Before and After: Master Closet

The time has come for me to stop yapping about this and just show you the goods! So this post is all about, you guessed it, our new master closet.

Let's begin at the beginning. Our house was built in 1920 and is blessed with those closets that are so old that people used to hang their clothes on rails then went front to back, vs. side to side. If you can even picture that. Most people can't. Anyway, Jason filled that closet up pretty quick and my clothes went on two racks in the office, awaiting a more long term solution. When we found out we were expecting another baby, I knew I wanted to make the office into a nursery and my clothes and other stuff needed to come out.

The far wall on our bedroom has a pesky radiator and one window. Following the same process as the living room built-ins, I took to the skies (er, internet) for an inspiration picture as to what I saw working for a built in closet there, wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling, complete with a window seat that doubled as storage or a hamper:

And proceeded to get some quotes from various carpenters. They averaged $10,000-$18,000. Laugh with me: Ha ha ha ha ha! Undefeated, Jason did some more research and found a few different DIY bloggers that had posted about using the shells and inserts from Ikea to fashion themselves their own built-in closets. Their Komplement system is very comprehensive and while labor-intensive, produced a similar result to custom cabinetry at a fraction of the cost.

We'll get to the nitty gritty but I have no patience and have been dying to post this!!

BEFORE:

AFTER:

And the money shot:

Jason's side on the left, mine on the right :) It's probably easier to picture now why the radiator needed to be moved back. The left-most closet door still doesn't open all the way (which meant Jason could not have the big wide drawers like I do because they wouldn't be able to slide out) but, typical Jason, he made it work and used two dividers to be able to still get drawers in there.

One of my favorite parts is the lights on sensors on the top of each shell, so when you open the door, your clothes are bathed in a warm glow. Ahhhh. This is particularly pretty on my side behind the mirrored door because of the glass shelves:

I am running pretty lean on clothes these days because there isn't much that fits me. Once I'm out of maternity clothes and can move all my regular stuff back in, those shelves will fill riiiight up.

Another favorite part is the window seat, for which I still need to get a cushion made.

It opens on a hinge to hide all our dirty laundry.

I have super wide drawers:

And both Jason and I have accessory racks that slide out for belts, scarves, etc. 

In general, there is just so much wonderfulness about this closet, I am beyond obsessed and could not have asked for a better finished product. The best part? We spent $1,250 vs. $10,000.

Now I'm not going to pretend that I know anything about how Jason (and his brother Chris, who helped with the infrastructure during a visit a couple weeks ago) built this. But here are some construction pictures to give you an idea of what went into this little project:

Beginning of insert install:

 

And it went on from there. Drawers, shelves, dividers, wire baskets...the works.

Obviously, Ashton (and his pacis) helped.

Next, I really want to get a new bed, rug, and in general upgrade the other furnishings like nightstands and wall art, but that's another project (and other money!) for another day. If there's one thing I've learned, home decoration takes a long time and it's expensive! I guess that's technically two things. But everything is such a process!

To close, I'll leave you with the panorama of our beautiful bedroom as of this morning. Another amazing dream-turned-reality by my amazing husband (is that enough praise for you honey? :) You are the best!!)

Ikea closets: so easy, a toddler could do it.

A-ha Moment

Don't you love those moments where you learn something that you've never really wondered about, but now that you know, it makes perfect sense?

My sister was visiting last weekend and at one point I commented that her shirt was cute. She goes, "Oh, thanks, but look...it has these tiny holes in it." And pulled near the bottom of the hem to show me:

(Note: this is not her actual shirt but the result of my google image search to show likeness.)

I said, "Oh yeah, look at that. I've had shirts with those teeny holes too!" and before I could speculate on their origin, she goes, "Ben thinks they are moths."

Now JUST HOLD ON HERE. I've never seen a moth in my closet. Why would they hang out there and eat clothes? Those cotton fibers must be yummy? But then, my thoughts kept marinating: "Well, people do have cedar closets, and why else would moth balls exist??"

Mind = blown.

It made perfect sense. I just kept repeating, "Huh, well what do you know" to myself as I processed all this. It was one of those mysteries that I never considered a mystery because I thought I could say where the holes came from if asked. Like from those security tags in the store or something.

Why am I blogging about this. Because this morning, I opened my (new!) closet to get dressed, put on my black sweater, and saw this on my sleeve:

That is ONE BIG MOTH. In fact, that couldn't be a moth, so the only logical explanation - a mouse?? In my closet, flitting amongst my hangers? (I don't think I've properly documented my extreme uneasiness/downright hatred for mice on this blog, but I have a professional come out to make sure there are none, anywhere, EVER, in my house - let's just say that.) 

