The Basement: Bathroom - Check!

It was a busy weekend here at the Barrick abode. Bobby and I spent every waking minute together, which was awesome and so much fun! At 8am on Friday morning when he suggested we get started on the basement, I looked at him... then looked at my belly... then looked at him... then got up and went to the ladies room.

After my doctors appointment that morning, we stopped into Lowes and were, of course, greeted by name and the obligatory comment, "Oh! When are you due?!" I waddled down the aisles after Bobby: plumbing, carpet, tile, paint. Then came home to Killian, who was jumping up and down at the front door, each time pulling down bits and pieces of my nice boxwood wreath. Awesome.

By noon, we finally rolled into the house and ate lunch. I stayed upstairs to clean up while Bobby started working in the basement. Really... not even 5 minutes after he mosied down the stairs, I was passed out on the couch for an afternoon nap. Every once in a while, I'd hear my name being called... but sleeping was more important. I am 40 weeks pregnant, you know.

2:00 rolled around and I went downstairs to check on things. I have to make sure I keep an orderly house, after all. Things looked in great shape, and it was time to paint. Yay! The previous week, I had recycled 2.5 gallons of half-used paint we had from the rest of the house. I took it on myself to be creative and mix my own color. Bobby had his doubts, but to my surprise (and his), the color I came up with turned out almost EXACTLY like the color I had originally picked from Pottery Barn! Yay for saving $45 a gallon on no-VOC Benjamin Moore paint! The bathroom was painted, and I was then named Queen of Cutting In and Baseboard Painting. Bobby did the rest. When I went back upstairs, this is how the bathroom looked:

I spent the rest of the afternoon cleaning up the house. I'd get distracted by one mess, then begin organizing something that belonged in another room, and get started cleaning up a mess in THAT room. A very inefficient way to clean, but my office and business files all got organized, my bedroom and bathroom got cleaned up, our "junk drawer" now has much less junk, and Killian has about 10 pounds less fur. By around 9:00pm, I went downstairs to find the bathroom in this condition:

WOW. Can I just say that I love having a husband that is a perfectionist and shares the same vision in home decorating as I do?? So, by 9:30, Homeboy could barely make it up the stairs because he was so exhausted. I almost had to pull him up with the Shop Vac just to get him in the shower. Don't worry... I let him sleep in the next morning...8am sure does come fast!

So now, we can officially check off the biggest hurdle in the basement: the bathroom. Done and DONE.

The Basement: Flooring

It's. almost. there.

I sit here writing to you from my bright red couch and jammies while my husband has been slaving away in the basement all weekend long. My dear, sweet in-laws have been down here for the past 3 weekends to furiously help him since I'm pretty much out of commission when it comes to fumes of any kind, dust or bending over. (You guys are incredible, thank you!)

I've been told to cross my legs for one more week until Bobby can get the plumbing and bedroom squared away! Just kidding....but not really. It's *this close* to being livable and completely functional. And for that, I am so excited.

You see, our guest room is now inhabited by a crib, lots of little clothes, and a very lazy cat who likes to sleep UNDER the crib. My mom is coming to stay with us for a week after our sweet Little gets here, so it would be great if we could have somewhere for her to stay! Apart from that, we're expecting other out-of-town guests overnight (like Peanut's Aunt Christina and Uncle AJ, who are carrying Peanut's cousin) soon after, so we want to have a place for them to stay and feel welcome.

Anyway, there's a lot to do this week still and thankfully I'll finally be able to help out a little. I get to let the carpet installer guy in the door. Go me!

So here are some pictures of the progress from this weekend - the flooring! Sorry for the quality. Some were from my iPhone and others from our little Point and Shoot, which I still haven't figured out!

Have a great week, everyone!

The stairs are still pretty scary, but they will soon be covered with pretty carpet!

Bobby is spending the day doing grout on the tiles in the bathroom - yay! Then we can paint and do final plumbing. And when I say "we," I mean "Bobby."

Please excuse the mess... and the little belly in the picture. I can't help it these days. In case you can't tell, the shower surround is white subway tile and the floor is gray, slate-colored porcelain tile. The bathroom vanity will be going where the blank space is... duh.

Ta-Da!! This is looking back into the basement.

How Much in a Day?

It has to be one of the best feelings in the world to accomplish something visible/tangible in one day. I cannot always say the same thing about my life. But drywallers? Yes. Drywaller Men can definitely say that they are able to finish one major undertaking in a days work.

