Sneak peek

There are now twice as many sinks in the house as there were when we moved in (exactly a year ago!)

Things are looking up!

Yesterday we went to home depot to pick up some stuff for the bathroom sink, and since he couldn't find what he needed there to install the sink, M. moved on to his next project, overhead lighting.  After a few sexist comments from the salesperson about how pregnant ladies have the easy job of lying on the couch and snuggling the baby, we picked up all of the stuff we needed, came home, moved a freezer into the basement (take that, salesguy) and I turned 12 lbs of tomatoes into sauce while M. disappeared upstairs.  I eventually went to bed, and this morning, I woke up to overhead lighting in the office.

We opted for four inch LED halo fixtures.  This is the part where I should tell you all about what we installed, how we installed it, etc. but this is my blog and I didn't do any of the actual work. So, marry a person who can install overhead lighting and then go to bed. That is how you do this.  The only two parts I "helped" with (besides finding the correct little pieces in the tiny piece aisle at Home Depot) were picking out the 4 inch halo fixtures (which are listed for accent or task lighting, but the ceiling in this room is pretty low, and the room is pretty tiny) and offering my opinion on which tiles should get the lights inserted in them. 

The reason it was a question of tiles is because the housings needed to have three inches of clearance between them and the insulation, and as you get further back in the room, the insulation is closer and closer to the tiles.  Even though the housings were not LED specific, so that recommendation was probably excessive for LEDs.  But fire safety is important, so all of the housings went towards the front of the room where they had 3". The desk might still require a task light but we have a few of those to spare. 

If anyone needs specific instructions, leave a comment and I'll have M. get back to you. But it's so exciting to have the switch function in this room (it didn't even switch an outlet before) and I'm really psyched to get my sewing on because it will be so much easier! 

Nursery Furniture

I always thought nursery décor and furniture would be the fun part of having a baby.  Turns out, I find decorating anything, even a tiny, adorable room for a tiny human, exhausting.  There are tons of cribs out there but I didn't like any of them.  There are tons of gliders but none of them are comfortable.  There are tons of changing tables but none of them MAKE ANY SENSE.  So.  We have finally purchased a glider, which means we have the last piece for the nursery purchased.  The crib and glider should come in the next few weeks, and once the sink moves out of the nursery, we should be in pretty good shape. 

So here is what we ended up going with:

Pali Imperia Crib - I didn't like most of the cribs that had a higher back and a lower front, or a lot of extra fanciness going on. The extra fanciness takes up a lot of extra space when you are filling a 7x9 room.  We were deciding between the BabyLetto Mercer, which has storage drawers, and this crib.  We ultimately picked this one because it had way less flex in the rails, and we are hoping the material will hold up to teething a bit better than the Mercer, but I've already pinned some teething guards. 

Haverty's Patrice Glider - I checked out Babies R Us and Great Beginnings for gliders, but generally felt underwhelmed.  We bought our couch from Haverty's and I was really pleased with their selection of reasonably priced rocker/glider recliners. Plus their sales staff tends to be really nice and not pushy and their delivery lets you stalk the truck all the way to their house and they have a good return policy.  This was the narrowest glider we could find that still looks like a proper armchair and will hopefully work in our living room later. 

 

(source)

Kallax Changing Table - we bought an Ikea Kallax 4x2, added three sets of Captiva Legs (we = husband), and will be putting a changing pad and other changing supplies on top. 

Dresser - We still have to sand and paint the dresser, or at least clean it up.  The coloring might actually work with the "mouse" colored glider, so I'm not 100% set on painting it anymore.  We'll probably have to wait until we get the glider anyway, so then we can make a decision. 

Hopefully I can get started on our mobile and some other projects soon, but right now most of my weekends have been taken up with errands and cooking all of the produce we are getting from our CSA and garden plot!

