The House on the Hill Blog

• I don’t post a lot of memes but this one really spoke to me this week and every week for forever. I have been insanely busy at work and I don’t really see that changing in the near future.

• Last weekend my mom took us and OG out to see Madagascar at the children’s theater. We didn’t think she’d last very long but she did better than we thought she would. She definitely preferred the upbeat musical numbers to the scenes in between but we got a good 30 minutes out of her before calling it a night.

• We filled up the tiny baby pool on Sunday and spent some time letting OG splash around and it gave us major pool fever. I used to think that I wasn’t really a “pool person” but it turns out I’m just more of a private pool person. I’ve been pinning a million above ground pools but we have things to finish up inside the house before we even think about moving back outside.

 

• On the house front, Kyle installed a Nest thermostat downstairs. Very exciting stuff here but now I have to re-paint the hallway wall because we painted around the old thermostat which was much larger. Whoops.

 

• Monday was my 30th birthday and I took the day off to get a long massage, have lunch with a friend, and chop my hair off. For anyone who might be curious, 30 doesn’t feel much different than 29 so far and it has a lot of competition for best year ever but I think it’ll be a good one.

 

• Today is Gatsby’s 8th birthday! He’s the first pet we ever adopted. Here’s one of my favorite photos of us from a million years ago when he was probably 1-2 years old and we lived in an apartment full of free furniture and I was skinny. Those were the days! I promise he loves me even if his face says otherwise.

• We have exciting plans this weekend which I’ll talk all about next week. In the meantime, I’ll just keep pinning pools we can’t afford and putting off finishing the foyer and master bedroom because that’s what I’m best at!

Woah buddy, am I good at disappearing for weeks at a time or what? I’ll be honest, we haven’t done anything since my last ORC post other than planting the garden and installing the barn door. We’re still not even finished with our ORC space but there’s a reason and I’ll get into that in a later post.

For now, I thought it would be nice to check back in on our 2018 goals since we’re almost halfway through the year and talk about how plans are changing going forward.

Let’s get to it.

Master Bedroom

I’ve been thinking a lot about this space lately and how I want to get back in and finish it off. There’s really not a ton that needs to be done and with the amount of time I’ve been spending in there snuggling with OG before she goes to bed it would be nice to have a more finished/polished space. This is definitely still on the list for this year and we just need to talk and figure out if we want to go back and finish this room before finishing the foyer.

Outstanding projects:

• Add crown moulding
• Build in dog crates
• Add shelving above dog crates
• Paint doors
• Hang art

Master Bathroom

There are a lot of giant question marks here. Do we just have the tub re-plumbed? Do we go ahead and build in a shower instead? How far do we go right now?

Still in the cards for 2018? TBD. Depends on what we decide. At the very least I’d like to get drywall up and our toilet put back in.

Foyer

This space was our Spring One Room Challenge space and it has come so far but still has a long way to go. Definitely finishing this one this year.

• Remove mudroom bench and re-do floors in foyer (I’ll explain in a later post)
• Patch wall where new thermostat was installed
• Buy/install longer barn door track and re-hang door (our track is a little short and doesn’t allow the door to open fully)
• Install/Paint new baseboards
• Install/Paint new crown moulding

Family Room

I’d still like to knock this room out this year as well but for now saying TBD.

• Paint
• Replace all trim (baseboard, crown, window, etc)
• Built-ins for TV wall
• Purchase decor (curtains, rug, etc)

Guest Room

LOL Nope. Maybe in 2019. Kyle did finish installing the new flooring at least.

Linen Closet

Yes, this is happening because I’m tired of our towels being used as cat beds.

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So, to recap:

2018: Master bedroom, Foyer, Linen Closet
2019: Guest room
TBD: Master bathroom, Family Room

Bonus item: We are hoping to fence in the rest of our yard this year. The lattice is failing and our dogs like to spend a lot of time outside so we need to make sure we have a safe, secure place for them.

