The House on the Hill Blog

Ah, Friday. The best day. I’ve been struggling with a cold all week and have been desperately wishing for this day to show up because that means it’s the weekend and I can basically turn my brain off for a couple of days. Well ya know, other than focusing on whatever I need to work on in the nursery.

1 – One of my brothers got married last week which meant we got a mini-vacation to Charleston. It was a super quick trip and we spent all of 5 minutes at the beach but it was nice to take a weekend off.

2 – The weather has been absolutely gorgeous this week and according to the forecast we’ll have a nice cool night for handing out candy next week. Last year it was 80 degrees on Halloween and it was miserable! I had to change out of my cheetah onesie costumer and just throw on a witch hat. I’m looking forward to sitting out on the front porch for a couple of hours and seeing how many kids come through this year. Last year we had a pretty good turn out but it was really the first year we had more than a couple of kids come by so we’ll see! We are stocked and ready to go with full size candy bars that we will gladly eat ourselves if we don’t get many kids.

3 – I’m really excited about Halloween but do you guys realize what that means? It means that November starts next week. NOVEMBER. How is that even possible? Don’t get me wrong, I love November. October – December is my absolute favorite time of year but it’s really starting to set in that the year is almost over. Thanksgiving is just a few weeks away and then before you know it Christmas will be here and oh no big deal but just a few weeks after that we’ll be having a baby. Well, I’ll be having a baby. Kyle will be standing nearby.

Side note: How cute is this mailbox? It’s part of the Magnolia Hearth & Hand collection for Target and I’m hoping to snag it once it’s available.

4 – And speaking of the baby, with the exception of the recent nursery posts and our announcement back in the summer, I don’t think I’ve talked much about the pregnancy. I remember how much it sucked reading about everybody’s happy baby news when we were trying to get pregnant and overall I’ve tried to be sensitive to that during my own pregnancy.

The mental and emotional struggle is so difficult and it’s something I can’t even really describe. It’s so frustrating when your body won’t do what you’ve always been taught it was “made” to do and it’s hard not to place the blame on yourself. We are supremely thankful that whatever issues we had were handled with the help of fertility drugs and that we didn’t have to go any further than that. I honestly do not know how couples can spend years trying to get pregnant and all I can say is that they must be so much stronger than I could ever be.

With that being said, I also don’t want to completely leave out something that has been such a big part of our lives for the last 6 or so months so I figured it was about time to share at least a small pregnancy update. If you don’t want to read, skip ahead to #5!

As of today, I am 29 weeks into what has been a relatively easy pregnancy (not that I have anything to compare it to). Other than extreme fatigue, 1st and 3rd trimester insomnia, and recent discomfort, I haven’t had a ton of symptoms and my morning sickness was pretty minimal for which I am also very thankful because I don’t handle puking well. All of our tests and scans have come back normal and low risk and at the anatomy scan several weeks ago, she was measuring within a day of her due date which is January 12th. I have been feeling her move for about 9-10 weeks now and it is both the weirdest and most incredible feeling. I’ve gained about 20lbs from my pre-pregnancy weight and am living pretty much entirely in maternity clothes which I kind of love because they’re the most comfortable clothes I’ve ever worn. I haven’t really had many cravings and I haven’t been as active as I had planned but I am going to try to start walking again soon now that the weather has turned if I can ever get away from my desk during the day.

My bump varies by size depending on the time of day and how much junk food I’ve eaten but here’s a crappy bathroom photo from yesterday morning (28 weeks, 6 days). Looks like it’s time to clean that mirror:

5 – I’ve been watching a decent amount of HGTV lately, mostly Property Brothers because they apparently don’t play anything else, and it’s got me itching to start taking on the bigger house projects that need to be done. Obviously, timing isn’t right but I’ve gone back to dreaming about what to do with our bathrooms and keeping an eye out on kitchen deals. IKEA is having their kitchen event right now and I’ve been so tempted to just bite the bullet and order our new cabinets. Don’t worry, I won’t actually do it but I am counting down the days until I can take a sledgehammer to that room (next year maybe? Hopefully?). I think the list below will be the order of the really big projects but there will definitely be small projects between and the last three could get swapped around. I’m thinking maybe we’ll be done in another 10 years.