I shrieked for Jason. I showed him the hole. I said, "What could this be? I know it wasn't there the last time I wore this. It's like, bigger than the size of a quarter! No way it was a moth. Is there a mouse in my closet? A mouse couldn't do that, could it? What about a squirrel??" and on and on and finally he stopped me with a sheepish look on his face. "Oh, I've been meaning to tell you. When I was building the closet, my first pass with the drill went through and it caught on something...um, it was your sweater."

Oh.

Well, I'm not even mad. I hate this sweater anyway. In fact, I'm so ready to be out of maternity clothes that I was just grateful it was not a giant moth or a mouse or a squirrel. A drill hole is fine with me. I rolled the cuff over so you can't see it. On with my day.

Did anyone else know about those teeny holes being caused by moths or am I the last to know? Hopefully someone somewhere is having the same a-ha moment I did. That's really the point of this post :)

37 Weeks

It seems like a split second ago I posted about being 32 weeks pregnant and now here I am at 37 (well, one day shy). Eeeeeek! I had an OB appointment this morning and when I checked in, she said, "Ok, at this point in the pregnancy I am going to need you to sign this..." and handed me a sheet that said "FINAL INSURANCE INFORMATION" in all caps. And then when I was getting my weight (+33) and blood pressure checked, I got THIS scary piece of paper.

You can't tell but it's a nice shade of pink. Is that supposed to make it less sinister??

The check-up went fine, I've definitely noticed some changes in pressure the last week or so and was not surprised to hear that I'm already roughly 2 cm dilated (I was with Ashton at 37 weeks as well). There's other info that reveals this baby does plan to come out soon but I won't overshare :-D

My actual OB is on vacation this week but is typically in the office Mondays and Thursdays. When the NP wrapped up this morning she said, "Ok, see you in one week," I replied, "Should I come Monday or Thursday next week then - for Dr. Konig?" and she said, with zero hesitation, "MONDAY."

So that's where we're at. I'm hoping that I still have a couple weeks left - for some reason I keep thinking March 5 will be when this all goes down. Fingers crossed it's not before that because people we are in a SCRAMBLE. We are trying to acquire all the bits of things we know we'll need to bring the baby home and to that end, we took a trip to Babies R Us yesterday. What a difference 2.5 years makes:

Babies R Us while pregnant with Ashton:
Total trips: 5+, including one 3 hour one to create baby registry
"Look how cool this is! We should get it."
"They've really thought of everything!"
"Look how tiny the clothes are! Awww!"
"Do you think we'll need this one, this one or this one? Let's get all three."
"What if the baby likes this? We should get it."
"Would this be a waste of money though? We should wait."
"What if we wait but need it right away? Let's get it actually."
"I think I want this, too."
"I read great reviews for this. We should get it."
"Which color is cutest?"
"I heard this is a must-have. We're getting it."
"I like the one in the other aisle more. Let's go back."
"I wonder which one is better, this one or this one..."
"Gosh, what IS this? Look it up."
"Do you think it would be easiest with velcro, snaps or zippers?"
"I don't know... let's just get it."

Babies R Us while pregnant this time:
Total trips: 1.
"Yes."
"No."
"No, that thing is useless."
"No."
"Yes. That one is amazing and I need another."
"Yes."
"No."
"No."
"I can get a better price on Amazon."
"Ok all done. We're out of here."

Much more efficient the second time around.

I know I owe you a final closet post and a nursery post complete with the before and after pictures that I love so much. We are wrapping all of that up as fast as possible. I'll also be sharing the latest on names, thoughts on being a mom again, and everything in between...all by March 5 of course, perhaps March 1 to be safe ;)

Happy Valentines Day!

Earlier this week I had one of those days with an impossibly long to-do list, both for work and for home. My list was divided between me and Jason, times of day and who was going to what. That's just how I roll when I need to get things accomplished. On Jason's list, when he was at CVS, was to "Get Valentines." Ashton's daycare was doing an exchange and I had meant all weekend to do something cute and homemade from Pinterest. Alas, I had not. So I told him, "Just get some paper Mickey ones or whatever."

He got these.

That's a cat. AND a hologram. The whole pack was like psychedelic pets. No, no, no, no, no. Sigh. I thanked Jason for his efforts (he swore that they were "all they had"), crossed my fingers and went digging in the basement. I have so much stuff down there, stickers, cotton balls, pipe cleaners, paper...surely I could come up with something that was valentine-worthy. 

Luckily enough, I found a set of 10 pink and red cards, cut some hearts, glued some rhinestones - and ta-da! 

