little pumpkins

We haven't had much time to work on the house lately, and even hired our neighbor Tony's lawn service to keep up with the yard for much of the summer.  We did manage to get a few veggies out of the garden, though, and Brandon found some time to decorate for Halloween.  Our living room resembles a daycare center most of the time.  We found a few minutes to rearrange the dining room last week in order to move an old cedar armoire into the room to serve as a make-do coat closet, since our house doesn't have an actual closet anywhere that's not in a bedroom.  We moved the clock (which also serves as the liquor cabinet) around twice, as well as the china cabinet, before we finally found a way that worked.  We'll need to attach the china cabinet to the wall before long, since we placed it in the corner and it looks like prime real estate for a baby to crawl under and hide behind.

Speaking of babies, the girls are now five months old and Emerson has her first tooth already!  They are rolling over and scooting backwards a lot, and the dreaded babyproofing stage has arrived.  I've moved around a few things in cabinets, to centralize the cleaning products in an attempt to lessen the number of cabinets we actually need to lock.  Thinking lots of baby gates are in our future and it will be here before we know it.

No pics of the house right now, but here are some of our little pumpkins, in one of their many Halloween outfits.  The yard looks pretty similar to last year, complete with zombie and graveyard.

the girls' first bargain

We took the girls to Scott Antique Market last month, and they found a great bargain on their first visit--a Craftsman-style library table! The asking price was $120 (not bad) but the girls (and Daddy) managed to talk them down to $90! Brandon's been working on it a little at a time, doing a few small repairs and sanding it down to restain and put a coat of polyurethane on it.

Here are a few photos mid-work:

Brandon's found a few minutes to work on our new front door. You might remember this one from many months ago...it's the new cedar door we bought. He's working to fill in a few big knotholes, and once we get glass for it and the hinges on...and a coat of poly...it will be good to go.

re-entry

Three days after my last post, we welcomed our two girls, Hadley and Emerson, into the world! Hadley is the blonde and weighed in just over 6 lbs, while Emerson, the brunette, was 5 lbs 4 oz. They've been keeping us busy and obviously, we haven't done much work on the house since they arrived. The girls are 11 weeks old this week and are growing like crazy. Hadley was almost 12 lbs at the last doctor visit, and Emerson was almost 9.5 lbs. We are all doing well and hope to find some time to work on our other projects again soon!

shameless plug for mother-in-law's mountain cabin rentals

If you're looking for a clean, quiet, affordable cabin in the north Georgia area, check out Brandon's mom's Rabun River Cabins located on the Tallulah River. (No, I don't know why they are called Rabun River when they are on the Tallulah River! But they are in Rabun County...).

There are two cabins, one large and one smaller. They are located right on the river, and convenient to lots of fun things to do (listed on the website and here, including the free and fun Tallulah Falls Bluegrass Opry every Saturday night).

Check it out!

time flies...

I can't believe we haven't posted since early April! I'm not able to post from work since our filters claim that the site is "pornography." I'm not sure how it determines porn from say, a houseblog, but apparently it has some sort of reasoning for it.

The twins are due next week and the current plan is for them to induce labor on Wed. May 20...if I don't go into labor on my own before then. The babies are doing well and are over 6 lbs. each right now! More updates can be found at www.babydiy.wordpress.com if you are interested.

We're going to be part of a city-wide yard sale this weekend, or rather, Brandon and his mom are setting up our sale in our yard and I'll probably be hanging out on the porch in a rocking chair, resting. More info on yard sale here: http://sites.google.com/site/eastpointyardsale/ Thanks to BITH for working on this...I promise we'll meet one day!! But I guess it will be after the twins come ;)

What to do about the doors?

Ok, so after some (more) discussion, we think we are going to go with our cedar front door instead of the one I have been refinishing. I still plan on working on that door, and maybe eventually using it, but for now it is easier to use the cedar. Nolan told me that it is only around $85 to have a door dipped and stripped; I would have thought that was a lot, that is until spending way too many hours and not even half-way finished with stipping with a heat gun. Does anyone know of a place near Atlanta that does this service?

I have my Spring Break next week, so I might be able to put the cedar door up then (or at least hold it up in the door frame to see how it looks). Hopefully I will be able to accomplish some other tasks next week as well. Who knows? Maybe we will have a new door soon.

A multitude of doors!

