32 down 8 to go…

At 32 weeks I am now starting to not only look more pregnant, but I feel it too. Getting up, rolling over, sleeping, back aches, heartburn, and the overall feeling that I’m large are all issues I deal with daily now. But I probably shouldn’t complain if it took 32 weeks to get to this point.

Baby Charlie is still moving around and it’s just crazy to see my stomach move like there’s an ocean under there…or some sort of alien life form a la the movie Tremors.  My mom keeps telling me it’s beautiful, it’s a miracle and I keep saying it’s weird and hard to believe.  I still can’t believe there is a person growing inside of me. who by the way, just lodged herself under my rib! ugg

She is still breach so I have been trying to do little exercises to help her flip. However, the dogs think this is the time to come over and lick my face.  Hopefully she’ll do it on her own, but a little help never hurt anyone, right?

The nursery is coming along.We purchased a new rug, changing table, rocker and ottoman and finished the flooring and paint.  My friend Tara brought over her bassinette so now we even have a place for our little girl to sleep. I’m really happy with the way it’s turning out and can’t wait to get started on some sewing when my mom gets her next week.

On the bed rest front I was told this week that after another two weeks I should be able to be released and sent back to the real world! that’s 2 weeks less than I was originally told. So I’m super happy an anxious to get back to work and life. I’ve been lucky that I’m able to head out to eat or to church, but I still spend the majority of my time sitting/lying in a bed or on the couch.

And I can’t post this without mentioning how much of a saint my husband is. He has really been great. doing all the cooking, cleaning, laundry, painting, waiting on me, shopping…all while working full time. I try to help, but he won’t let me. He’s taking good care of his girls. As much as I’m disappointed he’s going to California next weekend and I’m not, he deservers to go. And I really do hope he has a wonderful time hanging out with all his buddies.

Also, we started a little pool to see when you all think Baby Charlie will come, so If you’d like to join in here’s the link :

http://www.whatsinmybelly.com/baby-pool-baby-charlie-276

I believe you have to hit the JOIN tab before you can enter your predictions.

As cool as I think the 12/12/12 birthday would be…I’ll take anything after thanksgiving at this point!

Nursery Sneak Peak

We’re finally getting ready for Ms. Charlie.  Daddy is busy doing everything that I can’t do (prepping/painting/demo-ing) and I’m busy picking out paints and fabrics and furniture (the fun stuff!)
Luckily before I went on bed rest (like 2 days before!) we spent the weekend purging her new room, shopping for certain items and laying out a game plan.
I had decided early on that I wanted white furniture, I feel its more versatile (girl or boy) and timeless. For color I chose to go with gray as my base color.  I love Gray as a neutral-it’s modern without being obnoxious and trendy.  Since I'm not big on baby pink I chose Green for the accent color.I LOVE green. Unfortunately since we're having a girl pink is going to be unavoidable.  While registering we quickly realized that we had two choices for most items, blue or pink. I would have picked everything blue, but seeing as Charlie is traditionally a male name, I didn’t want to confuse anyone.  So not to worry there will be plenty of pink in her future! Back to color; So the colors in her room will be white, gray and green.  
(our paint choices)

(Side note: Adam did have a say in all of this...and it was "whatever you want, you're the designer" Smart man)
Another aspect that had been decided long ago…as in before Charlie was a stencil we found in Chicago while touring Frank Lloyd Wrights studio. (if you didn’t know, I’m an architect and FLW is kinda of a famous one) We didn’t end up buying the stencil that day, but we kept the idea in our back pocket. It was Adams idea to use the pattern and create a whole wall mural vs. stenciling a border. I loved the idea of an accent wall and he was willing to do it, so I played around with color options and came up with something we both like.
After those decisions were made, I began shopping for fabrics and furniture and putting a big picture together.  While searching for fabrics we came across two cute prints we couldn’t decide between. They were modern, but definitely child prints and Adam was in love with them both. He asked me, can we do them both?  “Of course!” I said. But then it came in multiple color options and while I loved the green there was this cotton candy pink that was tugging at my heart. So in addition to green, hot pink would be our  2nd accent color.
(our curtain fabric. Grandma will be making them since I can’t)
Since then I’ve continued internet browsing and Adam is working on getting the physical room ready.
Here is where is what the room looked like before we did anything:

