Making Progress

It's been a while since the last time I wrote, and thankfully - much progress has been getting made!! Firstly... my sister visited from New York over the weekend of June 20th, and thankfully lended her patience and ability to read foreign furniture instructions! Not only did she single-handedly put our crib together, but also spray painted some curtain rods and put together our rocker/glider as well. Finally the room started looking ALMOST like a nursery...

We put the sheets on just for looks...but forgot the bed skirt. Oops!

Eddie and I found some great curtain rods on clearance for $5 a piece...only they were black and gold. My sister and a $2 can of spray paint fixed that!!
Eddie's ingenious spray paint set-up (above) and the finished product (below). Eventually I'll get around to ironing those curtains...

Next up - baby gear preparation. Here's Eddie patiently putting together our new stroller. We've successfully completed the purchase of all the big 'must have' items, now we're just stuck putting them all together! Or Eddie is, rather...as I seem to lack the necessary gene for understanding instruction booklets. It took me 35 minutes to figure out how to put the canopy on the car seat/carrier. Which, it turns out, should only take about 4 minutes.

Now we move on to my grand furniture refinishing project! The bookshelf below was something I took my from Grandparent's house, I believe it used to be a built-in that my Grandfather removed from one of the houses he owned. I liked the look of it at the time and figured I'd refinish it eventually - and now that we finally have found a purpose for it, I got to do that! Since I didn't want to try and match the stain on the crib, we decided to paint it. I think it looks great! And thanks to Eddie's addition of some stabilizing brackets, it's ready to hold all those baby books :)

Before:

After:

We did the same paint treatment on a dresser we used to have in our bedroom that had since been banished to the basement. We haven't gotten the drawers done yet, but we got the base completed last weekend. Once done, it'll be the baby's dresser and changing table. Again, I'm really happy with how the paint finish turned out. God Bless Wagner paint sprayers!

Before:




After:

I'm hoping to get some work done on the drawers this weekend...once this dresser is done, I can finally get the nursery put together! It'll be nice to have something complete. Especially when the rest of our house is in a constant state of upheaval.

Speaking of which....I went to work on Monday, came home and my bathroom was gone!

You've gotta love how easy it is to demolish things. Too bad rebuilding them isn't so easy... but we're officially well on our way! It feels good to get started finally. This weekend was mostly spent perusing the aisles of Home Depot, picking out and buying everything we need...it was both overwhelming AND enjoyable. I'm excited to see the end product. I just don't expect that to be any time soon :) Our main goal is to have a functioning shower and washer/dryer by the time the baby arrives. (To clarify, we will be moving the new washer and dryer to the location of Eddie's current shower - which we are using until the new tub/shower is installed and working). If we're lucky, we might also just have walls and tile on the floor to boot...but I'm not holding my breath. It's amazing how quickly the time goes once you get near the end. I'm torn between wanting him to be here, and wanting him to give us as much time as possible to get stuff done before he arrives!
I just thought this was funny...whenever Eddie and I remove a wall or ceiling, we always mark the studs somehow with our names and the date. Turns out we aren't the only ones who do that...this was found on a ceiling beam after Eddie ripped out the bathroom ceiling. No idea who Missouri Missile is, but I'm guessing he's about 40 years older today than he was when he wrote this! Kind of nice to think someone might eventually find one of our little time capsules someday :)

Our last bit of progress...

Here I am in all my 35-week glory (actually, just 3 days shy of 36 weeks, but I digress). Amazing how even I didn't realize how big I was until I saw this photo. Sure explains why I suddenly have a very hard time getting in and out of the car...off the couch...out of the bed...and so on and so forth. My body is definitely feeling the added weight these days! And I worry my ankles may never be the same (can you say elephantitis??) But as long as I have the A/C cranking and somewhere to put my feet up, I'm good. For now ;) And I'm only cranky about it 85% of the time...

So here's to more progress reports to come! In the meantime, here's a video I took of my belly the other night. About the time I was ready for bed, Pickle was up for some dancing! Realizing that these belly days are nearing an end, I took a few videos to remind myself what it was like to have a little creature sharing my body. Here's one of the shorter ones. Enjoy :)