The house.

Have you wondered if we fell off the earth.
Truth is, it feels like we almost did.
This house building/remodeling business is not for the faint of heart (or energy for that matter).
The entire month has been eaten up by that house. Every waking second that could be spent there working on something, was (or is, as the work continues as I speak). Drew's poor calloused hands, tired eyes and battle wounds are all evidence of the required dues when you decide the way to save cost is to put in some sweat equity.

We're in the home stretch though. We'll be moving things in the week of memorial day, with the first overnight June 1st. In a very brief (but overwhelmingly long task list) we'll be living in the new place.

So what exactly have we been doing? Well, a lot. Except for it doesn't look like a lot on the camera. When you see these photos you'll think, it looks almost the same as before. I know. Its frustrating not to be able to see all of your many long hours invested.
The trouble is that now we are down to millwork and finishes all of the long hours go into tiny visual things- baseboards, door covers, window sills, headers, grout, tiles etc.

The past four weeks we have:
- prepped all the showers for final tile (which takes FOREVER)
- put in all the bathroom floor tiles, grouted and finished them.
- put in all the baseboard, window and trim moulding
-put up the siding on the outside
-changed the basement around a bit (which meant tearing out some drywall and moving a few things around).
- discovered that the only way our couch is coming out of the basement is with a Sawzall.
-carefully cleaned out every single outlet and wall component for power (thanks Aunt Jan!) so that the electrical fixtures and plugs can be installed.
-picked out all the colors for wall paint

So here we go. One more time around the whirlwind tour of the house.

 So, here we are in the office. Looks the same you say? Pay attention to all that trim work along the floor and windows. Its tedious work, I tell you.

 Main floor bath. Whats that lovely green!? Why, don't you like it? Not to worry, its just the waterproofing membrane. There is no tile in the showers yet (that will happen post painting for the most part). But you can see Drew's mom cleaning out the tile spaces so they are prepped for grout (which is apparently, my new side gig).

 Here's where the vanity goes in the bathroom next week. You can't see most of the lovely tile that we put in because once it was set we quickly covered it up. But you can see a small corner of it here, the grey long tiles in a herringbone pattern. I love herringbone.

 A more direct view.

 Then we're in the dining room. See that header. I think it was the first one to go up.

 And the living room. More headers and trim. Lots of small white pieces of wood.

 And here we are in the other corner.  Don't worry, the upstairs peek through rails won't stay. They are just temps to protect the painters from falling.

Main floor bedroom. Window trim and baseboard. Fun stuff.

 Main floor closets. More trim, folks.

 Boys room, second floor. Built in cabinets for their clothes.

 Same deal, other side, trimmed out and ready for paint.

 This is the loft bedroom. It sort of is a staging area. Ready for paint though, if they ever get moving o it.

 Upstairs play space, all trimmed out.

 Second floor nursery. Doors are off for painting, all trim and moulding is done.

 Lovely hexagon tile in the boys bathroom. But, you can't see it because the painters are protecting it. I worked very hard on it, so I'm happy about all the pink paper.

 Master bath is the same story. There are these great black metalic tiles under that pink paper. You'll see it in the near future.

 Master bedroom all trimmed out.

 Master hallway. here you can see the pocket door trim. Fun stuff.

 Basement big room. Those boxes are all tile and light fixtures. Also, somewhere in there is my giant farm sink which I can't wait for!

 Other side of the rec room in the basement. No trim here yet though. We were waiting for the concrete to get leveled (which happened today).

 Here's another look at the bathroom tile. Its the same stuff as on the mainfloor, but is in the basement too. Here it looks yellow because I was too lazy to switch the light setting on the camera and there wasn't much natural light. It not really yellow, I promise.

 Here's the snafu in the laundry room,which hopefully will be all patched up this week.

 Did you wonder what the outside was looking like? Its all sided in now. The grey is a bit darker than in these pictures, because again, I was too lazy to mess with the light settings much.

 Closer view of the front side. Drew is probably sad that the garage door isn't closed. He loves it. Its a carriage style and has the quietest motor in the history of the world (to hear him tell it).

 Side view. Don't you love our beautiful grass.
Ish.
The lawn is another nightmare to be explored.

 P.S. It was 81 here today. April 28th. Last week we had 8 inches of snow. No joke.

 Owen, exploring the sand in the backyard, and the back view of the house.

And finally, a shot of the back door mudroom.

So thats it. Updates galore.
I imagine I won't update again until all the paint is on the walls and the cabinets are in, so it will be a few weeks. It would just be too depressing to update in between.

I'm so anxious its painful. I want to move in already! Geez.

Until we meet again....

