We’ve been moving and shaking, drilling and hammering, making lots of service calls and functioning without internet or phone for a very long time.  It’s been a long couple of weeks!

We are finally into the laundry-doing, errand-running stage, and preparing-for-back-to-school stage.  Still busy, but less frantic.  So I thought I’d take a moment to show you a few bits of our house-in-progress.  This little house is actually gigantic, at least to us.  We can’t quite seem to fill it up!  Although the bareness of parts of it bothers me a little, I know it will fill up soon with more people and time will bring its own “stuff”, so it doesn’t worry me.

(I need to apologize – the quality of the photos is poor and the composition is awful, but I am pregnant and tired and actually allowing some “It’s Good Enough For Now” to enter my personality.)

So let me introduce you to the hub of our house, the kitchen:

The kitchen boasts a lovely set of biege appliances which perfectly match their countertops.  Then I decided to come in and paint everything cool whites and grays.  The beige?  Eh, oh well.  I’m hoping the ancient appliances meet their demise and our home warranty replaces them.  Oh wait.  The dishwasher DID die within 48 hours of moving in.  And so we’ve been on a constant round of “It’s Fixed – No, It’s Not” service calls for the last two weeks.  So Andy is flexing his muscles and washing dishes for the time being since I have to stand about six feet from the sink to accommodate my growing belly and it’s just…not that comfortable.

On the positive side, aren’t the cabinets with their new shiny nickel hinges pretty?  And the gray walls?  They’re EXACTLY what I was going for.  They look so pretty with my yellow kitchen items.  They’re not quite finished, as Andy will be adding some nickel knobs sometime when he has a few minutes.

And the breakfast area.  I love this table and chairs – the clean lines and the glass top table work so well against the grays and whites.  But what makes this area of the kitchen truly pretty is…

…this adorable artwork I get from Etsy!  Love the bright colors against the pewter walls.

Cozy, yes?  Especially with the bright green laundry tin on the left?  I love.

As you can see, the kitchen flows out into the hall that runs from the front door along back to the living room.  There’s a bathroom, basement stairs, upstairs, and a coat closet along the hall, and as you can see it is a bit full of things that need to be returned (we’ve moved past the things-to-be-put-away stage!).

Here is our dining area.  It’s a bit cavernous for our small table (I zoomed in quite a bit, there’s also the piano in here), but it’s still cozy and cute.  I love the new bamboo pendant, and displayed on the far wall are two gorgeous mid-century vases from my grandmother’s collection.

And from the dining room we flow into the equally gigantic living area.  I’m a little nonplussed.  As you can see there is the seating side, above (with a broken picture frame we are trying to repair)…

With a TV/book area on the other end.  The TV being so far away is okay because we turn that TV on about once every two+ weeks and we don’t mind a little squinting, but it just bugs me that it feels like two separate rooms.  Due to the layout of the room I can’t really float the couch in the middle of the room without cutting off the hallway.

SO, I am thinking someday of getting a couple of small reading chairs to put by the bookcases, and a lot of bright floor pillows for kids who want to play games and Nintendo on the floor, and some bright toy baskets for the baby’s things.  Then it can be a play area with the grown-up seating area on the other side.  Does anybody else have any bright ideas?

And the windows.  Oh, the windows.  My pregnant self stood in the curtain section at Ikea for about an hour, nearly in tears, trying to find curtains that would work with the bamboo roman shades I had Andy install, as well as the rest of the room.

Eventually, I just bought white sheer linen curtains.  And the result:

…Okay, but kind of blah.  The problem is really the ugly grayish/beige/off-white that is on all the walls in the house.  Next summer I’d like to paint the whole living/dining area soft beachy blues and greens, and then I think the curtains will look fine.  So for now, they at least break up the wall space.  Of course they need hemmed and ironed and they need matching curtain rods, but who cares about that when there’s a baby coming?

And speaking of baby, this is what I know you wanted to see:

Precious, yes?

I LOVE how sunny and bright this room is.  It is the sunniest room in the house, which might not be practical for naptimes but is certainly cheery.  To deal with naptimes, we ordered cordless, cellular blackout shades that we’ll install once they come in.  For now, it doesn’t matter anyways.

