The House on the Hill Blog

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.

 

Hi, remember me? Yep, I’m still here.

We haven’t really done much since the nursery and I just haven’t felt like I’ve had anything to post but I’m back at least momentarily to discuss our 2018 plans.

Now, I realize I haven’t done a wrap up of how we did in 2017 but honestly we changed plans so many times that I figured I would just skip over an end of the year “how’d we do?” post and skip right to what we’d like to get done in 2018. I can already tell you that not all of this will be done. That’s a 100% guarantee right there. But it wouldn’t truly be a goal list made by me if it wasn’t ridiculously overly ambitious so there you go.

So without further ado, here’s my dream goal list for 2018:

Master Bedroom

We started this in 2017 and made some really good progress which I have yet to share but we stalled out early on in the year and then the room just got pushed to the back burner. I don’t have any recent photos to share but how about throwing it way on back to soon after we first moved in? Feast your eyes.

Here’s what we need to finish:

• Add crown moulding
• Create area for dogs so the crates can go away
• Add shelving above dog area
• Paint doors
• Purchase decor items: rug(s), lamp, artwork for walls, etc.

Master Bathroom

Unfortunately, we’re still a few years away from my dream bathroom remodel but we recently bit the bullet and paid for a crew to finish demo on our bathroom so we can at least make it functional again. All of the water damage is gone and new subfloor has been put down and the room is ready for us to rebuild. This is going to be a very low budget, very temporary room makeover but it’ll be nice to have two functioning bathrooms upstairs again, especially with the increase in visitors we expect next year.

Here’s about how far we got ourselves:

I’ll share some updated photos when we’re ready to move forward with putting things back together but for now, here’s a list of what we need to do:

• Re-install existing tub
• Hang/Mud/Sand drywall (this is only on one wall)
• Add tub surround (all of the shower tile was removed during demo)
• Lay vinyl flooring
• Paint
• Re-install existing toilet
• Add towel hooks

Foyer/Mudroom

The entry functions pretty well now but it needs to be finished. We’re not really doing anything in the laundry/mudroom area except removing the laundry room door to make it easier to get in and out of the garage because right now we have to do this weird shuffle dance to get inside and I’m pretty sure it won’t work with a car seat. To keep that area closed off from the dogs and cats, we’ll be adding in barn doors in the entry which will basically separate the laundry/mudroom area and bathroom from the foyer.

Again, no recent photos just some really great shots from before we did much other than paint. The barn doors will be covering that opening you can kind of see on the left edge of the picture. We’ve redone the floors and switched out the front door, table, and canvas since this was taken.

To-do list includes:

• Re-paint once we find a gray that I don’t hate or give up and find a new color completely
• Fix front door (it sticks)
• Skim coat wall to fix failed wallpaper removal attempt
• Replace crown moulding?
• Replace baseboards
• Remove laundry room door
• Add barn doors

Family Room

Formerly the sitting room/study, we made the room next to the kitchen into the family room this past year. It’s meant to be the dining room for the house but we’ve never used it for that! We recently switched out the sofa in here for the one we had in our master instead of buying the IKEA sectional we had our eyes on. I’m not sure if we’ll work on this room this year or not since the built-ins make the scope of work is just the tiniest bit larger than some of the other projects but it’s on my list anyway!

• Re-paint
• Replace baseboards
• Replace crown moulding?
• Add built-ins to tv wall
• Purchase/install blinds
• Purchase/install new curtain rod
• Purchase rug

Guest Room/Kyle’s Office

This room is pulling double duty and it’s actually almost done so I don’t see any reason we wouldn’t be able to take care of it this year.

• Finish installing new floors (we ran out of flooring when we did the rest of the upstairs floors but we have what we need now)
• Install/Finish new baseboards
• Make closet functional
• Purchase/Install new blinds
• Replace window trim
• Replace door trim

Linen Closet

Right now our linen closet has no doors and is just a giant mess. We’re thinking about doing some sort of built in or a piece of furniture here instead of a traditional closet but we’re still looking into our options so no real to-do list yet!

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I know that all sounds like a lot, especially with a baby due in the first two weeks of the year, but most of the rooms can probably be knocked out in one or two weekends each. I doubt we’ll do much in the first half of the year as we get settled into our new routine and honestly if we just finish off our room, bathroom, and guest room I’ll be happy. Now with all of that in mind, there are a few “dream projects” that I would love to knock off the list in 2018, too but the chances are pretty slim.