Currently banging this post out from my phone next to a sleeping baby so hopefully I can get away without too many typos!

This week we managed some major progress but we also hit a major snag (more on that later).

First up, I painted the foyer and hall and Kyle got the mirror hung back up (but I still need to give it a good cleaning).

We also built the barn door but getting the lumber home was interesting. See, we can typically bring home some wood in our cars but plywood also leaves us with two options: ask a friend with a truck to help or rent the Home Depot Load & Go. This time we decided on Option 2. The problem with the Load & Go is that it’s rented on a first come, first served basis and not only was it rented out already but someone else was already on the waiting list. We decided to try another Home Depot but since we had been running errands for a while at that point we decided to go home first so I could stay home with OG since she needed to eat and nap. Before Kyle could leave, I gave him another option – have Home Depot rip the plywood into 3 pieces and then throw them in his Kia. We were already planning on making it a 3 panel door on the foyer side to match our master bedroom doors (and the doors we’ll eventually have everywhere else) so the trim would hide the seams anyway and it just meant trimming out both sides instead of only one. The cost of the extra trim and the truck rental pretty much balanced out so that’s what we did. We built a Frankendoor and I love it! I stained it yesterday but it still needs to be hung. Here’s a little pre-stain peek.

I also started working on ripping out the tile in the hallway.

And here’s where the snag comes in. We thought we were going to be dealing with two different floor heights between the laminate and where the tile was but it turns out there was just one extra layer – the plywood the tile had been mortared to. This came up super easily and then we were left with a level subfloor. Sounds great and it is because it means we don’t need a threshold but it also means we can’t finish the ORC in six weeks. You see, we plan on putting this flooring in the kitchen and dining room eventually and we want the last row installed to be by the sink and dishwasher so that if there’s ever a leak there we won’t have to pull up everything (it’s a snap together flooring). If we were using thresholds we could just start fresh laying the floor the way we need it but since we don’t need thresholds it makes the most sense to take up everything and re-install it the way we need it for it to flow into the kitchen. Basically, our flooring is backwards. We really only have time to work on the weekends so there’s just no way to finish this week! That’s okay though because I’d rather do this than have random thresholds and we can still move forward with hanging the barndoor.

Here’s how the to-do list is stacking up:

• Remove old baseboards
• Remove door/window casings
• Move doorbell box thingy
• Move thermostat
• Patch walls as necessary
• Skim coat front wall (failed wallpaper removal)
• Remove column and patch floor
• Paint
• Install new baseboards
• Paint new baseboards
• Install new door/window casings
• Paint new door/window casings
• Build/stain/install barn door
• Move rug back from family room
• NEW: Pull up floors and reinstall going toward the back of the house

So there it is! I still plan on revealing what we have it just won’t include finished flooring or trim work.

Make sure you go check out what the other guest participants are up to here.

So I realize I didn’t do an ORC post last week but we did zero work and I didn’t have any progress to share so it’s on to Week Four (and yes I’m a day late but better late than never?)!

So, first thing: we are switching gears a little bit. Our weekends have been much busier than anticipated and when we’re not busy we’re trying to catch up on rest and spend some quality time with OG. Since time has been kind of limited we’ve decided that for now we’re going to focus on just finishing the foyer. If we can knock it out and still have time to work on/finish the family room then great! But we’re not going to force anything especially since we went into this knowing there was a pretty good chance we wouldn’t be able to get it all done.

We still have plenty to do in the foyer but painting has started!

The color is Benjamin Moore China White. I never thought I’d be the crazy person trying to convince you that white paints are all different but they actually are! We tried out four samples and they were all pretty different. We didn’t want a bright white on the walls (but we will use one for the trim) and this one was actually a compromise. I don’t remember all of the color names but of the four one was an immediate no (top left in the photo below).

Kyle and I each preferred a different paint color and China White fell kind of perfectly between the two so that’s the one we chose! I think the top color here is Benjamin Moore Swiss Coffee (which is the one Kyle liked), the middle is China White (the one we chose), and I don’t remember the bottom color name but it’s the one I liked.

