As some of you know, Marc and I attempted to refinish some of our hardwood floors ourselves.  This was quite the task and took over a year for us to work on, mostly due to my work schedule and Marc's travel schedule.  Now we can say that the floor is finished, however it took a different turn that we expected.  Just as a reminder, this is what the room looked like BEFORE...

Don't you love the light fixture, carpet color and drapes?  We HAD to fix this!  So we started with carpet....

There was not only a layer of carpet and carpet pad but also this HORRIBLE plastic (linoleum-like) layer with felt backing that was GLUED to the hardwoods!  We finally got the carpet up (it was gross) and were left with this below:

It took use a long time to figure out how to remove this horrible layer.  We tried glue removers, strippers, and NOTHING worked, so we were left to scrape it off.  Of note, we did have the felt and glue tested for asbestos before we got too into the job.  Fortunately, they were both negative!

It took WEEKS to get this stuff off.  It was a great way to let off steam after a long day; however, it did result in some floor damage, which we attempted to cover up or sand out.

We had to sand and sand the floors to get all of the glue off and to get down to a stainable layer of wood.  We just used a belt sander, which is tough to use.  I can't even remember how many different grit types we had to use, but it was quite a bit.  Marc did all the sanding, I did all the vacuuming.  Then I got to do all the staining because Marc was in London by the time we finally got to the staining point (yes, it took from about August 2011 to January 2012 to get to this point).

This was after 2 coats of stain, which we had to do to cover up all the imperfections in the floor.  It looked pretty good and then the polyurethane came.  First coat of polyurethane looked great, then we had to sand that. That's when things started to not look so good.  In the daylight there was this white film that was pretty inconsistent.  We didn't know what to do about it.  Reading some about it, maybe it was too humid when we did the application?  Who knows.  We did decide to have the floor in what is to be the nursery refinished too before that furniture came in, and given that I am not much help in my bed rest state (not that I would want to do any floor staining in pregnancy anyway), we decided to hire professionals.  Best decision we could have made!  They did 3 bedrooms and they now look fantastic and took 1 full day + 2 days of maybe 2 hours of work (polyurethane application that had to dry between coats).

These guys got all the imperfections out of the floor and it now looks wonderful.  We were so impressed with their work.  Below is a picture after the first application of polyurethane, which isn't dry, so it looks very shiny!

We (meaning Marc) still has to get the quarter round back down and then we will be ready to hang curtains and move into this room with our new bedding to prepare for renovations to the back of the house!  Will post with completed pics soon!

UPDATES

As many of you know, Marc and I are expecting our very first little one this November.  We were a little bit late to announce it, just because we were extra cautious, and as a result, I never blogged about it due to the late announcement and because we've been so busy.  Now, however, I am on bed rest so I do have a little bit more time than I did while I was in the NICU and on inpatient peds!  :)

We do know that we are having a BOY!  No official name yet, but we are working on it and certainly need to decide soon.  I am 35 weeks 4 days today and he is a big fella (consistently measuring over 2 weeks ahead of schedule)!  Due to some of my health problems and risk for baby being growth restricted because of them, I had very regular ultrasounds to be sure he is growing normally.  Here is one of my favorite pictures from our 20 week ultrasound (sucking his thumb):

Since our 20 week ultrasound, he hasn't been super cooperative and won't let us get a good profile picture!  

They put me on bed rest on Sept 26th, which was about 33 weeks and 3 days for me.  It hasn't been very fun.  It's hard to go from working really long (sometimes 80 hour weeks and a few 28 hour shifts), to sitting or lying on the couch all day.  It also bought me twice weekly doctors appointments and 2 injections of steroids for baby's lung development.  Although going to the doctor (and driving 70 miles to Mayo) is not fun to do twice a week, it does give me SOMETHING to break up the long days!  My mom was here for most of the week last week since Marc was out of town for work.  It was so nice to have her here and she really got a lot done and ready for our little guy's arrival.

Because we were so late with things, the crib and bedding still aren't in, and probably won't arrive until close to our due date, but I will try to make a post about the nursery soon.  We do have a chair for the nursery and have gotten the rug, curtains and changing table.  Lots to do still, which makes bed rest all the more tough--knowing I can't work on things but yet having all the time in the world to do it.

Now that I have more time (at least until the baby comes), I will try to blog a bit more.  We will have more baby stuff I am sure along with home renovation updates!

Thanks for reading!

Good 'Ole Cherry Street/Riverside Drive

I don't know quite what has gotten into me lately, but I have recently become very nostalgic for my small hometown.  Perhaps it is the fact that I am missing so many friends' weddings, showers, the upcoming birth of my sister's third son, or just being at the lake in the summer, but I really have started missing good 'ole Arkadelphia!  Now that summer is nearing up here in Minnesota and school will be out soon (I think!) I am starting to see lots of kiddos riding their bikes, walking their dogs, etc. and it really has me thinking about my growing up on Cherry St/Riverside Drive.

