Today is the last day of my 7th. month of pregnancy, according to the little BabyCentre calendar I periodically look at. This means a couple things. First is that, starting tomorrow, I can respond to everything with "Well, I'm 8 months pregnant. What's your reason?" and second is that, at some point in the next four to eight weeks, I am going to actually have a baby.
I am still not quite there with the idea that, after I have the baby, they're just going to hand her over and let me take her home. I mean, really? I don't have to pass a test or anything? No paperwork filled out in triplicate? I don't need a license for to breed and maintain a child in a suburban environment? It's more work to adopt a pet from a shelter than for me to have a baby.
I know basically nothing about babies.
Showing posts with label house. Show all posts
Showing posts with label house. Show all posts
05 August 2010
Project Fail: Paint
Steven and I have a good marriage. We agree on parenting issues, we rarely argue about money, and we even generally like spending time with each other. Our friends tend to tell us we're perfect for each other (or conversely, we deserve each other). But there's a dark side to our marriage. We cannot agree on home décor.
As it turned out, picking out a couch wasn't too hard. After the historic floods this spring, our hand-me down furniture, including my beloved 70s Porno Chair®, a large, brown round velour monstrosity that could seat two swingers comfortably, were soaked irreparably. We developed mould and everything had to go.
See, we didn't find out about this in the early, heady days of living together and marriage because we lived in apartments. Our furniture was mostly hand-me downs and everything was painted semi-matte ecru. We dreamed of the day we would have a place we could paint, how we would some day buy our own, new furniture, we trolled through IKEA, looking at all the choices. How could things go wrong? We even have the same favourite colour.
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| R.I.P. 70s Porno Chair |
It only took one trip to IKEA to find a couch with both loved and the only question was if we really, truly could justify bright orange in our living room (we could not). We picked out a black couch and chairs.
Then, we rebuilt the bathroom.
Suddenly, we had a room we could paint! We were like giddy children, talking about our trips to Home Depot and how exciting it would be to finally be able to decorate a room the way we wanted to. Of course, some of that giddiness was probably brought on from having a bathroom with a functional sink and a real bathtub.
As I sat in my shiny, new bathtub, I suggested we paint the walls robin's egg blue and my husband made The Face.
I thought I had found the perfect blue in my BFF Martha's line of paints. My husband said it was too green and, it seems, he does not like green bathrooms. We picked out an endless array of those little cards and taped them up all over our walls. It felt like we were making a crazy quilt, we had so many little squares. We bought little samples of paint and we bickered. This was too green, this was too dark, this was not bright enough. My idea of blue is not his.
We ended up finding a colour by accident. I had been send a free sample of Glidden paint, we swatched it on the wall, and we looked at each other and just knew. There was a happy ending.
Of course, in this round of Project Fail, we built the nursery for Hieronymus. With that, we realized that we would now have to pick another paint colour. Oh sure, we both agreed that we'd paint her walls lime green. This meant electric lime to Steven and a softer, sherbet lime to me. I like electric lime, don't get me wrong, but it's not exactly a bedroom colour, especially not one for a baby.
There's an upside to this, too. We grabbed a couple samples right away and today, I painted swatches. There were really only two choices that we both agreed on. I'm pretty sure we even like the same colour for trim, too. What's left to agree on? Satin finish or semi-gloss... our modern Romeo and Juliet.
Now, if only our daughter likes colours as much as we do. I don't know if I can have a child who wants to paint everything ecru.
01 August 2010
Project Fail 2010: Revenge of the Walls
It's a good thing we haven't gotten to the third part of Project Fail 2010 because I might be out of clever titles at the moment. Most likely, I'll have at least a month before I need to think of another one, though.
This was the sort of designated week-end to finish (read: get another third) of the renovation down here done. My father was actually supposed to be back a couple weeks ago, but it did not work out. He arrived around half past 6 yesterday, which was surprisingly ahead of what I had guessed for his schedule. We'd been doing a pretty half-assed job of cleaning before that, so obviously, it was time for a well-deserved dinner break because I was starving.
Which is different from, oh, any other time, because I'm pregnant and I'm always starving. We went out for Mexican Friday (craving burritos) and I had scarfed my entire (huge) burrito before Steven had eaten 2/3s of his, which he did not finish (seriously, it was huge). Then, I proceeded to eat dessert and by the time we got home, I was hungry again. This is the Pregnancy That Ate Rhode Island.
We introduced my father to Five Guys Burgers and I proceeded to eat 5 million french fries. I swear, I actually generally eat really well, but obviously, I do not blog about that. I may or may not have taken off with the remainder of bagged fries like a raccoon out of a garbage can, either. And I also may or may not be thinking about reheating some and eating them now.
