Maybe it was prettier before all the fancy stuff...

I think that somewhere in the process of giving birth I managed to squeeze out several of the important sections of my brain, including the area responsible for decision making. Seriously.

As I'm looking at the "before" and "after" pictures of the baby's blessing dress, I can't help but think maybe it looked better before I added the red flowers and the ribbon. Am I losing it? Should I remove the extra frills? Someone help me...

Which way with the ribbons?

Option 1:

Option 2:

Because Amy DEMANDED them :)

Here are a couple of pictures (details on FB, since this blog is public and I don't want to give any stalkers info about this bundle of joy):

She was born with the ugliest little hands you've ever seen and I just love them! They are kinda big, and right now they are really wrinkled and very pale white. They look like the hands of an old man, I'm not even kidding. But the winkles are softening and they are looking more like normal baby hands. :o)

A quick tour of the nearly-finished nursery

Last night I created a video tour of the nursery. I actually just did it for myself, but N8 said I should share it with "the world". It's a silent video so I hope that's not too weird for folks (I don't like recordings of my voice).

The nursery is pretty much finished. Things left to do (which are not urgent):

(1) Put a dust skirt on the crib; I've got two on the way, in the mail (with thanks to Jennifer and to my aunt Lynda).

(2) On the wall over the crib that there's a bit of empty space. I've been thinking about buying and decorating wooden letters that spell out the baby's name (???) for that space.

(3) The closet is full of my clothes, which I need to pare down and organize (after I fit into them again, of course).

(4) Someday I'm going to reupholster the "kid chair" with the fabrics currently draped over it.

(5) Oh! And we need a baby! That would really complete the whole nursery :o)

Crib skirt?

I can't make up my mind. Your opinions?

Option 1:

Option 2 (look at just the skirt and imagine the stripes are brown instead of blue):

My week, in pictures

This use to be my bathroom:

This is the bathroom as of last weekend:

Halfway through destroying the shower:

Part of what use to be our plumbing system:

In progress...

Another pile of old pipes:

(By the way, removing old plumbing is a filthy, horrible mess.)

This is a good example of why the plumbing needed to be replaced: A drainage pipe, originally 2 inches in diameter, reduced to about 1/2 an inch of capacity due to build-up and rust...

In the garage:

Some of the new pex pipe (= AMAZING)...

The plumber, hard at work...


And although the house has been ripped apart, I can now confidently enjoy this, straight from the tap:

Office to Nursery: A remodeling story in pictures

First, a tour around the room as it was when we first moved in. We originally used the nursery as our office. Then we turned the "front room" into our office, leaving the nursery available for its remodel...

Step 1 of the remodel was to replace the windows. This was actually pretty easy:

(From the outside, new window on the left, old window on the right:)

(Nate in the window!)

New windows:

We hired a contractor to do some of the work. He added insulation. We wanted rolls of insulation, not blown-in insulation, so he first cut out the old drywall:

(Nate helped:)

The insulation:

Our contractor, stuffing the insulation in the walls:

Then he patched the drywall:

And started mudding the drywall:

We then resumed control of the project. I used a texture gun to add texture to the walls, then primed them in prep for the new paint color:

Here's a shot of the new paint color. I started prepping the floors to be refinished:

A close-up of the floors, pre-refinish:

I sanded the floors using this awesome tool:

(Unfortunately the big sander doesn't get close to the edge, so I had to spend a few more hours on my knees with a small orbital sander to get the floors sanded all the way.)

Nate put the new coat of stain on the floor (too many chemicals in the fumes for me to safely do this work):

Stain finished, but not yet sealed:

Nate sealed the floor with polyurethane. It is also highly chemical, so again I couldn't help. I couldn't even be in the house. See how shiny they is? :o)

I gave my very talented mother some fabrics and some instructions. She made beautiful curtains for me. She asked if I wanted them lined and I said no... Then I put them up and changed my mind. So I added a lining and ironed in pleats:

And here's an around-the-room now that it is mostly finished and we've got the furniture in place. In the first picture below, the crib will go between the windows, next to the little chair:

And finally, here's video tour of the nursery in it's current state. About 40 seconds into the video I tried to show the space where the crib will go. Toward the end I show the blank wall behind the door; I'm going to put white bookshelves along the wall from floor to ceiling. (I'm very excited about the bookshelves!).

There are still quite a few things to do, but it will be a couple of months before I make enough changes to warrant additional pictures. Stay tuned!