1. Finish the fence
2. Finish the deck
3. Kitchen!!!!!
4. Laundry room
5. Master bathroom
6. Hall bathroom

I think that’s about it for this week! This weekend will be filled with nursery projects, yard work, and maybe even some house cleaning. It’s supposed to be in the 50s on Sunday which might even call for the first fire of the season!

No, you’re not crazy, I did not do a post for Week 3 of the challenge. This was mostly because we were out of town but honestly, I didn’t really have anything to share at the time. We made absolutely zero progress that week so I didn’t really feel bad skipping out on a post but I’m baaaaaaaaaaaaaack.

Before I get into it, I wanted to mention that due to delays for people dealing with all of the natural disasters that have been happening, the challenge has been extended and is now a 7 week challenge.

So last time I posted, the nursery was looking like this:

Which was a HUGE improvement from this:

I don’t really feel like we’ve gotten too much more done but all I had on my list for the last two weeks was to finish the trim work (spackle, sand, caulk, paint) and refinish the dresser. Doesn’t seem terrible, right? WRONG. The trim work is pretty much good to go but there is still some caulking to get done. The dresser on the other hand is going to defeat us.

I love this dresser but it’s not perfect. The amount of storage in it is insane and it’s got the exact lines I want but it’s not really the right tone or shade and the drawer hardware has got to go. No big deal! Those things can be changed!

Famous. Last. Words.

We bought a Rust-Oleum Furniture Transformations kit thinking it would solve all of our problems. Nope. Turns out, it goes on more like paint and I don’t want to cover the grain of the veneer or else we would have just painted it to begin with. Luckily, we only applied it to the interior drawers which you haven’t seen because I always forget to get pictures (the cabinet doors are hiding 6 drawers). We quickly decided it wasn’t the look we wanted and started to research Plan B.

Enter: Minwax Polyshades. Not only is this product supposed to change the color but it can supposedly change the actual tone of the wood. Perfect! Uh….maybe? Jury is still out. We’ve only done one coat because it basically sent me into a panic. It really doesn’t look any darker than when we started, just richer and I was afraid multiple coats wouldn’t really do much. We were researching Plan C when I found a few things online that said the Polyshades could take several coats to get the look you want so for now, we’re going to keep going. Coat 2 was supposed to go on last night but we didn’t realize we were out of steel wool which we need to use before additional coats go on. If 3 coats doesn’t do it, we’ll try a darker shade of Polyshades.

This is the only picture I have right now that shows the dresser and it’s what the nursery looked like up until yesterday evening. The dresser itself has one coat of Polyshades, the drawers and cabinet doors are raw. It does look darker in this photo but I think that’s mostly because it’s just a dark photo to begin with.

So we haven’t been able to move past the dresser yet which is a bummer but all is not lost! The closet doors came in way before the original estimated delivery date and we have one of them painted and hung. The closet is still a nightmare sorrynotsorry.

Yes, there is a gap at the top but we’re going to fix that. I’m also going to need to do a billionth (4th?) coat of paint on that door. Harumph. We also need to figure out pulls. I think the doors came with plain white wood pulls but I’m thinking of stopping in Hobby Lobby or Michael’s to see their options.

We also put together the little nursing corner last night and it’s so nice to see the room start to come together. The curtains are from Overstock and still need to be ironed. The rug is from Lorena Canals and I’m a little obsessed with it. You guys, it can be put in the WASHING MACHINE. *Angels sing, harps play, all rejoice* I still need to get a large rug for the room (maybe?) but I’m excited to have something soft and cozy underfoot for the hours I’m sure I’ll be spending in this corner.

Seeing everything put together in this corner also helped me decide between the pink Target footstool and the natural pouf I was having trouble deciding between in this post. I think the pink footstool would just be too much pink so I’m going with the pouf! I just need to order it. It should add some nice texture and will also bring more natural tones to the room.

We also got our flamingo prints but they aren’t working with the frames we bought so we decided to just build our own because what’s one more project at this point? Hoping to get that done this weekend! The seller was incredibly generous and gifted us the prints on canvas as well and they are so gorgeous! I can’t wait to share them.

So that’s where we stand right now and I’m hoping this time next week I’ll be able to share a finished dresser with you guys at the very least. If we can’t get it to the right color, we’ll probably just roll with whatever the outcome is because it’s really not that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things as long as it still functions.

