Is that a bulge in the ceiling?

When Alex came into this world, we were woefully unprepared.  We decided to wait to buy all of those baby essentials until Matt had refinished all the hardwood floors.  Wednesday night Matt finally finished applying the last coat of polyurethane on the floors after several long weeks of sanding, cleaning, and staining.  Thursday night I ended up in the hospital and Alex came two days later.  Crib, dresser/changing table, car seat, and stroller were all purchased that weekend.  Family came over that Saturday to finish painting, put up molding, assemble the furniture, and give the entire house a good cleaning in preparation for Alex's homecoming.

It was a bit stressful.

Not wanting to repeat that experience, I vowed a couple weeks back to start working on Alex's new room - get everything done and Alex moved over within a month.  Matt has been studying for his Professional Engineering Exam in April, and refinishing the third bedroom gave me something to do while he was busy.  After all, how hard would it be?  Scrap off the hideous flowered wallpaper, sand, clean, texture the ceiling, paint, put up molding, and ta da!  New room for my little boy.

If I've learned anything from the numerous home remodel projects over the last two years, it's that things never go as planned.  And for the most part I was prepared for that.  But holy cow this room has been a beast!

I'm fairly sure the wallpaper was superglued on in some spots.

Grandma had installed shelving on one wall, and combine that with her love for pictures EVERYWHERE, and what appears to be someone's complete inability to install a curtain rod, there were what seemed to be 1,000,000 holes to patch.

After several bad paint jobs over the last 50 years and the many many holes that I patched, I decided to break out the disk sander and sand every inch of the walls.  Might as well do it right and get them smooth the first time, right?

I have learned the importance of prep work when it comes to painting.  I cleaned, and cleaned, and cleaned some more, making sure everything was completely dust free before priming.

I am the world's slowest texture-er.  Spent a couple days texturing the ceiling, taking time to tape the cracks so that they won't reappear.  Prime and paint the ceiling.  FINALLY something is finished!!

First coat of paint carefully applied to the walls - for some random reason there's a fairly even band of little air bubbles about 4.5' from the floor on every wall. . .there are also still bumps in the walls despite my best sanding efforts, might as well make it perfect and sand those out too while I'm at it.

More sanding. . .more cleaning. . .more priming. . .more painting. . .

More air bubbles. . . screw it!  Not nearly as bad as the first time, and most people wouldn't notice.  I was so careful!  I blame it on a bad initial paint job, the paint would just peel right off under the bubbles exposing the sheetrock.  Whatever!  Good enough!  Second coat of paint.

Rigging up the laser level from Matt's work so that I can tape a nice stripe around the room. . .I'm glad I was finally able to put my Steel Manual to good use after all these years!

Brown stripe complete!  Walls finally complete!  YAY! 

Paint the closet - oh how I despise painting closets, but done!

Matt cuts the molding, I paint the molding, Matt begins nailing the molding in place while I sit on the floor shopping online for curtains.  Yes my friends, this room is almost complete!  We can move Alex in here this weekend!  This will be awesome!  It looks amazing!

But wait. . .

Is it just in my head, or is there a bulge in the ceiling?  Why is it that as I sit here on the floor looking up, the light doesn't cast an even circle on the ceiling?  Is it just shadows playing with my eyes, or is the ceiling visibly not even anymore?  That can't possibly be.  We are ALMOST DONE!  The ceiling is textured and painted.  We had the perfect amount of paint for the ceiling, there's nothing left over. . .but I ask Matt just to get a second opinion.  He pushes up on the ceiling and his thumb goes straight through.

CRAPPITY CRAP CRAP!!! . . .only that's the censored version.  Matt continues to pick at the bulge and discovers that for whatever reason the sheetrock is only about 1/8" thick in that part.  I stand on a chair and push up on another part of the ceiling.  The whole ceiling flexes slightly.  Not something you really want to happen.  I promise the ceiling wasn't moving when I textured it.  Perhaps the weight of the plaster and paint is pulling it down?   

Look how beautiful Alex's new room was coming along: 

And now there's a nice little hole in the ceiling that unfortunately needs to get much, MUCH larger. .  .

And so there will be more sheetrocking, more plastering, more sanding, more cleaning, more texturing, more priming, more painting in the weeks to come, . . .and then maybe, just maybe the room will be done. 

And here I thought we were getting a head start!

My word of advice to all of you: find a way to make lots of money so you can afford to hire someone to do all of your home improvement projects for you!  Yes, it will cost you four times as much as if you had done the work yourself, but sometimes it's definitely worth it!

I am now going to go watch the latest episode of Downton Abbey, eat mass amounts of chocolate, and try not to think about how much of the ceiling is actually damaged. . .

Boy or Girl?

Hello!  I hope lots of fun was had and lots of chocolate consumed over the holiday season!  Now the Christmas tree is packed away and it is time to return back to normal life again.  I don't know about you, but January for me is typically met with a bit of relief that the holidays are over, a bit of regret at the mass amounts of junk food consumed and the extra pounds that found a new residence on my hips (thankfully I'm pregnant this year so I can sort of use that as an excuse for those extra 5 pounds. . .right?), and a bit of gloom at the many dark, cold, and (if you live in Utah) smoggy days that lie ahead of us. 

But at least this year I had one huge thing to look forward to.  Matt and I went in for the ultrasound on Friday!  And guess what?

Yep, we're having another little boy!!  We're pretty excited!  Thankfully everything looked normal, and we still expect him to make an appearance around May 31st!  Oh I can almost already see the trouble that Alex and his little brother will get into in a couple years.  It will be awesome :)! 

As far as the future of this blog goes, we will see.  I definitely want to continue learning more about photography and I really liked feeling obligated to blog once a week for the simple fact that it forced me to take pictures and document what we did last year.  But let's be honest, I really don't have anything interesting to say most weeks and I don't want to subject you to the trivial mundane details of my life.  I also want to focus on expanding my etsy business, continue tutoring, and I really need to finish the third bedroom so that it's ready when baby #2 gets here.  That being said, I aim to update this blog every couple weeks or so, give you the highlights of our activities and house projects, and anything else I find interesting along the way.  :)