Well, hello there!

Little Penny, 2nd love of my life, arrived April 11! She's happy and healthy and gosh, much bigger now than in this picture. Still sports the same mischievous grin, though.

I don't know where the time has gone, as she is almost 6 weeks old now. Crazy. In between nursing and snuggling, I have managed to fit in a few projects. I have mad respect for crafterhours, that's for sure. I may not know what day it is, but you'd better believe I'm working on fixing up the dining room. Cause that's normal. It's my post-partum nesting.

Well Ta-da!

Will post all the deets later. But let me just say that I am so proud and I have the best Brian ever.

Oh PS: still pregnant, too.

Progress Report

Things we (by we I mean 60% Brian) accomplished this weekend:

1) Met with a contractor
2) Met with a plumber
3) Cleaned the mold
4) Patched drywall
5) Primed the vanity
6) Bought paint/primer/eco clear varnish
7) Splurged on this mirror (it was on sale...)

Now can you guess which 40% I was responsible for? Got any suggestions for lighting to go with our new fab mirror? We have no overhead light so it has to be a workhorse. None of this cutesy light shade sconce stuff.

Surprise Bathroom Remodel

We had big plans to throw a coat of paint on the walls and vanity today.. well.. instead, the master bath now looks like this. Yep. Fun times. Will report more later when we figure out what the frig we're going to do.

Ps: there were old newspapers and rocks (??) shoved in that scary hole.

Quick post.. quick update.. quick project

btw, have started wearing Brian's clothes. Yay!

Dear Internet,

So sorry for breaking promises. I will get those kitchen redo posts up. I will. But ya know, all this baby-making takes up way more of my brain then I ever imagined. Anyway. Here's a quick and oh-so-cute project.

Since Jill at BabyRabies already did the tutorial so well, I thought I'd just point you there. I will say that there were several points where I just winged it, because, well that's how I roll. I think it turned out really well. Let's hope lil' Sweet Pea agrees.

Here's the How To. I guess it's called a pillowcase dress because you can just use a pillow case. Inneresting idea for a loner vintage case.. but that's for another day. I just used my #1 favorite fabric ever, the Katie Jump Rope by Denyse Schmidt. I think it's discontinued, but I've been hoarding it from eBay. Purty please don't bid against me? :)

Stuff I Made: A Human!

Halloween at 16 ish weeks. The cautionary whale and her boss boyfriend.

So, yes, while I have been absent for a while - I've been making lots and lots of stuff. Flippers and chromosomes and other stuff. Making a baby. A big baby. So while the husband tackled many awesome home projects, I reminded him that I was also busy (... napping...) . There was A LOT going down in my uterus. Anyway, so yes, now I am in my pregnancy happy place where I can do stuff again without falling over or getting motion sick. Yay!

Wild Hearts Can't Be Broken (or Buying the House - Part 2)

So, with our little hearts and spirits broken, we took a chill pill. For about a week. Yeah, we are kind of hyper when it comes to this stuff. We jumped back on the horse, and went on some real serious house hunting trips with our realtor. We saw stuff that I would have never stepped foot in based on online ads. We saw the good, bad, and a whole lotta ugly. But I’m pretty proud of husband and I, we aren’t turned off by ugly. In fact, we had an agreement that if something is “too nice” it just wouldn’t be right for us. We like to polish up something that is rough and unloved. We’re gluttons for punishment like that. Our realtor was pretty impressed with the amount of eyesore we were willing to overlook. Cute, right? These doe-eyed newlyweds don’t have a clue.. oh but we did. We have vision. Or something like that.

So anyway, jump to the current tour of slumping roofs and bad paint. We go to a house that I had already told husband was an impossibility. The pictures were just too generic. The place didn’t seem to have a personality at all. But I begrudgingly went anyway.

You know what? I got the feeling. It’s hard to explain, but sometimes you just get a feel for a place by just being there. I’m not a hippie, I swear. Sure, there were some definite cosmetic issues. A moldy bathroom and a dank kitchen. A sea of juniper out front. But, there were also lovely hardwood floors and nice architectural details that surprisingly weren’t in the ad. Maybe I’m the only one who would call it nice? I’m not really even sure what it is. Mid century swoopy light thing? I digress. You can’t put a price on the “feeling”, and it was definitely there.

So we did our thing, put our bid in, and guess what? We got it! Turns out this house’s specialness was really really overlooked by others because it had been on the market for over a year, and had gone through a few price reductions. Whoa. So that worked out for us. I’d like to think little housey was just waiting for us to come along.

So, looking for some real down and dirty details or advice? Loan crap? Paperwork up the wazoo? We did an FHA loan, so if you have specific questions about that process, feel free to drop me a line. It wasn’t the easiest thing, but we made it work. I don’t think I have a whole posts worth of info on it, but really, fire away in the comments or via email if you want to chat about it.

Up next… big announcement #2. You can probably guess..