Here is Adam working away after we cleaned out the space:

And here is my design board with the selected items for the room:

We’re so excited to get it complete, but even more excited to bring a little girl home to enjoy it!
Oh! And the best part, we’re keeping the double bed in that room, so if you come to visit this is your guest room! (Optional Baby in crib for no extra charge)

Original Art

I love art. And I think Adam appreciates it too.  But art is expensive-especially Original Art. So in order to fill our house with art I buy reprints or sometimes even cards of art and frame it.

Our 5x7 Clive Butcher greeting cards.

After purchasing Adam’s Photo Book, I began receiving emails from the company on more specials and deals.  A few weeks ago I received a deal I didn’t think we could pass up. They were running a special for 16x20 prints for $10 or $12 for metallic prints.

We have a blank wall in our bedroom that we had been planning on filling up with one of Adam’s photographs, so when this deal came through we jumped. 

After looking through some contenders I decided on the photograph that I have loved since the day he took it.  It’s from our trip to Amelia Island and it’s  of an old stump in a wetland. Adam agreed with my selection and I began touch ups in Photoshop to get it just right.

When we got Adam’s book the cover had this really neat pearl sheen to it, we assumed it was the metallic paper so since we loved it so much on the book, we thought it would be great for the print.

After a week or so the print arrived and I reused an existing 16x20 black frame I already had-ya free! And then I hung it up where a lone nail has been hanging out for a year or so!

I must say it looks great, so great that I really don’t want to hide it in our bedroom, but to save time doing a total rearrange of all the frames in the house, it will stay here for the time being.

The metallic paper gives it  bit of that old silver print look, but it’s not obnoxious or gaudy. I love that we are able to have some real original art in our house and I’m even more lucky that the artist lives in the house with me.

And just for comparison:

Price of an un-framed Clyde Butcher 11x14 print: $150

Total price of our new 16x20 Adam Young: $17.57. Score!

Turning over a old Leaf

Adam brought home a box of these ugly wood napkin rings when the Ice Palace was getting ready for renovations.

At first I complained that he was bringing more crap into the house, but then I figured maybe they just needed a face lift. So we put them into our overflowing extra WIC (walk in closet) and forgot about them.
That is until we decided that we were hosting thanksgiving! Recently I pulled them out and decided it was time for their makeover.  A trip to Home Depot and a can of spray paint later and we have much better napkin rings!
Hello 2011 goodbye 1993!

We decided to use Oil Rubbed Bronze, but had also considered Matte Nickel since our china has a platinum band.  I Think they look great with the napkins I made with our left over fabric from the table runner.

I was afraid the chunky wood would look too casual on our China but the paint really dressed them up they look seasonally appropriate on our china.

Oh! and that is a bread plate! not a dinner plate-they’re not napkins for giants!
Thanks Adam for brining home those free ugly wood napkin rings…I love them, now.

Playing Around

After deciding to keep a few of the fabrics they were just lying around the living room.  I would walk in and look at them, pick them up, refold them, hold them up against the back drop of the room.

And one day I decided, after spreading it out, that I would slip the black and white fabric under the glass of the table. Just to see what it would be like if I covered the entire coffee table.

And it wasn’t horrible. It wasn’t great either. But Its still there, under the glass.  Maybe I’ll try a different fabric…or maybe I’ll just be lazy for now. Ya, I think so.

Pillow Talk

We have been loving our new living room furniture! On top of some re-arranging and adding some new custom pieces I’ve been looking for fabrics to make pillows for the couch and chair.  Originally I was also going to slip cover the coffee table, but after a few weeks, I’m getting used to the table and we’re going to stick with it as is…for now.

I began my fabric search at fabric.com and found a bunch of prints I liked.  I had decided I wanted use the pillows to pull in green from the lamps and some of my pottery pieces in that room.  But I also wanted strong black and white graphic prints.  Not knowing and feeling what exactly the fabric was I ordered 8 different 1/2 yard pieces.

