It has been 2 months, but finally, we’ve surfaced from our baby-induced brain freeze and we’re hopefully ready to start posting regularly again.  Baby Grace arrived on March 15th, and she is doing beautifully.  She is not only a beautiful and healthy baby girl but she is an easy baby too!  She really only cries when she is hungry, has a wet diaper, or is overtired.

Even so, the transition to parenthood hasn’t been easy!  I have always been kind of a free-spirited person and have always enjoyed spending time exploring my own interests…that’s why I moved to China after college, met Chris, and spent 3 years with him traveling the world.  It’s hard for me to stick to a structured routine and to be “tied down” to this little person who needs me for everything.  I love spending time with my baby though — she is so cute and I love her so much!  It has just been a little tough changing my entire mindset about my life.  Chris and I often tell each other, “God knew what we could handle and gave us an easy baby to start out with!”

Now that Grace has started smiling and cooing, taking care of her has become really rewarding.  I can’t wait until she starts laughing and reaching for things!  Although I also don’t want her to grow up — she is just so small and cute, and she has already grown so much.

Grace is enjoying the nursery we put together for her.  The one change we made is that we moved a small couch into her room for nursing and got rid of the rocker.  The rocker was a little too narrow to fit my nursing pillow and it’s nice to have the extra room on the couch so both Chris and I can sit there when we’re soothing the baby together.  It will also be perfect for reading a book with Grace when she grows a little older.  Best of all, a family friend gave us the little couch for free.  Love hand-me-downs!  We were originally intending to have the baby in our room for the first few months, but I’m a really light sleeper and I would wake up every time she coughed or grunted.  I didn’t realize babies were such active sleepers!  After a month of no sleep, we decided to put the baby in her own room with a monitor, to save our own sanity.  She actually sleeps better in there than she does anywhere else!

We’ve also made a LOT of progress on the master bedroom.  I’ll post pics of that soon.  The week before Grace was born we were drywalling, painting, and flooring, so that my parents could stay there when they came to visit the baby.  Chris and I moved in there a couple weeks ago.  I’ll update you all on the master bedroom in my next post.

But somehow, it’s impossible to have a baby girl without receiving tons of pink stuff.  And after all the showers had been thrown, I actually really liked the pink stuff.

This 100-square foot room has come a long way since we first moved in.  We removed the stained carpet, put in a hardwood floor lifted from another room, repainted the beadboard and painted the walls a buttery Provencal yellow.

The crib and dresser were gifts from Chris’ mother, who is incredibly excited to be having her first grandchild, and a girl to boot!  The lovely pink blanket with the rosettes is from my sister-in-law Heidi.

I found the old rocker on Craigslist and recovered the seat cushions with some clearance fabric from IKEA.  The telephone cushion was on clearance for $5 at Homegoods. Curtains are from IKEA’s children’s department, side table is a $7.99 LACK.  The soft lambskin was a surprise gift in the mail from my aunt who lives in New Zealand.  Such a beautiful and unique gift!  Whenever I walk past it, I seriously want to throw myself on the floor and roll around on it like a puppy.

Because earthquakes are a concern in Southern California, I haven’t been able to put any framed art above the crib and dresser.  My temporary solution was to tape these shower decorations to the wall.

The oh baby bunting and sweet sugar n’ spice sign (mounted on foam board) were made by Chris’ cousin Malinda.

The one thing we haven’t yet done is to put doors on the closet.  I might just hang a curtain from a tension rod to hide the clutter.  But I also really enjoy looking at all of Baby Brownie’s cute little clothes.  For now.  I’m sure that as clutter builds up I’m going to want to hang that curtain to hide it!  Any suggestions for cheap but cute curtains for the closet?  And I still want to get some more lightweight wall art for above the crib.

But it’s basically ready for its future little inhabitant!  Though hopefully Baby Brownie will stay in the oven for another couple of weeks, as we still have a lot of work to do on the other parts of the house!

