86'n It

I'm feeling crappy, so here is a Big Ole Whine:

1.
I couldn't locate the bathroom plan. Marc has a Mac and uses Vectorworks, which makes finding anything on his computer with my PC/Autocad/Revit using brain a lesson in futility.


2.
I'm sick. Not just sick of being pregnant (because I am), but really sick. I thought my throat just got irritated when Franca was helping Marc clean and used 1/2 can of dusting spray AND when I helped Marc empty the Dyson half into my face, but NOO I think I'm really sick. Coughing, headache, general achy, sore baby belly, sciatica and swollen lady bits (yeah, I put that out there).
I don't get sick often so when I do it is pretty hard on me. Here's to hoping I wake up tomorrow feeling better.



3.
I got a new parlor rug to replace the really really gross cream one. Whine? When I saw it around 11:30am Wednesday in an 8x12 for $83 I didn't buy it. So when I went back for it around 10:30am Friday it was gone. (After they were closed Thursday for Thanksgiving!) So I had to get the 5x8 for $24. It is still a GREAT rug for that money, but I was REALLY hoping to get an appropriately sized rug. Ugh. I'll keep checking back to see if they get another one.


4.
The bathroom drain piping is 75% done which is awesome. It was ridiculously complicated routing around all the existing stuff. I was really hoping the rest would get done this week, but with me feeling sick, I just don't think I can handle smelling the cleaner or glue. Bummer.


Now a quick list of good stuff because I feel like a jerk:

• Should have drywall quote tomorrow.
• Getting Christmas Tree Saturday.
• DONE Christmas shopping!

p.s. I've added a new poll. Should we repaint the orange parlor ceiling before listing the house for sale? Please Vote! (I think no, Marc thinks yes.)

Did I tell y'all how the plumber came one day, moved the heating pipes and then confessed he didn't want to do the rest of the work? Good times.

We can't even PAY people to work on this house! ARGH!

Speaking of paying people....

I met with drywallers/painters today. It was super exciting to walk around the house saying: "...and then I want YOU to do this." Instead of walking around saying: "...and then WE will do this."
Now we await a price.
I'm hoping it is good. I NEED the guest/play room done so I can finish the nursery. And it looks like this:

Speaking of nursery...

I'm going to have a baby in +/- 42 days. Um, Yeah. Sorta freaking about that. So I bought diapers and wipes today. I checked the expiration date on my almost full tube of lanolin (11/12 - still good right?). Need to remember what goes in a hospital bag.





I'm now going downstairs to attempt to hack into Marc's laptop so I can show you the bathroom floor plan later this week (finally!). Ok, and I'm going downstairs to eat some ice cream too. So there.

I'm so thankful, this is two days late!

Hope everyone had a great holiday!





...and of course Instagram for all the photos! Ha!

Sometimes I just hate an old house.

One of those times is figuring out plumbing work.
In a new house, this is how the plumbing would work:

But in our house:

• The joists run the opposite direction, one is DIRECTLY under the new toilet waste pipe (and 1" off the shower drain pipe).
• There are heating pipes under where the drain lines need to connect.

All of this while working in a space that looks like this:


Ew.

Good Times at 86'n It.

I think I've made my hatred for my free glider clear.  I even went so far as to make a rocker for Franca instead of use it. (Hatred Recap: don't like gliding motion, it's ugly, back cushion sags down, and uncomfortable!) But it was free. Plus, more comfy modern rockers with my required functions/features are at least to $1k.  Not gonna happen. (I am willing to bet good money all these mommas with modern nurseries you see with knock-off Eames hardshell rockers actually night nurse in bed or on the couch.)

So, the big surprise I alluded to Sunday night was supposed to be this teal guy.

I found this used nice swivel rocker for $100, but the teal color was going to clash horribly with the blue/gray room.

But, function over style right? Franca and I went to buy it and once in the shop, I started having second thoughts. It felt pretty narrow, the back was a little low to rest my head during nighttime nursing, and the rocking mechanism 'skipped' a little.


Humph.

Then, Franca and I went to the DMV to renew my license but it was too busy, so we decided to hop into the Goodwill next door. 10 minutes and $20 later this happened into the back of the truck.

It's a little dirty, but PERFECT! Smooth swivel and rock. Very comfortable and great to rest my head back. Not smokey or stinky at all. And the color y'all.... terrific!

I've already vacuumed the heck out of it (the Dyson animal upholstery attachment is amazing!) and tried a variety of cleaners (dish soap, baking soda, Resolve, etc). Seems like a bleach/vinegar solution followed by a good steam clean is going to work best. Woot!

