Friday, January 16, 2009

More floors

We went ahead and had the rest of the upstairs floors refinished. That means Genevieve's bedroom and the hallway, both of which had dark red carpeting. Getting rid of that really brightened things up. There were some issues with the floors, including a patch that needed to be replaced in Genevieve's room and odd floorboard arrangements in the hall, but in the end I'm happy with it.


Before, with carpet:
Under the carpet the floor was painted pink:
Genevieve's room, after:
The hallway went from a dark cave to a bright, friendly space: We have to wait a few more days before we can put the furniture back. I can't wait to have it all put together right!

Friday, January 9, 2009

Pregnancy sucks

I am not one of those women who loves being pregnant.

Here are some of the things I have really NOT enjoyed:

nausea
vomiting
heartburn
pelvis aches
hemorrhoids
constant need to pee
swelling of hands and feet
inability to sleep
backaches
contractions

My due date is less than four weeks away (Feb 3rd), but I'm really hoping this baby comes sooner. We've been to the hospital twice already for preterm labor. Apparently I have an "irritable uterus"... It was the same story with Genevieve. I remember the last couple of weeks being completely miserable, and being so relieved that she arrived 2 weeks early.

This time I'm "measuring big", whereas last time I remember the doctor saying "if that's a big baby, I don't know where you're hiding it." Of course, she did turn out to be tiny (5 lbs, 8 oz) and remains at the bottom of the charts to this day. It's obviously going to be a different story this time.

On Sunday at the hospital they said I was 1 cm, 20% effaced, baby at +2. On Wednesday at the doctor's office, they said 1.5 cm, 60% effaced, baby at -2. So things are progressing, but there's no way to know how long it will go.

Friday, January 2, 2009

Floors

As I mentioned in a previous post, we are refinishing the floors upstairs. This is part of our nursery creation series of renovations.


I don't have a good "before" picture of the third bedroom, previously known as the office, but here is a photo from about two years ago. You can see the yellow walls, blue carpet, bookshelves and yellow curtains.



The first thing we did was to tear up the stained carpet, and we discovered that the wood floor had been painted light blue. This was weird, but not entirely surprising since the master bedroom floor was painted white. We painted the nursery walls light green and redid all the trim in clean white.

Then the floor guys came in and got rid of all that blue paint. It turned out to be a very pretty Douglas fir underneath.
Yesterday we moved the main furniture in and got an area rug. I also bought new curtains that I still have to put up, and I had to order a new crib, so I'll wait for the final "after" picture when it's all done.
As long as we were doing one room, we decided to go ahead and do the entire upstairs... These projects always snowball! The master bedroom was done at the same time as the nursery. Genevieve's room and the hall will come next.
As I said, the mater bedroom floor was painted white. Inside the closet it was painted dark red. I have peeked under the hall carpet, and it's that same color. I'm not sure yet what's under Genevieve's carpet!
The master bedroom floor wasn't red fir, it was yellow pine. Not quite as pretty, but still looks good. This house is a patchwork of different materials from different eras.

Last night we finally got to sleep in our own bed again. But there's still a lot of stuff to sort through before we move onto the next step...moving everything out of Genevieve's room and tearing up her carpet.

Thursday, January 1, 2009

Happy New Year

Last night we got our usual fireworks show from the comfort of our own home, compliments of the Country Club next door. I told Genevieve she could try to stay up until midnight. She made it to 11:30. I think I was asleep at 12:02.


Well, we're back to snow now. Looks like the crazy weather may be over and we'll have the usual miserable winter weather. (One good thing about being pregnant is that I'm NOT cold!) For the first time today Genevieve actually wanted to go out and play in the snow. Most of the time she takes after me and hides from the cold. It was the first time we had some sun along with deep snow, so maybe that's why. Or she's just going stir crazy from being in the house for two weeks.