I Loved all these prints…but knew that I would have to choose which to use.  The 1st one-the green was off.  The 2nd one wasn’t upholstery fabric and the print was tiny.  The 3rd Was a big contender.  4th-the blue was off and it also was too light weight of a fabric-as was the middle one.  the solid green Almost made the cut, but in the end the green was just a little off.  The bottom Gray is one of my favorites-It’s a Dwell print (a fancy design catalog archidorks like me like to peruse). The last one on the bottom was the one Adam disliked the most. But it was the one that looked the best.

The print on it is large and the color blue is almost a perfect match to the walls. The green is soft and spring like and the fabric almost has a sheen to it. 

But problem is…we can’t just have one print.

I quickly tried mixing and matching and just couldn’t find two I liked together.

I also deiced that as much as I loved the Mint Julep I wanted it to go on the chair as a little lumbar pillow.  I think it helps with the fact that the chair cover is natural and not white.

So I went back to the website to see if there were any “coordinating” fabrics for our Waverly Mint Julep fabric.  Luck would have it there were some…but only one that really had the colors I was looking for.

It was perfect. It had various shades of green and some blue…but it wasn’t as graphic as I’d hoped for.

So I kept looking. 

Finally I decided on these 4 fabrics in addition to the Mint Julep.

From there I played mix and match to find what 2 I liked.

Finally after talking with Adam I threw out the the white lattice feeling that the colors were just off. And we both decided on the striped (which I’ll sew into a square) with the multi-color fabric. 

And just to be safe I ordered and 1/2 yard of the green and white I beam print…just in the off chance something doesn’t work. And Luckily Fabric.com will allow returns (with free shipping) on the fabrics I didn’t want to keep! (I kept the dwell and the black and white print)

So that’s where we are for now with the living room. Adam is busy finishing up the end tables. We had a productive and busy weekend. More on that to come.

Switcheroo

Yep, the rumors are true. We got a new couch.

And a new chair.

And a new coffee table.

The brown couch, which was originally my aunt and uncles, was replaced by a sea grass couch which was my aunt and uncles.

(While we were picking up we checked out their new sofa-I told Adam-look honey our new couch in 10 years)

Getting the furniture was an ordeal to say the least. First we don’t own a large vehicle. So we had to find a truck with a hitch to borrow. Luckily we have good friends and someone let us borrow theirs. 

Originally Adam was going to go down on Friday (his day off) and get the furniture alone. But my uncle hurt his shoulder so he couldn’t help lift-so we moved the trip to Sunday so that I could tag along.  I made a reservation for a U-Haul and we woke up early and hit the road.  We arrived at the Naples U-Haul around 10:30 am.

Then we went inside. There were two people working the counter and two groups in front of us….but we quickly realized that the place was utter chaos.  We sat and waited for an hour before we got up to the counter.  Finally she found our reservation and we met her outside to hook up the trailer.

Lights…??….breaks….???  lights…..????

uh oh.

Adam quickly realized that the towing lights had been cut in TWO places!  The U-Haul girl said they could work on it…but we’d have to wait until the line (which was now doubled!) was gone. So Adam scrounged around in their tool box and got to work.  He tried for an hour to slice and connect the lights….finally no luck.

We took a measurement of the truck bed and figured we could at least fit the chair and table in…or maybe the couch. So we turned in the trailer and headed to Home Depot  to pick up some straps.  (just to note, we first went to Wal-Mart next door but they didn’t have straps so we had to go in the opposite direction to Home Depot.)

We arrived hot, tired and hungry at my aunt and uncles house around 2pm. 5.5 hours after we left Tampa.  My aunt had made a lovely Chicken dinner with mashed potatoes Brussel sprouts and apple crisp.  It was all so good, but as much as we wanted to stay and relax we knew we had a long trip ahead.

Adam and I went out and started scoping things out…And somehow my husband fit everything into the truck bed and all the cushions in the cab!  I couldn’t believe it. It was all in the back of the truck.  We didn’t need the trailer after all! We could have saved 2.5 hours!!!