So excited! $20 for comfort, function AND style!





(Need a glider? Listing here.)

This post has been in progress for quite a while. It is all the small things I've been doing on the "TO DO" list. Now that it seems I'm more and more out of commission due to this large tumor on my belly, I figured I might as well post what I have checked off the list.

First, really dumb thing, but this always happens right? You get 97% done with a project and just forget that one little task that is left. Well, we redid the office in March. I just scraped the new paint off the last of the window glass in October. (Even the pros will tell you not to bother taping glass, scraping after is MUCH easier.)

Second, was fixing one loose and one missing balustrade on our stairs. These two areas were affectionately known to Franca as "The Broken One" and "The Gap." I don't have any before pics, but here is a funny one of me and  my belly fixing "The Broken One". Then a photo of Franca helping after I fixed "The Gap" by  demonstrating that the balustrade next to it was not secured by sliding a piece of paper under it. Oh, gee, THANKS! (Our jerk/incompetent floor refinisher removed all these balustrades when he refinished the stair treads and did an absolute crap job of putting them back in.)



Then, a silly one, but something that was driving us both nuts any time we were in the basement: The sagging shelf above the washer/dryer. For some reason, we had an extra solid wood stair tread in the basement, so I used that.


Finally, I replaced the light switches by the front door. As we've renovated, we've switched the old style light switches out for these paddle style. This job was pretty quick, although I did have to be careful to not mess up the wires because two of these are two-way switches. I figured I might as well sand the wall and paint it too.


The list still has a million things on it (hello attic hatch), but it feels good to at least have these done!





Stay tuned tomorrow, Franca and I are going to go pick up a surprise!

Sure, my Mom is a little bit of pack rat, my Dad uses super glue to heal the cracks on his hands and they both say Eye-talian instead of Italian.

My Mom: The on-call nurse to everyone's middle of the night 'is this anything?' calls. The lady everyone brought their kids to to ask 'is this chicken pox??' She can watch all the hugest zit popping in the world videos WHILE eating popcorn.
She's worked at a nursing home helping people get better and helping them deal with getting a lot worse for over three decades.
She insists she's only ever had two drinks on any occasion and was just 'holding that cigarette for someone else' in all those vintage photos.
I've finally learned to take her advice to kill 'em with kindness and it works!

My Dad: Can fix anything. Will fix anything you bring to his house at 8pm on a Sunday. Bought an Apple IIe and didn't complain when we kids printed a million Happy Birthday banners.
Restores the coolest cars you've ever seen and then drives them too fast. Used to have one of those horns in his truck that played songs. Was not afraid to use it to embarrass teenage daughters even though I think we will all admit we liked it a little.
Knows way too many gruesome stories from working his butt off in a GM foundry for 30+ years. (PSA: Never walk between stacks of ANYTHING.)
Wanted to be a brain surgeon. I hope he realizes he is so, so much more.

Funny. Generous. A little crazy. My parents. I'm thankful I have them.

Have a great weekend!

We are *almost* done ordering things for the bathroom. This week brought us two light fixtures and one really fancy cool towel warmer/radiator. Check them out:

I took part in a weekend challenge this past weekend. The challenge was to choose and then complete 3 house related tasks. I got all three of mine done and more!

1. Empty the Junk Room of non-bathroom construction related stuff. This involved WAY too many trips up and down the basement stairs for a 31 week pregnant lady.
2. Deliver unused wood counter top piece to a friend who is buying it. No small feat. The thing was 96" long and HEAVY!
3. Oil the window seat bottom and side panels before they get destroyed. We were going to wait until the remaining trim pieces were in to do this, but with all the effort focused on the bathroom, I decided to do it now.

I'm pretty exhausted, I did all that and:

• Moved Marc's clothes into "my" closet to make way for Pork Chop's stuff, 
• Played musical chairs with our indoor/outdoor chairs & tables (see photo)
• Went to Target & the pool with Franca. ("Mommy, shape [shave] your legs! I want to go to Mr. Silvio's pool!")
• Plus, it is 11:30pm and I just finished working 3 hours on my website side job.

Phew. Franca and I are alone tomorrow, so we might do a lot of floor playing while I rest on a bean bag.

I have tons of stuff to share with you (bathroom progress, 32 week belly pic, our combo closet.... now I just have to find the time to document it all!)

Hope you had a great weekend!

A Happy Veterans Day to all those who serve and have served. Your sacrifices are remembered appreciated.