Here’s an updated list which includes some additions to the original list:

-Remove staples from floor
-Put down flooring underlayment
-Install new floors
-Install new baseboards
-Spackle/Sand/Caulk/Paint new baseboards – mostly finished
-Install new door trim
-Spackle/Sand/Caulk/Paint new door trim – mostly finished
-Upgrade ceiling fan (already purchased the new one)
-Paint ceiling
-Sand/Repaint crib wall
-Reconfigure closet
–Purchase/Install new closet doors – In progress. 
-Refinish vintage dresser – In progress.
-Put crib together
-Replace curtain rod and install new curtains
-Build/Install book shelves
-Purchase decor – In progress
-Purchase remaining furniture 
-Figure out rug situation – In progress. Need to decide if I want a second, larger rug in additional to the rug under the glider. 
-Decorate! – In progress
-Build frames for art
-Frame/hang art
-Line dresser drawers
-Add closet trim to close gap (spackle/sand/caulk/paint/yadayadayada)

Here’s the anticipated to-do list for the upcoming week:

-Finish all trim work
-Refinish dresser
-Build frames
-Hang other closet door
-Paint closet doors
-Hang art
-Buy lumber for book ledges
-Build book ledges (time permitting)

Be sure to go check out what the other guest participants are up to!

Finally Friday! I feel like parts of this week have just dragged by while others have flown and I’m so ready for the weekend. It’s going to be another super busy one so I’m sure it won’t be long enough but weekends rarely are anyway regardless of how much we have going on.

1 – Today is our 5 year wedding anniversary! Some of the high points over the last five years: adopting our 2 dogs, buying our first house, tearing apart half of that house, putting less than half of it back together, 2 amazing cruises, tons of great memories with family and friends, and expecting our first child. It’s been the best five years and we’re excited for what’s to come.

2 – I’m probably jinxing this, but I think the weather might finally be starting to turn. After this weekend it looks like we’re clear of the 80-whatever degree weather and I’m so freaking ready. Boots and flannel on standby!

3 – I have been dragging out decorating for Halloween this year which is unlike me. Most of our decorations are out but we’re still missing a few key elements in our yard which we need to put out this weekend. We added a couple of new things this year though and they are so cool! I bought a holiday projector from Home Depot during their Christmas in July sale a few months back and I’m a little bit obsessed with it. It came pre-loaded with a bunch of different Halloween and Christmas videos but you can also load up your own. A few of the Halloween options kind of freak me out so we’ve been sticking with the least scary ones. You just set up the provided screen on your window (or wherever you want it) and play whichever scene you want (or you can load multiple scenes and they’ll cycle through). I don’t have a great picture but here’s a blurry take of my favorite: dancing skeletons.

We also set up an outdoor slide projector:

And here’s a shot of our Halloween porch:

We picked up that witch for a steal from Home Depot last year the day after Halloween! We also just ordered more skulls to put throughout the pumpkins and they should be delivered today.

4 – Last night was the first night this week that we didn’t work in the nursery. We did get the dresser moved upstairs though with the help of our friend Nick (thanks again!) so it’s ready to be refinished. We decided to refinish it in the room instead of fighting humidity and sawdust in the garage or cat/dog fur everywhere else in the house. The dresser is the biggest thing on the list for this week for the One Room Challenge so hopefully it goes smoothly. I was planning on tackling it with lots of fans, open windows, and a mask but after checking out the VOC levels this morning, it looks like Kyle is going to have to manage this one.

5 – Speaking of the dresser, I ordered the prettiest Rifle Paper Co. paper to replace the drawers liners. I mean, c’mon!

I already know I didn’t order enough so I need to figure out how much more I’ll need. The only other thing I have to figure out is how to make up the difference between the size of the paper and the size of the drawers. The paper is only sold in one size and it’s just a little short width wise but I don’t want that to keep me from using it so I’ll need to get creative.

Cheers to another weekend!

 

Time for my weekly progress update on our nursery for the One Room Challenge! For a little back story, check out last week’s post here.

Y’all, I am super happy with how much we got done!

Here was my list of things I wanted to get done this week:

Paint the ceiling
Re-paint crib wall
Remove old fan
Remove flooring staples
Put down flooring underlayment
Install new floors
Install new baseboards
Remove old window trim (forgot to include this in my original project list)
Install new window trim (forgot to include this in my original project list)

And guess what? We got it all done! Well, we weren’t able to finish installing the baseboard but that’s because we were short two pieces and I had to order more. Whoops, my bad. It should be here today and won’t take long to finish installing!

