Front Door Project 99% Complete.

A few weeks ago (Easter weekend/Natalie's birthday to be exact) we tore out our front door, replaced that and part of the subfloor under it because the water damage extended to the floor joists. Friday night Will took off the door and started to clear away the debris. We spent the night with only a baby gate and sheet to keep the critters out (or in). Saturday morning he was up and working hard. He had to build up a whole new frame and small part of the wall because the water damage on the floor was pretty bad.

But by nightfall the new door was in place.

Then we replaced the laminate in our living room.

old floor.

New floor going down.

We closed off a doorway that we didn't use (who wants guests to be able to see directly into the master bedroom when they come in?).

Doorway into the "yellow dining room" that we use as as office.

Framing it in. We left the top of the arch free as a small window to let light in/out. 

I spent the week putting up drywall and finishing it, and of course, the almost final step- painting our living room (something I've wanted to do since we first moved in.)

We still have a little bit of finish work, baseboards, door casing but it looks so much better than it did.
I don't remember if I posted the half wall project from the weekend before that- but we built a small half wall to separate the kitchen from the living room so that we could safely put our piano in the main living space. It had been sadly tucked into a corner in the office and was rarely used there. I wanted it in the living room, because I (oddly) love the sound of small children playing it. And Natalie loves playing the low notes. It just makes me happy for some reason.

Bathroom Remodel Part 3

Part 1

Part 2 

 This is the cove that used to be the shower stall.

 Cement backer board for the tiling to come.

 Tiles, including trim pieces.

 To the right you can see the shelf in the cove.

 Tile started on the wall with the faucet.

 Tiling took way longer than we thought it would. Yawn.

 Pre-grouting, and sure they aren't perfectly straight but we are so proud of what we've done so far.

 Grouted and shelf hung.

Slightly crooked, but this is the done picture!
Love love love my new bathroom. 

We also did gray water reclamation from the tub, so all shower/bath water goes out into a barrel and out to our trees, along with the water from the laundry. We've had some hiccups in that but pretty sure it is fixed, finally.

Bathroom Remodel Part 2

Because not all of you are on Facebook and saw the rest of the bathroom remodel, here ya go!

Part 1

 We ended up taking out all of the drywall around the shower/tub area to replace it with mold resistant drywall.

 The tub in. It was hard to get in there because it was such a tight fit!

 Drywall patched and you can see the subfloor. The tub is on a raised platform to be able to move the plumbing/drain pipe.

 Painting. I've always loved a blue bathroom!

 This floor is floating vinyl. It is water resistant and perfect for a bathroom in a manufactured home.

 Yay! A toilet!

New vanity in place but not connected.

My next post will cover the tub surround and finishing.

Gratitude Days 11-14

We were able to head to Sierra Vista this weekend and see the house we are buying. While down there I didn't get on the computer, I didn't check my email or Facebook. And I am grateful that I can do that, and not feel withdrawals. In fact its nice to be away from it all.

Friday was Veteran's Day. I am extremely grateful for my own Vet. He's great. We watched the SV parade and it was just long enough. It was chilly, and if you look at the mountain in the distance, it has snow on it. Snow. In Arizona. I love Sierra Vista so far. Saturday, the 12th, we went in the house. There are issues, no lies there. But I can imagine us there. I look forward to working on our home with Will. I am thankful that both Will and I are handy and should be able to to much of the repairs ourselves. Most likely we will be taking this wood pellet stove out. It, like much in the house, wasn't installed properly. Plus we plan to carpet this main living space.
On Sunday the 13th we took our time driving home. It was pouring rain in Tucson, so we stopped and ate at Denny's. I had hoped the rain would slow down while we ate and it did. I am grateful that we made it home safely. Today I am thankful for 70 degree weather. It is beautiful out today. (Picture from Friday, when we were all freezing.) I have all of the windows open letting in the outside air and hopefully ridding our home of the sickies. If anything it is making the house smell nice.

Dog Tired.

I feel like I have accomplished so much this week and I am loving the weather. Monday was chilly as was Tuesday, but since then we've been in the low 70s. Ahhh and this is why people move here.

Since our downstairs feels clean and comfortable, it was time to tackle the upstairs. There are a few things up there that I know have to stay, at least for the time being, so I worked around them. I went through all of the girls toys that lived in our bonus room.

With the help of my friend, P, I went through nearly all of my fabric bins. I have a banker's box for giveaway, and P took home quite a bit of fabric for her crafty boy. I know he'll use it. Then again, my girls would use it, too, but I did keep fabric. I also threw out any small scraps. I know, I could use most of them to make a quilt. I know as a craftista I should save them all, but I didn't. Ok? I needed to let some of that go. I felt better afterward, too.