So far I’ve painted two coats on the long foyer wall and I think that’s all it needs but I’ll need to look at it in better light to make sure. I still need to do the front door wall but Kyle isn’t quite finished skim coating it – there are just a few spots that need one more coat and then a final sand. I also need to do the other short wall at the end of the hall and decide if I’m going to go ahead and do the stairwell wall since it’s kind of part of the foyer.

I’m hoping to knock out this to-do list this weekend:

• Build/stain barn door
• Remove column (which we’ve quadrupled checked to make sure it’s not load bearing)
• Finish patching/painting
• Remove tile from hallway
• Patch floors
• Switch out light fixture
• Switch out outlets/light switches for white ones

Kyle has a race tomorrow morning but I think that’s the only thing we have going on so hopefully OG will be chill enough to let us work!

Don’t forget to check out the other participants here!

Week two already?!

Going to be honest, not a ton of progress has been made. Our schedules are kind of bonkers right now but this week hasn’t been a total loss.

Sunday, Kyle and his dad were able to move the thermostat and doorbell box which had been in the way of the future barn door. The doorbell box now lives in the laundry room (they really left it in place and just turned it to the other side of the wall) and the thermostat has moved down the hall out of the way of the barn door. We still need to cap off the doorbell on the hall side and patch the hole from the thermostat.

The thermostat is really throwing me off more than I thought it would. Every time I go to adjust the temperature I’m greeted with a hole in the wall and then I panic for .2 seconds before I remember we moved it 5ft to the left.

How about that old wallpaper huh? She’s a beaut.

I also started pulling out baseboards. Almost all of the hall baseboards are out but I still have three walls worth to tear out in the family room and we’re replacing the crown in the family room as well so that needs to go. We may or may not tackle the crown in the foyer right now – depends on budget and time. The family room is getting new crown because we have to tear it off one wall anyway to do the built ins.

Because we don’t have enough to do, we decided we’re also going to replace this small section of tile with the laminate we’ve been putting throughout the house.

All of the tile will eventually go. It’s not at all our style plus it wasn’t laid correctly and we’re constantly getting grout stuck in our feet. You can even lift one of the tiles right out of the floor!

Thankfully it should’t add more than a couple of hours worth of time to the overall project if that much (*knock on wood*). I also found out that the baseboards in the tiled area are grouted in so I can’t really get those out until that tile is out anyway.

I am really itching to start painting but there are several spots where I decided to pick at the painted over wall paper and those spots need to be patched. Here’s the worst area:

Yiiiiiikes. My bad. I’ve been forbidden from patching/skim coating walls because I tend to use more mud than necessary which makes sanding even less fun than normal so I’m waiting on Kyle to take care of all of that before I can knock out the paint. I never could find a gray I loved in this house so we’re going with white. I don’t even usually like white walls but I’m so over the gray we have and I’ve probably tried at least 30 different samples of gray and nothing works so we’re just going for it! I’ve been drawn to more and more white rooms on Instagram and Pinterest so we’ll see how it goes. We picked China White by Benjamin Moore (which we’ll have color matched at Home Depot).

We’re going navy in the family room. You probably aren’t surprised by that but you might be surprised to know that I’m not the one who picked it (it was Kyle!) and I was actually hesitant for a long time because I was afraid it would be too dark but the family room gets a good amount of natural light from the two big windows and the built ins will be white which should help balance everything.

Speaking of the builts ins…

We haven’t even started measuring for them. WHOOPS. We should probably do that soon.

I also realized we have a few almond light switches that need to be swapped out for white.

Ain’t no party like a fixer upper party ’cause a fixer upper party don’t stop. Ever.

See ya next week!

It’s that time again! I had so much fun doing the nursery for the Fall One Room Challenge that I decided to just go ahead and participate in the Spring edition. The difference this time around is that we have a 12 week old who likes to be snuggled and entertained. Should be a blast and not difficult at all!

