Sunday, January 31, 2016

January Recap

Can you believe such a tiny little bean could disrupt life so forcefully? With the nausea, exhaustion, sensitivity to smells, bloating, and irritability... Well, let's just say it's a miracle we made it through January!

That being said, we still did our best to make our most of the cold, dark, Winter days. We barely had any snow until January hit. The first snow we played in was half freezing rain. When we went to dig we found that our yard was completely iced over and crunchy. The kids had a blast stomping around the yard. I couldn't get enough of how cute the kids looked in their snowsuits!

Wintertime also means lots of indoor playing. The kids would drop whatever they were doing when Dad walked in the door to run and tackle him. They quickly learned that Paul is the best indoor jungle gym you could ask for. We did our best to get out a few times. Our biggest outing was a trip to the bowling alley. The kids loved it! When I was pregnant with Vincent I bowled a 180. I was hopeful that this pregnancy would lend itself to a similar outcome... but I barely broke 100! I didn't mind though because I couldn't stop laughing at how hard Vince had to work to carry his bowling ball to our lane. He was a trooper and didn't complain once!

Another notable event was a special girls night I took with Heather. We went to the Detroit Temple together! It was her first time going and we were the only ones there for the evening. It was fun to get the special attention for Heather's first trip. The workers were so kind and the spirit was strong. Going to the temple is always amazing. We celebrated afterward with some Dairy Queen. Delish!

Other than that, January was filled with lots of puzzles, books, and playtime. I love this stage of life. The stage where we have no real commitments. We do what we want. We wake up when we want. We play all the time. It's just so fun!
















Friday, January 29, 2016

Half Bathroom Update

The half bathroom as seen on the day we moved into our house:

Before: Floral wallpaper with upper and lower border, old light fixture, ugly bathroom hardware, dirty floor and baseboards, cream paint on ceiling, doors and trim.

I got so sick of this bathroom that one evening, when Paul & Vince were out camping, I ripped off the wallpaper on a whim! It was hard work but I just wanted it GONE. I was overwhelmed when we were left with yellow, glue stained walls. It was just as bad as the wallpaper I had torn down. The walls sat that way for months while we tackled other projects.

About 6 months later I hit another breaking point. I'd had enough of the nasty glue walls. Paul and I committed and during Christmas break we tackled the bathroom update. I had no idea such a small room would require so much work. Here's what we did:

Steamed and removed the glue wallpaper gunk
Removed the heinous light fixture (which revealed that the electrical was placed in the center of the room instead of to the left over the sink. Ugh!! It was impossible to find a light fixture that could cover the electrical box so we decided to center everything)
Patched holes and damage from wallpaper and light fixture removal
Sanded the walls down
Washed the walls down
Scrubbed the dirty tile grout from grey to white
Painted the door trim from cream to white
Primed the walls (we chose grey primer since we were going to paint the walls grey anyway)
Discovered bits of residual wallpaper backing (it bubbled up when we painted)
Re-scraped the wallpaper bits
Sanded needed areas
Primed walls again x 2
Painted the ceiling from cream to white x 2
Painted walls Amherst Gray x 2
Installed new light fixture
Measured, cut, painted and installed new baseboards
Caulked baseboards into place
Installed new sink hardware
Caulked sink top to pedestal and pedestal to floor
Caulked around toilet base
Installed new toilet paper holder and towel hook
Built frame for mirror
Painted and adhered frame to mirror
Installed mirror into the bathroom
...I'm sure I'm missing something. But for real. Tiny room still = a lot of work!

I still have to decorate but I am so pleased to finally have a nice looking half bath. Hooray for home improvements!

During:



Left: The floor is clean at the top and dirty on the bottom   Right: Clean grout! Some areas need to be fixed



 After:



 And here's a side by side of the before and after. We're so happy with how it turned out!