More home projects

Here are more of the projects that have been completed over the past week.

1) I painted my old nightstand to use in the nursery:

2) My husband painted the dining room table & chairs. He also sanded the table & put a few coats of polyurethane on it. You can see in the picture below it, the legs of the table and the spindles & legs of the chairs were forest green. They are now the exact same brown that is in the adjoining living room:

Former colors:

Later today, I hope to compile the before and after pictures of the dining room. I started to put them here, but decided I want to spend more time lining them up side by side so you can really see the transformation.  :)

 

Neck Warmers & Dining Room Centerpiece

...and the projects continue! 

I'm waiting for these stones to pass or to find out what we're going to do to manage this situation. It's hard for me to leave home because it hurts to sit in the car except when I've taken my pain meds. But I can't drive when I take my pain meds. It's a Catch 22.

I started working on these neck warmers about a month ago. I have 2 others crocheted, but I don't like one of them and I don't have the right buttons for the other one yet. Each one cost less than $10 for materials. Here are the 3 that I have completed so far:

1) Blues & Browns w/Coconut Buttons (a gift for my youngest sister)

 

2) Oatmeal w/Berry Buttons (a gift for my friend "R")

3) Greys & Pinks w/Faux Stone Buttons (I might try to sell this one on Etsy. Eventually.)

The other thing that I worked on today was putting together a centerpiece for the dining room table. I used leftover material from the window seat pillow covers to create a temporary table runner. The crystal vase was a wedding present that I pulled out. I can never have flowers in my house because the cats eat them and then get sick, so I might as well use the vase for something. I found two silver flecked votive holders that I had purchased to possibly use as wedding decor, but didn't end up using them. There are dark red mulberry candles in the votive holders that I found in my candle stash. I filled the vase with some holiday stems that I purchased on sale -- but they will work all year, so that's good. Since I repurposed a bunch of things we already owned, this is the breakdown of cost:

- Champagne stems - 2.99 each X 2 = 5.98

- Champagne berries - 1.19 each x 3 = 3.57

- Brown sparkly "twigs" = .49 each x 3 = 1.47

Total > 11.02 plus 8% tax  = $11.90

Updated 11/11/13: Here is a new & improved pic!

 

Nesting has definitely kicked in...

Due to some lovely kidney stones that my body has decided to collect, I have been stuck at home for the past week. Fortunately, my kidney stone situation coincided loosely with the completion of the final remodeling projects in the house, so I have been putting everything back. Finally! I started to work on the nursery, but those pics will have to wait until after the shower this weekend. It's still pretty bare in there. Plus, I'm waiting on the quilt, crib skirt, valances, prints for the walls, etc. So I want to wait until it's a bit more complete.

However, I have finally had time to work on a lot of my projects that have been set aside. Eventually, I am going to create a scrapbook with all of these pictures. I've started collecting them in a folder on my laptop. But I've decided to share some here too. Here we go...

Living Room Before (Previous Owners):

Living Room Midway (Us): 

Living Room After:

 
I had to angle the camera down a bit for the after photo because the light was creating a glare. Plus I wanted to show off the 115 year old hard wood floors that were refinished. The pictures on the wall and the curtains are the same as in the "mid" picture, though. There is some discoloration on the floor in this room, so we had to get an area rug. The dining room and entrance will not have large rugs, though. I might cover the throw pillows on the couch, but that's not a priority right now because they don't totally clash.

The coffee table does not fully match the room, but it has major sentimental value. My husband's father was a hobbyist woodworker, and he made the table. He was killed in a car accident 4.5 years ago, so things like this are important to us to display.

 ******

Next up is the upstairs bathroom. This is the one room that has been done for almost 2 years, but I still am pleased with how it turned out. We did not want to get rid of the blue tile because it's still in decent shape (and would be expensive to replace) so I had to work around it.

Upstairs Bathroom Before (Previous Owners):

Upstairs Bathroom After:

 

 

******

The last thing I'm going to post about today is the window seat in the dining room. This is the project that I've been working on for the past two days, when I am able to sit at the sewing machine.

