Movin' on up

to the attic!  And the big bed...sort of.  We'll discuss the latter first.
We've been trying to get Owen to sleep in the "big bed" for the last week and a half.  We got a thin/low little mattress for our old bed and rearranged our old room so the bed was next to wall.  We have succeeded in getting him to nap in it twice and sleep in it once.  Oddly enough these were the first times we tried.  Since then he has laid down and "read" stories to his stuffed friends for anywhere from 30min to 1.5 hours before asking us if he can go back and sleep in the crib.  So, crib it has been.
But here was our first successful nap:

and some reading in bed

And now you will be subjected to a cavalcade of photos of the attic makeover.  This started back in January by clearing out the copious amounts of furniture and random storage things that had accumulated up there over the years  - it was seriously a lot (2 double beds, a full couch, at least 6 bookcases, a kitchen table and chairs, 2 desks, side tables, random boxes/tupperwares of gear, and the list goes on).  It’s a big space – 420sq ft, so it held a lot of junk!  Then came the carpet tear out.  The old, stained, brown berber carpet had to go.  Luckily it pulled up easily (except on the stairs – seriously, how many carpet staples does it take for one tread!?!?  Apparently over 2 dozen), and the asbestos sample I sent out for the underlay came back negative, so it was smooth sailing for easy tear out!

The only two things I didn’t do myself were installing the closet wall and installing electric, because a) I can’t lift whole sheets of sheet rock myself and Dave didn’t have time really to help and b) I don’t mess with electric.  Power tools, yes. Wiring, no…I just don’t know enough.  So in went the closet wall!  And now we have a kick ass, giant walk in closet! 

Then I painted…and painted…and painted.  To his credit, Dave did paint the ceiling for me.  I find ceiling painting hard.  Plus the first day of ceiling painting I managed to break our roller pole and have the entire roller of paint go flying off conveniently landing on my head.  Dave also painted the highest portions of the wall in the stairwell, as I was a bit too big at this point to be climbing up and down the ladder with any sort of grace and agility.

Then cork underlay and in-floor heating installation.  The rest of our house is radiator heat, but it was never run up to the attic, so the attic had old floorboard heaters (you can see them in the carpet tear out pic) that were a total energy suck and didn’t actually warm the space.  It was far too expensive to tie into the radiator system, so this was the best option (at least from what my *vast* research on various heating options came up with)…plus this will feel so nice come winter again!

Then, flooring, and quarter round installation!  I put in an engineered bamboo floating floor.  I gotta say, I felt pretty bad ass at 7 months pregnant* up there with the miter saw and nail gun installing a new floor! It took me somewhere in the 8-10 hours range…spread out in 1-2 hour increments over the course of a week when I could squeeze in the time.  I’m pretty darn proud of how it came out!  And to give Dave some credit, he did help me rip a couple of the floor boards when needed – it was far easier with 2 people than just one for that job.

This was my saw room - its the unifinished space through that door at the top of the stairs.  a.k.a. temporary home of transient bats, mice, squirrels, and pigeons over the years (thankfully none joined me while I was working). a.k.a. home of our future master bath...one day...a girl can dream!

Those are the original roof boards you can see - you use to be able to touch roof shingles through the gaps in the boards before we had the house re-roofed...it was a chilly work space!

*That being said, this is me at 7 months pregnant…I don’t exactly cut a gigantic pregnant figure – despite the copious amounts of ice cream I have been consuming.  But as you’ll recall, I make tiny babies.  Seriously, when I was pregnant with Owen, I went in for an ultrasound at 34 weeks and the nurse who takes your weight and blood pressure before you see the doctor asked if I was carrying twins because she thought I was there for my 20 week appointment and just slightly big for that, but not nearly big enough to be 34 weeks.  You would think seeing as she works at an OBs office she would a)learn what not to say to pregnant ladies and b)learn to read a chart before she opens her mouth…but I digress.

nothing screams "take a mirror selfie in front of me" like the bathroom at work!

And now, we are up in the attic!  There are still a couple things to finish (as evidenced by the ladder and my array of tools still hanging out on the stairwell ledge), like installing new stair treads, new lighting/ceiling fan, making a headboard for the bed, and reglazing a couple windows (ah, old house, how leaky you are!), but overall, it. Is. Awesome!  I love how bright it is up there! It has always been my favourite space in our house, and I’m happy it is finally being used for something other than storage!

And I apologize wholeheartedly to anyone who visited us who ever stayed up there…it was truly disgusting before…and I didn’t quite realize how gross until I started pulling everything out!

I also refinished that old trunk and the coffee table - they tie in so well with the new space!  Bed still needs the headboard...I'm hoping I will get it done over the weekend.

our sitting area

my sewing nook!!  I'm so excited to have all my material organized where I can find it for a change!

Flax "helped" me make curtains for Owen's new big bed room in the sewing nook's inaugural use

I promise the next post will both be soon, and have more pics of Owen!

Big Changes!

There have been 2 major changes in the past 2 weeks around here - one of them will wait for the next post when hopefully I will have some updated pics to go along with it (the attic is now a livable space!), and the other involves the passing of the paci.  It's the end of an era folks!

We noticed over the past month or so that Owen was developing these red marks on his upper lip which I thought might be related to his incessant nighttime paci practice...but he just seemed so reliant on it that with all the other changes about to rain down on him (moving to a real bed, the imminent arrival of a baby brother) I was loathe to take away what he seemingly relied upon to sleep.  We have friends and family both who got rid of the pacis by telling their kids various stories along the lines of giving them  up to the "paci fairy" or giving them to Santa for the baby reindeer, or some such similar.  So we thought we could plant the seeds of O choosing to give his paci up to somebody and came up with a story about the "Chupon Pirates" (chupon = paci in spanish, and O has been super into pirates lately) and how they needed chupons for their boats and they leave behind treasure when they collect their chupon booty.  He didn't buy into it.  Anytime pirates came up over the next couple days (in books, at the park, etc) he would exclaim "no chupon pirate!"  We figured he just wasn't ready to give up the chupon.  Until a week later when we found out that his chupon had been cut out at daycare for nap times for the past several months and he was doing just fine with his naps. He kept insisting on them at home...the little stinker!  So, two Saturdays ago we cut out the paci cold turkey.  He asked for them at bedtime that night, but hasn't asked for them since.  It takes him a little longer to fall asleep than it used to...understandable.  Plus I think we managed to coincide all of this with him cutting his second molars...yay us.  I discovered he has one of them in on the top just this morning...I imagine the other 3 are not all that far behind.

I don't have many pictures from the past couple weeks.  I've been trying to get more video, which is hard seeing as he runs over to watch as soon as he realizes he is being taped...it makes for very short video clips.
But here is a rather longish one of him hanging out playing at the kitchen counter as I made dinner earlier this week.  This is pretty typical for pre dinner time around here!