I took this Sunday afternoon when we just had a few more pieces of flooring and baseboard to install:

Not only did we finish all of that but we were also able to get a jump start on next week’s to-do list. We put together the crib and glider, installed the new door and closet trim, and put in the new fan. We went with this one from Home Depot and I’m loving the fact that we have an overhead light in here now. I plan on getting one or two lamps as well but having this guy is a total game changer. It’s controlled by remote so we didn’t have to deal with having the switch re-wired for the fan/light combo (it’s wired for one of the outlets right now). They also designed it to where the fan supports itself while it’s being wired which means I didn’t have to stand in the middle of the room holding a heavy fixture over my head while Kyle dealt with getting all of the connections hooked together like usual. So thanks, Home Decorators Collection at Home Depot. You’re the real MVP.

The biggest difference in the room is obviously the new floors. We’re in the process of slowly putting this laminate down in most of the house and I love it. Originally we had planned on hardwood throughout the house but these are so low maintenance and they’re pretty scratch resistant which is huge for us with two 60lb dogs that love to run and wrestle inside.

We also decided to upgrade the baseboards in here to these 7″ beauties to match the ones we recently put in our master bedroom. Eventually these will go throughout the whole house, too.

So in case it’s not forever burned into your brain and you need a reminder, here’s where we started last week:

And here’s where we are now (Yes, I know all my photos are crappy but I swear part of it is the lighting. I’m at work when the natural light is best so I just have to work with what I can get.):

That random furniture will be moved eventually but our house is kind of a disaster area right now and there’s no place for it to go.

I have to stop for a minute and say that I am so freaking thankful for Kyle. I tried to pull my weight as much as I could but I get tired a lot easier these days and my knees and back start hurting pretty quickly so I tend to take more breaks. Kyle painted the ceiling, pulled all of the staples from the floor, changed out the fan, and cut and installed all of the baseboards and other trim. He also did all of the flooring cuts which was a major help and didn’t complain when we had to make 2 Home Depot trips over the weekend. I pulled up most of the carpet tack strips, re-painted the crib wall, laid the underlayment and installed most of the new floors but if it was just me, I probably wouldn’t have gotten anywhere close to this much done.

Anyway, other than all of the physical progress we made I also went on a little shopping spree and ordered some of the stuff I’ll need for the finished space. The flamingo art prints, glider, rug, and new closet doors are all on their way (or already here) but the closet doors and art prints have a tentative delivery date that’s dangerously close to the big reveal so I’m keeping my fingers crossed they get here on time or sooner! The glider got here pretty quickly and I’m super excited to have a chair to take my breaks in instead of sitting on a pillow on the floor or retreating to the couch in our bedroom where I usually get taken hostage by at least one cat.

I ordered these prints from ColorWatercolor on Etsy:

And I went with this glider from Target (which I sit in almost every time we’re in the store):

So that’s where we stand going into this next week! Here’s our tentative to-do list but this weekend is a little busier than last and the weekends are when we get most of our work done so we’ll see:

–Install door trim (already done)
–Install closet trim (already done)
–Put crib together (already done)
-Spackle/sand/caulk trim
-Paint trim
-Refinish dresser

If we can get all of those things done, we’ll be in pretty good shape as far as the big projects go. I’ll still need to figure out if I want to do white or stained shelves for the reading nook and build those but other than that it’s really just putting everything together. Oh, and figuring out how we want the closet to function…kind of forgot about that.

I also forgot that we have family staying with us for a night next week and the guest room is a nightmare so a big chunk of our weekend will be taken up by clearing it out and finishing the floors in there (it’s still mostly carpet minus a 3ft strip of laminate)!

Make sure to check back next week to see if we stuck to the plan and check out the other guest participants for the ORC here!

Well you guys, we must be completely crazy because we decided at the last minute to join in as guest participants for the Fall edition of the One Room Challenge.

The One Room Challenge is hosted by Linda at Calling it Home and it comes along twice a year. During the ORC, featured designers and guest participants choose one room to makeover in a six week time frame and share their progress every week. I’m sure those of you that know us are either laughing hysterically or silently screaming because I don’t think we’ve ever finished a project in 6 weeks. It’s okay, I’m laughing/screaming/sobbing uncontrollably right along with you.

