Stairs!

Progress 3

In case you don't know, these are what the current stairs look like--steep, narrow, ugly, rising to a spot with no head room to walk, and wasting a whole end of attic space.



The expanded hole in the ceiling:



Stringers, waiting to be mounted. . .



and mounted.



In order to make the new stairs less treacherous than the current ones, the upper part will cross into our bedroom ceiling a bit. I think this is a fair trade-off for the greatly-reduced likelihood of me breaking my neck AND the gaining of attic space for an extra bedroom. In the end, of course, it will be covered in drywall and such.

Progress 2

Progress

The plastic hallway from the front door to our bedroom, used to contain the dust as debris is carried out.



The new "hallway" where our back-to-back closets once were and where the new attic stairs will soon be.



The gaping hole in the former closets' ceilings, where the stairs will ascend and break the plane of the attic floor. This is exciting.

Garden Update

Sunny days and warm temperatures have done wonders for my plants. These pictures are from earlier in the week, so there is even more growth now!

Beans:



Morning Glories:



Strawberries:



First Harvest!

A Vast Improvement

My in-laws have devoted both Saturdays of their visit (as well as a good bit of in-between time) to beautifying our front yard. I'm quite pleased with the result.

It's dark and hard to see, but this is how the front looked when we moved in. . .and how it continued to look until this week. The front beds are established grass and weeds, and the yard (which you can't see at all) is all grass.



New and Improved:



The robins aren't complaining, as you can see. The small front beds are flowers, and my plan is to fill them with a succession of blooming perennials: daffodils, tiger lilies, Gerbera daisies, mums. For now I just have daisies, a few annuals for the summer, and some larkspur seed that I'm hoping will sprout. The back beds have strawberry plants and herbs, and I planted a row of green and wax beans along the back. Next year, I'm hoping to put up a trellis for beans to climb and long window boxes under the big windows for my herbs. Then the front of the beds can be (hopefully!) covered in strawberries!




And I'm back in the tomato game. . .hoping the pots will keep my awful soil fungi away!

Faucets and Fish

Our kitchen faucet sprang a spray-leak in the neck quite some time ago. As there are quite a few things to be done around here and it was not a priority, we (of course) duct-taped it. When my sprayer quit working reliably, however, I drew the line. Not certain what we wanted in the way of a new kitchen faucet for our years-down-the-road remodeled cooking area, we decided just to get an inexpensive, decent faucet. We selected a nice Delta chrome thing--nothing fancy, but quite serviceable. Imagine my glee when, walking past the Clearance Endcap (where I've dutifully checked for a lovable faucet for months), I found The Faucet! For the same price as the Delta chrome thing! And also from a trustworthy brand!

Kevin and Jim kindly installed it yesterday, and I'm in dish-washing bliss. Or at least as near to that as exists.



In other exciting news, Carolyn received an aquarium from her grandparents for Christmas, and we bought fish for it. Little did we know our gold Balloon Molly (who declined to be photographed) was a soon-to-be mommy.

Currently, we have 8 living--painstakingly rescued in our make-shift nursery until we make it back to the pet store. The all-knowing Internet says mollies give birth in numbers ranging from 12 to 100. I've seen a half-dozen dead already, so hopefully we're done. We really can't keep all these fish, anyway. Anybody want a molly?

The pictures aren't stellar, but. . .well, it's difficult to capture tiny moving fish through glass and water.

All Rolled Into One

My apologies for the dearth of posting these past 2 weeks. Things have been rather busy here, and most days I feel like I'm chasing my own tail (or, as my mother would say, running around like a chicken with its head chopped off. I assume you have to have seen that to truly appreciate it.). At any rate, to the detriment of my categorical links, I'm going to post one grand update of everything, starting with the house.

All the Trimmings

Our bedroom now has trim! It's been stripped of its lead paint, sanded smooth and smoother, then stained a lovely color similar to that of our floors. I can't even begin to tell you how beautiful, warm, and rich our room feels now. Hopefully, by this time next week, we'll have a ceiling fan in there, too. I'm going to love this house when we get finished!

Ensconced

The living room now has light! Our friend and house-guru Jim (who also helped with the trim and. . .well, pretty much everything that's been done at all) came over one night last week, and he and Kevin installed light fixtures in the living room. The sconces match our dining room piece, and I'm really pleased with the resulting light. It's bright enough to be adequate for reading or handwork, but muted enough to be warm and comfortable. I suspect we will now go through light bulbs not quite so quickly, since we won't need to use the 5-light dining room fixture for all of our evening light!

Carolyn's Menu

Now almost 9 months old, Carolyn's menu options have expanded. You might be surprised at some of the things she likes.