I have some more accessories to go for this room, such as a tree print I ordered from Etsy, a tree toy and a few other things, but although it looks a bit bare in the photos, it really isn’t.  (I don’t know why the frames look crooked.  They aren’t…)

I am in love with the bedding that we ordered.  I can’t get over its cuteness, even though I couldn’t seem to position for a decent shot.  The sun rises on one side of the bumper (the one you can see) and sets on the other side (the one you can’t).  It’s precious, bright, cheerful, happy, and perfect for this baby and others down the road (I hope!).

And this quilt?  This is what sold me on the bedding.  This will hang over the baby’s crib, once we get some quilt hangers.

And see the little brown thing in the bottom corner of the picture above?  That’s baby’s bassinet, (almost all) set up and ready to be moved into our room when the time comes.

All in all, the room is perfect.  How about the sweet little rug on the floor?  It is the most lovely 3′x5′ wool looped rug that I ordered from Land of Nod along with the bedding, even though it’s not the rug that “matches” it.  I like how it goes with the valance and breaks up the green of the room a bit.

I am feeling closer and closer to being ready for this baby.  The drawers are stocked with her littlest newborn things, freshly washed, and lots of linens.  I finally got out and bought wipes and a few other essentials, as well as (obviously) the mattress and bassinet.  We even sorted her closet full of baby items into what we need now, what comes next, and what comes later.  Now we just need the carseat to get her home!!!

So there it is, a short tour of the highlights of my house.  Come visit soon!

One of my favorite things about this little house is the airy master suite.  It’s pleasant, spacious, and in a few days will be my new home.  I’ll show the afters once I complete them, but here’s a few befores to whet your whistle.

Think of us as we start moving all of our stuff in this week!!!

…but there’s a few things I hate.  Things that are going to go, either now or this winter.

Frighteningly bright and ugly and neon-ish vanity lights.  This is the first time I wished there weren’t FOUR bathrooms.

Terrible faucets – at least, terrible for me.  Hand washing is, after all, one of my sensitive spots and I just can’t do knobs.

Shiny, prism-y light fixtures.

Hideous chandelier.

Dirty, dated, yellowy recessed kitchen light:

Since Andy and I are not even remotely do-it-yourselfers, it’s going to be an interesting ride.  Stay tuned.

The kitchen is currently undergoing a dramatic facelift while leaving all the existing structures in place.  I can’t wait to show you the finished product – much less see it myself!

Here’s a couple of before shots:

I have many long term ideas for this sunny little space, but for now we’re just attacking it with new hinges, new door/drawer knobs, and these:

I think (I hope) that after a fresh coat of paint on the walls, trim, and cabinets and a good scrubbing, everything will look as bright and fresh as I can hope for.

I’m really excited about this Mythic paint, even though I had to go way out of the beaten way to get it (we picked it up at an artsy animal-loving, tree-hugging, wheatgrass-beverage-serving, vegan-chili-cooking, Kenyan-jewelry-selling shop down in the city).  I originally gravitated towards it because they have a paint color designed to go with my nursery bedding.  Then I decided to go with it for all my paint jobs because it’s non-toxic, there’s no off-gassing or those awful fumes for my pregnant self to be inhaling, and it’s high-quality.  I’ll be sure to keep you posted on whether I like it as much after it’s on the walls!

We are, officially, no doubt about it, no more going back, nothing more can go wrong, bonafide homeowners.

Buying this house was a remarkably smooth and easy project.  Basically, I’ve just been swimming in pools and oceans and lounging on couches and waiting for the keys to my dream home to be handed to me on a silver platter.  And that’s what I got.

It’s a beautiful little house, isn’t it?  It has 3 bedrooms, 2 full baths, 2 half baths, a garage, a small back deck and a finished basement.  It has lots of light and space and air.  It is our perfect little home.

And now it’s time for the grunt work to begin!!!  The paint is all ready for the kitchen and nursery, the painter is starting tomorrow, and early next week the house cleaners and carpet cleaners are coming.

Painters?  Cleaners?  Wimp, you say?  Waste of money, you say?

Have you seen my belly?  Let me remind you (she’s coming in SIX WEEKS):

There’s so much to do, we need all the help we can get.  Plus the simple problem that I throw myself into rounds of swelling, cramping and Braxton Hicks simply by folding too much laundry.

So let’s get ready for the busiest six weeks of my life!  Ready, go!