Quilting part 4

Well kids.
Its been a long two years (okay, maybe closer to 2.5, but who's counting?), but I finished the quilt! I can barely believe it myself.

Here's how it looks in all its finished glory:

 In these pictures the colors look more vibrant than they really are, but I think you get the idea. What a journey this has been.

First there was the hexagon nightmare.
You all know how that went.

But then there was the basting. Which really wasn't a night mare, but required I learn about a whole bunch of new sewing techniques and taught me that I am WAY TOO novice to even attempt crazy quilting.

The thing about crazy quilting is you have to have a VERY steady hand. You (as in the person) have to control the pace of the fabric going under the needle because you have no feeddogs to rely on it. Its rather intimidating, as the first few times I tried it I had stiches that were 1 milimeter long all the way to stitches up to about an inch long. I learned quickly that my pace was miserable and I turned way too quickly in the fabric. I would make sharp lefts and rights, instead of nice beautiful curves.

Also, crazy quilting was not the way to go. So, I had to learn another method.

So, on I went to straight foot stitching, using a foot that was made for quilting so I could stitch in the ditch as they say. I wound up with this, which I actually rather liked. Its a curvy stitch on a diagonal with a straight stitch mixed in. This is the back of the quilt.

Here's where I learned about tension. If you look closely (and no, I didn't provide a close up so you could see my mistakes) you can see how the tension was set all wrong on some of my rows so the stitches pile up. While I was quilting I didn't know this, mostly because it shows on the backside, not the front, so I would do a whole row and flip it over. Then I'd say oh F*C%. It was way too much to pull out. So, another lesson learned. Another "special feature" of Owen's quilt.


After getting it all quilted I had a few hexies left so I randomly sewed them on the back side to add some color. Some of them cover up mistakes, but others I just put wherever.







Once the hexies were all sewn on I had to decide about the edges.  I knew that I didn't want to have a straight edge, because you know, I never just do things the easy way. I wanted to preserve the hexie pattern, so I found myself reading all about convex and concave corners in quilt binding.

And thats when I figured out I had to make bias tape.  A crap ton of it.

So, another tutorial, another day. I made about a million yards of bias tape (Which is material cut on the bias so it stretches and gives more, folded, ironed, folded and ironed again). Tedious stuff.

Then I pinned that around the quilt and started in my journey of angled corners. Bias tape is machine sewn on the front and hand sewn on the back (if you do it the way I did) and I did a double bias tape so it was stronger. Getting all those corners was sort of a nightmare, but I figured it out.

And then, just this week, I finally sewed the last little bit.

I cannot promise that it is perfect (ha!)
or even beautiful (ha! ha!)
Or that even 1/4 of the binding stitches are hidden (because they clearly aren't!)
Or that I didn't make some very real mistakes on this thing (please don't zoom in too close on the actual quilt!)

But, I can officially say that I made my first quilt and I actually like it.
It didn't scare me away, and now I'm moving on to other things for the new house.
But I feel another one of these things in my future.

Tonight, when I gave it to Owen he said "Thank you momma!" and when I asked him what he wanted to do with it, he said, put it in my crib so I can go to sleep. Right this moment he's all wrapped up in it, snoozing away. And that precious smile and adorable face made every moment of it worth it.

Fantastic Floors! to Frustrating Finishes

 Here we are again! The weekly update on the house.

First up this week, all Drew's hard work! The floors! hooray! They are beautiful and he worked so hard to get them in. In these photos they are dirty, but once they are all cleaned up they'll look stunning against the white! I can't wait.







 






Then, more of Drew's non-stop handiwork. The house is for the most part ready for final finishes, except that Drew has to put in all the doors, trim, and tile between now and April 22nd. Its A LOT of work, and we're very fortunate that Drew's brother Chris and his mom are here to help out.

 Then were the doors and trim. The doors were a surprise to us- we thought the builder was hanging them, so that was a bit frustrating. But, with Chris there to help the guys got them all up in a few days time.

 Here's the door to the boys room.

 Main floor bedroom.

And then it was on to showers. Drew is doing all the tile. He's been working really hard on getting the tile board and shelves ready for the tile. Here is the main floor bathroom ready to go.

 And here's some of the tile!

On to the basement. We haven't shared an update down here for a bit- lots has happened up to the primer.

 Stairs heading to the basement.

 Main hallway in the basement.

 Play room (don't worry the freezer will move eventually).

 And just like magic, wer'e back upstairs again. This is the master shower, ready for tile.

And finally the main hallway on the second floor. We're getting closer bit by bit.
Drew has to have all tile and trim done by the 22nd, so the painters can come (which I assume means I need to have all paint colors picked by then! Yikes!).

Onward we go!