On September 1, 2019 we welcomed baby Jack Emmett into the world. He was 11 weeks as of yesterday and he is the sweetest, happiest, most handsome guy. We are all doing well, and just adjusting to being a family of 5.
David took 4 weeks off in September went back to work for 6 and is now off again for 6. Since I’m done “recovering”, he is going to spend a ton of time on house projects. Yay!
Until then, here’s some pictures of our new love.
Thank you Jessie Hearn Photography for capturing!
That was fast!! I told you all how efficient these painters are. They were in and out of our house so quick, and their work looks like they spent a month on it. So worth the delay and hassle.
Since the ceiling is so low, we thought that Benjamin Moore Chantilly Lace would be the perfect color to brighten up the space. We went with Benjamin Moore Newburyport Blue for an accent wall behind the bar and builtins. We couldn’t be happier with how it turned out. The basement looks like it comes from a completely different house, it’s crazy how much paint can do to a room.
Now that the paint is done, we are so excited to organize and decorate so that the kids have a clean, safe, and open place to play.
Even with the week long delay, our painters are efficient and seriously do the best job. It makes sense why they are so busy and always delayed, everybody out here wants to use them!!
They arrived at 8am last week and left before 4. They got so much done their first day from patching all of the holes, repairing drywall, and painting the ceiling. I think when David walked through to see the progress, there was a huge sigh of relief that he decided against painting this himself. It is a ton of work, but this makes me even more excited to see how it looks primed and painted.
Why is it that David and I will discuss holding off on a project because it is not a priority, and then all of a sudden we cave and start the project as if it is top priority? Does this even make sense? I do tend to ramble these days.
Well, the bathroom in our basement is a perfect example of this. Even though the basement is so not the way we would choose to do it if we were designing it ourselves, we are so lucky that we moved in to a house with a finished basement that included a full bathroom. The bathroom had an ugly dated vanity, and the shower tiles and hardware/ fixtures are so ugly, but it served it’s purpose when we had guests come to town. Redoing the bathroom down there was never really even a discussion. Every once in a while we would talk about retiling the shower, but that was the extent of it.
Once the date got closer to the basement being painted, David started looking up different vanities that might work in that small space. His logic was that if they are already in there and painting, shouldn’t we just have the bathroom done the way we want. I mean, yes we should. It definitely makes sense to have a pretty new vanity to go with the pretty paint, and if we waited to put in the vanity that meant David would for sure have to do some patching and painting on his own eventually. So, why not just get it out of the way. We chose a vanity that was simple, inexpensive, and worked in the small space, but while we were debating which vanity to order, David thought- why not get a new toilet while we are at it. So, we now have a new vanity and new toilet, and an ugly blue tiled shower. We both agreed that we would wait on the shower. With the bathroom being painted, the tile won’t look as bad, but it will definitely be replaced someday soon. Maybe during David’s paternity leave.
I’m really happy with how it is looking, and once the paint is finished we can order a cool mirror, light, and replace all of the hardware that is in there.
Ahhh! So so sorry I have been MIA. Between Eli, Dax, and I, we have all been extremely sick. Too sick to really even function. We all had different things ranging from tonsillitis, bronchitis, ear infections, asthma, sinus infections, fevers, croup, pneumonia scares, broken bones, etc. It also doesn’t help that I am 38 weeks pregnant and feel like I am a 90 year old who isn’t able to take care of themself!
David has been as helpful as he possibly could be despite working full time, and he’s done as much as he could with the house in between taking care of all of us.
I have a few progress updates I hope to share before this baby arrives!
Remember when I mentioned that David agreed to hire out the basement? It took some convincing for sure, but he finally agreed to it and that’s all that matters at the end of the day.