But you guys, I just couldn’t resist the timing on this one! What better way to force progress on the nursery than declaring publicly that it’ll be done in six weeks? Right? Maybe? Okay, don’t answer that.

Moving right along. I shared our plans for the nursery a while back but for anyone who might be visiting from the link up (hi!), here’s my quick and dirty mood board for the space:

Here’s what the room looked like way back when it was the crap/storage/trash room:

So pretty, right? Here’s what it looked like after it became the rarely/never used craft room:

I’m not sure I ever blogged about it but we turned it into a joint office/craft room/guest room for a while but I don’t think I have any pictures of that phase.

And here is the current state of the room in all of its glory:

Yiiiiiiikes. We at least have a little bit of a head start on the 6 week timeline because we already ripped out the carpet (along with the carpet pad and tack strips), baseboards, and most of the door/closet trim but here’s the overall plan and what needs to be done:

-Remove staples from floor
-Put down flooring underlayment
-Install new floors
-Install new baseboards
-Spackle/Sand/Caulk/Paint new baseboards
-Install new door trim
-Spackle/Sand/Caulk/Paint new door trim
-Upgrade ceiling fan (already purchased the new one)
-Paint ceiling
-Sand/Repaint crib wall
-Reconfigure closet
-Purchase/Install new closet doors (which I totally forgot about until I sat down to make this list for this post. Whoops!)
-Refinish vintage dresser
-Put crib together
-Replace curtain rod and install new curtains
-Build/Install book shelves
-Purchase decor
-Purchase remaining furniture (which might just be the glider at this point?)
-Figure out rug situation (I am struggling with this one)
-Decorate!

Y’all, I just started freaking out a little while putting that list together so this should be interesting. The good news is, we have everything we need to make progress on the floors this weekend!

I’ll be posting our progress every Thursday so be sure to check back for regular updates and if you’re interested, head on over to the link up page to see the other guest participants!

Well I’m about 400% done and over this week and would love to end the day drinking margaritas but apparently that’s frowned upon when you’re pregnant so I guess I’ll have to settle for sitting in my pajamas eating peanut butter M&Ms.

ANYWAY.

1 – Kyle finished up the last bit of painting in our room last week except for the doors. We are also short one piece of trim so we’ll have to deal with that at some point and we still need to pick out crown moulding and put the nook together but for now everything is as done as it’s going to get until after the nursery. Don’t get excited though because I don’t have any pretty pictures to show you and probably won’t for a while. Everything that’s in the current craft room and office has to be relocated so we can put in new floors and then transition the rooms into the nursery and guest room which means our room is about to become half sleeping area and half storage. Sorry!

2 – We’ve made progress with the new floors in the hallway and have gotten pretty much as far as we can without moving onto the next phase. Our plan this weekend is to pack up/clean out the nursery and guest room and hopefully start pulling up the carpet. We definitely won’t have enough time to start putting in the new floors until next week/weekend.

3 – It’s Fall, y’all! It’s also still 80 degrees but did that stop me from buying a completely ridiculous amount of pumpkins for our front porch? It did not.

4 – I’m trying to nail down a few pieces for the nursery and I can’t decide on this ottoman or this pouf to use with the glider. I like the idea of the soft pink but also really like the warmth and texture of the pouf. I just don’t know! I think I need to get everything else in place before I decide. I kind of feel like I might end up buying both and seeing how they look in the room and then just returning whichever one I don’t choose.

5 – I looked at my reading list for 2017 and it’s so pathetic. I had my goal set at 26 books this year but I’ve only read 3. THREE. I just haven’t been in much of a reading mood and with only 3 months left in 2017, I don’t think I’ll even get close especially since we just upgraded our Hulu account to their live package which means I’ve been reunited with HGTV.

Now if you’ll excuse me, my pineapple PJs are calling and I must go.

A couple of weekends ago I threw a baby shower for one of my work BFFs, Cha. I wanted to do something fun so I decided to take her favorite food and use it as the shower theme. So yes, I threw a taco themed baby shower and it was awesome. I did a mixture of purchased and DIY party decor and while I originally planned on having Chipotle cater, I ended up putting together a taco bar with lots of help from Kyle and a couple of friends that came early to help out.