So what space are we tackling this time around? Well, we’re actually working on two spaces because why the heck not?

First up – the family room. This was actually the formal dining room when we moved in but it didn’t make sense to us to use it as a dining room. Here are a couple of listing photos:

This room acted as a sitting room for a while until we decided we liked it as the family room for cozy tv watching. It’s much easier to figure out furniture placement for tv watching in here than the room at the front of the house we used to use as the family room. After moving in we switched out the light and painted and then later on we ripped out the carpet and put down new floors. More recently we added blinds because watching tv on a sunny day was difficult and also because the dogs bark at everything and so we’ve finally decided to cover all of our windows. Dogs barking during OG’s nap time is the worst so problem solved…ish. Barley still barks at any noise she hears or thinks she hears so whatever. ANYWAY. I digress. Here is how it looks today (I didn’t bother cleaning up before taking these and apparently I wasn’t holding the camera steady like I thought I was):

 

 

The biggest change in this room will be the built-ins that we plan to add to the tv wall. The fireplace will have to move out of this room; not sure where it’ll land yet.

We are still trying to figure out our process for this and I expect this to take the most time of all of the projects. Here’s the detailed to-do list as it stands right now.

• Remove baseboards
• Remove window casings
• Patch walls as necessary
• Paint
• Add built-ins
• Install new baseboards
• Paint new baseboards
• Install new window casings
• Paint new window casings
• Trim out doorway to kitchen
• Hang curtains
• Find/buy rug (this one goes in the foyer – we moved it in here just to see how it looks and never moved it back)
• Find/buy side table?
• Find/buy coffee?
• Decorate!

The second room is the foyer. This space thankfully doesn’t need much and I’ve been wanting to get it done for a while so I figured I would just go ahead and finish it off for the challenge. I don’t have any pictures from before we moved in but here’s shortly after.

This area has gotten some attention over the last five years with new paint, new floors, new furniture, and a new front door. This is what it looks like today:

 

 

I would love to replace the boob light and put in can lights but we’re saving can lights for when we do the kitchen so we can do all of the downstairs lights and repaint the ceilings at the same time. The general plan is just to freshen up and add a barn door to close off the laundry/”mudroom” bench/half bathroom area. Our laundry room is comically small and it’s such a process for both of us to come into the house together from the garage and if we have groceries or oh, I don’t know, a giant car seat, it’s nearly impossible. Once we add a barn door out here, we’ll be able to pop the laundry room door off to give us more space to come in/leave the house. The laundry room will get a big overhaul later but for now this will help out the functionality like woah. The barn door goes here:

Here’s a detailed to-do list for the foyer:

• Remove old baseboards
• Remove door/window casings
• Move doorbell box thingy
• Move thermostat
• Patch walls as necessary
• Skim coat front wall (failed wallpaper removal)
• Remove column and patch floor
• Paint
• Install new baseboards
• Paint new baseboards
• Install new door/window casings
• Paint new door/window casings
• Build/stain/install barn door
• Move rug back from family room

We’re hoping to get started this weekend so we’ll see how much progress we can make! I’ve got paint colors picked out for the two spaces but we’ve got several things that need to be done before I can actually paint so I’m hoping we can knock those out relatively quickly. I think paint alone is going to be such a game changer and I’m so excited!

Check out what the other guest participants are doing here.

Happy Friday!

This week has been kind of rough on me since I’ve been battling a cold. I don’t get sick/colds a lot so when I do it really takes it out of me. I ended up using one of my few precious sick days yesterday because I didn’t feel up to doing much other than lying down.

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Wednesday marked our 5 year homeowner anniversary! Part of me can’t believe we’ve only been in this house 5 years and part of me can’t believe it’s already been 5 years. Look how I excited I was. So young. So skinny. So flexible.

And look at tiny Barley! And that massive amount of pine straw!