The painters scheduled us for August 14 to start the project. We had so much prepping to do. We needed to remove all of the shelving, book cases, wall cubes, etc. from the walls and put it all in the middle of the basement. We also had to gather all of the kids’ toys, trucks, vehicles, trampolines, and everything else in the middle as well. David needed to finish some moldings, the bar he started months ago, and he decided to replace the bathroom vanity- but we will touch on that later.
On August 13, David reached out to the painter since we haven’t heard from him for a while. He wanted to give him the paint colors we decided on, and ask for an ETA since we had a lot going on that day. We didn’t hear back from him. The next morning, still no word. David reached out 2 times, nothing. I was telling a friend about it who uses him often, and she said he is really bad at returning messages but always shows up around 9:30. 9:30 rolls around, no show. 10:00, nothing. David finally decided to call and sure enough the painter told him he was delayed and would need to come back the next week. That was that.
Not only was there tons of prep work David rushed to do, but the kids also lost their main play space, and it was just one more week we couldn’t get the basement ready before the baby gets here! But, what can we do?!
Let’s fast forward to Sunday night. David reaches out again, asking when they were planning on showing up this week. We wanted to plan our week around it. No response. Hours later we hear back, and the painter says “Can we reschedule to September 20?”
First of all, no, no we can’t reschedule to September 20. We were both livid, but we also thought maybe he meant August 20th. Doubtful, but it’s always good to give somebody the benefit of the doubt, right? David wanted to respond with something rude, but I told him to breathe and give himself a little time before responding. He decided to go with “I’m sorry, did you mean August 20? September won’t work as we are having a baby next week” Well, that worked out well. He got an instant response with “we will see you Wednesday” Hallelujah!
So, on Wednesday they started the basement and all we need is for this baby to stay put for at least one more week!
Not knowing the baby’s gender this time around has been a lot tougher than I anticipated. When I was pregnant with Eli, we knew we wanted a gray and white nursery. Â We purchased a white crib and everything else was easy to buy regardless of gender. Â We knew Dax was going to be a boy, so that took care of all of our furniture worries for him. Â Since this is most likely our last baby, we decided keep the gender a surprise. Â We enjoyed the experience and the surprise more with Eli than we did knowing Dax was a boy(sorry Dax). The only problem this time around, is if our last baby happens to be a girl, I want some pink in that nursery.
We decided to keep the room black, white, gold, and pink if it is a girl, and make it black white and gold if it is a boy. Â Since we don’t want to wait until the baby is born to order all of the furniture, we thought it would be a good idea to paint Eli’s perfectly good crib that he used when he was a baby. Â I love the crib, and it is in pretty good shape. Â We decided on a pink that we loved for the walls, and David painted the crib the same color. Â We went with Benjamin Moore Gentle Butterfly. Â I am not into girly things, so this color is perfect because it is not too pink. Â The crib turned out gorgeous and will look so good in this room once the walls are painted pink!
Now, if it is a boy, we decided to purchase a whole new crib all together. Â Since Eli’s was white, and Dax’s is black and white, we went with an all black crib. It’s actually the same crib as Eli’s. Â We figured that it is inexpensive enough to just return it once the baby comes if it is a girl, and if it is a boy, it’s here and ready to go!
We are getting closer and closer to meet this baby, and we can’t wait to see if it is a he or she!
One thing that we never replaced in Dax’s nursery (aka new baby’s nursery) was the closet system. It seemed to have been really old and the shelves were not the most functional. David painted it to make it look a little nicer, but it still was annoying to have to use the closet. We decided to replace the closet system for new baby- sorry Dax!
We went with something really basic and clean looking since we have a huge dresser on it’s way, and kid’s clothes are so small. Plus, there really wasn’t much more we could do with the space than some shelving, drawers, and hanging space.
All that is left to do with the closet is hang the doors, add the hardware, and most importantly…wash the baby clothes and get them organized!
This is really embarrassing, but also really typical. As we moved Dax into his big boy room, I realized that we never finished his beautiful nursery to begin with. I couldn’t be more annoyed that this poor child was living in an unfinished room for his entire first 2 years of life, but all we could do is make sure that this next baby has a beautiful, perfect, completed room to be born into!
