Counters and Backsplash.

We got lots done. Never enough though. But what we did looks gooooooood.

A bathroom fan. Important for stopping mildew and mold. Holmes would be proud. I'm sure of it. It's a pretty cool fan. Well actually the fan has been hooked up for a while, but it didn't have a switch. So I found some instructions and my dads hooked it up for me. You don't just turn it on. And by that I mean you don't just turn it on. When you turn it on you actually get to push a button - 2, 5, 10 or 15 minutes. How lovely. It just turns off after its time is up. Wonderful.

Dad also moved the plug for the microwave. And then Josh put a hole in the wall and we put the microwave up. Yay. A microwave. You don't realize how much you use one until you don't have one. And it's a lot. Heating stuff on or in the stove isn't always as tastey as it would be if it was just warmed up, instead of re-baked or fried. We did get good at not having a microwave. But now I don't have to be good at it anymore.

Next stop drier. 

I like hanging clothes on the line. I really do. But it's been raining a lot. And that means I should have done laundry earlier today, when it finally wasn't raining. But I didn't get it done in time, and now it's 10:00 in the evening and the laundry is still trying to dry out there. Now it's supposed to rain tonight. Blow, wind, blow! We also have clothes hanging all over the kitchen because there wasn't enough room on the line for two loads of clothing. Worst case scenario, it gets wet again. No biggie.

Counters and backsplash! Counters and backsplash! They're in. Almost. Well the counters are!! Yay. And most of the tile! Double yay. Totem only had 117 tiles. I needed 164. Thus, the tile is incomplete. And not grouted, because we need to wait until (1) it sets and (2) we put the rest of it up. But what is in looks great! I was worried about the counters, I'm not going to lie. I wanted them white, white. But the rock we used in mixing up the concrete was grey, and we thought it wouldn't show through. Then Josh grinded (is that really not a word?) it down. And the grey rock did show. I was sad. I thought it looked dirty. And it wasn't white, white. Thus, sad. 

Curtis came over today and Josh and him got the work out of a life time moving it in. Apparently 25.5 x 87 x 1.5 inches of cement is heavy. Really heavy. Really, really heavy. But I called them "muscles" so they got it in. And it looks really good! I'm so happy.

 Ignore the unfinished top row. Remember it was Totem's fault. Kind of looks like a real kitchen, doesn't it?!

 You can see my laundry drying. The cupboard knobs work really well for Caed's clothes. The prefect size.

 I snuck in a picture of Caed and Grandpa going to dig up the ant hill.

 I have under the counter lights (Go Dad!!!) That's what the wires under the cupboard is.

 Josh taking over the tiling while I took pictures.

My counter!!

I Never Told You What I Chose Because of You

So a while back, quite long back, I took a vote. I asked what I should do for bedroom light fixtures- pretty lights or ceiling fans. Ceiling fans won! I was actually a little bit sad. Practical didn't seem like as much fun. Sometimes when I'm on the Ikea website I'm still a little sad. I had great lights picked out. But the ceiling fans are in. And they are wonderful!!!! I don't know how we would sleep without them. Not only do they do their actual job really, really well- it feels great having the cool air blowing on you while you're sleeping. But they also work really well as white noise. Which is great when we put Caed to bed. Which is also great when I go to bed. (Recall that we live near the highway. When we're awake you don't notice it. When it's six in the morning and people with fast, noisy cars are trying to get to work *cough* my little brother *cough* * at 630 in the morning and I still have an hour and a half of sleep, the highway noise is noticed.)

Speaking of light fixtures, people have mentioned liking them, but no one has said anything along the lines of "hey, woman, do you realize that you have 5 different types of light fixtures that I can see while sitting in this one chair?" That's right, no one cares! 

Hmm. What else can I tell you? Caed's room is almost completely put together. A wonderful improvement from last post. We just need to fix the shower so we can finish his closet. Then the costco sized diaper and wipes boxes can go in there. And he can hang his clothes in his closet instead of mine. Yay.

And the dresser refinishing went well. I didn't take a before picture, so I wasn't sure about the impact of an after.

Never, never, never choose to put in dark hardwood. I mean you can do what you want, I'm just saying. But it never, never, never looks clean. Well that's not true. It looked clean for like an hour, before Josh got home, while Caed was sleeping. So that was worth the crawling around on hands and knees giving them a good scrub. But it really was. It felt really good to get it really actually clean. Although I do still like my swiffer and its wet pads.