Fence

We’ve been fencing in our backyard in phases and we’re probably about 50% there. I would love to finish off the fence in 2018 which would open up the backyard for the dogs even more and would let us get rid of the crappy lattice fencing that connects the two sides.

Deck

Our deck is also being done in phases and I would love to do the 2nd half this coming year! We still need to finish off the railings on the first half and once the 2nd half is done we can add in the stairs to the backyard. Right now there’s a drop of a couple of feet to get down from the deck which probably won’t be so fun with a baby.

Kitchen

It’s been the “Year of the Kitchen” for like 3 years now and yet, we still haven’t done it. The only thing we’ve done in here is paint the cabinets and walls and it was the first real project we did when we moved in almost 5 years ago.

There are so many things wrong with this space. The cabinets are solid wood but not in great shape and half of them don’t work properly. The floor tile was installed incorrectly and isn’t even attached in some spots anymore plus it’s this weird less-pink-but-still-kind-of-salmon color that isn’t very appealing. There’s a peninsula that creates a bottleneck with the fridge is open. The oven takes approximately 12 years to pre-heat to any temperature. There’s a built-in desk that mostly acts as a junk collector, the dishwasher is terrible, the room lacks a lot natural light, and the overall layout just sucks.

There’s about a 94% chance that the kitchen will not happen but I’m keeping it on the 2018 dream list anyway because I can.

So that’s it! 2018 will either be a year of great progress on smaller projects or we’ll just be too distracted trying to navigate a new normal and won’t actually get anything done. Either way I think we’ll be pretty content.

 

It’s been a while since I’ve done a Friday Five post! We’ve been pretty busy the last couple of weekends so I haven’t really had much of a chance to sit down and write a Friday post until now.

1 – A couple of weekends ago, Kyle and I dropped the pups off at camp and headed up to Flat Rock, NC for the weekend. Flat Rock is one of our favorite towns and we usually do a day trip up there once every Fall for apple picking and lunch at our favorite BBQ joint. It’s only about 45 minutes from our house and the drive is really pretty for the most part. This year we decided to make a weekend babymoon out of it and it was incredible. Kyle found an old mill that had been converted into a cabin and it was right next to a waterfall.

We didn’t do much except eat and relax in the cabin and it was the perfect weekend away.

2 – Last Friday we met up with our favorite photographers, Keith and Crystal of Red Apple Tree Photography, to do a maternity shoot. They did our engagement and wedding photos five years ago and we love working with them! I cannot wait to get the photos back but in the meantime, they were nice enough to send a couple of sneak peeks straight from the camera after the shoot.

I’m already so in love with these and I’m glad we decided to have them done!

3 – On Saturday, my mom came into town and we headed out to my baby shower. Anyone who knows me probably knows that I love the show Deadliest Catch. Go ahead and judge me all you want but it’s one of my favorites and I fully admit that I have watched as much as 10 hours at once. ANYWAY. Guess what my shower theme was…

Are you kidding me? I still haven’t disassembled the diaper boat because I haven’t had the heart to and that crab pot cracks me up. I completely failed at taking more photos but we had mini crab cakes and the best fruit dip in the world plus some of the best cupcakes I’ve ever had.  Big thanks to my friend Sarah who opened up her home to us for the shower and to all of the friends and family who made it out!

4 – Sunday we were up bright and early to take my mom to breakfast before she had to leave to make her flight back to Colorado. I finally got my Diner 24 french toast which I had been wanting for weeks and it’s a good thing too because they closed for business the next day. I’m really bummed because it was my favorite breakfast place but there’s talks of another owner coming in and re-opening so we’ll see.

5 – In case you missed it yesterday, we finished the nursery! We still need a few more things like a rug and drawer pulls but we are so glad to be done well in advance of our girl’s due date. We let the dogs in last night to check it out and I have a feeling they’re going to want to spend a lot of time in there, especially once we get a nice big rug that they can lounge on. I just need to keep them from stealing all of the stuffed animals out of the basket which is the first thing they did last night. Oy.

This weekend is much more low key than the last few have been but we are heading up to Charlotte for a few hours tomorrow for the Southern Christmas Show which I’m pretty pumped about. Sunday I fully plan on being as useless and lazy as humanly possible and not feeling one bit guilty about it.