Here it is after we finished grouting.  After this, we put up more drywall and fixed the cruddiness of the wall to the left.

We grouted the tile after letting it cure for a couple of days.  Adding the grout was pretty easy, and there are lots of tutorials for it on YouTube.  Basically, you mix the grout with water until it’s the consistency of a stiff buttercream frosting, and scrape it into the cracks using a rubber trowel.  After scraping off the excess, you go over the whole thing with a damp sponge to smooth the lines and remove any extra.  We went over the tile again with a soft damp cloth to remove any film on the tile.  Then after it dried, we sealed the grout to keep it clean and nice.

I think it looks pretty good considering it was about the cheapest porcelain tile they had at Home Depot, and considering it was our first time.

After the tile floor was done, Chris and his dad put in the drywall.  The most challenging thing about the drywall was first supporting all of the copper pipe in the wall, and measuring and cutting the holes for the plumbing to come out of the wall.  We had to make sure that there was enough room around the pipes to attach the fixtures once the drywall was up. Then, there were a few new electrical outlets that needed to be wired as well as a 3-way switch for the light.  Fortunately, Chris’ dad is pretty experienced at electrical, and Chris is learning quickly, but it’s not a DIY that I would do if I didn’t have someone experienced helping me.

So that’s about where our little laundry room is right now.  I apologize for the grainy pictures–it’s a bit dark in there right now.  And obviously it hasn’t been prettied up with paint and decor yet.  But you get the idea.

Our water heater, washer and dryer, and a new laundry room sink fit in there perfectly.  Eventually, we’re planning to build cabinets above the washer and dryer and enclose the bottom of the laundry sink in a cabinet as well.

It has been nice to have the laundry room wall and ceiling closed up, as cold air had been seeping into the house through the attic and other construction zones.  The finished half of the house is much warmer now.

Which is good because Baby Brownie is on her way sometime in the next 3-4 weeks!

Oh me oh my!

Just so you have an idea of what we were working with, here’s a before pic:

I know, it’s extremely icky.  The hallway led into the master bedroom, and on the left was the laundry closet with broken louver doors, LOTS of dirt and grime, broken vinyl tiles, and “popcorn” texture ceiling.

After scraping the ceilings, removing the tile, and taking out the closet frame, we decided to close off the doorway to the master bedroom and enlarge the laundry closet to make a laundry ROOM.

The master bedroom is also being enlarged and there will be a different entrance to it, so we didn’t need the current doorway.  Also, removing the doorway allows us to enlarge the master bath.

This meant that Chris and his dad (aka Jamie, our secret weapon) spent the last couple of weekends rerouting the plumbing, moving the water heater, putting in faucets for the washer/dryer and laundry room sink, as well as new drains.  They also had to move the attic trapdoor so that it would be right in the center of the laundry room (instead of half in the master bedroom).  They framed in the new attic trapdoor as well as a new “plumbing” wall.

Chris got to work with a blowtorch, which was fun and very manly/sexy.

After the plumbing was done and the new wall framed, it still wasn’t looking pretty, but you could definitely visualize the new laundry “room”.

We got right to work tiling the concrete floor.

We thought the laundry room would be a good place for us to do our first tiling job, since if we mess up, at least it’s not a room a lot of guests will see.  Even as novice tilers, though, we found that tiling wasn’t very difficult.  Of course, having Chris’ dad as a teacher helped a lot.

First Chris and Jamie chalked out a line on the bare concrete floor, that was squared with the walls and would act as a guideline.  Then Chris applied the thinset, scraping it against the concrete floor to ensure that it adhered well.  Then, he evened it out with a notched trowel:

Then he laid the tile up against the already-set tiles.  I handed him a few plastic spacers, and he used the spacers to push the tile out with 1/8″ space for grout.

He pressed the tiles down with a scrap 2×4 to level them all out evenly.

The tiles on the sides of the room had to be cut, so Chris measured them out using another tile as a guide, and marked them with a tile marker.

