Pre-baby blog: Part 3 of 3

The last installment of the pre-baby blog:

September 15th, 2009

I am now a little over 7 months and a week (29 weeks) now and have been starting to finally feel like I'm getting big! It's harder to toss and turn in bed and wearing more of the same clothes over and over. It's been too dang hot to wear much anyway! I used to shun A/Cs and drafts like the devil but now they are my God-sent saving grace. Who knew a having a baby inside could heat you up like a furnace?

The biggest changes over the last month or so, besides growing ever so bigger, is the frequency and strength of the kicks, rolls and pushes the baby makes inside me. It's become a several-days-a-week ritual where Gabe and I will settle into bed to watch a DVD and proceed to lay hands on my belly and feel the baby's every move. It is awe-inspiring to say the least and bonds us to the child to no end. The baby, I noticed, is definitely responding to Daddy's voice! Gabe will be gone for several hours while I'm at home and the baby's not moving much....then in walks Gabe, talking, hugging and kissing me, and the baby kicks with joy!

I can hardly believe our little one will be here in about 2 1/2 months. It still seems like a little ways away but also a very looming upcoming event. I'm excited because after daily searches for over a month on www.craigslist.org in San Diego, Orange, AND Los Angeles counties, we finally found the exact crib, dresser and hutch set by Pali we've been looking for. So tomorrow my Mom and I will be going to pick it up.....we can hopefully start putting the nursery together then.

That brings me to an update on our floors. Ok, yeah, it's been taking us WAAAAAY longer than we thought it would (like I said even a month ago), but the good news is that the floors are finished, the walls are painted, the baseboards are in, and now all we need to do is caulk the baseboards and sand/paint the door jambs and windows. It doesn't help that I can't do most of the work due to my size, difficulty of some of the tasks, and protection of my health and the baby's. But it's coming together and Gabe and I are smitten with the new look of our home so far. And I'm smitten with Gabe's handiwork!

Pre-baby blog: Part 2 of 3

Second posting from pre-baby blog:

August 22, 2009

Right now, we are in the middle of a partial remodel of our home here in Laguna Beach. We've been here five years now and lived with carpeting that we are not fond of. Late last year, Gabe, being the curious and inquisitive person that he is, did a little exploring and discovered that there are original red oak hardwood floors beneath!

We talked about it and dreamed of tearing up the carpeting and refinishing the floors. We weren't certain that our landlord would go for it and who knew what kind of damage the floors would have, if any? So we kind of put it on the back burner and stayed busy with our lives.

About a month ago we got a surprise visit from the property manager in regards to a different matter and took the advantage of her being there by asking her if she'd be alright with us doing the floor project and if there was anything we needed to be aware of. To our utter delight, she gave us her full blessing! After all, it would be a home improvement for their property.

The floors were/are a little funky with some areas of water damage and TONS of paint and mud splatters all over the floors, but it didn't deter us. Since it is a rental, we weren't planning on making the floors perfect anyway so we planned to just remove the carpeting, pull up all the old staples, nails and carpet tack strips along the walls, do a quick sanding job and then put a layer of VOC-free oil finish on it. Oh, AND paint the nursery a 50's mint green color. We can get it done in about a week. Suuuuuure.

It is now into week 4 and half of our house is in the living room (Thanks to Mom and Charis Pratt for helping us move the office furniture and our way-too-much-stuff!). There is literally a maze to my corner of the room where my computer and desk is. We've been sleeping on our mattress on the floor in various rooms (including the entryway!), depending on what was being done. See, instead of just painting the nursery, we just had to paint our bedroom, the entryway, the hallway and the office, 'cause all the furniture is out and we might as well, you know?? I'm glad we did. Gabe and I were talking about how much it feels like we've moved into a new house and it feels MORE like a home than a rental now!

There were some areas on the floor that were patched with plywood that we were just going to leave alone and maybe paint over, but being the Maximizer that Gabe is, he decided that it would be better to replace those areas with new red oak hardwood slats (that we had to special order). I am so lucky to have this man as my husband. Where I would cut corners, he would not and I'm very glad for it. We also enlisted the help of Gabe's Dad, Grandpa Dennis, who was kind enough to fly all the way down from north of San Francisco for a few days and also my cousin Devin's husband, Steve. Thank you both for your help! It looks amazing! Right now Gabe is in there with the stand-up sander doing the initial phase of sanding and the floors are SO beautiful.

Next up - after doing all the sanding, we will apply just one coat of the finish, let it dry, paint one last room and then put baseboards in (there were really none to begin with). THEN we can finally move half of our house back in.

After that we are going to tear up the last bit of carpeting in one of the bathrooms and put in beautiful green 3/4" round penny tiles (since there were no hardwood floors in there) that kind of match the 50's style of the existing tiles on the walls. It's going to look GORGEOUS! So yes, we are nesting BIG time and we're so excited to see the end result!