Week 7! Do you know what that means? It’s reveal daaaaaaaay!

That’s right, the end is here and I just know you’re all on the edge of your seats waiting for the answer to that one burning question: “Did they do it?”

Yes.

We.

Did.

How cute is that flamingo on the door? Our sweet neighbor got that for us and we love it. Thanks again, Jan!

This is probably my longest post in a long time or maybe even ever but this is also my favorite room/project that we’ve done so sorry not sorry.

We were really down to the wire on this one and finished up last night way past my bedtime. Don’t worry, my bedtime is 9 so it’s not like we were burning the midnight oil but we were working later than I had planned on. And when I say “we” were working on it I mostly mean Kyle. It was worth it though because now the nursery is pretty much done and I’m fully planning on changing into my pajamas as soon as I get home tonight and devoting all of my time and attention to the couch and the tv. Ditto for this weekend.

Anywho.

Let’s take a trip down memory lane all the way back to the year 2013 when we moved in to this weirdly built, poorly “updated” home that we love so much. This room immediately became one of the designated junk rooms and it stayed that way for the next couple of years:

And then we cleaned it up, slapped on some of my favorite paint (Benjamin Moore Hale Navy), and called it a craft room. It eventually became a guest room but I failed at documenting that cycle of its life.

Fast forward to just before this round of the ORC started when we were getting ready to overhaul the room to make way for our new addition and I thought, “Oh, the ORC starts next week? What perfect timing! It’s fate! Let’s participate!” I was young. I was naive. I forgot about all of the nights and weekends we weren’t going to be around to tackle a project in six (later became seven) weeks.

We had a little bit of a head start because we had just ripped out the carpet and baseboards but we still had quite a long list to accomplish. Six weeks really isn’t a long time in the DIY home improvement world and especially for people who typically drag out a project for several months or years (spoiler alert: I’m talking about us) but we somehow managed to pull it off.

The biggest projects were the floors, baseboards, door and window casings, and swapping out the old fan for a new one with a light kit. These things made it an entirely new room and everything else was really just a bonus.

Not a true before but the best I have:

 

The dresser turned out pretty much exactly like we wanted (we’re still on the hunt for drawer pulls) and I love those flamingo prints. The seller actually sent us 3 prints on canvas on top of the 3 poster prints which we want to hang but we nixed our idea of building custom frames and decided to wait until we can get the canvases stretched properly so we trimmed down the poster prints and used IKEA frames.

I still need to figure out how to organize all of the drawers but check out these liners. All of the heart eye emojis for these guys:

I’m actually still waiting on the rest of the paper I need to finish lining the drawers so between that and the missing hardware, the dresser is about 98% finished but luckily we should still have about 8 weeks before we expect this little girl and the paper should be here tonight.

I’m pretty much obsessed with this ultrasound print (yes, it is actually one of our ultrasounds). I’ll have a full source list at the bottom of the post but this is from an Etsy shop called babyblueprint. They were so wonderful to work with and I think it’s a really neat alternative to framing a traditional u/s photo. Big thanks to Chris Loves Julia which is where I heard about them to begin with and also where I got the source for the block frame I used.

And in case you’re wondering,  I had a basket of diapers and wipes on the dresser but decided to start out with them in the top dresser drawer just to keep the top of the dresser cleaned off a little. I’m sure I’ll probably end up changing my mind when I have to actually change a diaper at 2am but that will be an easy fix.

The nursing corner might be my favorite spot in the room. My mom saw that flamingo pillow on HGTV so she tracked it down and sent it to us and I think it’s adorable!

We debated putting the glider by the crib or the crib on this side of the room but I really like where we ended up. Now I have a big window I can look out of during the hours I’ll surely spend in the chair while keeping the crib on the darker side of the room.

I’m really glad I ended up with this pouf instead of the pink footstool I debated getting. This corner has a lot of pink and I think the natural tone and texture of the pouf really helps to break it up. It’s firm enough that I can use it as a little side table and light enough to where I can easily move it over if I want to prop my feet up without using the recliner function.

And that rug! You guys, it’s machine washable. Did you hear me? MACHINE WASHABLE. You just throw the whole thing in the washer and bada boom, clean rug! I hesitated to buy it but I’m really glad I did. I think the color is perfect and I love the sweetness of the alphabet around the edge and I don’t even care that it cost me almost half of my decorating budget for the entire room.