The week before the shower, I strung a bunch of banners together with a mixture of paper triangles and cacti that I ordered and tissue poms and tacos that I made myself. I also blew up some green balloons that I made to look like cacti the morning of the shower and at some point I grabbed some geometric tablecloths from Lidl which I discovered are vinyl which means I get to reuse them! Huzzah!

Fun fact: the balloons that came with the helium tank I bought were terrible. I had planned on doing a mixture of dark and light green balloons but all of the dark green balloons except one popped in my hands which was no less terrifying the fourth time as it was the first. Those stupid balloons almost had me in tears the morning of the shower.

We did a taco bar for lunch and a churro bar for dessert; both of which I forgot to take pictures of once they were actually set up. For the tacos, we had shredded chicken and beef which were in crock pots and then all of the toppings: rice, black beans, rotel, avocado, jalapenos, bell pepper, cheese, sour cream, and guacamole. Kyle picked up churros from Costco the morning of and I cut them into quarters to make mini churros. I also put out crushed pecans and walnuts and three different dipping sauces in case anyone wanted to get fancy with their churros (chocolate ganache, caramel, and cinnamon honey butter). I made the ganache and the cinnamon honey butter but the caramel was store bought. Here’s a picture of the food table before any food actually made its way over to it. The taco bar sign is a scrap piece of wood that Kyle cut to look like a banner and stained a couple of nights before the shower. I bought gold stick on letters from Hobby Lobby to save time instead of trying to hand letter because ain’t nobody got time for that especially when it’s a last minute idea that I decide I can’t live without.

I didn’t want to do a ton of super involved shower games so I settled on the clothespin game and a round of Price is Right: Baby Shower Edition. For those of you who are unfamiliar, when you play the clothespin game you start out with a certain number of pins and if you say the word “baby” and someone catches you, they get to take a pin. Whoever ends up with the most pins wins. I ended up with no pins. I am not good at the clothespin game. Kyle (the best husband in the world whose help I greatly appreciated) took the invitation design (which I ordered from another etsy shop) and turned it into custom game cards for me which I had printed at FedEx the day before the shower.

After eating, playing the Price is Right, and opening gifts we all just hung around. As people left, I made sure that they had signed the guest book and picked up their favors. For the guest book, I decided to use one of their ultrasound photos and put it in a pre-matted frame. I popped the mat out so everyone who came could write their well wishes to the baby and parents to be. The favors were custom sugar cookies made by The Chocolate Moose, which is a super awesome local bakery.

Overall, I think the shower was a success and now I have lots of party decor that I can break out in the future. Olè!

Since I missed Friday Five again, I figured I’d do a weekend recap. Friday was insane and I just didn’t have any time to post and I was going to post yesterday but I ended up on the couch all day from exhaustion and just a general bleh feeling. I swear I need another weekend to recover from my weekend.

Anyway. Let’s get to it. I’m going to do a separate post about the shower because I really liked how it turned out so that should be up in a couple of days.

I took the afternoon off from work Friday to run some last minute errands for my friend Cha’s baby shower and to get some cleaning/decorating done. Side note: Publix has their pumpkins out now and it took all the strength I had not to buy a cart full to start decorating our porch. This weekend all bets are off though since Friday is the first official day of fall. I don’t care if it’s still 90 degrees next week, pumpkins and mums are definitely happening.

Friday night Kyle and I went to the Tim McGraw and Faith Hill concert with my friend Jackie. Country is one of my favorite genres and when I saw that Tim and Faith were coming to our town, I pretty much immediately bought tickets. We were in the upper bowl but we looked down directly onto the stage and we sat above the stairs so nobody was in front of us which made for a killer view for the most part. The concert was good overall but I thought the Eric Church concert we went to a couple of months ago was better. We only stayed for about half, most of which was Faith Hill but I was tired and didn’t want to be out too late since I was planning on getting up early the next morning.

Saturday morning I was up bright and early to drop the dogs off at camp and finish cleaning/decorating for the shower. Kyle was a big help with all of the cleaning and food prep and he was nice enough to run out to pick up a couple of things before babysitting my BFF’s toddler during the shower.

The shower went on until around 2 and then our super amazing friends helped us clean up after which was a big help. After everyone left we loaded up the car and headed on to our last event of the weekend.

