Nursery Update – March April 7, 2009

I know it’s April, but here’s a nursery update from last month, which I think was March. I’m getting grief for not posting lately, but listen, people, I’m 4 weeks away from my due date, and a little more focused on growing a human! Seriously! Give me a break!

But overall, time is flying by in the domino world of Pam and Robert and future baby. The countdown is on to the big day, and we can’t wait.

Meanwhile, we’re hard at work on the nursery. Well, when I say “we”, I mean “Robert” because the only thing I can do at this point is point.

Robert installed the nursery closet – we went with an IKEA closet – the Stolmen. It was super-easy to install, and it is modular, so we can add to it as the baby grows into a kid into a teenager.

Here’s a lovely photo:

The closet turned out great, and so did the bright green carpet.

Here’s a photo that shows the wall and trim colors, along with the carpet. This is a photo of the baby’s room corner – “nobody puts Baby in the corner.”

Overall, the nursery is coming along very nicely. We now have a crib, so the baby will have a place to lay its little head, and we have diapers, so we can change the baby, and a car seat, so we can bring the baby home. Now all we need is the baby!

A Ceiling Completed February 9, 2009

The baby’s room ceiling is finished!

Here’s a series of pictures of the progress Robert made in undertaking this giant task:

First, the demolition:

Robert ripped out the ceiling over two days, and discovered the insulation was old and bunched up, and some of it was moldy. Gross. He also discovered that the ceiling fan in the room wasn’t actually attached to anything (not to the studs up above) and was just hanging from the drywall. Fixed that problem too. Good thing, because that would have been right above the crib – not so good for a baby if a ceiling fan falls on it.

Second, the new insulation was put into the ceiling so the baby can be nice and warm during the frigid Chicago winters:

You can see the giant drywall sheets stacked against the wall.

And last, the completed, beautiful, finished ceiling!

It’s now been primed and painted, and the walls are now painted white. I can’t wait until the nursery is close to being finished and the baby arrives! More pictures to come – it’s going to be beautiful!

Ceiling For Baby January 11, 2009

Hi Internet.

I’m so proud of my husband, dear Robert. The baby’s nursery room ceiling is almost finished!

If you’ll recall, over the summer, we had a leaking roof in our library, which has now been specified for the baby’s room.

The roof leaked, the water dripping ensued, and the drywall turned into a moldy mess, along with the insulation above the drywall.

Robert undertook the endeavor of ripping out the ceiling, pitching the drywall, and installing new insulation. Our very good friend Wes came over last week and they put up the new drywall. I’m currently in Philadelphia on a show, and when I come home, Robert says the drywall will be finished and ready to paint!

So the dominoes are getting knocked down one by one. We’re two weeks away from the third trimester, so the countdown is on! I can’t wait to share with you the photos of the finished nursery in hopefully a month or so – it’s going to be beautiful. Hooray Robert!

House Work December 19, 2008

Now that we have a deadline – officially set by the coming, future baby – we’re beginning to be more ambitious with our house projects.

Currently, the house projects are stacked up like a line of dominoes…each project hinging upon another project. For example, we want to work on the baby’s nursery, but we can’t start the nursery until we move my giant book collection to the basement, and we can’t move the books to the basement until we finish the basement floorboards, and we can’t finish the basement floorboards until we have time enough in the day to do it. It’s a house of cards, stacked up. Ok, maybe not a house of cards, but a complicated, interconnected puzzle with multiple, tiny, perplexing pieces, some of which have been lost or are stuck to the bottom of someone’s shoe.

I’m feeling a little holiday stress, can you tell?

Dumpster Time July 2, 2008

After the basement re-do, we decided it was Dumpster Time.

We called a local company who was able to drop off the dumpster that same day in our driveway.

It became the neighborhood conversation piece. Strangers were coming up, asking us what we were doing with a dumpster, and could they put something in it. Neighbor friends were curious too.

It was very convenient to toss the things we couldn’t throw in the garbage, like this:

This was an old, non-working, ugly, spider-infested electric fireplace that has been an eyesore in the basement since we moved in. I’m so glad it’s gone!

We also were able to toss things like the old, rotten, carpenter-ant-infested wood from around one of our trees, the moldy, flooded carpet, and scary garage items from the deep recesses of the garage.

I know a dumpster is not very environmentally friendly, but we tried to be eco-conscious, and not throw away toxic things like paint.

I wish we could have a dumpster in our driveway all the time.