Friday I taught myself (using online tutorials) how to crochet a granny square. I am making a blanket that is one big granny square using up all of the cotton yarn I have. Who knows if it will look good, but it feels like a good project. I hope to get Rhayn in on it soon. She loves to crochet but only does one crochet stitch. Then Will and I went to a retirement party for a friend of his from the Army National Guard. We didn't get home until after 10pm because the party was on the other side of the world (and almost to my parents' house, though that would probably have taken less time to get to!)

Today I finished the upstairs, including vacuuming the carpet in all of the rooms besides the office. Its awesome. I feel glad that I have gotten so much done, and yes there is still a lot left to do, but man, I am tired. So I plan to take the afternoon off, to read and relax.

Corners of my home or Nesting Part 2

I am 95% done with the living room redo. I still have a little adjusting to do to make everything pretty. There is a chance that some things may not stay where they are (the weights and dog bed). But so far so good. Gwennie loves the redo because it gave her more room to spin and dance in the living room.

Sitting area: sectional, lazyboy.

The entertainment center and the chocolate wall. I LOVE how the wood looks against that dark brown wall. At night it really blends in. The rugs will be moved to the wall with the lone clock. Not sure where the clock will go.

Its amazing how big moving those pieces of furniture made the room feel. We did get rid of a few things (moved upstairs for now) like the desk.

Lily is adjusting to the change. She isn't exactly happy about it all, but she will get over it, eventually.
Why do kids want to show some little toy in pictures? She has a small stuffed tiger in her right hand.

Corners of my home in progress

This is our living/television room. I stood in the dining area to take this picture. Its one long kitchen/dining/living room, you can see how the TV is the focal point, right? And the computer to the right isn't really being used other than as our media center. (No, we don't really use that time out chair any longer, I think it will probably leave with the next VVA pick-up.) I can't wait to show off an after picture. It will probably be a while. I plan on starting the work today, cleaning off shelves and moving what I can (which isn't much, as that TV is heavy and I am 7 months pregnant.) This is our former dining room. Notice the carpet? Yes, a carpeted dining room makes mommies everywhere anxious. Notice the narrowness? It is really that narrow. The chairs are all pushed against the walls. It is a little longer, but so narrow. The table in front of the window is one I made to use as a sofa table. The ugly green loveseat was living upstairs, and has been with us a long time. The chairs on the other side of the room are the chairs for our dining room table. I don't know what to do with them because they are tall and don't push under the table all of the way.

Its a lot of work, but the end result should be awesome.

Nesting

I think I may be nesting a little. Although this is hard to do, because at the moment our house is in total disarray (maybe I mentioned that?) also I am still sick.

I want our house to be decluttered. I want our house to be rearranged. Seriously rearranged. I have plans, big plans! for some of the rooms. Will and I stood in our living/tv room this afternoon and discussed rearranging it. The plan is to move the television from one wall to another making it less of a focal point for the whole room and our whole house. Our "never quite been the right shape" dining room will become a sitting room. (Its in progress and don't worry, there will be pictures of it at some point.) Our living/tv room is rotating. Hopefully all of this will make our house feel more... I don't know, homey? comfortable? friendly? less tv oriented. The "toy and junk" room upstairs will be gone through and much of the crap we've been hanging on to will be discarded and donated.

This year, 2011 is going to be filled with changes. Changes that will make our family better, I think.

Our house is in total disarray at the moment. Christmas is still up, in fact I am sitting by the tree at this moment. Its cloudy and cold outside, so the warm feeling coming from the glowing tree is nice. I figure it can stay up until Rhayn goes back to school on Monday.

Yesterday my mom took the girls and I, as well as Madder to see Tangled. It was really cute. I, of course, bawled at the end. Can't help it, I am a female, not just that I am a pregnant female. Its my hormonal right to cry about dumb stuff. After the movie, the girls loaded into my mom's car and went home with her. They love getting to go to her house, but also they will get to spend time with Great-Grandma, and their cousins. I know they will have a good time.

Its so quiet at my house when the girls aren't here. But I am taking this as a time to clean. Like deep clean. I worked on Rhayn's room this morning and into the afternoon. It took about 5 hours but it really looks nice. We had actually cleaned Gwennie's room yesterday before the movie. It wasn't anywhere near as bad as Rhayn's because I had gone in there a little over a month ago.