I know that a lot of people have been doing a daily "thankful" this month on Facebook and other media, and while I'm thankful for quite a bit (including the fact that I don't have to write it down everyday), I thought I'd do some Friday Thankful posts this month.

Today, I'm feeling thankful for this past Tuesday's Election Day and the improvements in equality that were made. I'm elated to think that Franca and this new daughter will be growing up in a world more just, more fair, more EQUAL.

Because above all other things in the world that I wish for my kids, I wish for them to be happy in life.

I wish for them to feel free to BE whoever they want to be. A Senator. A mom. A welder.

I wish for them to feel SECURE in their womanhood. I wish that no one else gets to tell them what to do with their bodies, what's legitimate, what's right or what they aren't cut out for.

I wish for them to be able to make the choices in their lives to DO whatever is their passion (and be paid the same as anyone of any gender to do it). 

I wish for them to be able to LOVE whoever is their choice regardless of color, nationality, race, gender or sex.

Even if those choices are not the sames ones I would make for myself or for them. Because I'm not them. Because equality isn't about things being equal as long as it is the same things I want or believe. I don't want a "love thy neighbor as long as he is just like me" world for them. They deserve so much more.


So this Friday I'm grateful that we could cast our votes and make those wishes I have for my daughters be a little closer to reality.


Thanks y'all!

I know that a lot of people have been doing a daily "thankful" this month on Facebook and other media, and while I'm thankful for quite a bit (including the fact that I don't have to write it down everyday), I thought I'd do some Friday Thankful posts this month.

Today, I'm feeling thankful for this past Tuesday's Election Day and the improvements in equality that were made. I'm elated to think that Franca and this new daughter will be growing up in a world more just, more fair, more EQUAL.

Because above all other things in the world that I wish for my kids, I wish for them to be happy in life.

I wish for them to feel free to BE whoever they want to be. A Senator. A mom. A welder.

I wish for them to feel SECURE in their womanhood. I wish that no one else gets to tell them what to do with their bodies, what's legitimate, what's right or what they aren't cut out for.

I wish for them to be able to make the choices in their lives to DO whatever is their passion (and be paid the same as anyone of any gender to do it). 

I wish for them to be able to LOVE whoever is their choice regardless of color, nationality, race, gender or sex.

Even if those choices are not the sames ones I would make for myself or for them. Because I'm not them. Because equality isn't about things being equal as long as it is the same things I want or believe. I don't want a "love thy neighbor as long as he is just like me" world for them. They deserve so much more.

So this Friday I'm grateful that we could cast our votes and make those wishes I have for my daughters be a little closer to reality.

Thanks y'all!

I know yesterday was a big day with the election and all but...

I got a shout-out in the NYTimes!!


I'm sort of a NYTimes dork, so imagine my surprise when I see Meryl's post on Picardy Project that the Renovation Roadtrip was in the NY Times! Awesome! I even got a little shout out!
(Yes, to me this does warrant that many !'s)

Marc was so proud he emailed his mom. ;)





p.s. Speaking of proud: Thanks home state of Ohio! Thanks to all the equality measures that also passed. I could not have been happier to wake up in the USA today. ;)

November is supposed to be NEW BATHROOM MONTH. Sort of a hilarious statement, no?

Well, Marc forgot he promised me a toilet by thanksgiving, when 7 of my family members are coming to visit. I might have flown off the handle a little bit [read: I had an absolute shit fit.].

So, after our "discussion", Marc stayed up late and ordered all the fixtures and the shower base last night. Here's a really really boring photo collage. (Unless you are a plumbing fixture geek like he is, then don't let the drool get on your keyboard.)


I'm pretty happy, but renovating with two different personalities is HARD y'all.

It is harder on Marc now that we are selling. He is a perfectionist and I know it is killing him to not be justified in taking 10 months to design a bathroom like he would be if this was indeed our forever-home. (But even then, 10 months???)

Deadlines and getting things done is my forte. Problem is, this bathroom is "his project" because I got to design the upstairs bathroom (albeit in a rush so we could move in and not look through a floor hole into the room below while on the toilet.)

Anybunny, it seems like this project is finally getting underway. I think I did the right amount of "loud talking" [as Marc calls yelling] and waddling around the house with my enormous pregnant belly hanging out while breathing heavily.

Oh, and I might recently started sitting in our upstairs [only] bathroom messing on my phone when I know Marc has to go. Mwahhhhh! Motivation!






The Schluter shower system is a really great way to make a fool-proof waterproof shower. More info here. (no, I'm not being paid to say that. It is just cool.)