Here is a little refresher of what the nursery looked like when Dax lived in this room. It seriously was my favorite room of the house and made me so sad to have to move him out of it. Logistically, it just makes sense for the baby to be in this room though, and once we moved Dax into his new room and realized that it didn’t fit a glider, we couldn’t have been more pleased with our decision.
Since we don’t know the gender of this baby, it makes it a little difficult to decorate. I have a set vision if it were a boy, and a set vision if it is a girl. With Eli and Dax I wanted something very gender neutral so it made it pretty easy. This is the first time we aren’t moving right before I go into labor, so I want to be as settled as I possibly can and that means making decisions for the room if the baby is a girl, and making decisions if it is a boy. We picked two paint colors and we decided to paint Eli’s old crib assuming it’s a girl, and we purchased a new crib that is returnable assuming it is a boy. That way, when the baby is born, we don’t need to decide on paint colors, or wait 8 weeks for a darn crib to come. We ordered a gender neutral book case and dresser as well which helped with my stress level. It literally took me weeks to make a decision on these two pieces of furniture.
As we emptied the room out to move everything into Dax’s new room, there was a lot more we noticed that was unfinished than we originally anticipated. So, now that we have our paint colors decided, it is time to prep these walls, and complete some other items that never got checked off of our list.
You guys, I have been trying to get David to clean out our garage for months. It is a complete mess, it’s really unsafe, and I imagine it’s probably a fire hazard as well. There was/is so much to be done with the house, that the garage just hasn’t been a priority. It really should be though, since our kids are in there a million times a day getting in and out of the car, and I can trip on everything and anything which isn’t great for a big ole pregnant lady.
David’s usual excuse for not working on the garage (rather than the fact he has 1983298397493849384 other things going on) is that it will take an entire day to take everything out, go through it, and then re organize back into the garage. I guess I agree with the fact that if you are going to take everything out, you might as well go through everything before putting it all back in. So, he has been working on every other project except this and I totally understand why, even if it bugs me.
A couple of weeks ago, our neighbor asked me if we could store all of her kids’ vehicles in our garage because they are redoing theirs. First off, no fair!!! Second, how could I say “no, ours is used as a landfill and we have no room”? She gave me almost a months notice, so I told her that it was no problem and we would be happy to let them store their junk with our junk.
I informed David of our neighborly plan, he wasn’t thrilled but I couldn’t go back on my word, so this forced him to somewhat organize the garage. He spent the good half of Saturday in there and I have to say I am more than impressed. You can walk in there, breathe in there, and now we don’t have to be embarrassed every time we open our garage. There still is a lot to be done (organize the entire back of the garage, paint, redo the floors), but for now this is perfect and its a huge sigh of relief. Thanks David, I mean neighbors who forced this project on him.
Happy Monday!!
The previous owners left us a nice pool table in our basement when we purchased the house from them. At the time we thought that was the coolest thing ever. What more could David and the boys want? Plus, pool tables aren’t cheap, so this would eventually save us thousands of dollars. Was it the look we are going for? Absolutely not, but it is hidden in the basement so who really cares?
The longer we have lived here, the more we change our minds about whether or not to keep the pool table. It takes up so much room in the basement and the kids would have a ton more room to run and play with it being gone. Some days we are like let’s get rid of it and some days we know it makes sense to keep it. However, who knows if we will even want to be in this house by the time the boys are old enough to use it.
As we are getting ready for our basement to be done, we realized it’s best if we got rid of the table…for good. If we are still in this house long enough for the boys to want one, we can buy another one when they are ready. Right now they aren’t, and they deserve the proper place to play.
Of course now the ideas are flowing on what we can do with all of the space, but I think we will be much happier with not only the basement, but the entire house with this new plan.
Just One More House 