Next up is our toy room. I doubt I will get to it today, maybe some superficial cleaning because a lot of the things I took out of both of the girls' rooms just made it into that room. (Our toy room is also my craft room and we may call it the bonus or game room, too.)

The cold I had still lingers, draining energy from me. This is not helpful when you have a lot of things you want to accomplish in a short amount of time. I suppose the only way to get it done, is to just get to it. Although a nap would also be nice...

Smoke Detectors

After nearly going crazy trying to get the smoke detectors to stop going off yesterday, Will fixed them.

He took each and every one down, and used our air compressor to blow out the dust. Much more effective than vacuuming them apparently. He said that there was only one that didn't have a large cloud of dust poof out of it. The rest were so full of nasty that it didn't take much to set them off. When he was done cleaning them, he put them all back up.

And, they haven't gone off since.

Jumble

I want to write, but am not sure what I want to write about. Sometimes when this happens I will look at pictures and find one that reminds me of a story I wanted to write about, or one that brings back some memory. I don't want to look at pictures, because on Halloween I took a lot of pictures of Penny. I am not quite ready to see her sweet face again. I mean I see it often when I close my eyes and I have to try to avoid thinking of her because it still hurts so much. I still feel like there was so much I could have done to avoid the bad situation of her final day with us. But its in the past and I need to move on.

Rhayn has been asking me to cut her hair, or to take her to get a hair cut for weeks. She wanted a pixie cut. I think she would be adorable with one, and we may go there soon. Instead I attempted a graduated bob. This is a hair style that she has sported often and is really cute on her. She wants her hair shorter and was disappointed in the cut. I don't blame her. I know what she wants, but I am fearful of cutting her hair that short myself. I used to shave my head often, then let it grow out into a pixie, but I have never cut a pixie (never did a graduated bob either, but it came out decently. I wanted to start with the longer cut so if it was totally messed up we could keep cutting and she would get to her pixie.)

Gwennie also needed a bang trim, but that is simple. I could use a trim/cut/style but I'm not about to do my own. I want to head over to a local beauty college this week and have them do it. I just need it cleaned up a bit which is simple and hopefully they won't give me mushroom head. (My hair doesn't usually do that, since it has a lot of wave in it.)

Yesterday morning I complained about Lily's whiny butt waking me up. She wanted to go outside and normally Will lets her out, but he didn't wake up so she came to me, ten minutes before my alarm was set to go off. Then this morning at 5 am, the smoke detector in my bedroom went off. Argh! It was so frustrating. I closed the window and vacuumed the smoke detector until it turned off. I went back to sleep, then it went off again, same routine (well the window was closed) and again right before 7. At 7 I took the smoke detector down and vacuumed it all.

About an hour ago the downstairs alarm went off. Sigh. I checked the battery but it is fine.

I hate the sound of smoke detectors. My good friend, P's neighbor's house has had a smoke detector going off for weeks. No one lives there, and so there is nothing that can be done to make them stop. Its loud enough you can hear it when you stand outside of her house. Not fun.

Gratitude Monday/Corners of my home

These week I am grateful for

• the ability to buy a new freezer. I broke ours yesterday. I was attempting to chip some of the ice out of it to increase space for the many frozen meals we made at the cook-a-thon. Well I managed to break the freon line, and effectively kill the freezer. Money is really tight right now, but we are lucky enough to have a little bit that was used to replace the freezer, and actually upgrade it to a frost-free version (it was about the same price as buying a manual defrost freezer!) You all wanted to see a picture of a litter box, its awesome, I know. But the above is our new freezer, sitting next to our washer and dryer. The dryer was a hand-me-down, so please ignore the duct-taped handle on it. I use the clothes line more than the dryer anyway.
• Lowe's. They delivered and installed our new freezer and hauled the broken one away, free of charge. (They also give a Military discount at our local Lowe's.)
  
• being 19 weeks along. I was going to post another lovely belly shot, but the freezer drama has taken up all of my time. Next week marks the 1/2 way mark. I can not believe it!
  
• family. A few days ago a cousin of mine posted on Facebook about having extra tickets to the Saturday matinee of Beauty and the Beast. The girls and I were able to tag along and enjoy the show. It was also really nice to see those cousins that we rarely see. (Hi Tiff and Penny!)
• Will. Once again he showed just how amazing he is. I killed our freezer, and was a total wench all day. (Stupid hormones.) He stayed calm through it all, even though I was flipping out the whole time and on the verge of tears. He was able to fix the situation, and keep me from crying. (Of course, writing this is bringing a few tears to my eyes.)
  