Done and Done December 5, 2007

The first weekend of December was another very productive weekend at the new house. We like to alternate between being really lazy and taking a lot of naps and being almost manically productive, and this weekend was a super-productive one.

We finished the basement floor! Finally, just three months after the little flood. This was the biggest project we’ve undertaken as new homeowners, besides the stellar painting we did before we moved in.

We started with cleaning out our basement storage room and totally reorganizing everything in it, down to putting labels on the walls for where stuff goes. It felt good to be organized in there.

Next, we tackled the main room of the basement – the Rompus Room. Or the Rec Room. If you’ll recall, we had to rip out the carpet because the house let some water in the basement during a huge rainstorm. Ok, I can finally admit it; it flooded.

We ordered Flor carpet tiles – because if it ever floods again (which it WILL NOT if I have anything to say about it) then the tiles will be easy to replace should we ever be that unlucky.

Here’s a picture of the beginning of the installation:

You can see to the right of the picture the cleaned, sealed concrete floor with the glue from the previous hideous tiles. Also notice the strange column in the middle of the room. We don’t know why it’s there.

And here’s an image of the finished, beautiful basement floor:

We chose the four colors because they match our giant cozy couch, and our floor pillows:

We’re really happy with the way it turned out, and proud of the hard work we put into it. It’s a perfect room for relaxing together and entertaining, and game playing, and quilting, and crafting, and wrapping presents, and folding laundry, and reading. And now I can stop pretending that we don’t have a basement. The next thing to tackle will be painting the yellow walls to a warmer color to match the floor and the couch. But one thing at a time. Maybe after the holidays.

I recommend the Flor tiles – they were very easy to install and fun to make patterns. I’d put Flor carpet in every room of my house if I could, and in my office at work, and on my sidewalk, that’s how much I love it. They have a lot of other amazing colors and patterns to choose from, too. Give it a whirl!

Is that a skunk? November 21, 2007

Here’s a little skunk that we’ve placed in our downstairs bathroom – for those unavoidable times when it’s stinky.

With regards to Nablopomo, this is called phoning it in.

6 Months and Counting November 19, 2007

Is it wrong that we’ve lived in the new suburban house for 6 months and still don’t have window treatments in either of our offices?

We’re using some opaque paper with stylish blue tape to block the neighbors’ views. I wouldn’t care, really, except one of the windows is facing the street, so our refusal to buy window treatments is visible to the entire block.

We’re paralyzed by the decision-making, measuring, shopping, purchasing, and installing. Paralyzed to the point of not doing anything, except complain about it. There’s just too many choices – do we go with fabric? wood blinds? roman shades? vertical blinds? mini-blinds? chiffon?

Why does the window need a treatment? When did they stop being curtains?

Office Friends November 15, 2007

Back to the Licorice Allsorts office, we’ve installed some shelves above my desk that hold my co-workers:

They are a good reminder to have fun while working. Yay working at home!

Guard Bear November 13, 2007

At the front door of our house, we have a guard bear.

This is a little something we picked up on a trip to Canada – and it’s funny. I’m proudly half-Canadian, as my mother is a full-Canadian until 2001 when she became an American citizen. So Canada we love, and people from Canada we love, and bears who live in Canada, we love too.

I don’t know if you can tell from the picture, but ’tis a mounted bear that is a stuffed animal bear. Not a real bear. No need to be alarmed.

This stuffed-bear-head greets anyone who comes to our door. I hope it says a little something about us to our visitors – like we love bears AND we have a sense of humor.

Lamp-Tastic November 12, 2007

We have a room off of our kitchen – some call it the sunroom, others call it the dining room, or the family room, or the room of eating and TV watching…

Here’s the second place where a dad-made-lamp appears in our new house. This lamp also has a Frank Lloyd Wright feel to it – and it is really quite large and beautiful.

Now here’s a little something about how we have come to have these lamps.

Each year, my dad’s side of the family has a reunion. This isn’t just any family reunion – it’s a big, 2 day production, with over 150 people attending from around the country. Everyone who attends has to bring a hand-made item to the reunion. After we eat, there’s an auction with a real auctioneer to auction the hand-made items off, and the money raised goes to buy the food for next year. It’s really a great idea, and fun to compete with your relatives to get the most sought-after items.

I won/bought this lamp that my dad made at the family reunion back in 1999. Woo-Hoo!

Guess the Picture. November 10, 2007

Don’t you think our doorbell looks like a tiny coffin?

