Hopeful house plans

We had a frenzy of cleaning in our home today as we expected our realtor, Sandy--who helped us purchase this home a year + ago, to arrive at 11:00 a.m.-ish to see what we have "done with the place." Well Sandy never appeared, no problem because now we are enjoying our clean uncluttered house. I had mentioned at Hooked on Houses that I felt we had done not nearly enough since we moved in September 2010. Our to do list is much bigger than our done and to get myself back in the groove of posting, I thought I'd share our done and to-do dreams.

Done:

1. Electrical work in the kitchen and bathroom. The previous home owner had put too many things on one [insert electrician terminology here]. Can't remember what it was called, but on one of the first mornings we were here, I started some toast in the toaster, stepped away for a moment, then returned to find flames shooting out of my toaster.
2. Corian countertops in the kitchen with built-in sink and nice shiny new sink fixtures complete.
3. Fixed the garbage disposal as it was apparently originally hung with a few wires and some hope.
4. Plumbing in the kitchen, the main line for the house and major plumbing in the upstairs bathroom.
5. Painted the master bedroom and ripped out the horrible carpeting to reveal very nice wood floor beneath.
6. Ripped down the wallpaper in the bathroom, installed new drywall, bath surround, fixtures and bead board, which we then painted along with the walls.
7. Installed a new vanity and fixtures for the sink in the bathroom.
8. Installed a new handrail and painted the stairs leading to the garage.
9. Removed above ground pool from backyard.

Not bad for a year plus, including six months of me being sick.

Our to do list is, of course, much longer. I'm sure that we will finish some things only to add more to the list.

To do:

First floor: Refinish the floors running through the living room, dining room, hallway, master bedroom and linen closet. Purchase new doors and door knobs for every room and the main closet. Replace all the trim around the floor and the doors.
Living room: Paint.
Dining room: Paint. Remove the counter cabinet between the kitchen and the dining room. Remove ceiling fan (which is too fast for over the dining room table unless we want to simulate eating in a windstorm) and find a replacement light fixture.
Bathroom: Cut, paint and install the last bits of trim for the bead board. Install and paint new drywall on the ceiling. Replace commode (which seems to be original)
Linen closet: Paint. Find a light fixture with a switch on it or rewire for a wall switch.
Angie's room: Paint (Most likely a pink and/or robin's egg blue). Rearrange to fit a double bed (formerly the crib) and give her toddler to twin (thank you so much Ikea) to Kian. Would love to figure out if her closet can be expanded.
Kian's room: Paint (currently green has been requested). Rearrange to fit the toddler to twin bed. Install a rack for his bathrobe etc.
Master bedroom: Finish ripping out the built-in desk. Refinish that area with board and batten and move my dresser into that alcove.

Basement: Install banister leading from garage to basement.
Long room: Install new ceiling and flooring. Figure out the heating situation. Finish putting things away and otherwise tidying.
t.v. room: Install new flooring. Maybe paint. Add actual door between workshop and t.v. room
Laundry room: Paint. I would love a stackable washer and dryer so that we could add a small cabinet with a countertop for folding and a place to put the soaps and so forth. Install new flooring.
Basement bathroom: Paint. Install new flooring. Install new sink and fixtures--perhaps a wall mount with built-in towel bar. Improve the shower (which is currently cement block with exposed pipes).

Outside:

Front yard: Get rid of the wheelbarrow with flowers in the front yard and replace with a stone or brick circular flower bed. Replace the wood retaining wall in the front flower bed with a stone or brick one. Obtain bench for front porch.

Back yard: Install square foot garden where pool used to stand. Lay stones between the garden sections. Remove the gigantic tree stump.

I count roughly 42 items on the to do list to get this house back into shape. For this next year, I would really love to finish the bathroom, the floors on the first floor and the trim. I'm hopeful that we will have a couple square foot garden beds set up this year. We were very lucky with the tomato plants we had at the side of the house and the back shed. The pepper plants were less than productive. I think the change for Angie and Kian will happen no matter even if nothing else does. They just keep getting bigger.

As lengthy as this list is, Chas and I have some major hopes for a big remodel in about five to seven years, so these are just the "simple" projects. Someday perhaps I will share our big, pie-in-the-sky renovation dreams.

Busy, busy, busy

You'll need to go over to my Mommy Monster blog to see how full our lives have been this week.

I did not get as much done on the Challenge piece as I would have liked. Angie's first tooth became extremely wobbly on Saturday and I had to shift gears to get the pocket for Angie's tooth fairy pillow completed and attached to what will become the pillow.

Work is still crazy and hectic thanks to the new program, but since we need the insurance and the money, I hope to remain employed, even though in my heart of hearts, I'd rather be home with the kids. There is some hope that by the end of the year, I will have some relief, although it may mean moving to a different building and paying for parking.

Taxes were very bad this year. Ugh. See previous paragraph.

I hope to accomplish some yard work and gardening this weekend. I hesitate to throw some seeds around as it may still snow, but the flower beds need cleared of weeds and leaves. The weather is gorgeous today. Unfortunately, Angie has a terrible cough and my throat is getting scratchy so this may just be another weekend lost to the sicks.

I hope your weekend is nice.

Just Enjoying It

As is typical of the days preceding the descent (ascent? I suppose that depends on whether you use sea level or latitude to measure) of relatives and friends, we are scurrying to clean our home. The mad dash to tidy. The fevered passes with the vacuum and swiffers. The desperate planting of flowers (some of which have been patiently waiting to be planted for a month). The cathartic hosing of the house's exterior to remove the lake fly infested spider webs.

Angie's birthday party will be this weekend and we are trying to appear more orderly than we actually are. Not that we fool anyone--they know us after all. Still, we feel the need to present a clean home. We're funny that way.

So Chas took Angie to Gymboree earlier. As he was leaving, he asked what I would do to entertain myself while they were out--go for a walk, drive the car (now that my doctor has cleared me for everything), etc.

What have I done?

I've been sitting at the computer whilst snuggling our beloved son who has been napping on me for two hours. He started on my shoulder and has worked his way into a cozy little bundle on my lap.

I'm just enjoying it.

My stitching weekend

To de-stress, I stitched, organized and planned.

All actual stitching time was devoted to the Tree of Hope. I am amazed at how intricate the tree branches are. I was also reminded how much I love jobelan above all other fabrics. I haven't found a fabric that feels quite so wonderful for stitching. If SMF used jobelan, I don't know if I would be capable of restraining myself. The Tree is coming along nicely, but there is a lot of empty space at the top and right so I have plenty to do.

I bought some binders to organize my current wip charts and generally tidied up my stitching area. This was part of a manic burst of cleaning and organizing around the house. It could be nesting. It could be that after being here a month, I wanted to stop keeping projects sorted in Target bags. For now, my stitching supplies look neat.

I spent some time this weekend finding and printing Christmas ornament patterns (those went into their own binder). Then I started pulling fabric for the first SAL in a few weeks. I also put the fibers for my HAED SAL Challenge project in baggies and cut fabric for it. I will print the chart tomorrow. I'm looking forward to the SALs.

Thanks for the nice words in my rant-ish post. All this activity helped me de-stress quite a bit, so I feel somewhat recovered to face the coming work week. I hope this feeling lasts.