Elfa Office

As a housewarming present, my sister gave us a gift card for Elfa shelving from the Container Store.  We were originally planning on using it to reconfigure one of the closets, but with the baby coming, we are losing our guest room and so we wanted to rearrange our office so the setup is slightly less awkward for guests.  We also needed better storage options than the current way the desk in there is set up.  We went to the Container Store website and picked this option to purchase as a kit.  It was college night on Sunday night, so we headed to the store knowing they wouldn't pull custom Elfa at the event, but I had called earlier to ask if they had the kit in stock and was told they had everything in stock. Then we got there, they told us that a kit doesn't technically exist, but we sadfaced them about driving all the way from Baltimore to Rockville and they very very kindly agreed to pull it for us.  We did make a modification which resulted in losing a shelf, but the office is so short another shelf would have been too crowded.  We also can reconfigure our existing Elfa a bit now as well and might get more room that way. 

This is the new desk setup, currently still over our futon, which will be moving to the other end of the room once we have gotten the desk out of the way. 

This set of Elfa will be moving into the baby's room, most likely with only the basket shelf (which has a closet rod attachment that we can use to hang fancy baby clothes, since the room has no closet), and two of the white shelves.  The third white shelf will move to Mark's desk above the monitor. 

This Elfa will probably stay the way it is, except that middle rod, which is part of their "back of door" solutions will be moving most likely to the baby's room or to the bathroom, depending on where we decide we need more storage.  This is my original set of Elfa, which I've had since college.  We have had it in four apartments, plus the house, and it has held up great.  It's about 8 years old and has been extremely versatile.  My hope is to get the craft area a bit better organized, maybe this weekend, and get all of the stuff moved over so we can get the desk out. Apparently Salvation Army will come pick up furniture, so that may be our best option for getting both the desk and the bookcase out. 

Progress

As such things go, we began the process of converting our guest room into a nursery.  Once the books were downstairs, the bed needed to go. The frame and mattress both went to different friends and yesterday M. started to assemble some of the furniture we got.  We decided to go with an Ikea Kallax unit to use as a changing table, so that has three sets of legs to raise it to a better height for changing.  The color scheme for the room is yellow, aqua, and white, with a sea life theme. 

On top of the Kallax unit are the drawers for our new bathroom vanity.  We decided, after getting extremely high quotes to redo the bathroom in it's entirety, that since the bathroom is in mostly good shape and we really just want a new vanity, to put in a new vanity.  First we have to have a plumber come in and insulate the pipes properly, and then we will need to install the vanity.  (I'm using the term "we" lightly, I think my responsibilities will include keeping M. company.)

So the big to-do list between now and October includes the following:

Nursery:

• Assemble crib (one it comes in)
• Make mobile
• Paint dresser
• Hang artwork
• Purchase glider
• Check windows/walls for lead paint
• Hang Elfa

Bathroom

• Clear out storage cubes
• Call plumber, have them repair pipes
• Install new vanity and sink

Office

• Install new Elfa desk
• Get rid of old desk
• Move old Elfa out
• Purge and organize crafting supplies

Misc.

• Radon inspection
• Make room for upright freezer in the basement
• Clear out shelving between closets
• Bolt everything to the walls

That's all that's on the list that I can think of for now, but things are starting to get awfully cute around here:

Bookcases

All three bookcases are up and all of them are filled with all of our books. 

We still have to bolt them to the wall, and there is room in the bottom for anything else we need to store. 

We have been in the process of clearing my grandparent's house for 6 months now, and on Sunday we will be getting new, taller bookshelves. So the living room has been rearranged. The Expedit unit that was holding the TV has moved to the dining room, and the TV is up on the wall. We've moved the couch down and the bookshelves are where the couch used to be. 

Having the couches facing each other creates a galley feel in our tiny house, but it's not so bad. 

We are getting a third bookcase to go in the middle to replace the dark brown one, but we started with two to see how it went. The third one needs to be modified for the air duct that is between the two bookcases, but M. assures me it will be an easy fix. 

The final plan is to have books on top and storage baskets on the lower shelves. We will also be moving our DVD collection to the third bookshelf when it comes, which will free up space under the window.