Last Room!

We (and by "we" I mean "Damian") finished painting the smaller upstairs guest room. We (this time "we" means "mostly Ashley") have officially painted every single room in this house, with the exception of the laundry room. Phew.

Before:



And I mean WAY before. That's from the realtor's site. The room is full of the previous owners' furniture, but you can see the diamond pattern wallpaper/border and the glittered ceiling.

I'm sorry? What? You can't really see the glittered ceiling? How about now:




It really was a sight to behold. Let me give you a closer look:



But now, after wallpaper stripping (house is totally wallpaper free!) and deglittering (house is totally glitter free!) the room is much more normal. To celebrate the normalness, we chose a nice, boring grey for the walls. We got rid of the crappy twin bed and moved the futon from what used to be the brown bedroom into here.



Let's see how long it takes me to want to start REpainting some of the rooms.

Short lived.

It makes me sad to look at those pictures of the kid's room.

It looked like that for just about one week.

Now the fantastic rug is rolled up and piled on the bookcase/window seat. All that beautiful floor space is full of guitars, amplifiers, a 15-year-old TV/VCR combo, a futon mattress cover ... I could go on. In other words, it's a junk room. Again.

D's highly evolved nesting instinct has kicked into overdrive and he needed to get the other guest room painted, like, IMMEDIATELY. The good news is, he's nearly done. I'm typing to the dulcet tones of the power drill as he tries to fix the outlets in that room (ugh, the outlets in this house could not be more screwed up). The glitter is off the ceiling, the walls and trim are done. Hopefully by this weekend things will be back in their rightful place in their rightful rooms.

Or the garbage.

The only big change to the nursery is that D got the kid a mattress yesterday. Those of you concerned that we really were going to use Maggie's dog bed (and you know who you are) can rest easy.

The 31-week photo is coming. Soon. Monsieur Photographer just took it a few minutes ago (against the spanking new gray walls of the upstairs guest room). Pregnancy-wise, things are going well. I've mostly found the third trimester to be MUCH better than the second. Whoever decided the second was the golden trimester? I felt like crap for most of that one. The first was better than the second, and the third is better than both. The belly is still threatening to take over the world. At my 30-week appointment, I was measuring at 33 weeks. Yikes! Don't get excited, though. The kid isn't coming early. Nor is the kid particularly big. I have to go in tomorrow for an ultrasound to make sure, but I expect they'll find exactly what they found the last time I was measuring big: an average size kid and a woman carrying it entirely out front. It's moving nearly constantly and the movements have gone from thumps to more like the kid is stretching and rolling and shoving things. The (giant) belly changes shape about every minute or so. Last night, it had a definite point. A knee? An elbow? A conehead? Who knows.

Special note for my mom: I felt hiccups for the first time last week. D and I were confused at first about what it was doing. Why were the kicks so rhythmic? Then I remembered that my mom mentioned being able to feel hiccups and how weird it was. She wasn't kidding.

The Weeping Shitter of Wheaton, Illinois

Someday, I will sit down and post all of the before and after pictures of the work we've been doing to the house since Januaryish. I promise. The pictures are taken, and even uploaded to my computer (usually the biggest hurdle). Now I just need to find the words.

But anyway. We are down to the last room in the great redecorating blitz of aught eight: the downstairs bathroom. Now, if you've ever painted a bathroom, you know that despite their smaller size, they are the biggest freaking pain in the ass to paint. Lots of cutting and awkward angles. (I'm always glad that I do yoga when I have to paint a bathroom.)

And this house? Oh my god. The things I have seen when painting this house. Three layers of painted-over wallpaper? Check. Outlets painted to match walls? Check. The white molded enclosure of our bathtub mysteriously painted white? Sure. Why not?

So between the fact that it's a bathroom and past experience painting rooms in this house, I was prepared to not enjoy this project.

Little did I know what was in store for me.

