playroom and left out a few toys, puzzles, and blocks and set out coloring pages and crayons. I set up the gift table in here with a “Happy Birthday” sign I ordered from amazon and I had a few photos printed to go over her toy shelf with the balloon arch. I also pulled out some tassel garlands I made for my friend’s baby shower a few years ago and we strung them up using command strips.

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We threw some table cloths over shelves and furniture we didn’t want the kids to mess with (our shelf full of vinyls between the playroom and family room, the gift table that had my computer equipment under it, and a dresser in the family room hallway) which worked pretty well. I think we ended up with 8 kids ranging from a year old to 4 years old so we tried to keep things we didn’t want touched pretty well hidden and tried to keep the toys and crayons easily accessible.

Of course, I also had to decorate the pictures of our pups who were at camp during the party; those are pineapple glasses on Barley, if you can’t tell.

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Balloon arch #2 helped to hide the yet-to-be-finished opening between the family room and kitchen.

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I didn’t take a picture of the food set up or the few decorations on the kitchen shelves. The party was at 1 so we provided a lunch spread plus beer, wine, water, juice, and soda. I ordered 2 sandwich rings (turkey and ham) and a platter of chicken tenders from Publix plus chips and dip, goldfish, cheese puffs, and two large fruit salads. We also served falafel and hummus as well as spanakopita as vegetarian options which were a big hit. And then of course cake (and cupcakes both from Publix)!

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I used a tropical table cover from Target to cover the back doors and hung balloon arch #3. I ordered a flamingo and “Happy Birthday” cake topper from amazon for the cake and fruit themed toppers (amazon) for the cupcakes. I also purchased balloons and a template from The Creative Heart Studio to make a flamingo balloon mosaic. I was going to make a watermelon slice too but I ran out of time. The flamingo actually wasn’t even finished the way it was supposed to be but I deemed it “good enough” and rolled with it.

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I always like to make sure we have plenty of options for seating so in addition to the lounge furniture in the family room, we also pushed our dining table to the window and set up an extra table and chairs. I went to Lidl the week before the party and bought a butt load of fruit to decorate with. The table cloths I bought at Lidl a few years ago when I hosted my friend’s baby shower and they worked perfectly for the party. Those pineapples were $0.99/each and we sent them home with a few of our friends after the party!

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Overall it was such a fun day! I was a little anxious leading up to it because OG’s first birthday party was the last time I saw my dad completely coherent before his passing and it was hard knowing he wouldn’t be there this year. That’s honestly probably one reason I threw myself so deep into the planning and decorating leading up to it and thankfully I was so busy the day of I didn’t have much time to dwell on it. I’m extremely thankful for the family, friends, and classmates of OG’s that showed up to celebrate with us. I wasn’t social most of last year and it was nice to see everyone and feel like a real person again.

Anyway. It’s hard to believe we have a two year old! It feels almost impossible that it has already been two years and at the same time that it’s only been two years. Time is a weird thing.

This weekend we’re hoping to knock off a few things from our kitchen list! I stained the last two floating shelves yesterday so Kyle just needs to hammer the top one into place and those will officially be done.  You can’t really tell but I didn’t tape off the bottom shelf and ended up staining some of the grout so I’ll have to touch that up at some point,

I’m also hoping Kyle can get the ceiling primed and that we can do a lot of work on the trim that we’ve already installed (crown, window, hood). I also need to finish up a tiny bit of grout but that should only take a few minutes. If we can get a lot of time to work (which just depends on the toddler’s mood), I think we can have the already installed trim all patched and painted or at least prepped for painting this weekend! In case you don’t follow me on instagram, here is a look at the two floating shelves I stained yesterday. Don’t ask me why we haven’t put outlet covers back on. It takes two seconds but we just haven’t done it yet. One of those silly little things that’s easy to do but takes you years to actually get done I guess!

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Have a great weekend!

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the house on the hill blog
Southern made. Lover of animals. Married to a New Englander. Slowly renovating our 1970s home.
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