Chris’ dad already had the tile saw, so Chris got to play with another cool new tool.  I’m happy to say, we did not ruin even one piece of tile!

The tiles along the sides were applied with the same principles as the whole tiles, except with a smaller notched trowel.

Coming up next time, the fully tiled floor and our next project, installing the drywall in the laundry room!  I’m looking forward to the ceiling being finished so cold air doesn’t keep blowing into the house through the attic!  Finishing the laundry room will effectively seal off half of the house from cold air and construction dust/debris from the master bedroom, which is a top priority for us with the baby coming so soon.

6 weeks left till D-day! Oh my.

Chris, by the way, is the king of deals, and can be found at all hours of the day scouring DealNews for the latest deals.  It amazes me sometimes.  It’s a special talent he has.

Anyway, he found this offer for new customers at ChecksintheMail.com.  It’s just $5 for a box of 125 checks if you use the code BESTOFFER!  Shipped!  The cool thing is, they actually have some cute designs.  Check ‘em out. (And I am not being compensated in any way by ChecksintheMail, I just think the checks are cute.)  Click on the check image to go to the site.

Botanical Checks

Sassy Stripes Checks

Island Tropics Checks

Bird Song Checks

Modelli Checks

We went with the Modelli checks because they were a little less girly than the others, and I felt bad making Chris write girly checks.  They’re still stylish though.  For five buckaroonies, it’s a great deal!

Doesn’t it make you feel good to know that even something as mundane as your checks are cute too?

All that may be, but I really just want to get this cute dragon print for baby’s nursery:

Via Crowsmack on Etsy

I just think it will look so cute in the nursery, and at $12 for a 9×12 inch silkscreen print is pretty affordable.  And The Hobbit is one of my favorite books.  But Chris doesn’t really like me buying art online because he says I should just make some original art instead.  So I’m torn.  Should I get it?

The room is just a 10×9 foot box, and it seemed even smaller because of the unfinished pine wainscoting that lined the room.

The wainscoting was pretty old, and it had several pieces of trim and molding missing.  It also had a lot of paint and plaster splotches that had absorbed into the unfinished wood.  After briefly considering either a) removing the wainscoting all together and replastering the walls or b) staining the wood a darker color, we decided it would be easiest to simply paint all of the wood semi-gloss white.

I know some people think it’s a crime to paint wood, but c’mon.  These pine boards were in pretty bad shape, and it would have been next to impossible to find matching pine to replace the missing pieces of trim (the pine was at least 20 years old and had aged to a different color than new wood).  The splashes of paint and plaster would have been awful to scrub/sand off.  And under the window, an entire row of boards needed to be replaced in order to bring the wainscoting up to the level of the windowframe:

Painting all of the wainscoting white made it so much easier to cut new boards to frame the window, router new pieces of trim, and open up the small space so it looked a LOT more spacious.  Here’s the after:

The top part of the window was replastered, and new boards were cut for the bottom.  Chris and his dad routered new trim for the windowframe, and new trim to finish off other parts of the room, using leftover pieces of pine that had been salvaged from other parts of the house.  The plastered walls got a new coat of creamy paint.

We moved our bed and our cheap RAST chests from IKEA (refinished in IKEA red stain) into the room, and are sleeping in this room for the time being until the master bedroom is done.  But do you see how the white wainscoting looks fresher, cleaner, and more Anne-of-Green-Gables-y?

The bohemian tab curtains were sewed by me from discount fabric I bought over a year ago at $1 a yard — they’re the first curtains I’ve ever made and I’m pretty impressed that they look decent.  Although next time, I might not bother with tabs but buy clip-on curtain rings instead.

