nesting

My goal was to get this post out by January 8, 2010, but Lydia’s nursery wasn’t quite finished until now.

No theme, just the colors and motifs that we liked.

An advantage to not finishing the room until after Lydia’s birth: we can have pictures of her up on the wall :)

The glider was a hand-me-down from Lydia’s cousins. I recovered it with a neutral off-white fabric that can be removed for laundering. Turns out, it hides spit-up stains perfectly!

Lots of books we’ve begun cracking open lately…

Her first personalized gift… a cute Noah’s Ark piggy bank!

I found this cute butterfly fabric on clearance last fall and made some pillows over Christmas break.

We were planning on painting a cute little design over her crib, but when January rolled around and nothing was done, we decided to buy this stick-on wall decal from an etsy shop.

Can you tell what I’ve been working on lately…?! ;)

Actually great news- Lydia slept through the night last night!! From 9pm till 5am we didn’t hear a peep from her! We’ll see if that was just a fluke or if she can keep that going from now on…!?

MGB owners!

A friend of Adam's coworker was looking to get rid a “project car” he had sitting around. When Adam found out about it, he was more than willing to take off his hands!

So we are now the (blessed?) owners of a free 1974 MGB roadster!

Since it’s not currently running, it was quite a task transporting it to our garage. Here Peter and Adam are working on backing it into the garage. The front right tire went flat during the move which made it much harder to maneuver (but pretty fun for me to watch from our bedroom!)

As you can see it needs A LOT of work- both inside and out. This would be a pretty intimidating task for me, but Adam is THRILLED about it! He is totally up for the challenge and I know he’ll have so much fun working on it!

Despite the body damage, you can tell it’s going to be a really cute two-seater convertible someday!! (Sorry baby Hunter- no car seats here!)

David, Hannah, and Micah had some fun playing in it. Adam heard David call it an “ugly” car- hehe :) Oh well. It’ll just make the total transformation even more impressive someday when it’s finished- and I’m sure David will be begging to borrow by then :)

Adam is contemplating starting his own blog about this exciting project- don’t you think he should!?!

Good luck, hun! I’m behind you all the way!

Just one request- can we install an intercom between our unit and the garage for when I need help with the baby!? ;)

making room

In order to start making room for our little girl to enter our world (and our condo), we decided to find a bookcase to store all our books, magazines, college textbooks, notes, albums and craft supplies And believe it or not, we did it!

We got his huge bookcase from IKEA and we put behind the couch. It puts it out of the way and only pushed things into the living room by a couple extra inches. Adam built a bench to put it on so it has even more store behind the couch for things we don’t often use. (Don't worry, it’s secured well to the wall and it not going anywhere!)

I’ve finished some sewing projects: I finally made curtains for the living room windows…

and some pillows to match.

If you’re wondering what Adam is reading… he got a Kindle for his birthday last month! It’s a small and VERY thin reading device that looks just like a real book page.

It’s really cool- so compact and lightweight! Perfect for taking on the train and on long trips and he can store thousands of books on it. I wish they had these when I was in college so I didn’t have to lug all those books around!

Well- I’m off to make the weekend to-do list which will include finishing the last 3% of the bathroom (hopefully??), and then moving on to plan out the nursery!! Yay!!

making progress

It's starting to look like a bathroom!!



After installing new insulation in the outer walls, we put up drywall and cement board around the shower.



Then we had to mud/Spackle all the joints. Peter came over and helped us for a while.



And Erica and the kids came to hang out for a quick lunch/guitar hero :)



Thanks again, Hangs, for all your help!!! You guys are the best!



Soooo many decisions to make about colors and tile...



The day we were going to start tiling (Wednesday) we realized we were WAY short on tile, so we had to wait till Friday to get more in. Finally, this past Saturday we started in on tiling. Once we got up about halfway, we realized the accent pieces we picked out did not go at all with the wall tile! So back to home depot we went to pick out more. (The problem was the tile we ordered has some variation in color from what we picked out in the store...)

Here's Adam cutting tile in the snow on Sunday!! It's a wet, yucky, and dangerous job, but he's doing great!



While he measured and cut tile, mixed mortar, and made dozens of trips up and down two flights of stairs, I was upstairs spreading mortar and laying the tile. Here's a sneak peek of it:



The wall tile is almost done, we'll just need to finish the shelf and grout. Then, we move on to the floor tile.



It's coming along slowly but surely! Our goal now is to finish before the warmer weather of spring/summer arrives for good!! (We got snow this past week, so we're doing ok!) ;)

demolished.

It's been a while... but we've been hard at work on the bathroom.

The last shot you saw was of the awful tile in the shower that did not want to come out. Well, instead of fighting it, we decided to take the entire wall out!





Because the wall was cement/plaster/wire mesh, Adam had to use his angle grinder to cut through it. Using it made a HUGE dust cloud with basically 0.0 inch visibility that was no fun. Poor Adam came out every time covered in dust head to toe. This is him going in...



Next, we discovered that our lovely pink tub was CAST IRON!! So Adam took a 16lb sledgehammer to it one night and we both carried it out in 2 hefty pieces.





The toilet is gone and now we're completely finished with demolition which is a great feeling.



Since then, Adam has been perfecting his plumbing skills and entirely re-plumbed the sink and shower.





Under the tub was a uneven mess of wood and cement so we had to experiment with some filler products. FYI, "self-leveling" is the way to go!! (We figured that out after 3 trips to home depot and 4 to menards.)



Just this weekend Adam started framing a shower niche, putting up drywall and test fitting the tub. I wasn't much help- I have a big proposal due on Wednesday so it was a working weekend for me :(



YAY for drywall! (this is where the recessed medicine cabinet will go)



We're getting there...
Our goal is to be finished by April 8th. Think we can do it??

in demolition...

We dove into remodeling our bathroom a couple weekends ago!







And boy what a tough project it is- quite possibly worse than the kitchen! We are still in demolition phase and this is why...




(This was the only the progress we made ALL last weekend!)



The tile on the walls around the tub was NOT meant to be taken off!! The tiles are set in mortar on plaster walls which has this metal mesh built into it meaning it is nearly impossible to tear it out!

But we are trudging along one chip at a time and building fabulous arm muscles!

Here are a few photos that are serving as our inspiration for how our new bathroom will look eventually. (I look at them daily to remind myself why we're doing this to ourselves!!)


[This Old House]


[This Old House]



[BHG]

That's all for now. We'll keep you posted on our progress!

preserving memories

Adam's Grandpa Bond passed away in June of 2006. Adam was his oldest grandchild, and the two were very close. It was a tough thing to go through for Adam, his Grandma and the whole family.

For the funeral service, Adam's sister, Amy, and I made a few posters of pictures throughout Grandpa's life. Last year, I decided to take those photos and make them into an album for Grandma. Here's how it turned out.













By the time I graduated college, all my grandparents had passed away. Though I still have many fond memories of them, I wish I took more advantage of the times I had with each of them. When Adam and I got married, I gained four more and I've been cherishing them ever since.





This is the first album I've ever made for someone else, and I think I probably enjoyed making it the most. Even though it was tough at times (since I decided not to cut or alter the original photos in any way), I found myself always smiling and thinking of both our families. It was a blessing for me to reflect on the lives of such amazing people and to be continually reminded of the powerful ways God works in our lives throughout the years.

Here's some friends and me at a scrapbooking weekend back in November where most of it got done!