Kyle’s company put together this overnight camping trip at Oskar Blue’s REEB Ranch in Hendersonville which had some amazing views and is only a little over an hour from our house. It wasn’t the most fun I’ve ever had on a camping trip but it came after a very long, busy week and I was exhausted. It was the first time I was meeting any of his co-workers and it was just a lot to take in all at once so I was pretty overwhelmed. Sleeping was kind of impossible because I couldn’t get comfortable and I seriously miss the days where I could sleep on my stomach and I was just grouchy. Everyone was really nice and had it been the only thing we did that weekend I probably would have felt completely different about it but I really just wanted to be home in my bed at that point.

I had planned on trying to be at least semi-productive when we got home on Sunday but I was insanely tired and I ended up getting sick on the drive back down to the house so I spent the rest of the day on the sofa until it was time to pick up the dogs and I think I ended up going to be around 8 that night.

So that was our insane weekend and I don’t plan on being that busy any time soon. It really doesn’t sound like that much when I write it here but I promise you it was non-stop. Our plan this weekend is to decorate for fall, finish up the painting in our bedroom, and start ripping up carpet in the hallway to prep for new floors so hopefully soon I’ll have an actual master bedroom update for you.

Yes, I know today is Monday but I lost half of my Friday to a headache so let’s just all pretend, okay? Cool.

1 – In what is shocking to no one, we have made no house progress recently. It’s a good thing I don’t have a home improvement blog. OH WAIT. Seriously though, we’ve been so busy outside the house and I’ve been swamped at work so when I’m home I really just want to sit and watch old episodes of Chopped on Hulu while I eat copious amounts of Palmetto Cheese and drink Capri Sun. We did finally get the old sectional into the garage, Kyle did some yard clean up yesterday, and we’re calling ReStore soon to come pick up a few things we want to donate. This weekend is completely out but I don’t think we have a lot going on the rest of September or October so our plan is to buckle down then.

2 – We went on vacation a couple of weeks ago and it was much needed! Instead of a cruise we decided to go up to visit Kyle’s family in Massachusetts and spend most of the week relaxing by the pool. Even though I still managed to do some work while we were up there, the trip was so good for our mental health. Plus, the weather was gorgeous and it got us so psyched for Fall!

3 – While we were in Massachusetts, we made a day trip to Boston and it was my first time really seeing the city. I’ve flow in and out of Logan a couple of times and I went to a Red Sox game at Fenway several years ago but this time I got to walk around the city a bit. We decided to do a hop on/hop off trolley tour so I wouldn’t have to spend too much time on my feet and it was such a great way to see the city! We ran out of time to go to some of the more historic spots but we did get to see Harvard’s campus which is something I’ve always wanted to do and it did not disappoint!

4 – We tried out a new-ish burger place over the weekend called LTO Burger Bar. I’ve been kind of anti-burger lately but this place was really good. All of the burgers are double patty which I don’t love but I just took off one and gave it to Kyle. I was too hungry to take a picture of my burger but it had sloppy joe chili and an onion ring on it. They also have a small selection of insane milkshakes. Kyle and I split one called the Cinnamon Roller Girl and it was topped with warm cinnamon rolls, caramel, and spicy pecans and the glass was rimmed with cinnamon roll icing and it might be one of my favorite milkshakes ever.

5 – We are still on the hunt for the perfect grey color for our house. We tried out five samples this weekend but I think I’m going to have to prime the wall and try out larger sections to really get a better idea of how they look. There are only 3 of the 5 that we tried out in this picture but it’s so difficult to see what the top two really look like. Kyle likes the bottom one but I’m afraid it might be too dark for our house (more so upstairs than downstairs). It probably wasn’t the smartest decision to test them on this wall since I’m hosting a baby shower this weekend…whoops. I’ll just have to hang something to cover them for now and act like it doesn’t look weirdly placed.

This week/weekend is going to be so busy so I’ll probably spend the next week recovering but after that, it’s game on with the house projects. Probably.

 

So I mentioned a while back that we were changing our plans for the rest of 2017 a little bit and that’s 100% to make room for the nursery. I didn’t really go into detail about what that meant but basically we’re going to be changing the function of several rooms and moving a bunch of stuff around.