I do. Tiny coffin doorbell, courtesy of the Home Depot.

Light Issues November 7, 2007

We bought this house from people who used the renovation to make a quick buck – Flippers, we call ‘em. I think they watched just one episode of “Flip This House” on HGTV and decided they would try it out. They only owned the house for about 9 months before we bought it. We got a deal on the house that we ended up being very happy with, but the flippers cut some serious corners.

I have some good friends who are in the professional lighting industry, and when I showed one of my friends pictures of our new house, he was shocked.

Shocked and disgusted about the ceiling lighting fixtures in our new, happy house.

We call them the nipple lights.

I think you can get these lights at your local Home Depot or Lowe’s, if you want to join our way-ahead-of-the-curve trend.

We have these lamps in every room in the entire house. Seriously, every room. Foyer, Bathroom, Offices, Bedrooms, Basement, you name a room, we’ve got this exact ceiling fixture in it. There must have been a huge sale when they bought them, because they bought every one that was ever made.

I explained to my friend that replacing the ceiling lights wasn’t very high on our priority list, and as a lighting professional, he was a little dismayed to hear such blasphemy.

“Those are the ugliest things I’ve ever seen. You gotta get rid of them, right away.”

Here’s another view of the lamp, from my office.

It really disrupts the vision of the licorice allsorts office, but we figure we’d better redo the basement Rompus Room before we jump into solving our lighting issues.

The Sunroom Bench November 6, 2007

Moving over to the sunroom/family room/dining room – or the all-purpose room, as we call it. This is the room that’s just off the kitchen of the new house, and we’ve placed a bench under the sunroom windows.

I’m proud to say that I hand-painted this bench after reading this poem by Walt Whitman. I painted this about 12 years ago, but it’s held up to daily abuse well, and we use it a lot. The bench was given to me by my parents – thanks Mom & Dad!

Here’s what the bench says in case the picture isn’t large enough to read:

“The earth, that is sufficient,
I do not want the constellations any nearer;
I know they are very well where they are
I know they suffice for those who belong to them.”
-Walt Whitman, 1856

Ahhhhh, Walt.

Two Trees November 5, 2007

Ok, I’m still in the living room.

My friend Coco sold me these two trees at her moving sale last fall. I bought them because they were a little Alice in Wonderland-y with the strange-shaped bumps, and they bring the cool color green into the orange, white and beige living room. We’ve placed them on a small dresser which stores our tablecloths, and it’s located just inside the front door in the living room.

Here’s a picture of the two trees:

The dresser has become a dumping ground for junk mail and keys, usually, it’s covered with the stuff. We cleared it all off in one fell swoop to the floor, just so we could take this picture.

Our dilemma is what to put above it? There’s a big, blank, stark white wall with nothing on it but the shadow of the fake trees. Should we go with the usual favorite, family and friend photos? Should we create original art? Should we just buy some art, already?

Any ideas?

Taking Back The Elephant November 4, 2007

As a card-carrying, very liberal democrat, I’m taking back the elephant.

My Canadian grandmother (who’s no longer with us) gave me this elephant, and I love it. Again with the living room discussion, here’s how we hung the small ceramic elephant on the wall:

Robert pointed out that the elephant is a major symbol of the republican party (and in an aside, just let me say that some of my best friends/family are republican, and I still love them even though we don’t often agree) and that people who visit our home may believe we’ve switched parties. And that made me really anxious.

Why do we, as democrats, have to go with the donkey? I don’t agree with this rationale about why the symbols have stuck: check it out here. But I’ve decided that I’m taking back the elephant as a symbol. Who doesn’t love a good, old-fashioned elephant?

How Do You Like Them Apples? November 3, 2007

Continuing on with the living room theme, and sharing our living room vision, and a little bit about the family.

My dad is a very skilled carpenter. We have three custom-made wooden lamps in our house that he created, and one of them is in our orange living room near the front door. We like this wooden lamp on the wooden bookcase, brings a warm feeling into the modern living room. The lamp has a Frank Lloyd Wright feel too, which we love.

You may be thinking what are those round white apples in front of the cool lamp?

Well, they are round white apples.

It’s my first attempt with something purely in the name of “home decor”. I don’t really know how to decorate, but I liked these apples, and the white of the apples matched our new living room walls.

I put a little orange dish under the center apple:

the better to match the orange wall. Does it work? Or are the apples superfluous?