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I’m kind of obsessed with this stair railing from 25:40 Love & Co. Kyle and I would both love to do something like this in our house but that’s waaaaaaay down on the priority list. But it’s so pretty and gives me all the heart eyes.

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I cannot wait to start on our Spring One Room Challenge! I’ve already ordered a couple of things in preparation. The challenge starts next week so look out for a post on Thursday. There’s really only one big project, I think so hopefully we can finish but this will be our first attempt at house projects since bringing OG home so we’ll see how much she lets us get done. I’ve started trying to plan everything out and I’m hoping maybe we can front load a bunch of stuff like we did for the nursery so that we have plenty of free catch up time if we need it.

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I’m trying to ease myself back into exercise and it is not easy! Other than one CycleBar class and a couple of walks I haven’t done much. I’m trying to get back to 10k steps a day to start and I need to do something for my arms so I’m going to attempt x push-ups 5 times throughout the day until I’m ready for some real strength training work outs. Today it’s 5 push-ups 5 times throughout the day. Next week I’ll bump up to 10. I’m registered for a 5k in early May but I’m planning on walking it although I’d like to try to start up C25k again soon. I felt the most in shape when I was running regularly a couple of years ago so hopefully I can find the motivation to get back into it. I reached my heaviest weight ever during pregnancy and have a lot of poundage to lose. I know I can do it, it’s just that initial period that’s so tough to get through.

Here’s a throwback photo from our first (and only so far) half marathon in 2016.

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I’m thinking about adding a reading goal for this year. It’s not like I have a ton of free time but I did read 2 books last week and started another this week so maybe? I’m thinking 12 which doesn’t seem so overwhelming since it’s one per month. Of course I’ve only read 2 and March is over tomorrow so I’m already behind before I even start. We’ll see. Maybe it’ll be a soft goal and I won’t stress myself out trying to make it happen.

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We have a big weekend here! Kyle has a 5k in the morning, we have OG’s Easter bunny photo scheduled for tomorrow afternoon, and potentially have some family coming into town which should be fun.

TGIF. Seriously.

This is the first week I’ve been back in the office since early January and I am TIRED. Usually I get to sleep until the last minute and then roll out of bed and walk downstairs to my desk but this week I’ve actually had to get up three days a week and get myself to the office. Thank goodness we have a casual dress code and I can stay hidden in my tiny office. It doesn’t help that OG has woken up between 4-5am the last two nights.

It’s a good thing she’s so stinking cute.

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What in the world is up with this weather? Where did my Spring temps go? Why do I have to wear a heavy coat in the mornings and slippers around the house? It looks like this weekend is supposed to be crappy but next weekend looks nice. Fingers crossed because I’m over the cold!

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We had OG’s two month check up this week (she’s actually 10.5 weeks) and our girl is a little weed. She’s up to 12lbs 1.5oz and 23.5″ long! She’s outgrown most of her 3 month sleepers and we can probably start transitioning her into her 6 month clothes which is bittersweet.

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After not reading for probably the last year, I’ve read two books this week! Well, one screenplay and one book which I’m technically not done with but only have 20 pages left of. After watching the trailer for the new Fantastic Beasts movie, I was itching to relive the first one and I just happened to have purchased the screenplay a while back so I pulled it off of the bookcase and read it in 2 days. I would have finished in 1 but it’s hard to find the time to sit and read or do much of anything these days.

The book I’m almost finished with is Lauren Graham’s “Talking as Fast as I Can” and I’ve really enjoyed it. She’s very scattered and funny and she basically just reminds me of Lorelai Gilmore throughout most of the book. I have 3 or 4 other celebrity autobiographies that I bought last year that I haven’t read yet so those will probably be next since they’re typically light, easy reads.