This installation of Project Fail will supposedly contain the following:
This was the sort of designated week-end to finish (read: get another third) of the renovation down here done. My father was actually supposed to be back a couple weeks ago, but it did not work out. He arrived around half past 6 yesterday, which was surprisingly ahead of what I had guessed for his schedule. We'd been doing a pretty half-assed job of cleaning before that, so obviously, it was time for a well-deserved dinner break because I was starving.
Which is different from, oh, any other time, because I'm pregnant and I'm always starving. We went out for Mexican Friday (craving burritos) and I had scarfed my entire (huge) burrito before Steven had eaten 2/3s of his, which he did not finish (seriously, it was huge). Then, I proceeded to eat dessert and by the time we got home, I was hungry again. This is the Pregnancy That Ate Rhode Island.
We introduced my father to Five Guys Burgers and I proceeded to eat 5 million french fries. I swear, I actually generally eat really well, but obviously, I do not blog about that. I may or may not have taken off with the remainder of bagged fries like a raccoon out of a garbage can, either. And I also may or may not be thinking about reheating some and eating them now.
This installation of Project Fail will supposedly contain the following:
- Framing, walling, and finishing Hieronymus's room
- Creating 3 closets: two on the previous room (no, I don't know why either) and one for our kitchen
- Cabinet doors so the cats no longer thing that that nice, new space is a special cat room Just! For! Them!
- An entry way for our underground bunker because everyone is convinced that I am going to fall down the stairs
- Trimming off and sanding the bathroom to prep for painting.
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| Framing: Much easier than removing a 50 year old steel tank full of oil. |
Not nearly the over-weaning nightmare that last time's "simple project" turned out to be. In fact, I think my husband and father might actually accomplish three of four of these projects, making this less Project Fail and more of Project Minor inconvenience.
Since I took that picture, they actually have most of the drywall up in the baby's room and the only swearing, really, has come from me and is wholly unrelated to actual construction.
Well, except that part where my husband told me that, oops, they forgot to run the All Mighty Cable Line over one of the studs for the room and I might need to do without the internet for a little while. There was definitely a couple colourful words about that and a quick reminder tonight kicks off Shark Week and, well, I haven't had anything worthwhile watching since the Tour de France ended last Sunday.
Funny tangent: in the last three weeks, we've had half a dozen great white shark sitings off Cape Cod and the Massachusetts coast. Seriously, it's almost like the Discovery Channel is paying them to do promotional work. Hope they're paying in seals and not chum.
The flaw I am discovering with building a new room is that it now needs painting. I did, finally, finish most of the changing table, no thanks to Vlad. Every time the cats starting napping, I'd go paint a quick section. Like I've said: baby practice. I am pretty convinced her room needs to be a nice, soft lime colour, since there's already pale violet and bright blue in there. I guess I should be glad that basically all my favourite colours are harmonious.
You know, I think this is secretly related to nesting, because I am looking at the walls around the rest of the Underground Bunker® and my hindbrain is whispering "Rearrange... rearrange!" I'm also seeing a lot of places that need a quick coat of paint, too. Hello, dingy midbeam. I'm looking at you.
Well, that or I'm reading too much Martha and getting delusions from it. Either way.
24 May 2010
Now With World Famous Hungarian Plumbing!
I just got to go prevent Hungarian plumbing from happening in my basement. Why would I do this? Because, like most of the world, I prefer to have my cold water control on the right side where the dial actually says it is.
We've had just a shower in our place for the last year and a half. When we found out I was pregnant, I had a giant fit and demanded I have things like a bathtub and a working sink in the bathroom. Since my father is a licensed contractor, we generally get these things done for cost of supplies and a large amount of aggravation. I am not actually participating in this fiasco since I am not allowed to do things like this, but I helped build the shower and the bathroom when we first moved here, so I am familiar with the process.
This is how things go:
After several months of insisting he come down and do work for his first grandchild, my father calls 36 hours in advance and says he'll be down. I tell him no, we have plans and it will need to be the following week-end. He tells me he will arrive at 4, which in contractor-speak, means 9:30 at night, after Lowes has closed. Nothing will get done Saturday, except he will make grandiose plans for all the things that need doing. The project started as a bathtub and a sink. Now, we are additionally refinishing the kitchen, adding shelving, a utility room, gutting and remodeling the bathroom, building a couple of closets, partitioning off the utility room, and building the baby's room BIGGER and BETTER!
Then, there's the time estimate. My father works on contractor time, which has no bearing on reality. Estimate: just Sunday afternoon. Real time: at least through Monday and probably with multiple trips. This is a pro-tip. Whatever amount of time your contractor tells you, triple it.