I am very convinced that I grew up in the best neighborhood in the entire world--quiet street overlooking the river with lots of older kids to look up to, kids my age to play with and neighbors who welcomed us into their homes with open arms and often cookies and put up with all of our shenanigans!  We rode our bikes, jumped on the trampoline, played basketball and even got to ride in or drive our neighbor's go-cart.  I played basketball with our mailman who always called me "too-tall," and played football in our neighbor's yard with all the older boys.  We always stopped to talk to all of our neighbors when they were outside and I even got to stop by a neighbor's workshop where he would always tune up my bike and invite us in for cookies.  When I got older I always hitched a ride with my neighbors, which was always an adventure and then returned the favor once I was old enough to drive. For many of my "growing up years" I lived 1 block from my great aunt Mae and from my great Aunt Mary and literally across the street and 2 houses down from my Aunt Pet who was something like my great-great aunt.  I am sure that all of these are really unique experiences that not many people have, but it certainly made for the perfect place to grow up.

Perhaps it is that we don't have kids, but although I love our neighborhood here in Minneapolis, I don't feel quite the sense of community as I did back "home."  I often don't see any of our neighbors!  Everyone is very nice, but they all just seem more private.  Don't get me wrong, we live in a fabulous location with Minnehaha creek just behind our house, 4 tennis courts 1/2 block a way, 2 blocks from Lake Harriet, a beautiful lake with lots of walking and bike paths, and on a really quiet street--we love our neighborhood, but I just don't have the same feeling.  There is probably a component of small town vs. large city, mid-west v. south--who knows!  I just miss my old neighbors!

While my hometown was certainly the greatest place to grow up, it sounds like there are some struggles right now with how to keep it growing, or rather, keep it from declining.  I certainly hope that Arkadelphia moves in the right direction.  Anyone would be lucky to grow up in a neighborhood like the one I did!

Thanks for reading!

House Reno updates

Wow, it has been a long time since I have updated anything on our blog here.   Part of it is that we haven't made a whole lot of tangible progress on renovations.  I hope though that we will have the guest bedroom done soon.  We have a tiny bit of painting left, have to sand and paint the baseboards and then put polyurethane on the floor, but the staining is done, and after 2 coats, I have to say it looks pretty good.  I will be eager to share with y'all.

Bathroom renovation is still on a halt.  We found a guy to do the tile, we just need to bite the bullet and get the courage to pay for it. Haha!

Thanks to my mom's help, we finally ridded our living room of boxes! Below though is what it looks like now:

We have been working with a "design-build" company to come up with a design for our home that would redo our kitchen, family room, add a mudroom (a necessity in Minnesota!), and expand our bedroom upstairs, add a bath and a walk-in closet.  Obviously, we can't do these projects ourselves!  So, now our living room (since we have no furniture) has turned into a design spot.  We have all the plans spread out, measuring tape to mark out the new spaces, and paint samples for the living room.  Marc keeps telling me I need to stick to one project at a time, but I am just eager to get settled into our home!

Hopefully, I will have more updates soon!

Bathroom Remodel

So Marc and I are making EXTREMELY slow progress on our home renovations.  Not quite done with the guest room floor (almost) and then we are starting to work with architects on designing a family room/kitchen remodel with hopefully a mudroom and then upstairs addition for a large master bedroom and additional bath upstairs.  How the previous owner had 8 kids and only one upstairs bath is beyond me.

Marc and I did do some tile searching this weekend and had SOME luck.  Here are our plans, but first, remember this lovely rainbow of yellow tile?

Marc and I want to keep the original floor tile to keep some character in our 1939 home.  We found some white glass subway tile to use in the shower with some black accents--like a small pencil line to tie into the floor somewhat.  Marc is planning on tiling the shower himself.  We will see how it goes.

Then we will be ripping all that yellow wall tile down and putting up some wainscotting.  Like this:

We will also paint the walls a yellow to match the tile.  Still to do is 

1) order the tile

2) do the wainscotting

3) find a new vantity

4) Bath fan

Overall to do list is very long, hopefully we can start crossing some things off.

1) lots of curtains to hang

2) finish guest room floor

3) paint guest room

4) get electrician over here for LOTS of re-wiring.

it is depressing even to continue this list.  We need inspiration!!

Thanksgiving 2011

Marc and I were by ourselves for Thanksgiving this year.  We both had to work on Friday.  It was a lot of firsts for us this Thanksgiving--first Thanksgiving in my whole 26 years that I didn't celebrate with my family, first Thanksgiving in Minnesota and first time Marc and I did not have the day after Thanksgiving off.  I guess I was lucky just to have Thanksgiving Day off.  Marc and I didn't know what we were going to do to celebrate (if anything) so we ended up deciding on Wednesday night that we'd have a mini Thanksgiving.  Now it is really difficult to cook Thanksgiving Dinner for two, especially when only one of you eats turkey.  We ended up just cooking some favorite dishes, broccoli-rice casserole, sweet potato casserole, macaroni and cheese and for Marc instant mashed potatoes and a frozen turkey and dressing dinner.  I also made a pumpkin pie and Marc had a store-bought cake for dessert.  For some reason, Marc doesn't mind, and often prefers the meals from a box--Stove Top dressing, instant mashed potatoes, etc., and I love cooking and enjoy all the good "Southern" casseroles I grew up with. Here are a few pictures from our mini Thanksgiving...