These are three of the doors we (I should really say me, Brandon) acquired for the house. The blue one is a Craftsman style door, but someone has ripped the shelf off of it. I am contemplating building a new shelf out of pine (the door, under the bright blue paint, appears to be unstained heart pine). The white door in the middle is a two panel interior door, intended for our guest bathroom, after we frost, or replace with stained glass, the glass panel. And, the third... this has been my side project all winter. Whenever I disappeared in the shop for a while, Nolan could expect to find me bending over this door (it was on sawhorses) using a heat-gun and paint scrapper to remove the layers (at least 3) of white paint that covered it. This is the perfect Craftsman style front door for our house, as it matches our windows (six panes on the top) and, I believe, that I can restore it to a deep, almost cedar red that will complement our house. The only problem, is that it has been damaged and poorly repaired along the doorknob side. Ah, I love a challenge!

This is a close-up of some of what I have accomplished with it:

One last door. See the big white door behind the brown one? That is the one we found last summer, which we cannot use, and apparently can't sell. It is like 89" tall, and can't be cut down that much. If anyone is interested, please make an offer (click on the link for more info)

Brandon's Update II

So, here is a list of the things I am trying to accomplish before the twins come in May (when we expect that non-essential work will be put to the side, at least for a while):

-Finish front door! I really want to finish this to install it soon.

-Clean up basement. We have a lot of junk, and are planning on having a yard sale in April, so I need to go through everything to clear out the, oh yeah, it is not junk, we have a lot of great stuff that everyone will want to look through and buy!

-Clean, sand, paint, and install two-panel doors on the bathrooms and the master bedroom. I have the doors, but they need a lot of work first. I have all the hardware (from my find from the house 2 doors down that was throwing away early-century massive 5 panel doors with Eastlake style door knobs and plates, with the mortise locks inside!). Yesterday I bought a two panel door from a guy here in East Point, in Jefferson Park, which has a window at the top, which we want to use for the guest bath (with window frosted, which needs to be done), that is in great condition.

-Install bathroom exhaust fans. I have already purchased these: one with a built-in light for the main bath, and a basic fan only for the second bath. I will need Paul's help with these.

-Install flood lights on the corners of the house facing the driveway. Once again, Paul may be required to do this. :)

-Re-seed back yard with Centipede grass. I may be a little late doing this, but hope it works.

-Build concrete burm at base of wall below the bonus room. This area has plywood all the way to the ground and needs to be replace with a short concrete brick wall. Not looking forward to doing this.

-And, my project that Nolan doesn't endorse, digging out a new room in the basement. Wait, this isn't as crazy as it may sound. In the spot of our old furnace (which is still there), there is a place that is dug out of the dirt and is at least 8 feet tall of space, and about 8 feet by 8 feet or so. I think this would make a great studio for me. I would need to level out the dirt, build a concrete block retaining wall of about 4 feet, then build in a stud wall above that, then finish off. Anyway, that will not get done before the twins arrive.

So, think I will get all this done? Yeah, not gonna happen, huh. I at least want to try. And, there are always more projects waiting!

Brandon's Update I

Ok, today we have a guest blogger (sort of), me, Brandon, Nolan's husband, who has done most of the work to the house (I expect to hear about THAT comment later). Nolan has not really felt up to doing much on the house for about the last 6-7 months. I however, have still accomplished a little, and have more planned. :)

Projects completed (or almost, at least):

-Hallway baseboards and shoe-mold installed (ok, the baseboards had been there for some time, but were just leaning against the wall. There was a gap of about 2 inches from the bottom of the sheetrock and the studs behind it, so it was kinda tricky to attach the boards on the bottom without them going in at a weird angle. Had to use a few wood screws to get it right. I actually got the shoe-mold cut, stained, and installed in just two days!)

-Nursery painted, shoe-mold stained and installed, closet shelving system installed (Nolan actually accomplished most of that. Yay! Pregnant women can do something!)

-Old wiring pulled out and replaced. Thanks goes out to my friend Paul for all his help. We pulled out all un-insulated cloth wiring in the basement, and replaced with Romex. We also installed a arc-fault breaker for the nursery, to add extra protection. The basement is still a wreck from the mess we made, but at least now we won't have an electrical fire. (Paul is a commercial electrician, but does resedential work on the side. If you live in the metro area, email us for his info. He does great work.)

