February 17, 2012

Busy!

So, our move got delayed a bit. We wanted to get into the house last Wednesday the 8th to start priming and painting, but the people who were moving out had some speed bumps. So we didn’t even get a chance to get into the house until we moved everything in Monday the 13th. Andrew and I loaded the truck up at our old place on Saturday and Sunday¹ and Sunday night we got to the new house close to midnight so we just parked the truck and headed over to my aunt’s house to spend the night. Monday we did some cleaning and prepping before moving the furniture in, but it only took Andrew and I a little less than two hours to empty the 24′ truck. Score.

This week we’ve been working on priming Claire’s room, the master bedroom, the master bathroom and the bathroom. Claire’s room has definitely been the hardest. The walls were a light shade of blue but there were bright red hand prints all over the walls and ceilings. Oh, and the trim was bright red. BRIGHT RED. We used a half a 5-gallon jug of primer in there alone, but now everything is pretty and completely white and totally worth it. I’ve been working this week and Andrew has been home priming while the kids are in daycare, but I’ve been going over in the evenings before picking the kids up to try to help. Andrew left last night to go get his car from our old place and should be back tonight, so this whole weekend we can work on knocking out the bedrooms and bathrooms. We still need to put a second coat of primer on in both bathrooms and do a coat of tinted primer in Claire’s room and the master bedroom, then prime Logan’s room and start painting. Once all of that is done we can move the furniture out of our living room and into the bedrooms, then move all of the dining room furniture into the living room so we can prime and paint the dining room/kitchen. Once that is done we need to move all of the dining room and living room furniture into the dining room so we can prime and paint the living room/hallway.

Hopefully by next weekend we will be completely done with all of the painting and our house will have some semblance of order. Sort of. We took down all of the blinds and curtains that were in here and are going to be installing new Levolor cordless blinds and drapery rods. Also, we have an old dresser and nightstand that were Andrew’s when he was a kid that I want to refinish white and put some cute hardware on for Claire’s room. We’re going to put the really-ugly-but-super-comfy-wingback chair in Logan’s room, and I’m just going to pick up a white slipcover from Bed Bath & Beyond and use Rit dye to make it a bright blue. I think that would look awesome with his yellow/green walls. After that I’m seriously taking a break, because come Spring we’re going to be doing a lot of work on the yard.

1. Which took two days because we did a massive amount of cleaning, the property manager told us it was that cleanest apartment on move out she’s ever been in. I don’t like to give anyone any reason to not return my whole deposit. [↩]

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February 3, 2012

We Have a House

FINALLY! Ugh, I am so tired of searching and calling and emailing and viewing, but it’s all finally paid off. We found a lovely little house in a quiet little neighborhood that’s very convenient to shopping, my aunt’s daycare where the kids will be going, and the local highways we’ll be using to commute to work. It’s a bit farther from our office than I was initially looking for, but it does have three bedrooms/two baths and great big fenced in back yard. Plus being a bit farther away saves us $200-500 a month in rent and that more than covers any gas costs in adding ~15 miles to our commute.

I didn’t get any pictures of the house because my SD card in my phone decided to die, but next Wednesday we’ll be getting some painting done and I’ll make sure to take some before-and-afters. The owner of the house is super awesome and has already told us any work we put into the house will come directly off of our rent. I would love to replace the carpets. There is currently some super soft carpet in there, but it’s this hideous brown color the owner described as “able to go with anything”. Umm, right. I’d like to go with an easy to install, easy to maintain laminate flooring, like Pear Tree Bruna from Home Depot, throughout the whole house except the bathrooms (hello gorgeous Marazzi Montagna Lugano tile for the bathrooms). But floors and all of that will come at a later date, next week we’re just concerned with painting and possibly moulding so we can get moved in quickly. Though now that I think of it it would make sense to wait on replacing/installing baseboard moulding until we do the floors. Hmm. I would like chair rail moulding in the dining room and crown moulding throughout the house, but I suppose if we’re not going to do the baseboards we should just wait and do all of it together. Okay so next week we’re just painting.