We took the old folding doors off the closet and repainted them, but we haven’t reattached them yet.  The inside of the closet was lined with unfinished pine boards too, that had collected a LOT of dust and dirt over the years.  We cleaned and painted the closet walls white to make the closet feel fresh and clean, but stained the boards on the floor with Minwax Special Walnut and finished them off with a coat of polyurethane.  The closet floor doesn’t match the oak laminate we put in the room, but it actually looks really good in person.  In fact, this closet may be one of my favorite parts of the house right now.

Having the dirty laundry basket in the corner of the closet has been AWESOME!  Chris actually puts his dirty laundry into it now!  Who knew all it took was strategic hamper placement?

There are still a few pieces of trim missing and we need to get some T-pieces to fill in the gaps between the different kinds of flooring, but this room is definitely livable now.

Chris’ family came over to eat the Chinese New Year’s feast with us and we had a grand ol’ time.  Funny enough, Chris and his dad were working on plumbing all day so I had to cook the entire meal without running water (except for the last 15 minutes — they finished just in time to eat!).  I had to make do with several pots and pans full of water.

Kung pao chicken, Chinese tea eggs, braised mushrooms on baby bok choy, fried radish cake and smashed cucumber salad…

This little guy was swimming around just a few hours ago…

And we also had sticky soy pork ribs, not pictured.

Afterwards we sat around by the fireplace, peeled tangerines, drank tea, and had dessert.

This is what our family room looks like now:

It’s starting to feel a bit more like a home, although it still needs work.  I want to repaint those bland beige walls at some point, but that will probably have to wait.  The fireplace mantel needs to be repainted and I need to figure out something for the mantel.  I’m thinking a mirror.  I thought about maybe a sunburst mirror but they’re so trendy and I’m just not that into trendy.  The bronze sconces have to go.

The wooden bench is something we found at Goodwill last year and we haven’t quite decided what to do with it yet.  It’s a nice place to sit in front of the fire, so we might make a long bench cushion for it to make it more comfortable.

We found the 8×10′ rug at Costco!  It’s actually an indoor-outdoor rug so it’s not really soft and cushy, but it should be durable and it only cost $80!  It really makes the room so much homier.

Before:

Not the prettiest lamp, you see.  Not only was it old and cruddy and covered in paint, but it’s also builder’s standard brass, which we weren’t huge fans of.  We were so eager to change it we didn’t even take a before pic of it on the wall.

We headed to the Habitat Restore and scored a cute copper-toned number for just $20.  It was a floor model from Home Depot (or some other type hardware store).  We know because it still had the display bracket attached to it.  Although it’s a discontinued model, we estimate that it probably cost at least $50 originally, so we feel pretty good about our find.

Why helloooo beautiful…

Much better.

SomethingIsDone is:

Chris – The brawns (and a lot of the brains) behind the operation. Chris comes from a long line of carpenters/DIY-ers and is never happier than when he’s got a project on the backburner. In fact, one of the first things that came up in the conversation when he first met Camilla over 4 years ago was, “I like making things”.

Camilla – Camilla is a freelance writer and is soon to be a stay-at-home mom once the little bun in the oven is born in a couple of months. She also loves to work with her hands, although her crafts usually involve fabric, hot glue, a sewing machine, or yarn instead of power tools.

Just a couple of months ago, we gave ourselves the Christmas present of our very first home. We were one of the lucky ones who were able to take advantage of depressed home prices to snag ourselves a great deal. Yes, the house was a bit “distressed”, and needed a lot of repairs, but we could see its potential and welcomed the chance to take on a new project. The thing is, our baby was expected just 4 short months later (now 2 months), and we had to hurry to make the place livable for the little bun. Let me show you a few “before” pictures of the house:

Kitchen

Before:

The kitchen was the part of the house that was in the best shape. It had recently been renovated with granite countertops and white cabinetry. Once we put in our shiny new refrigerator, it looked pretty good, although I’m still not a huge fan of the black stove and dishwasher. On our to-do list: replace the light fixtures, paint the wainscoting and trim in the breakfast nook, and add a narrow built-in bookshelf on the right side of the fridge.

