I thought moving in would be so helpful for me to be able to get more done. As a stay at home mom, with visions of sugar plums dancing in my head, I imagined myself skipping around the house completing so many "little projects" while Daniel was at work. Then there's reality. I have a baby. And that baby has recently decided that I cannot be out of her sight for more than 2 minutes at a time and most of our waking hours should be spent holding her or entertaining her. And until she adjusts to the new house, napping two hours in her crib is a distant memory. Ah well, I said all that to say this, I was hoping we'd have more done by now but we don't. And that's ok. I've learned to adjust my expectations and be more realistic. For me, Maria's always the top priority. So let me tell you what we've been up to these past two weeks.
Thursday afternoon Daniel calls me from work to say he thinks we should move in that evening when he gets off. While freaking out in my head, I calmly respond "Ok, sure." Between entertaining Maria with bursts of song and weird faces, I packed like crazy to get things ready. Daniel's friends had helped us move boxes from his parents' basement a few days earlier. The boxes contained all the things we'd been living without these past six weeks. I had been unpacked most of the kitchen by Thursday so that helped a lot. It took us two very full van loads and one full SUV load to get the rest of our things to the house. Daniel set up Maria's crib first so we could get her to bed and go to work.
We quickly found ourselves unprepared to live in the house. Having packed our boxes over a month prior, I couldn't remember where anything was. The sheets to our bed were nowhere to be found. At our previous house, our shower had a glass door. So we're hot and worn out from the move but can't take a shower because we don't own a shower curtain. We don't have any blinds on the windows so I try to make due by hanging extra towels in the bedroom. All I could find was painter's tape, which wasn't strong enough to hold the towels up. You should've seen how I bolted up in bed when the first towel came peeling off the window noisily at 3 am.
So anyways it was pretty crazy to just move in like that totally unprepared. But I have learned to make due with what we've got so I took a bath that night, made the bed with some threadbare sheets that used to belong to Daniel's granny and the next day taped black trash bags over the windows with the painter's tape. I'm happy to say, we now have blinds and a shower rod and curtain. We're becoming more civilized every day!
I can't really remember the details of the things we've been working on in the past two weeks, but I can tell you that the trickiest part is prioritizing. We have boxes everywhere from the move to unpack, but we also have a thousand more projects that need finished around the house. Which comes first? I waste time every day deciding. The first week I was just overwhelmed. Being here all day with the baby was like living in a hurricane. We didn't even have internet in the house until four days ago. Talk about living in the Dark Ages! Just kidding :) This past week it started to feel much more livable, and it looks more like a home every day!
We worked on finishing the counters and cabinets in the kitchen. The counters were created with a Travertine tile that should be sealed every year. I'd never natural sealed stone before but there's not much to it. I was surprised that the consistency of the sealant wasn't much thicker than water. Just paint it on and then wipe it off in 15 minutes. Easy!
The cabinets took a lot more work to finish. First Daniel had to rebuild some of the drawer frames because they were in too bad of shape. He also installed new tracks to make them operate more smoothly. Once we glued the old drawer fronts back on, we applied several painstaking coats of poly acrylic lacquer to protect the paint on all the cabinets. Before the lacquer was applied, the paint chipped off at the slightest bump. Now, after three coats, it's holding up much better. I'd actually like to put one more coat on just because it's tricky to get it even each time so one more would make it even smoother. Daniel installed the brushed nickel hardware and we're in business!
We went with faux wood blinds for the house and so far I love how they look! I still have to go around to adjust the length of each blind for the window. According to the blinds guy at Home Depot, it's an easy but time consuming task that I should do on a day I've got nothing else going on. So... never? Just kidding, I'll get to it eventually. But for now each window can just have 10-12 slats stacked on the sill. It's not going to hurt anybody! I have to paint the quarter round trim around each window so it will be white to match the new trim. Here's a photo of a window, post-blind but pre-trim.
Speaking of trim, Daniel just started the ginormous task of trimming the entire house. While Daniel does the harder work, I came behind him with the putty to fill in all the nail holes. That putty is like magic for making it look great! Since the walls are not perfectly square, it's nearly impossible to get the angles just right. Here's an example of a corner that looks about a million times better after filling the holes and gap with putty.
We ordered the trim for the house right after we closed on March 6th. The crazy thing is, Lowe's is STILL delivering pieces! Good thing we didn't need to start sooner! They've probably made 5 deliveries now of the baseboard trim and casing to our house. They don't even know if they've delivered it all and to be honest, neither do we. The last time they called they told Daniel to just let them know if he needs more delivered because they think they owe us more. It's a weird situation. I will be VERY glad to get the trim up in the house. Closing the door to Maria's room to keep out the light and noise doesn't help as much when there's a big gap all around the door.
This past weekend we went up to Minneapolis for a little getaway to celebrate our 6th wedding anniversary. Being the house remodel junkies we are, we spent most of our three days there at the Ikea. It's our dream store! We bought organizing systems for the pantry, the linen closet and both our master closets. The linen and pantry organizers are metal frames with mesh baskets. You can choose between a large and small basket. We did a mix for both. So far we assembled the system in the pantry and I love it! It's so handy to be able to pull out the baskets to see all the contents. Having a pantry is awesome any way it's structured, but I always missed stuff at our old house because it had been pushed to the back behind something else.
Today I picked up some new lamps for the living room. I prefer overhead lighting with lamps more for decor, but our living room was designed (as many are) with just some of the plugs on a switch. I bought four at TJ Maxx and I'm loving how they look! They're modern without being too funky I think. I like modern but nothing that's too contemporary or edgy. I had purchased two lamps in a different design, but after we moved in I realized that wasn't enough light for the room. Of course TJ Maxx doesn't necessarily have the same thing twice so I exchanged them for a model that had more lamps I could buy.
The last thing I'll share tonight is a picture of the new light switch Daniel just installed in our entryway. It's also a modern design, and I think it's pretty slick. Wait, did I just say that? I just sounded like my grampa there for a minute (misspelling intentional). Anyways it's kind of cool for a light switch. I thought we'd just go with a regular rocker switch, but sometimes Daniel finds these neat little things that take it to the next level.
I'm trying hard not to let myself stress about getting things done around here. Our big convention at church is coming up Memorial Day weekend and my mom and some friends of ours will be staying with us. I'm thrilled to keep company but also know we won't have everything done that quickly (only two weeks from Thursday!). Fortunately, we like these friends a lot, and we think they like us too. So they won't mind a few things unfinished or some boxes stacked in the closets or our complete lack of decoration in the house. That's what friends do, look past your flaws! :)
To all our other friends out there, soon you should stop by for a visit at the new house. Just be prepared for a little construction dust. It's become a way of life around here. In the mean time, keep dreaming!