 Homemade pumpkin pie.  I love my leave pie cutters that Meredith and her mom gave me for one one of our wedding showers.  Thanks Mer!! :)  I miss baking with you!

 Our dining room.  This picture reminds me that I need to re-cover the dining room chairs...

 We had fun using our formal china, crystal and silver.  Makes me want to use it even more.  We just have one charger to go with our china, which Marc got me for Christmas last year.  He had to use the plastic gold charger.  He kept joking about how the Diet Pepsi tasted better out of the Waterford.  He likes to give me a hard time about having formal china, crystal and silver that we use for special occasions, but I love it!

 Better view of the dining room...again we still have work to do--window treatments, hanging things on the wall and also recovering the dining rom chairs, but technically the dining room furniture is on loan from my parents. We have their second dining room table and chairs along with my cousin Jane's china cabinet, so I don't want to alter anything too much!

 A view of the food

 Marc lighting the candles..notice the diet cokes...so festive. haha

More food.  

We had a nice Thanksgiving, just the two of us, but hopefully we won't have to celebrate too many alone.  We are hopeful for visitors for upcoming holidays, and who knows what next Thanksgiving will be like.  We've had so many changes in the last year, perhaps there are more to come in the next year!

Decorating Inspiration

Marc and I have made very little progress on our floor project.  We have used 2 (yes two) round of 36 grit and 1 round of 50 grit sandpaper on our floor, but have at least 2 higher grit sandings to go.  I had REALLY hoped to have our floor done last week, at the end of my vacation; however, that did not happen.  Rather, I came up with a decorating scheme for the room and today, our drapes came in.  Perhaps that is the inspiration I needed to wrap the project up, but on a q3 call month, I don't know how that will happen unless Marc does it alone!  In honor of the drape arrival, I will share our plans for this bedroom:

Bedding (already purchased) is Camilla from Pottery Barn.  I recently told my mom that perhaps one day, I can still doctor while working a few days a month at PB or Williams-Sonoma to get the discount they offer their employees.  I think it would be TOTALLY worth it!

We bought a king duvet cover (on sale!) just in case one day we can fit a king-sized bed through the door, or in our case, over the porch railings of our house.  I also found some coordinating pillows at Marshalls and Target to bring out the taupe and the red in the bedding.

Drapes, also courtesy of PB, are the Peyton Linen drapes in Faded Rose.  We have 2 windows in this room, and the hardware still has to be picked out.

And finally, the paint color...Pashmina from Benjamin Moore.

Now, I have yet to paint the walls.  I wanted the floors to be finished so that there were no spills on the newly exposed bare hardwoods.  The walls in our 1930s home are plaster, so they absorb paint like crazy!  I have to do 2 coats no matter what happens or what the color is.  We tried the paint with primer in the dining room, which also required 2 coats, so I am just giving up on trying to get done in one sweep.

We still have lots to do on the room, but I am so ready for it to be done. It is actually our favorite bedroom in the house.  Large and airy with lots of natural light. 

To do still:

1) finish sanding and repair floor damage

2) Apply pre-conditioner 

3) Stain (and pick stain!)

4) Paint 

5) Find a bed...Marc and I moved from a 2 bedroom condo to a technically 5 bedroom house, although we will just have 3 bedrooms set up right now (1 bedroom in basement which we won't use until we remodel the basement and 1 bedroom upstairs that is now our office), so we just have 2 beds and must save $$ for a third!

6) Find additional furniture to go with whatever bed we pick out.

7) DECORATE!

8) Pick out hardware for the curtains!

Lots left to do.  Marc and I hope to have our house in order (including getting all the boxes out of the living room) by Christmas so we can decorate appropriately!  We will have lots of projects left, but all are long-term.  We plan to do a complete kitchen/family room renovation, remodel the basement, remodel the 3 season porch to make it an all-season room, and eventually extend the back bedroom and add an additional bathroom upstairs...seems like if we do all these things, we will make this a more permanent home!  We love this neighborhood, and if all pans out 4 years from now, I can see us staying in this house for a while.

After the floor, next project...bathroom remodel (shouldn't be too bad!)

We are going to keep the floor, rip the tiles from the wall and put up some woodwork, re-tile shower with marble tiles, and likely get a new vanity so we have some workspace, which will likely result in getting rid of the built-in make-up counter? at the back of the bathroom.  This project is next, and I really think it will be much easier than the floor. Any suggestions or ideas are welcome.  Help us!!