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Can you guys believe that next weekend is Easter and the start of a new month? This year is just flying by. I decided I’m going to be “that mom” and put together an Easter basket. Yes, I realize OG won’t even be 3 months old and this is more for me than her but whatever. I ordered this adorable basket and I’ll fill it with a couple of board books, bunny rattle, new pacifier, baby sunglasses, this cute little bunny outfit my mom got her, and maybe I’ll toss in the swimsuit I just bought her or a sunhat to round it out.

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Our local theater just released their upcoming season and I am so freaking excited! They’re bringing Hamilton, Dear Evan Hansen, The Book of Mormon, and Anastasia among others. I’m also glad we decided to become season ticket holders for the current year because we have the option to renew and avoid the waiting list that has formed for the upcoming year.

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The Spring One Room Challenge starts in just under two weeks!! I’m so excited to get some work done on our house after not doing anything since the nursery. We know what space we’re tackling but we don’t know if we’ll be able to finish in 6 weeks. We’re hoping for some great naps from OG to give us time to work. I’ve actually already ordered one of the things we’ll need from Home Depot because sometimes my orders from there take forever and I didn’t want to risk it not showing up in time. I can’t wait to share our plans!

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Happy Friday!

It’s Friday! I decided I’m going to try to get back to doing my Friday Five posts but I’m taking the “five” part away. So now it’ll just be however many random things have happened or are on my mind for the week.

OG turned 2 months on Wednesday and it feels like there’s no possible way she’s already 2 months old but on the other hand it feels like there’s no she’s only 2 months old. Girl has been a champion sleeper at night recently (knock on wood) but she’s not a great napper so I guess it’s a trade off. Here she is on the day we brought her home vs the day she turned 2 months:

I’ve been back to work for 3 weeks now which is kind of insane to me. Luckily, my company has been letting me work from home full time but I only have one more week of that perk left and then it’s back to the office. Part of me is ready and part of me could keep working from home forever and never put on real pants again.

We haven’t done any house projects since bringing OG home but the Spring One Room Challenge is about a month away so I’ve been scheming for that; it’ll be interesting to see how much we get done with a newborn. I think we’re also going to repaint almost the entire downstairs soon. I just can’t get a good grey for this house so we’re going to try out some white paints and see if anything clicks. I’m not really a huge fan of white walls but this purple grey needs to go and I’m in the double digits in terms of number of grey paint samples I’ve tried so it is what it is.

The weather is starting to turn and I’m so freakin’ excited I can hardly stand it. I can’t wait to have the windows open and spend some good time outdoors with OG and the pups. It looks so inviting out right now but it’s still too cold for me.

I went to my first postpartum CycleBar class last weekend (which was my first postpartum workout period) and holy crap was it tough. I knew it would be but I’m really glad I went. I’m not sure the next time I’ll go because my times for working out are pretty limited and I need to start getting back into running shape since I have a 5k coming up in just over a month but I definitely will be going back at some point. The worst part of the class (and probably the worst part for the next several I go to) was getting used to that bike seat again. Yikes.

That’s it for me. Have a great weekend!

Odessa Grace was born on January 7th at 7:15pm weighing in at 7lbs 9 oz and 21″ long.

After experiencing some consistent cramping the night before, we arrived at the hospital around 10:45 that morning where I told the woman at the desk “This is going to sound really silly but I think I might be in labor? I’m not really sure.” Turns out I was 8cm dilated and 100% effaced so yeah, I was in labor. My contractions hadn’t been bad and in fact I wasn’t even sure they were contractions at the time but I knew they would most likely get pretty painful at some point so by noon my epidural was in and I spent the afternoon watching Law & Order SVU. My labor stalled and I was started on pitocin mid-afternoon to get things going again and the nurses helped to position me to use a peanut ball to encourage her to drop.

At 6:30pm I was almost at 10cm so the nurse had me do some practice pushes to finish things off and get me ready for delivery. Once everyone was in place and ready to go it only took a few pushes for our little miss to make her appearance.

We’ve spent the last 6 weeks learning our new normal which changes every single day but overall things have been so, so good and we’re both head over heels for this tiny little person…even when she gives us grump face.