Yikes! How is it almost Christmas already? I posted that last post on Halloween, like, sometime last week ;) The new house has been
consuming every spare moment of free time keeping us quite busy, but I have to say our hard work is paying off. I took all of last week off from my real job, which gave me 9 solid days of working on the house, all day everyday. Next week we will be in Tennessee staying with my parents for Christmas so we will both have a much needed break from all this work! Here are some photos of our progress so far:
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| corner of the guest bath where 1960's vanity once lived (it was actually a sink in the guest bedroom, and the toilet/shower is in a separate area to the right. people in the 60's did some weird things!) |
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| Erik building new walls in guest room, creating a new bathroom, linen closet and large walk-in closet around where the old vanity once sat. |
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| Walls (partially) built. Actually this is now complete - mudded, primed and painted but all these photos came from Erik's iPhone and I can't seem to find a more recent one... |
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| I can build work tables.... Or at least pretend... This is in the master bedroom aka "upstairs workroom!" |
New master bath shower that Erik is in the process of building. It started as a tiny square fiberglass shower stall. He knocked out the back wall, extending it into the bedroom. Then he built new walls and moved the plumbing. The photo on the left is the poured "bed" of the shower and on the right is the floor tile just after it was installed.
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| Wood-look floor tile for the master bath. Still needs grout. I am so in love with this tile... |
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| Step by step plug installation by yours truly. I also spent a lot of time changing out plugs and switches last week, and only received two electrical shocks, yay. Also, I am the only person I know of that wears self-crocheted ear warmers while doing electrical work. What can I say, I was cold! |
There are no pictures of it for some reason, but I spent the majority of my time priming and painting the upstairs bedrooms. I only have the master bed/bath and hallways to go, then I can start working downstairs. Almost halfway done!! At the start of this project we thought we might be done in January... Then it became February... Now our projected move in month is March. I think this is a pretty realistic goal, but we will see how things go when we start the projects downstairs, which includes the kitchen and a another complete bathroom renovation...
In other news, I found out last week that I was accepted for a fertility study which I had inquired about a few weeks back. I had actually wanted to participate in it last spring when we first started trying to get pregnant, but I was not yet 30 years old. This time around, I meet all the criteria so I can join the study. I have a couple reasons for wanting to participate in it. First, I have actually always wanted to join a study, and the idea of being a part of research is pretty cool. Second, the study program provides you with up to 60 free pregnancy tests during the course of the study. You already know: a.) how expensive those things are and b.) how much I like free things... And finally, probably the most attractive part of it, is that once you become pregnant, they perform (also at no charge) an early ultrasound around 7 weeks. I went back and forth on whether or not this was a good idea, but given what happened last time, I decided this would be good for peace of mind. I know the beginning of the next pregnancy will be full of anxiety as I wait to pass the 10 week mark, and knowing at 7 weeks that things are all good (hopefully), will hopefully alleviate some stress.
So we were planning to start trying again at the end of January as I was pretty sure I would be done with the painting by then. I don't want to be breathing in all those weird chemicals (even though we are using all zero VOC paint) while pregnant. However, this whole painting thing is a
way bigger job than I thought it would be, and we have decided to postphone trying until the next cycle, which should be the end of February. Right now, that sounds like a million years away, but I know how fast time is moving right now and it will be here before I know it. I keep telling myself to enjoy this time of working on the house with Erik, and I am, but the whole baby thing is always on my mind. There is not a day that has gone by since that day in June that I don't think about it. And I guess perhaps that is how it will be for a while still. Anyway...
Until next time...