We hopped in and headed north, making it home by 6. We quickly unloaded and then loaded up our couch to take to Tara’s. Then after we dropped it off at her house we drove further south to drop off the truck at Mary’s.  By 9:30 we were finally back home enjoying a pizza on our new white couch.

It was  a long long day, but so worth it, because we love the new furniture and have some plans to make it our own.  Stay tuned…

A Productive Lunch

Adam came and had lunch with me today.  He does this whenever he isn’t working during the day-which has been more frequent lately. We try to take whatever time we have together when we can.  It makes for a nice day.

Today at lunch we talked shop. We designed a new piece of furniture…yep at lunch…and we didn’t get into one argument!  You see we have some changes going on a our house-furniture changes that is.  But there will be a post dedicated to the specific piece of furniture in our switcharoo.

In the mean time here is a peek at our new end tables. Yes there will be two. 

The top will be made of scrap walnut that Adam has at work.

The sides & drawer will be painted white with a walnut divider.

The shelves will be glass.

I’m excited and hope that this project won’t take as long as our table has (which he IS working on! We have a thanksgiving deadline!!)  And I’m sure you can guess where these are going…but if you can’t I’m not going to tell you quite yet…just cause I can

Happy Monday! Was your lunch this productive? Have you designed anything lately?

Chairs!

Well I quickly realized that our “solution” to chairs for our new table wasn’t going to work. They look good and all and will be great for when we need extra seats-but the big problem was that I felt like a little kid at the adults table. The folding chairs are too short.

Not giving up hope on finding a deal on some chairs I continued to scour Craigs List.  A few weeks ago or was it a month (?) I came across these.

He was asking $50-so I quickly emailed him to clarify that that was for four chairs and not apiece. It was! I also verified that the seat height was tall enough…and it was too! So I showed Adam. He liked the chairs and even said they reminded him of Frank Lloyd Wright! (my little Archi Husband is learning) And so that Saturday we drove out and picked them up!

As you’ve probably already concluded we had plans for these chairs.  You know that I want WHITE chairs for the new table and while the toffee finish on these was nice-it wasn’t what I was after. I was after good bones that I could modify into what I wanted. Also there were only 4 chairs and my idea was to have 6 chairs in different styles. In the meantime we’ll still use two of the folding chairs-tall people only.

To begin Adam removed the seats and took the frames outside to be painted a gloss white.  We used Rustolium spray paint after my over excited self attempted to paint them with satin paint and a brush. I quickly realized that was NOT going to work.  Back to Adams painting. Since we don’t have a yard or any “work” area he did what he could, but he said he’d have to just do the tops first-let it dry-then bring them back out to get the bottoms.  He blew through our two cans of paint in no time and we brought the half painted chairs back upstairs.

And they sat there for a good month.

In the mean time we had been to Joanne’s to find fabric we thought we’d like for the seat. White of course. Our best bet was actually some white drapery lining. We liked the fact that the back side actually had a rubbery finish and thought that would be good with spills.  The next week Joann’s had an upholster sale so I went back and purchased the 2 yards I need for $6.

While Adam was in California I attempted to remove the existing fabric on the seats…and didn’t have much luck. Those suckers were stuck down good. When Adam returned he whizzed through 3 while I barley finished one. Then we were able to re stable on the new fabric. Me pulling it tight and Adam going to town with the staple gun.

Adam was finally able to finish painting the chairs and I know he’s not as happy with his work as he’d like to be-but I think they look great! 

After they had dried a few days and we finished the seats, we (he) screwed them in place and pulled them up to the table.
I must say I like the way they look.They’re not the Modern chairs I was pining for, but for $50+ they’re good for now!

And just in time for Adams dad to come visit too.  now if only we can finish the table in time for Thanksgiving…

Here’s our breakdown:
4 chairs: $50
4 cans of paint: $24
Box of staples: $3
2 yds of fabric: $6
Grand total: $83 ($20.27/chair)
not bad!!

Before/After: