Home Improvements or Nesting? You Decide!

Oh my, what a weekend! 

It all started with me watching Kevin O’Connor from This Old House do a segment on the Today show Friday about doing small home improvement projects around the house.  One of which was removing wallpaper. Well, we have a little of that left in our house from when we bought it 2 year ago.  That first month we removed wallpaper and border from a couple of major rooms but left the bathroom and the one wall of paper in the dining area as is.  We’ve been wanting to remove the carpet from the dining area and lay down wood flooring in there and the adjoining kitchen.  We decided we couldn’t do that until we took down the wallpaper and then painted.  So, back to Kevin.  He reminded me that we should be getting that done.  The wall the paper was on has the door and 2 door sized windows on it that leads onto the deck, which means there wasn’t a lot of paper to remove, just the thought of doing it was holding us back.  So, I texted Andy: “Guess what we’re doing this weekend!!!!”  Andy: “What?”  Me: "Removing the dining room wallpaper and painting!!! Yay!!!”  Andy: “Oh boy!”  Ha ha! 

Saturday morning, bright and early, we started in on the job.  The actual removal wasn’t that bad, it came right off.  Then there was the adhesive.  Ugh.  Hours of scrubbing and scrapping.  But we got it done early that evening.  We also had time to fill the holes and sand that down. 

We got cleaned up and headed to town to look for paint.  Our hope was to get those little sample containers of color to paint on the wall and to look at for the next week until we could decide which one we liked best.  Well guess what, that didn’t work out.  We brought home the teeny tiny paper samples and stuck them to the wall.  So far we are undecided. 

Meanwhile, we came home and grabbed the mail and I found the sweetest package in my box!  My dear, sweet Best Canadian friend, Jodi, sent me our very first baby gift!  I sat on the couch sobbing and clutching the hat for the next half hour.  Andy and the boys really thought I’d lost my marbles! But just look at it!  How adorable is that?  It will be going to the hospital with us for Baby’s first ride home! 

If you’ve never had Cheezies you must get yourself to Canada to get some!  Yum!  They are better than Cheetos!  They are dangerous for this preggo for sure! LOL!

So, back to the task at hand.  Got up Sunday morning to start painting.  Well, priming.  I am not usually the type of person to tape off trim, ceilings, etc, but decided that since this was the dining area where we eat every day I’d better make double sure not to get any paint where it shouldn’t be. (Usually I just use an angled brush and cut in the edges by hand.  Most times I do a pretty good job but again, didn’t trust myself in this high traffic area.)  With everything taped off I start trimming the wall out with primer.  Andy came behind me with the roller and we knocked that out pretty quick.  Then Andy said “since we have the mess started should we go ahead and take down those cupboards?”  Uh, sure, we have no plan but yea, let’s go ahead and do that. Ha ha!  Actually, we’ve been talking about doing this forever and sort of kind of had a plan, but the plan wasn’t to do it at that moment!  So, Andy removes the trim and loosens the first cupboard to see what’s up there.  Clean!  And down they came! 

(Yes, everything is a mess and looks terrible!  No we don’t live like that!  Just what happens when doing home improvement projects at the McGuire house!)

OMG!  So exciting but at the same time I told Andy I was worried we’d get in trouble for doing it. (Like there are cupboard police who are going to come bust us!)  The room looks so different!  I love having those damn things gone!  Now to just finish the mess.  We have to do a little finagling with part of the cupboards to finish the end off, then put the trim up on that.  So in addition to painting the dining room wall we also had to paint the ceiling where the cupboards hung.  There will be a before and after post when we finally get it done. Can’t wait!

Oh, and we pulled the fridge out, cleaned behind it and painted behind there, too.  You know, since we already had a big mess why not?  I think we were glutens for punishment this weekend! 

Add to the list mowing, trimming down some spireas for the winter, raking a few leaves, repotting a plant, cleaning off and winterizing the deck, scrubbing the cupboard fronts, putting away the hoses and outdoor decorations, and putting away all of the summer stuff in the garage and putting the snow blower in there.  Phew, I’m pooped! Who wants to come rub my aching back?

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On a completely different note, I received this last week.

Does anyone else get excited about the holiday issues of magazines like I do?  I just love and devour them!  I’m trying to take my time with this one, don’t want it to be over too soon!

Last week and this week at school is Red Ribbon Week (Drug Prevention).  There are all kinds of different dress up days.  Friday was Bad Hair Day and on top of that Aiden’s class earned a pajama day.  I think Aiden makes a better looking boy than girl, what do you think? 

And if he were a girl I’d be giving him a better haircut than Andy’s old mullet wig! Ha ha!

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Today is my 24 week baby check up!  My last month of my 2nd trimester, where did that go?  Looking forward to giving you a baby update tomorrow.  In the meantime, I wanted to update on my blue mood I talked about last week.  It just disappeared.  Well, sort of.  I got my butt back on the treadmill and I think that actually really helped!  Now if I can just stop worrying about the baby all the time (yea right) I think I’ll have smooth sailing for the rest of the pregnancy where my mood is concerned.  Thanks to all who left me such nice, uplifting comments.  I really really appreciate you all, this blogging community is really great.

And hopefully since my mood is much improved I’ll be back to daily blog posts.  I’ve missed you all!

Have a great week!

Erin