This is what the window seat looked like when we purchased the house, with red walls in the dining room -- right next to the seafoam walls in the first living room pic above -- you can actually kind of see it on the edge of the picture. Needless to say, it was not a good color combination! These two rooms open right into each other, ugh. Anyway, here's the original seat:

When we first moved in the house 3.5 years ago, we painted the living room the rich brown you see above. The dining room was painted a light neutral green, to balance the dark, rich color in the living room. Here is what the window seat looked like for a few years:

   

While working out the details for the various renovations, we decided to open the kitchen into the dining room. We did not want to have a rainbow of colors in all of these various rooms, so we decided to keep a cohesive color scheme. The living room is browns and blues. We decided to paint the dining room and kitchen a light blue color. The accent colors are dark browns and silver/blues. So, of course, I needed to change up the pillows on the window seat. I decided to make new covers for some pillows that we already owned. (So much cheaper that way, and we can get exactly what we want.)

Here are the before and after pictures of the throw pillows:

My husband and I are going to build a custom cushion for the whole window seat, rather than using the chair cushions tied together as you see in the "mid" picture above. 

In the next installment of nesting/remodeling/home projects, I will show the painted and refinished dining room table and chairs as well as before and after pictures of the dining room. :)

The big reveal at the dance studio

The kids at the dance studio were all very, very excited to find out whether I was having a boy or a girl, so I did a reveal party for them. I had everyone in my classes (plus parents whom I am close with) choose a side by picking blue or pink beads. I won't put all of those pics up, because there are a dozen or so. But here are picks from the party.

After the people who were there chose sides, I gave them all silly string with the caps removed (so they didn't know the color). Here are the results:

 

 

Team Pink

Team Blue

 

Ready, set....

GO!!

It's BLUE!

Me (redhead in the back) with the dance girls

21 Weeks

How far along? 21 weeks (+1)

How big is baby? Banana, wtf

Total weight gain/loss: 147 lbs, up 8 lbs

Maternity clothes? Pants only.

Stretch marks? No.

Sleep? Pretty good.

Pregnancy dreams? Dreams have been vivid again, but nothing really pregnancy-related.

Best moment this week? Finding out that we're having a boy on Monday!

Miss anything? Yes, I miss my balance.

Movement? Yes, lots of kicks in my lower left side. (Due to anterior placenta)

Food cravings? Chocolate milk

Anything making you queasy or sick? Nope.

Team Blue!

Labor signs: Nope.

Symptoms: Leg cramps.

Belly button in or out? In, but it's definitely starting to stretch funny.

Wedding rings on or off? On

Happy or moody most of the time? Happy.

Any milestones this week? Lots of movement and finding out the sex!

Looking forward to: Finishing the remodel on our house so we can start working on the nursery.


Here's a bump pic from 20w3d, as well as a closeup of the actual shirt:

 

Back from my trips and half-baked

I have been MIA for a while, due to travel (and my busy schedule leading up to my two trips). I plan to get caught up on check-ins, talking about Aruba and Ocean City, etc. But for now, here's my 19w4d bump pic, taken on the boardwalk in Ocean City, MD:

16 weeks

How far along? 16 weeks

How big is baby? Avocado

Total weight gain/loss: 138.5 lbs (down .5 lb overall, same as last week)

Maternity clothes? Still just pants occasionally.

Stretch marks? No.

Sleep? Mediocre.

Pregnancy dreams? Not really.

Best moment this week? Um. Being able to eat more than one small meal on Friday and Saturday. (Two small meals, whoa.)

Miss anything? I still miss having a normal appetite and not feeling nauseous all of the time.

Movement? Maybe a roll the other day?

Food cravings? Nothing but Boost

Anything making you queasy or sick? Nothing in particular, sometimes a little bit of anything.

Team Green/Finding Out? Finding out on Sept 9th.

Labor signs: Not for a while.

Symptoms: Nausea, fatigue, horrible headaches, possibly a bladder/kidney infection?

Belly button in or out? In

Wedding rings on or off? On

Happy or moody most of the time? The past few days? Moody as hell.

Any milestones this week? I thought for a minute I gained weight. But no. That would be a milestone, right?

Looking forward to: Feeling movement.