Family Room

Before:

The family room was a later addition to the house, and we really like the bar area that opens into the kitchen, allowing whoever’s cooking to keep an eye on what’s going on in the family room. There was quite a bit of water damage here, so much of the trim needs to be replaced (or added to begin with). Luckily, most of the windows have already been updated with white vinyl windows. The water damage had also damaged parts of the wood floor, so we will have to figure out a solution for those parts at some point.

In here, we did a thorough cleaning and left it at that for now. I’m hoping to change out the brass sconces over the fireplace pretty soon, but this room is livable for now.

Living Room

The living room was in okay shape. It had been redone recently, but parts of the wainscoting were missing, and the spray-on wall texture was thicker than we’d like. The can lights on the ceiling aren’t hooked up to the wiring yet, and the ceiling is painted the same mocha color as the walls, which makes the room feel dark. We’ll repaint it at some point, but right now it’s our unpacking room.

Guest Room

The guest room had gunky old carpet and unfinished pine wainscoting on the walls. The window had not been framed, and when the window was replaced, some pieces of 2x4s were stacked under and over the window to make the new window fit the old space.

Painting all of the wainscoting was a PAIN. It needed to be primed and painted in bright white semi-gloss (2 coats) by hand to get a brushstroke effect (instead of the stippled texture of a roller). And there were lots of nooks and crannies that were a PAIN to paint. But after the wainscoting was painted bright white, the window framed thanks to Chris and his dad’s handy work with a router, and a new laminate floor laid, this room actually got pretty cozy and cute, in a cottagy way.

Progress:

The curtains were made by yours truly (Camilla), and the nightstands are just cheap RAST chests from IKEA that we stained fire-engine red and finished with polyurethane.

Not bad considering we’ve been living in the house for about a month, I’d say.

We also refreshed the closet, which was lined with unfinished pine, with white paint, and stained the floor a glossy walnut. The closet is actually one of my favorite projects so far. See more about the guest room transformation.

Nursery

Before:

Progress:

The nursery also had stained carpet, although it wasn’t in that bad of shape. The beadboard was cute and was pretty new. We ripped out the carpet and replaced it with a wood floor lifted from the third bedroom. We painted all of the beadboard the same semi-gloss white as the wainscoting in the guest room, and chose a soft buttery yellow for the walls. See more on the nursery transformation.

Master Bedroom

Now we come to the third bedroom and the master. The wall of the third bedroom butted out into the master bedroom, making the master narrow and awkward. In addition, there was dated wood paneling, stained carpet, and a rather dingy master bathroom that smelled of mold.

The first thing we did (or, to be accurate, what Chris and his dad did) was to rip out the carpet/paneling and tear down the wall between the third bedroom and the master. Although originally we had been thinking of keeping the third bedroom and merely enlarging the master bedroom, making the third bedroom a small one, we liked the open floor plan so much that we decided to combine the bedroom and master bedroom. This got us thinking about other walls we wanted to move, so we decided to close off the original entrance to the master and enlarge the master bathroom, making room for a double vanity. We also decided to combine the laundry closet and hallway into one larger laundry room. This is still a major work in progress, and hopefully we will have finished most of the messy stuff before the baby arrives.

Outside

The fascia boards around the outside of the roof were rotting and needed to be replaced. Areas of the roof had not been properly flashed so there were leaks, and rotting plywood under the shingles. There was some termite damage on a lot of the outside wood. Also, the house had been repainted only on one side (the side that faced the street). Before escrow closed, we had the fascia boards replaced, the south-facing half of the roof replaced as well as the flat roof over the garage, and the termite damage repaired. It still doesn’t look amazing, but at least all of the major work is done. Painting the exterior is low on our list of priorities right now, as our primary focus is making the interior livable for our little peanut.

That’s the gist of it! There’s still a loft and a bathroom that I haven’t told you about yet, but there’s still plenty of time for that. We hope you’ll join us on this new adventure. I can’t wait to share more of the progress with you!