*Sorry Josh, I know it's not you driving to work in your car. I feel bad enough about blaming you that I recognize that, not bad enough that I will delete it. You are being lumped in with the rest of sports car owning people. Yes, yes you are.

Cutting the hair of a squirmy baby. There must be a lesson there.

I gave my Caed a hair cut today. He needed it. He was looking all scgraggaly and unloved. It is REALLY hard to cut his hair. He's a squirm monster. Constantly moving. And then you try to grab some hair to snip and he yanks his head away. But we went outside with an empty drinking box (do not ask me why this was so exciting) and some hair cutting scissors and sat down. He let me cut the very top of his head while he fake drank his invisible juice. 

That was enough of that and I was left with a mulletish (everyone pretend that's a word) son. Trying to be like daddy?

Long story short, we got it cut little by little while he picked new things to play with in the backyard. I'm glad he has curly hair, it hides the hack job that are the hair cuts he receives. It's also super cute when it actually decides to curl and not just 'flap' (flip up?). 

The house feels more home-like everyday. I finally threw all the tools that were on my island into a box and tossed the box into the pantry. So. Much. Better. The entire house feels less cluttered and more livable, thus giving me this luxurious, non-guilty feeling like I don't have to be constantly cleaning, renovating and unpacking. I can blog again! Play with Caed again! Have some pure cuddle time. As in not I'll cuddle with you for 2 minutes and then I have to get back to *insert any one of a long list of "to-do's"*. How nice. 

DO NOT BE DECEIVED! It is still a bit of a disaster! Caed's room is an night-mare. The once almost put together room has become a pile of clothes, furniture and toys... 

My granny and papa moved. Downsized to a condo. We got some really nice things from them including a dresser. It's wonderful! I'm refinishing and putting new hardware on it. Once done, it will be Caed's dresser and hopefully start to fix the tornado. Also, his closet is the source of the infamous and still leaky shower... so I can't hang anything in there. So, so sad.

It will happen. My dad came over last night, and between the three of us working hard and taking turns entertaining Caed we crossed off many things on the never-ending list of things that need to get done. The list is seeming less and less daunting everyday. 

Speaking of the list.....

We Moved Into Our House

Tuesday most everything went into our house. It was raining though, so we stayed one more night at mom and dad's. I wasn't keen on sleeping on a wet mattress.  

Wednesday. We moved the mattress in the rain.

It didn't really get wet. Which was good. I think I would have been grumpy.

So we have been living here, at our house. We have gotten lots done. Sometimes it looks kind of clean. Most of the time it was a disaster. But that's fine. Sometimes. 

We have wieners for supper a lot. Because it's so nice to have a backyard and a fire pit. 

Darci came over on Friday. She painted my side door with coat number 2 of purple. It looks so good. So, so good. And then she chalked my wall. It looks wonderful. I also hung up a bunch of stuff. It looks nice, plus it gets it off my floor, which is also really nice. I like things to be clean. And look nice.

Josh built built-ins in our closet. It. Is. Amazing. I really, really wish I had a before picture of our room. I don't. You can kind of see a little bit of the mess in the first picture below. But it just doesn't do it justice. It was a huge mess. Huge. But now it looks great. So great. And tidy. And there is storage in our house! Yay!!

The washing machine now works! We can clean things. How lovely. So I did a bunch of laundry tonight, and hung it on the line. The really, really high clothes line, that I have to stand on a ladder to hang things on it. Must have been a thing way back when. Did they have a platform? Because it's not all that great without one. But it will do what it's supposed to. And because I don't have a drier that works right now it will have to. Plus the laundry will smell better.

The shower kind of works. I mean we have to run down and turn the water on and then run down after and turn the water off. Not exactly ideal. But we can clean ourselves. So that seems worth it. It would be nice if we could all bathe in the sink.

I installed hardware on my cupboards. Just on the doors first. I didn't get to the drawers. Which is super inconvenient because they're really hard to open. But we'll get to it. I picked out handles so I need two screws placed at an exact distance. And I failed at the first one, so I gave up for tonight. Tomorrow is another day.

Josh also installed the fan in Caed's room. Now we can turn it on and have a little white noise for the baby to sleep to. Sleep in your crib baby. Do it! Do it! It has a remote. Which is kind of cool and kind of scary. Cool, well, because it has a remote and no strings. Scary because, lets face it, remotes tend to get lost. That happens to other people right?!

I don't know what else to tell you. You can come see if you want. :)

Did I mention that we're actually living in our house?