I’m still contemplating on whether to give the kids their own rooms or make them share a room, it really all depends on whether we can find places to fit our desks. I think we can fit at least one desk in the living room, but the bedrooms are pretty small and we have a king size bed so I’m not sure if we’d be able to get a desk in the master bedroom with all of our other furniture. Unless we stash the dresser in the closet… Anyways, you can tell this is all new and we’re still working things out. Let’s just look at some pretty colors!

If we do separate rooms for the kids Claire will get the lovely and soft Dark Lilac. Logan’s would be a bit more bright, Carolina Parakeet.

For the living room I wanted something relaxing and muted, but still interesting. I have completely fallen for Solitude. For the dining room and kitchen I was looking for something more neutral but not an abrupt change as you flow from the living room, which is why I chose Camel.

In the bathrooms I picked something to match the pretty tile flooring I’d like to have, Desert Shadow. In the master bedroom I was looking for something intimate and cozy and landed on Semi Sweet.

I’m sure I’ve bored some people to tears, but I could go on and on about lighting fixtures and appliances and faucets and shrubbery. It’s exciting, y’all. I’ve finally found a place I can improve and tweak like my very own house without having to make a big huge commitment and financial undertaking. Excitement!

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January 30, 2012

Polyvore Sets Remixed

Recently I wrote about seeing a lot of mono & dichromatic Polyvore sets being pinned to Pinterest, and how that made me sad inside. So I gathered up a few of my favorite outfits spotted on Pinterest, mixed them up on Polyvore with a nice big injection (heh, dirty) of color and here they are! Let me know what you think, and I’d love to see some of your remixes.

Before

After

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Fashion

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January 27, 2012

Gender Neutral Toys?

Peggy Ornstein is a blogger and author of Cinderella Ate My Daughter: Dispatches from the Front Lines of the New Girlie-Girl Culture. She wrote a piece for the New York Times Opinion Page titled Should the World of Toys Be Gender-Free? that I’ve been mulling over recently. In the piece she addresses the new girl-focused Lego sets that come with blocks in pastel hues and svelte looking characters to replace the classic blocky figurine. Lego advises they’ve done their anthropological research and it shows that boys and girls play differently, they’re only trying to be fair to girls by offering them more “girly” sets. Ornstein points out that preschoolers are at a very impressionable age and it’s at this time they assimilate things like gender roles. She asserts that by buying these gender specific toys there may be a “negative long-term impact on kids’ potential”.

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Ramblings

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January 26, 2012

Happy Birthday to Me!

I turned 24 today! Today was like most days, I hung out with the kids and did some work. The kids were very nice to me and were peaceful and quiet all afternoon.

Logan was a bit iffy so he napped the afternoon away. While Claire decided to forgo her late nap (she took a morning nap instead), she did sit and quietly draw and play for nearly two hours. Behind her on her bed you might be able to see that she did tuck Teddy and Violet into bed, and every time I came to check on her she shushed me and told me to be “quiet for the baby”. Crap that kid is growing up too fast.

When Andrew got home from work he ran some errands for me that I didn’t feel like doing, then we all went to the best Chinese buffet by our house, King Buffet. I love Chinese buffets, they’re definitely my guilty pleasure. I usually don’t get to go to them unless my older sister is around, we’re buffet buddies, but Andrew was super nice on account of my birthday and all and let me drag him out. Logan munched on cantaloupe and a ridiculous amount of lo mein noodles, and Claire enjoyed spring rolls and sweet and sour soup. Chinese buffets are one of the few restaurants we can take the kids to and actually sit and enjoy our food. Usually we’re asking for boxes as soon as the entrees arrive and then rushing out the door after leaving a 50% tip as condolences to the wait staff for the horrible mess the hellions left for them. Just goes to show Chinese buffets are magical, wonderful places I should be allowed to visit every day.

I didn’t get a cake, and that’s because I completely forgot about a cake until Dez mentioned it on Facebook. My bad. I did eat an insane amount of those little donuts at the buffet, and that’s all I really need.

Life

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