This is what the other side of the room looked like before. So pretty:

And here it is now:

We built the book ledges and right now they’re loaded down because I have a hard time choosing. Most of the books on here are for older kids so we’ll probably switch them out for all of the board books and younger books we plan on stocking up on with our registry completion discount.

If that sign above the books looks familiar, it’s because it lived a previous life as the Taco Bar sign we made for the baby shower I hosted for my work wife. The gold letters are peel and stick so I just peeled off the old letters and used new ones to make a name sign. I debated hand painting letters but LOL no.

Fun fact: The bear in the basket was mine when I was a little girl.

I debated adding shelves to the left of the crib but I really didn’t want to weigh down this corner of the room too much and I didn’t feel like we needed more shelving so I framed some Rifle Paper Co. cards instead to bring in some floral for the “floral flamingo” theme we have going on.

The crib is one of my favorite pieces in the room and I get a kick out of the flamingo bust hanging above. Kyle had to kind of talk me into that purchase but I’m glad he did because I love how it looks in the room!

We installed these shelves last night and there was a while where I didn’t think they were actually going to go up. We had to re-position them to hit studs because the dry wall anchors we had didn’t really work with the screws we had and it was just basically one more battle that had to be fought before we could call it a night. The shelves used to live in the closet but we took them out to make room for hanging storage.

Kyle bought me those books for Christmas one year (or my birthday? Hmmm, I can’t actually remember) and I loved that Rifle Paper Co paper I used in the drawers so much that I decided I wanted to be able to see it in the room, too so I just tossed a scrap piece in a frame we had lying around. We picked up that little pineapple in Haiti last year and the owl is a white noise machine we got from one of Kyle’s co-workers. The baskets are there as a catch all but right now one is empty. The other holds teethers and pacifiers and I’m sure that will all evolve as we figure out how we need the room to work once we have an actual baby to take care of.

Rounding out the room we have the closet.

I’d love to upgrade to a custom closet system eventually but for now we just took out the shelves and hung a rod and moved our cedar chest in for extra storage. The cedar chest has been mine since I was little and it fits perfectly in the closet in here.

We picked up this print to hang between the door and the closet. We saw it in Hobby Lobby and although we don’t buy a ton of HL artwork, we liked the message and it matched the room so one 40% off coupon later it was ours.

One more time for you guys in the back:

 

Before:

After:

Before:

After:

Before:

After:

I do still need a rug for the crib side of the room but I’m being cheap and holding out to see if there are any good Black Friday deals so for now we’ll just look at the pretty new floors.

That’s a wrap on the Fall 2017 ORC! Check out all of the other guest designer reveals right here.

Source list:

Diaper Pail/Changing Pad/Changing Pad Cover/Lamp/Ultrasound Print/Acrylic Block Frame/Flamingo Prints/Glider/Flamingo Pillow/Pouf/Rug/Drawer Liners/Floral Prints/Crib/Crib Sheet/Floral Baby Blanket/Flamingo Bust/Stuffed Flamingo/Floors/Closet Doors/Ceiling Fan

Week 6! This would typically be the big reveal but thankfully we have an extra week this time and that’s good because we need it. Between Kyle’s work trip last week and our weekend mountain trip we weren’t able to work on the room a ton but we did make some progress!

Here was the list I wanted to get done this 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)

You guys, I have a funny story about the trim work. Technically, everything but the new closet trim is done. Technically. And yet, it’s not really. I’m pretty sure pregnancy brain might be contagious and here’s my proof. Kyle was in charge of caulking the new trim and he has done it at least 3 times but it never looked any different to me. So finally the other night when there were still visible gaps in the corners of the baseboard I said “Are you sure it’s white caulk?” Turns out he accidentally bought clear caulk which made me laugh and laugh and laugh but I don’t think he found it nearly as funny. So now we need to buy white caulk so we can actually finish off the trim.

Kyle made major progress on the dresser and we may even be finished but we need to look at the drawers compared to the rest of the dresser. It only took one coat of Polyshades to darken up the drawers and cabinet doors and they looked pretty close to the three coats we did on the rest of the dresser but we need to look again when there’s better light in the room to make that final decision. If we decide we’re good with the one coat we can almost officially mark the dresser of the list!