The walls were papered in a red plaid and the ceiling painted a deep red to match. Obviously primer was called for. So I got my primer and brush all ready and got to work. About halfway through, I took a break (possibly to get a beer, but it's hard to say). It was then that I noticed that the primer I had put on first was beaded up and rolling down the wall.

Uhh. Okay.

My stellar investigative skills told me that the walls were oily. I'd wiped them down before I started, but only with water. Everyone knows that oil is hydrophobic. When you need to clean something greasy, you need the big guns. And that took care of it.

Or so I thought.

I started painting again. Then I noticed that the oil drips were back. Oh yes. There was oil dripping down the walls of our bathroom. Obviously , this was beyond my skill set (see: 409), so I reached into my bag of librarian tricks and googled it.

Turns out there is only one explanation. We aren't talking about a statue of the virgin, but that doesn't make it any less miraculous.

Am currently trying to figure out how to sell it on eBay.

New basement, new hole.

We already showed you that Cat found himself a hole almost immediately after we moved in. But, since that hole led directly into the basement ceiling, we decided it wasn't the best place for Cat to hang out. Since we almost had to tear out our entire basement this spring (pictures are coming, but that is another post for another day), it seemed like a good time to wall up Cat's hideout.

We considered doing it up Cask of Amontillado style. Briefly.

Cat, true to form, stared longingly at the wall where the hole used to be for about a day, then bounced back:



I'm sure that fiberglass insulation is good for his little lungs.

Unwanted Visitors

This is the male duck that, along with his lady friend, made our pool his home this spring. We haven't seen him in weeks, but she's out there everyday. And she seems sad. I feel bad for her, but not bad enough to keep me from siccing the Maggot on her.

Yesterday, after we chased her away when we woke up, she was sitting in the neighbors front yard, staring at me as I pulled out. Just waiting for us to go to work.

Ducks are so crafty.

Who knew?

Manual Labor

Maggie is a big help around the house. Especially when it comes to home improvements, etc.

Removing wallpaper is her favorite.

End of the Yellow

And also the smeary peach. But mostly the yellow.

Our house is very, very yellow. The siding is yellow and most of the main floor is the same, pale yellow with some green undertones. It's not the worst color, but there's just so damn much of it. The walls and ceilings in the entryway, dining room, living room, hallway, bathroom, and our bedroom are the same yellow. The previous owners loved this yellow so much that they painted the trim and doors and EVERYTHING THAT WOULD STAND STILL in that yellow.

We will triumph over the yellow and have started the long process. For some reason, winter makes me want to paint stuff. Which is good since it means that I can't open windows to vent the fumes.

This is the dining room before:

And this is our dining room now (try to picture it with this dining room table):


One of the rooms on the main floor that wasn't yellow was the kitchen. It was sort of smeary peach. I suspect it was originally the same yellow, but they ragged (or something -- I'm not up on my faux techniques) an orangey color over it. I decided the effect was similar to mixing ketchup, mayo, and mustard and smearing it on the wall. Not that I've done this.

Before:




And after:




It's the same green, but looks very different against the white cupboards in the kitchen than it does in the dining room. I think it will look even more different once that mahogany table is in there in a couple of weeks.

This weekend? The bathroom!

I can't believe I'm blogging about the weather.

The weather folk were using their excited voice when they talked about a warming trend this week. All the way into the twenties!!

Although I guess that is pretty exciting given that this is what our thermometer looked like on January 1:


Yes. That says 3 degrees. Farenheit. The next day it said 1!

(Also take note of the indoor temperature. If D ever leaves me, it will be for a woman that lets him turn up the thermostat. Sorry, D. That's why the baby Jesus and Leon Leonwood Bean brought slippers to us.)

This cold snap though, really brought home the fact that we need some new damn windows. Witness:


That, my friends, is frost on the inside of our kitchen window.

The good news is, it really is supposed to warm up more this weekend, so maybe we can get the Christmas lights down.