• rice
• oatmeal w/applesauce
• sweet potatoes
• avocado
• carrot
• lemons
• limes
• raw celery sticks
• dill pickle
• peaches
• pears
• bananas

I may have forgotten a couple things. She also likes to chomp on SnapPeas, a baked snack from Trader Joe's. If you've seen the veggie sticks that masquerade as a potato chip substitute, these are similar. Or, think puffy cheetos, but green and tastes like peas. Oddly enough, Carolyn has no affinity for real pureed peas. . .just the crunchy, baked ones. Perhaps it's the shells that never really puree that trip her up.

Crawling!

We have a bona fide creeper on our hands now. Yesterday, she had great fun exploring every corner of the living room. . .and finding lots of cords she wasn't allowed to chew on. Over the past couple weeks, she's been into a lot of things:

Tupperware (okay, so I gave her the Tupperware to play with. It's one of the great things about it!)

Straps--ALWAYS straps!

Magazines

A Little History

This dress was made for me--a few years ago, of course. The fabric for the skirt came from the dress my grandma wore to my aunt and uncle's wedding. See? (I think I told some of you it was from the dress she wore to my parents' wedding. But I wasn't there, you know? I was misinformed!)

At the Park

We made our first trip to the park with friends a couple weeks ago (well, first that Carolyn cares about, anyway). She was not too thrilled with the swings--she's not quite big enough to feel secure in it, I think. The slide, though, got lots of smiles. At first, she wasn't sure. But soon, I set her at the top and waited half way down while she rocked herself forward enough to slide down, with a big grin! We certainly tired her out--it's the first time she's been sleepy enough to fall asleep in the stroller. Usually, she's too interested in what is around us.

Memorial Day Camping

We braved the church retreat this past weekend at the pastor's cabin in New York. It was fun, and Carolyn did really well--except for when we tried to sleep in the tent. She loved the tent, of course. Especially when the thunder storm came up. She was all giggles and squeals of excitement. But the sleeping didn't go so well. Either the noises of the mats on tent canvas, the unfamiliarity, or the general mugginess made for a miserable and fitful few hours of pseudo-sleep before we decided to move back inside. Oh well. . .we'll try again, perhaps when a thunderstorm doesn't necessitate using the fly and trapping in all that muggy moisture.

That's A Wrap!

And that about catches you up. In between all of that, Kevin's parents came for a visit, we bought a crib and matching dresser for Carolyn, I sold the bassinet and furniture we previously bought for Carolyn on craigslist, Aunt Rebecca has been in and out, the weather has been cold, cool, warm, hot, rainy, and all of those again, and I've been generally trying to keep up. We have some videos, too. . .but, really, I think this post is about long enough.

*Edited 9/10/09

Naked No More

Our living room and dining room windows are finally dressed!



It's hard to tell, but these have a fine navy, periwinkle, gold, brown stripe pattern.




AND, the powder room finally has a lovely antique mirror:

Pictures After Dark!

One of the men from church spent a few hours yesterday afternoon rectifying the electrical issues and finishing the hook-up process, so we have power in the whole house now! Consequently, Kevin was able to install the ceiling fan and light fixture in Baby's room last night, and I was able to get my first view of our gorgeous hall sconce, lit.

Baby's room now has some furniture in it. Yes, I know there is no crib as of yet--we have the bassinet in our room for the first few months, so we opted to wait. But here are the dressers and the futon with its new cover, where the many visitors over the next few months will be sleeping.





And, of course, the hall light:

Curtains and Carpet

Today, carpet was installed in Baby's room, and Kevin temporarily hung the curtains on spring rods to provide privacy and light control until all the trim is back and we can put up real curtain rods. Unfortunately, he hung the curtains while I was cooking dinner, and then it was too dark to get a good room-wide picture. . .there's still a minor glitch with the electrical work in that section, so no lights yet. Nevertheless, here is one picture of me holding up the lovely curtain, with the painted walls and a smidge of carpet. And there's another picture of the wall and a bigger smidge of carpet--it looks almost black, but it's actually a very dark green. It wasn't actually on our color list, but we got a great deal on a remnant piece. So we took it. (It's thick, expensive carpet.) And we think it looks nice.

Still Working

Today, Baby's room lost its white walls. Here are a couple pictures:




Also, Baby's quilt received its binding and is complete. Here's a final picture of the finished project, front and back. The stitching on the back isn't quite straight, but it does look pretty neat, if I may say so.

Running Water and Curtains

Proof--the new sink now has running water and a working drain! After tomorrow, we might even have a working toilet. . . .



This is what it looks like now from the hall. Don't be deceived--the toilet is in place and looks grand, but is not quite usable yet.



Here we're deciding on fabric for the bathroom curtain. This is the one we opted for. Note how nicely the other possibilities draped over Kevin's shoulder. :-)