Steven and my father left the house at 8:30 yesterday to go to Lowes. I sent a list. A good list, with SKUs and everything. Time they rolled back in: 1:30, with McDonalds. Time work started: some time after 2. To be fair, they did work until after 9, so I am not complaining about actual time spent.
As of today, at 4, the bathroom is pretty well started and the kitchen is mostly finished. There's another Lowes run happening. Here's another pro-tip: your contractor will never have everything you need, no matter how much planning you've done. Minimally, they will require at least one extra trip for a part that is crucial to everything finished. If you are lucky, it will be while the supplier is open.
This brings me back to Hungarian plumbing. My father built the house I grew up in. Obviously, to save money, he built as much of it on his own as he could. This lead to our bathroom water being piped in completely backwards. For whatever reason, my father is completely incapable of managing to pipe cold water in on the right-hand side.
So my husband comes bounding up the stairs, telling me I need to come downstairs before we are installed backwards. Steven has a big stake in this: while I grew up with this fine plumbing, Steven lived in a house that was built by actual contractors who were not related to him and would burn himself. So I tell my father that I would like my bath to have cold water on the right. I am pretty sure he doesn't actually believe me, but apparently, since I am pregnant, I can have things plumbed however I want. I pointed out that the mixer actually says cold on the left, too, but that could be fixed by installing it upside down. No one is the wiser, right?
So here's a tally.
Things That Were Done In Theory:
We've had just a shower in our place for the last year and a half. When we found out I was pregnant, I had a giant fit and demanded I have things like a bathtub and a working sink in the bathroom. Since my father is a licensed contractor, we generally get these things done for cost of supplies and a large amount of aggravation. I am not actually participating in this fiasco since I am not allowed to do things like this, but I helped build the shower and the bathroom when we first moved here, so I am familiar with the process.
This is how things go:
After several months of insisting he come down and do work for his first grandchild, my father calls 36 hours in advance and says he'll be down. I tell him no, we have plans and it will need to be the following week-end. He tells me he will arrive at 4, which in contractor-speak, means 9:30 at night, after Lowes has closed. Nothing will get done Saturday, except he will make grandiose plans for all the things that need doing. The project started as a bathtub and a sink. Now, we are additionally refinishing the kitchen, adding shelving, a utility room, gutting and remodeling the bathroom, building a couple of closets, partitioning off the utility room, and building the baby's room BIGGER and BETTER!
Then, there's the time estimate. My father works on contractor time, which has no bearing on reality. Estimate: just Sunday afternoon. Real time: at least through Monday and probably with multiple trips. This is a pro-tip. Whatever amount of time your contractor tells you, triple it.
Steven and my father left the house at 8:30 yesterday to go to Lowes. I sent a list. A good list, with SKUs and everything. Time they rolled back in: 1:30, with McDonalds. Time work started: some time after 2. To be fair, they did work until after 9, so I am not complaining about actual time spent.
As of today, at 4, the bathroom is pretty well started and the kitchen is mostly finished. There's another Lowes run happening. Here's another pro-tip: your contractor will never have everything you need, no matter how much planning you've done. Minimally, they will require at least one extra trip for a part that is crucial to everything finished. If you are lucky, it will be while the supplier is open.
This brings me back to Hungarian plumbing. My father built the house I grew up in. Obviously, to save money, he built as much of it on his own as he could. This lead to our bathroom water being piped in completely backwards. For whatever reason, my father is completely incapable of managing to pipe cold water in on the right-hand side.
So my husband comes bounding up the stairs, telling me I need to come downstairs before we are installed backwards. Steven has a big stake in this: while I grew up with this fine plumbing, Steven lived in a house that was built by actual contractors who were not related to him and would burn himself. So I tell my father that I would like my bath to have cold water on the right. I am pretty sure he doesn't actually believe me, but apparently, since I am pregnant, I can have things plumbed however I want. I pointed out that the mixer actually says cold on the left, too, but that could be fixed by installing it upside down. No one is the wiser, right?
So here's a tally.
Things That Were Done In Theory:
- Bathroom renovation
- Kitchen renovation, including new counter
- Oil tank drained and removed
- 2+ closets added
- Baby's room made with false wall
- Utility room
- Shelving
Here's what will be done at some point today:
- Bathroom mostly finished. Will need spackling, painting, and some kind of floor treatment.
- Kitchen renovation, including new counter.
- Oil tank drained and set outside.
Still waiting on the theoretical bill for how much this would have cost. Cost of an ill-advised home renovation project while pregnant? Priceless.
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