I say almost because I’m still working on the drawer liners and figure out drawer pulls. I’ve replaced 5 of 6 of the small drawers but I ran out of paper and still have one small drawer and the three large drawers left. The good news is I finally remembered to order the paper but the bad news is it’s not expected to get here until the 15th which is the day before the reveal. At least the drawers are hidden so it doesn’t really matter!

Here’s a shot of the existing liner (white and blue) vs the new Rifle Paper Co liners I put in. I love this paper so much. So. Many. Heart. Eyes.

We didn’t finish most of the list but we did accomplish a few things. We got the track for the 2nd closet door installed and ready. It will be this weekend before I can get the door painted but that should only take a day and then we can just pop it in.

We also hung the two book ledges that were ready to go and the name sign we made which I’m not going to show until the reveal.

OH! My pouf came back in stock and shipped super quick so I put it in the room last night and I definitely made the right choice between it and the pink footstool I was looking at.

We also only have one more frame to glue up and then they all need to be  painted before we can add the canvas prints and hang them up.

We’re planning on going to Home Depot tonight to buy the rest of the materials we need and then this weekend I’ll probably have to make a trip out to buy the rest of what I need for the room to function (like the changing pad!). Here’s our list going into the final week. CAN WE DO IT? The answer is an emphatic “Maybe!”

-Finish all trim work
-Refinish dresser? This may already be done. We’ll find out when we look at how the Polyshades dried.
-Build frames
-Hang other closet door
-Paint closet door
-Hang art
-Buy lumber for book ledges
-Build book ledges
-Clean out closet
-Reconfigure closet
-Add shelves on crib wall?
-Finish decorating!

As always, don’t forget to check out what the other guest participants are up to right here.

Y’all, I am so glad we’re going to get another week for this challenge because things are dragging right now. I swear it’s been so hard to get anything done and I’m starting to worry we aren’t going to finish since the next two weekends probably won’t leave us with much time to work. It will be mostly done though and still a huge improvement and really as long as it’s pretty much done before the baby gets here that’s all that really matters!

We haven’t made a ton of progress since last week so I figured it might be best to just go point by point from the to-do list I originally laid out for this week:

Finish all trim work
Status: In progress.

We have a little bit more caulking to do on the trim that’s already been installed and we still need to buy and install the trim for the closet.

Refinish dresser
Status: In progress.

Not finished but we did make progress! Turns out multiple coats of Polyshades was the answer to our problems. The dresser is a little darker now than what we had planned on originally but we both agreed we’d rather it be a shade too dark than too light. Kyle still needs to do the drawers and doors but the body of the dresser is done and looking all sorts of gorgeous. You can see the original color on the cabinet doors on the floor in the background for comparison.

Build frames
Status: In progress.

We have one of three frames built but it still needs to be spackled, sanded, and painted. We have the pieces cut for the other two frames but haven’t put them together yet and we really need to buy more right angle clamps because only being able to glue up one corner at a time is really slowing us down!

We hung one using an existing nail just to get an idea of how it would look.

Hang other closet door
Status: Not started.

We haven’t even taken it out of its packing yet. Whoops!

Paint closet doors
Status: In progress.

I haven’t done any painting other than the 3 (4?) coats on the first door that I had already done but I’m planning on tackling this in the evenings after work early next week.

Hang art
Status: Not started.

We can’t hang the flamingo prints until the frames are finished and I still need to buy frames for the botanical prints I bought.

Buy lumber for book ledges
Status: In progress.

We actually did buy the lumber last weekend but we decided we want to do one more ledge so we’ll have to get more.

Build book ledges (time permitting)
Status: In progress.

This was the only “maybe” item on my list and the only one that actually got close to finished. We finished two ledges but decided to add a third which we obviously can’t build until we get the rest of the materials. Here they are mid-build:

So that means our to-do list for this coming week is still:

-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)

We are also talking about adding shelves on the wall on either side of the crib but we want to get everything else up first to see if that would be too much. Luckily, there’s not much to do once these things are checked off but I know there are a few things that won’t happen until after the challenge is over but that’s okay. I think we picked a second rug for the room but we haven’t ordered it yet so that probably won’t make it in time and the pouf for next to my glider is out of stock again so you probably won’t be seeing that in the next two weeks either. The last two big things are to change out the drawer liners (Crap! That reminds me I need to order more paper) and clean out/reconfigure the closet which may or may not get done in time for the big reveal.

Stay tuned next week to see if we managed to get our Week One groove back and be sure to check out what the other guest participants are doing here!

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!