Feeling Fruity

Where is the time going? Not really sure. But there is a lot going on at our house, and in our lives (No, I am not pregnant... I wish.) Right now it feels like everything in our lives is up in the air and we are trying are darnedest to not drop any balls. Mostly its Will who is juggling so much and keeping us all aloft.

Some random thoughts-

I wish I had a ton of interesting news and tidbits to share, but I don't. I guess that is a good thing.I really need to get out and take a picture of my tomato plants, they are insanely huge and covered in fruit. I can not wait for it to turn red/yellow/purple! (I decided to go ahead and do this while I was thinking of it!)

This morning I planted a pomegranate tree. I dug the hole yesterday, so this morning I purchased a five gallon plant and popped that puppy in the ground. I don't care if it gives me fruit. I am not the hugest pomegranate fan. However they are beautiful trees that grow fairly quickly and have lovely blooms.

I am very glad that Spring Break is over. Not because Rhayn was driving me crazy, no it was just a bad week. Although this week is not starting off much better.

Last week when we went to the zoo, our car started overheating. In order to make it home I drove most of the way with the heater on full blast. This morning I drove Rhayn to school and within the 15 minute drive it began overheating again. It would be ok as long as I was going 45, as soon as I slowed at a light the temperature would begin creeping back up. I drove straight to the mechanic we usually go to. My fingers were crossed the whole way that it would be something small. No such luck. Its a big deal because its something in the engine (they have to take part of the engine apart to fix it.) Ugh. Its not cheap, either.

I also wasn't able to go to the grocery store. We have food, but I like to go with just Gwennie. Tomorrow through Thursday I have a little friend that I watch, and the grocery store is harder with two kids.

Last weekend we began the great office reorganization project of 2010. Hopefully we won't have to do this again for a long while. We had to purchase a serious paper shredder, and within a few hours of having it, we broke the auto-feed. You have to hold down the forward button. I do plan on returning it for a new one. It would work really well if we weren't shredding 2 bankers boxes full of documents.

The reorganization is taking more time than Will originally thought, there was a lot more to go through than looked like on the surface. Its funny how much stuff we have acquired. It does feel great to rid ourselves of junk we haven't used in a years.

As for me, and my emotional state, well I am doing better. Apparently by the time I had announced my pregnancy to the world, it was already going away because by the time I had the HCG levels done on Tuesday they were at the level of a non-pregnant woman. The doctor says that since I got a positive pregnancy test I most likely passed everything naturally and she said not to worry unless I start having pains or feel off. She can't say for sure that I was pregnant ever, but I know I was, and the tests all had clear lines on them (I took like 4, because 3 come in a pack and I of course didn't believe the first one.) However I should have known something was off when the lines never got darker, they should get progressively darker over a few day time frame. Mine didn't.

This month is going to be long and hard, because first of all, I need to let my body fully heal. Second, if we got pregnant this month, the baby would have a due date of December 23rd, and I just can't do that to my child. Of course, if I did somehow get pregnant this month, I wouldn't cry about it. I just would rather not try. So here is hoping for a late January 2011 baby.

Spring Cleaning Time

I just love this picture.

As spring is here, the flowers are blooming and the desert is an unnatural (albeit beautiful) shade of green.

It was spring cleaning time yesterday. I decided to move all of Gwennie's clothes into the guest room so that Rhayn has a room to herself. She did lose her dresser in the move, but that was fine with me. She used it to hide things in, on and under (mostly under).

Gwennie's new closet with the curtains closed.

Although I am positive that Gwennie will not be sleeping in her "new space" anytime soon, she was excited about having it. She wanted me to read to her in there last night, but I wanted to lay in my own bed. Rhayn is happy that she has her very own room, none of Gwennie stuff should be in there and Gwennie has no reason to go in there.

With the curtains open. This room used to be Rhayn's and when it was, she loved pink so I painted the inside of the closet pink.

I cleaned out two closets, the guest room closet was filled with crap we never use as was our linen closet. I came away with 4 very full bags of donation for te VVA next Friday. There are also a few additional items that didn't make it into bags yet.I feel more coming on this weekend. Maybe I will tackle my own closet. HA! I want to rip that completely apart and redo all of it. Have I ever mentioned how much I dislike my closet/bathroom? Oh well someday we'll remedy that.

Corners, The front yard.

For the most part, I hate our front yard. We rarely spend time there, only when we are cleaning it up. But today the girls and I planted flower seeds as well as a rose bush (it is a red rose bush, with a tea hybrid so the blooms will be smaller but will smell amazing.) I want a swing or maybe some chairs in the front yard so we can see our neighbors. Until then, I think I will attempt to go out there are water the flowers every day or so.