Before we start working on the nursery there are other rooms that need attention first.

Master Bedroom. I’m only mentioning this room because it’s still not finished and for my own sanity it needs to be done before we do anything else.

Study/Sitting Room > Family Room.

This is the room between the kitchen and the living room.

I’ve mentioned it before, but we aren’t doing anything major in this room this year. We are, however, changing the function and making it the TV/family room. Eventually there will be built ins and new trim and *fingers crossed* maybe even opening up the room into the kitchen the tiniest bit more (where the Miles Davis poster is in the above photo).

We’ve already moved our old sectional in there as well as the electric fireplace from our bedroom and our TV but I haven’t taken any new pictures. The only other thing we plan on doing this year is re-painting (once I find a gray I actually like…story of my life), installing blinds, and replacing the current sectional with a new one. The old sectional is about 5 years old, smells like everything a dog might smell like, and is currently being partially propped up with a 2×4 because the frame on the chaise broke.

The plan is to get this sectional from IKEA.

It should still offer plenty of seating and is a good piece for us for now. I realize we’re almost 30 and a lot of people think that means you should buy your furniture from somewhere that’s not IKEA but honestly, we have 2 dogs that have decided it’s perfectly acceptable to pee on everything and use the sofa as their jungle gym and we’re about to add a baby to that so whatever. *Shrug* My dream sectional is almost 4x the price and I think I would end up on Snapped if we bought it and it was immediately destroyed.

Living Room > Office/Craft Room.

I’ve always kind of struggled with this room as the living room because the furniture placement is tricky with a TV.

It’s much bigger than the other room but I don’t actually mind a smaller room for TV watching. It’s cozier. The large space is perfect to use as a multipurpose room. We’re losing Kyle’s room upstairs (to become the guest room) and my former craft room (to become the nursery) and we’d both like a space with work from home capability, so we’re combining spaces and moving downstairs. One half of the room will house our shared desk, lots of storage, and eventually a couple of club chairs comfy enough for lounging/reading.

The other end of the room (by the fireplace) will be set up with a small table and chairs for crafting, putting together puzzles, and one day doing homework. We may also work in a play area in here but I have a feeling the family room will double as a playroom.

It’ll be a long time until this room is finished the way I want it but we’ve already moved the desk down so that’s a start!

Kyle’s Office > Guest Room.

I honestly don’t even know if I’ve ever posted pictures of this room and I don’t even have a listing photo of it to show you. Whoops.

When we moved in, we turned one of the bedrooms into an office/music space for Kyle.

I had planned on keeping it as is, but Kyle suggested we turn it into a guest room instead so that’s what we’re doing. It will most likely still double as his music space because we don’t have guests super often (but we have started getting them often enough to warrant a guest room).

When we bought our new bed, we moved the old one into my craft room so once we clear everything out, we’ll just slide it across the hall and the room will be ready to go. We need to put doors back on the closet (we tossed all of the old crappy bi-fold doors) and we plan on running the laminate from our bedroom all the way down the hall into this room and the nursery.

Upstairs Floors. I just mentioned that we’ll be running the laminate all the way down the hall into the nursery and future guest room but since it’s probably the biggest project, I figured it deserved its own section. Luckily, the flooring is super easy to install so the worst part should be pulling the old carpet out and prying up a billion tack strips and staples.

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So that’s our main focus for the rest of the year! Luckily it’s mostly just clearing out crap and moving furniture so even though it looks like a lot, it’s really not. There are a few other things I’m still hoping we can do but we’re almost halfway through August so we’ll see.  Here they are:

Master Bathroom. All I want to do is finish demo and put down new subfloor so we are completely done with the old, gross, water-damaged floor. There’s no point in building it all back up right now but I’ll feel better about this room when demo is done and all of the debris is cleaned out.

Foyer. Mostly I just want to skim coat the wall where I tried (and failed) to remove wall paper and re-paint with a new, not purple gray.

Deck: Phase II. This would be major so it’s not likely but I’d love to finish the second phase of the deck. We’re planning on measuring it out and pricing out materials this weekend and then we’ll go from there. Kyle would probably have to do most of the heavy lifting on this project but I could at least hammer in joist hangers and screw in deck boards.

Linen Closet. Super low priority but if we don’t completely redo it, we should at least fix the broken doors.

Now let’s see how much we actually get done.