This morning, I blogged about our basement project (which had been lacking in progress pictures) that was ready to go and pre-drywall. This morning at 7am, we had TWO guys come in, wreck havoc on our basement for about 10 hours, and hang every piece of drywall in the joint. Wow. The basement quickly went from feeling like a dungeon full of cotton-candy pink insulation and framing, to looking like a real living area. I have a bit of advice to anyone finishing a major house project that involves drywall: HIRE SOMEONE ELSE. They do it fast, and they do it right. It would have taken Bobby and a small army of engineer friends a few weekends to do this amount of work.

I'm currently quarantined to our bedroom for the evening since there is so much dust and so many fumes rising out of the basement from all the new materials, but I was able to sneak downstairs quickly to take a few shots of the semi-finished product of todays work. The guys will have to come back two more times to tape and mud the seams and then to sand the surfaces flat. Once that happens, we'll be rolling with a few finishing touches: tile in the bathroom, hanging doors and trim, prime/painting, then flooring and carpet!

Readdyyyyy.....GO!

Have a fantastic week!

Dun, duh, duh, dun....

Guest Room!

Hmm...please don't mind the dust on the lens!

Bathroom

Oh yea, the Basement

So... for the past six months, we've had a major "under"taking in our basement (ha. ha. The pun? Yea, lame, sorry). I've only updated on our progress once or twice. Ever. Hmm... bad blogger.

Anyway, Bobby has been working away to make our once unfinished basement into a new living area for our growing family. He has been working over-time on this project with the impending arrival of our little Peanut on his shoulders. Our guest room has since been transferred into a nursery, so we have to move quickly in order to get our guest room back. In addition to that room, we will also have a full bathroom down there, complete with a toilet! Hooray! The rest of the basement (which is roughly the size of the footprint of our house) will be a free room, where we hope to make into an additional and more casual living space. Mama wants no toys in the upstairs living space, so most of the toys (hopefully) will be housed in the basement. Current Moms, I can already hear you laughing...

Every day, I am thankful that I married a handy husband, since he's done most of the work himself. On top of working full-time, going to school for his masters and dealing with a pregnant wife, I commend him. Plumbing and framing were in his hands. We had to hire out an electrician due to St. Mary's County laws, and we've hired drywall experts since that's too big a job for just Bobby himself. All of this has saved us a tremendous amount of money!

Over the past 6 months, we've developed quite a relationship with the employees at our local Lowes. Every Saturday, we make no less than 2 trips to Lowes. They are all nervous to tell us anything negative so that I "won't Pop!" Thanks...

Anyway, today marks a big step in progress for our little basement: the drywall guys are here are they are MOVIN.' In no less than 5 minutes of being here, we heard screws turning and drills going. They mean business! Which is fabulous. They should be finished hanging everything today and will come back in a few days to do the mudding and taping. After that, Team Barrick is taking over to tile, prime & paint, install the flooring, doors and trim. *Hint, Hint, Mom and Dad Barrick*

For now, I thought I'd show you where we are in the process pre-drywall. Once the drywall is up, progress will be more apparent, so I'll give you more updates!

It's a little difficult to tell what's what without the drywall in place, but hopefully you can get the idea. Oh, and there's also a secret game of "Where's Waldo" going on in these pictures. Except I've changed the name to "Where's Killian."

Enjoy!

This will be open living space. TV on the wall to the right and couch right in front.

I cannot even tell you what a deal we scored on this flooring. For those interested, I will attempt to break down our budget and costs for this whole project. Just to give you an idea, our budget was $8K - equal to the Homebuyers Tax Credit we got last Spring. Woot!

Seeing Green

My office. I spend more time there than I do the following things:

- Patting Killian

- Feeding Killian

- Swatting at Killian

- Chasing down Killian after he escapes outside

- Scolding Killian

Which is saying something, because I spend a lot of time doing those things.

My office before was bleak to say the least. Plain white, 4 square walls, a modest closet for storage, and a lonely futon. Our first major furniture purchase for the house was my beloved desk from Pottery Barn (don't judge me, I used a coupon AND picked it up from the store to save on shipping). I love that desk for all the storage and ability to hide hideous and confusing wires. It's sturdy and comfortable and works perfectly for what I need to do. Oh, and Bobby likes it too.

Then there was paint. You all remember my infamous and loathsome "sample wall?" I knew I wanted a green room to kind of "go" with my business colors, but what shade? A full room of chartreuse would have been too much. I absolutely loved the "Paris Mint" shade, if only because it had the word "Paris" in it, but it wasn't right. I tried "Vegas Green," but thought the name would offend my dear mother, and really, I did sort of feel like I was at the Copa Cabana. I hated the quality of Lowes paint, so I had to branch out. Plus, their colors weren't right. Did you know Green is the hardest color in which to find the right shade?