-Landscaping - not much, but did plant a rose bush (with another languishing in a pail of water, waiting on us to decide where to put it), moved some old roses around, moved some daffodils that sprung up in the middle of the yard (Casey liked to plant stuff EVERYWHERE!), cleaned up the flower beds and put in new mulch, planted some hyacinths, put out centipede grass seed in the front yard, oh, and discovered a dead, half-eaten rat that my neighbor's cat left for us in one of those flower beds. Awesome!

-Craftsman front door - still not on the house, but I used a heat gun to get the paint off of one side of the third in our Craftsman front doors. It is heart pine, and I still need to scrape the other side, and use a paint stripper, then sand it. There is a little damage to the door that I also have to repair better than the previous owners did. Will post pictures of it soon.

nursery pics

Here are some photos of the nursery with the cribs sort of put together. We still don't have mattresses yet, and we've gotten a rug that isn't put together yet (look here and you'll see what I mean).

Brandon's been busy staining quarter round molding for the nursery and hallway, and painting the hallway molding, which he recently attached to the wall. Hope to have photos of that soon...the hallway trim has been unattached and leaning in place since right after we moved in!

We also have been busy cleaning up the yard a bit and FINALLY finished painting the rocking chairs on the front porch. Brandon's sister and aunts are throwing a baby shower for me on Saturday, and we volunteered our house since she lives in NC, so we've had lots of projects to finish. B is seriously ready for a weekend OFF to be lazy :)

new blogging gig

Okay, so as if I didn't have enough to do with getting for the twins, work, blogs, etc...I am now blogging for Pregnancy & Newborn Magazine once a week! Many thanks to Marsha for moving me along this path :)

New ultrasound pics should be coming soon (we have a doctor's appt. this Friday and get an ultrasound every month!) on my personal baby blog. For the web address, just check the links on the right...look for BabyDIY.

more nursery pics

nursery paint project

babies and nursery update

I could have sworn that I posted this last time, but I guess I got all caught up in the excitement of paint stripping and forgot (ha ha). We found out that the twins are both girls!

Brandon's mom came down for the weekend painted the nursery walls and ceiling for us. We picked out a Freshaire color called Delightful Daffodil and it is gorgeous. Sort of a warm soft yellow, which coordinates well with our Classic Winnie the Pooh theme for the nursery bedding. It's really sort of a Pooh-bear yellow! Brandon's been sanding the trim and needs to prime it before we can paint it. We chose a barely off-white for the trim (can't remember the color name, will post later, but it's from Behr) since the existing trim color looked gray and dingy next to the yellow. The Freshaire paint looks good, but took two solid coats and for even that small room we had to buy THREE cans! We have most of a can left, which we'll probably need for touchups once the twins discover crayons ;) The Home Depot guy said we should have primed first, which we believed until we realized that we didn't prime any of the other rooms when we painted with plain old Behr paint after moving in. Ah well, it's gorgeous at any rate. Many thanks to Patrice for doing all the painting!!

Our friend Paul (an electrician) came over and helped Brandon with some electrical stuff, including adding new outlets in the nursery (it had only one originally!). I called from work to see how things were going and Brandon said, "Bad news. Paul says he can't believe the house hasn't burned down yet and the whole thing has to be rewired. And he can't do it--we'll have to pay someone to do it." Since everything else has tended to go wrong lately, I just said, "Yeah, okay, I kind of expected as much." Then I heard laughter and yelling in the background--turns out Brandon made it all up. I pretty much believed him until he said Paul couldn't do it...Paul is awesome and has gone out of his way numerous times for us lately and I knew he would do whatever he could to help!

Once we get the trim painted we can get to work putting the cribs together and figuring out where everything will go. We installed a closet shelf system this weekend, too, for the tiny closet. We've posted previously on our attempts to install these, but Brandon had a great idea this time. Instead of drilling with a regular drill bit, he used a flat wood bit. We started the holes with a regular bit, and then made them bigger with the flat bit. A regular bit won't actually go into the 80 year old wood lathe that the plaster is attached to, but the flat one dug right in. Hooray!

Posting in progress photos of nursery in separate post, along with closet shelving (already full with baby stuff!).

winter break update

Brandon spent the last week of his week catching up on things around the house.

The baseboards in the hallway are now actually attached to the walls! They still need to be painted and caulked, but they are at least attached.

He also got a chance to work on the front door we got a few months ago, trying out the heat gun for the first time.