Near impossible, I tell ya!

Then I went to Benjamin Moore. For those of you suspecting, no, I didn't choose a Pottery Barn color. Instead, I reached into my purse and pulled out...my wallet. It was the exact green I had been looking for and thanks to the Smarty Pants Paint Girl at Ace Hardware, she was able to match the color - to. the. tee. I took my gallons home along with some painters tape and had visions of horizontal stripes dancing in my head.

Opening those cans of flat and semi-gloss paint was like opening a can of whoop-a** (pardon moi, the effect would not be the same) on my plain white walls. They just had to go.

Thanks to the tutorial I found on Young House Love, one of my new favorite home how-to blogs, I was able to paint my horizontal stripes with ease, alternating strpies with flat finish and semi-gloss finish. It took me about 2 hours in one evening to paint the entire wall (just an accent wall, don't worry) with two coats.

The next evening, I did some math, marked out where my stripes were going to go, used a level to tape the areas, and went to town with the semi-gloss! If you don't include the 45 minute break to eat a Cadbury Egg and watch E! News Weekly during a bout of frustration, it took me only an hour to tape, level and paint the stripes. Difficult? I think not!

I'd also like to note that Bobby had no help in fixing my office. When I asked him to help me use the level, he said "nope, you're a big girl, you can figure it out." Just to spite his last words, I DID do it myself and it looks fabulous!

Ok, so for those of you who skipped my story just looking for pictures, here's the before, during and after...taken with my iPhone, so please excuse the lackluster quality. I know I've promised pictures of a lot of finished projects, so after Mexico, my goal is to give you a tour of pictures if you missed our housewarming party last weekend!

Enjoy!

It's hard to tell, but the stripes are just 2 different finishes: Flat and Semi-Gloss.

Check!

Well... we can now say that one thing is crossed off the list!

Crown molding went in without a hitch this weekend and it looks A-MAZING. Seriously. If anyone in Southern MD (possibly elsewhere?) needs anything like that done, I will recommend those guys in a heart beat.

Anyway, I took some pictures (duh) so you can check it out! We still have to touch up the paint, but everything else is all finished!

In other news, Bobby finished the deck this weekend! All that needs to be finished are the little caps to put on top of the posts to deter little, furry vermin from climbing on them :) We have an inspection schedule for next week and then we'll officially be finished with it! But my brain was in other places yesterday, so I neglected to take a picture of our finished product and the first major project executed on the house. I'll get to it eventually.

Enjoy!

Please don't mind the Swiffer... I was cleaning, ok?! Our front entry/foyer.

The hallway leading to the back... look at the corners - that's my favorite part!

Did I ever show you a picture of our dining room completed? I can't remember, so here you go. Obviously there's zero decoration in here. I haven't gotten that far yet.

My fabulous black powder room!

Our kitchen...behind the cabinets, too.

Family room - I love the white molding against the gray!

That's it! Now you have to come see it in person on May 1st!

Buried

Yup. Buried in house projects. That's how I would describe our life right now.

The dining room table is upside down in the family room, the console table is under our kitchen bar, there's a vacuum cleaner in the powder room, there's crown molding taking up the entire garage, and Killian has been sleeping in the bath tub at night.

Oh, Bobby has school two nights a week, wedding season has started for me, we're both trying to squeeze in an hour work-out each night, we're eating dinner maybe before 9pm, and we both have full-time jobs.

We're not busy at all. We're buried, but I think I mentioned that before.

I'd like the record to show that I am the QUEEN of unfinished projects. I press one of Bobby's buttons every time I start a new project. Thankfully, we haven't lost all of our marbles...yet. Things are slowly coming off our "to-do" list. Obviously, our to-do list will continue to grow, but hopefully some things will get to be crossed off.

Tomorrow, a big feat will be started and finished as we're having someone install crown molding on the whole first floor. While 2 guys will hang from our ceiling all day, Bobby is finally going to finish the deck! And me? I'll be shooting a wedding...otherwise I'd love to share in the madness that will be taking place on Primevere Street tomorrow.

So, because of you have been so patient for pictures of all these projects, I give you the "in progress" stage of our house. Please mind the piles of papers to be filed and miscellaneous boxes on every other surface of the house.

Did you know that Green is the hardest color to pick out? EVER?! I simply cannot decide on the right shade. Two words: Valspar Stinks. Oh, and no making fun of my splotchy wall that is my office.

We painted! It's hard to tell here, but the color is a stone-gray. And we changed the orientation of the couch and TV. I'm not sold on it yet...



Something fabulous is going on this wall. You can see it as you walk in from the front door! I'll reveal...once the project is a) started, and b) finished.



And the piece de resistance... our powder room! I have always wanted a black room! And while this isn't quite black (although it may look like it here), it's actually charcoal. "Dark Knight" to be exact. Who thinks of paint color names anyway? I can't wait to finish this room, it's quite possibly my favorite color we've painted so far.

That's it!! Oh, and drum roll.... please mark your calendars for May 1st! We will be hosting a housewarming party/open house for all to make the trek down to SOMD. More on that coming later...

Happy Weekend!

How-To Undo Ugly

...and I'm not talking about giving Killian a make-over.

Sorry Baby. (Please take note of Bobby's face as he expresses pure disdain for our furry room mate).

Nope, remember this thing? This was the first thing I wanted to change when we moved in.

It fell down the list a few times before we "took care of it."

I hated it so much, it went down to the basement and hung itself. Get it? Ha. Ha.

Moving On! So, since I couldn't find a chandelier that a) wasn't $39,050 and b) I actually liked, I decided to take matters into my own hands. A DIY was just what this ugly fixture needed. A little love.

So, I went to Lowes. By myself. I picked up some Hammered-finish, "wrought iron" look Spray Paint, 9 globe-style light bulbs, and a swiffer to remove the piles of dust from the polished brass. Let's get started!

Go back to Lowes because you got the wrong sized end for the light bulbs. Oh, what? You got the right size? Well, still. Go back to Lowes. It will make me feel better about myself.

Next, Swiffer the heck out of your chandelier. Dust Bunnies are no fun to look at when eating dinner. Then, go ahead and give the spray paint can a good shake. OPEN A WINDOW. Suffocate yourself in the basement. And then give the chandelier a good, thorough painting.

Now, go ahead and hang the chandelier where it belongs.

Realize that you forgot to spray the entire bottom of the chandelier. Then take it down and hit it again with the spray paint.

Wait 24 Hours for it to dry completely. And VOILA!

See the lovely, unique hammered finish without having to hammer anything? That's my kind of work!

No go ahead and hang it again where it belongs.

Play with the dimmer 7930587 times, and marvel at how the ugly disappeared.

Then don't compare to the image I was going for in my beloved Pottery Barn catalog. This is the Edison and it costs precisely 7 times what it cost me to make-over my hideous polished brass chandelier.

$40 or $300?? Mine may be upside-down, but I'll take $40 for now. Thank you!

Cha-Ching! And we have Undone the Ugly.

Slow Boat to China

I gotta cut the man some slack though, right? I mean, he can only work weekends. I gave him a raise for working in the freezing snow last weekend. What more does he want?!

Lunch. That's what he wants... and so did his 4 other friends. Greedy, I tell you. (Just kidding)

So our deck is coming along. It'd be great if the weather would cooperate! Poor Bobby has been working out in the freezing cold, sleet, snow, pouring rain, all just to build our deck and have it finished before Christmas. He's actually more than half way through. Please tell Santa that we would like a fire pit for Christmas. Thank you.

(From the inside... it was too cold and wet to actually go outside and take a picture.)

I finally had a less-than-crazy weekend last weekend and was able to start my first craft project in the new house! A few weeks ago, a friend and I went to this Antique Store (The Vintage Source) down here in Leonardtown. Of all the things we need to furnish the house, I procured an antique window, complete with lead paint and a crack. I'm not sure why I was drawn to this window, but now every time I say I'm going shopping, my friend asks me if I'm going "window shopping." Then she giggles. It's very funny, but I'm afraid it's an inside joke. Regardless, this puppy needed to be sanded and refinished, so I worked in the basement for most of Saturday while it mercilessly rained down freezing ice. Oh, what? You want to know whether I wore a mask while sanding my lead paint-infested window? Nope...no. I didn't. I just held my breath ;)

Hello, lead paint.



It has a lot of charm, don't you think? All those cracks, dust, and chips.

Among other home projects, I snuck away to Lowes, where I acquired 4 mini cans of paint, which I promptly brushed onto our new, naked walls to test some colors. And no... this paint color is not black. (Oh, I can hear my mother now!) We will start to paint after Christmas - yay!

In other news, I bought a glass artichoke for decoration today. Don't hate...it's very chic.

Is Christmas here yet? I need a vacation!