They were all decorated slightly differently and had varying messages: "I like playing with you!" "You're a great friend!" etc etc. Now, I'm not going to win any awards with these. But at least there won't be a bunch of tripped-out toddlers wandering around like there would have been if I had sent Jason's. 

I admit that assembling all these at 10 pm the night before they were "due" made me flash forward to all the science fair projects, math homework, and english papers I will likely be helping out on in the future. Combined with the fact that we got Ashton's preschool acceptance letter in the mail yesterday...like whoa! What is happening?? Time flies.

Anyway, this post is dedicated to my amazing, wonderful, does-it-all husband Jason. He takes care of whatever projects I ask him to, cooks me dinner, and remains in good spirits when I knock his efforts (like the valentines) or tease him on this blog (I don't think he reads it). I even told him last night that I wasn't getting him anything for Valentines Day. Aren't I the best? Love you honey :) xoxo

Before and After: Basement sorting and a radiator move

We have finally started to get things moving at our house in preparation for, you know, having another baby. We still have a lot to do, but a couple weekends ago we finally went down to the basement to organize Ashton's clothes. Even though we don't know if we are having a girl or a boy, and the last time we had a newborn we were in the exact opposite season (August), I wanted to see what we had for stuff. We dumped out all the bins we had been haphazardly shoving things into as Ashton grew and the pile looked like this.

We wrote out some labels and started sorting. Most of the things we picked out to wash and put away for this baby were, not surprisingly, plain white.

I do admit the extreme littleness of these onesies (and daydreaming about when Ashton wore them) slowed me down considerably as I "awwww"-ed and "oooo"-ed and "oh honey remember this one??"-ed. Ahhh memory lane. So much better looking back on it than traveling it, at least when it comes to newborns ;)

We made pretty short work of the pile and in no time, ta-da!

Of course if we have a girl this whole exercise will have been a bit pointless. But for now, it was a major thing to get checked off the list and should at least serve some hand-me-down purposes :) There's a ton of gear down in the basement as well and we took stock of where the carseat was, what needed to be washed, etc etc.

Next! Upstairs. We have three bedrooms and an office on our second floor. We decided, since babies are so little, to keep the guest room and turn the office into the nursery. Since we moved in a year ago, the office has been home to our computer desk (imagine! a computer in an office) and two racks for my clothes since the closet space in our bedroom is grotesquely minimal. So, in order to make a nursery, my clothes needed to come out. And in order for my clothes to come out, they needed a closet to go into. And in order to have a closet to go into, Jason needed to build one. And in order to build one, we needed our bedroom radiator moved. There are a few poor people that have listened to me drone on and on about this damn radiator for months. Let me introduce you:

This radiator is sitting in the corner of our bedroom. In order for me to get the closet of my dreams, it needed to be moved roughly 18 inches to the left because the closet was going to run the entire length of the wall (where the dresser currently is). Without boring you with the details as to what took so long and why, finally (FINALLY!!) it was moved last Friday, leaving behind this lovely scene.

Up close, there were a couple different wallpapers under there and the condition of the wall in general was bad enough that Jason murmured a few expletives. We're talking almost 100 years of heat against that spot though so it's not surprising. But it's a better scenario than we expected; we thought they were going to swing the radiator around 180 degrees vs. just moving the whole thing over. This would have been extra ugly because the back side is definitely not painted. At least that was something we didn't have to deal with. So Jason went and got a patch kit:

And then painted over the patch and in no time, we had a nice wall again.

This took us to this past Saturday morning. Jason's brother Chris had come up to visit for the weekend and the two of them worked tirelessly for three days. My job was to keep Ashton away from the tools and out of the house (um, no small feat). Anyway, the closet is not 100% done but I should be able to post the full before and after in the next few days - THAT will be one you don't want to miss!! For the time being, I'll leave you with a little sneak preview of what that same corner looks like now... :) 

All in a (snow) day's work

So nearly a year ago I posted about our first real snow day. I don't know what it is about this particular season, but the threat of a new snowflake has people sprinting to the store for bread and milk while calling their relatives to say farewell. I personally subscribe to the "We live in New England, it's winter, what do you expect?" line of thinking. But I do work at a university and understand why schools want to be better safe than sorry. So we had a snow day yesterday. Accumulation totaled 10-12 inches and it really didn't stop all day so it was a good decision to keep people off the roads.

As I mention in the post linked above, snow days don't hold the same excitement value that they used to. All my energy goes into entertaining a certain someone and if I fail, boy do I know it. Luckily, Jason was home too so this is what we did together to survive the day.

We painted.

We watched the plows go by.

We cheered for Daddy while he snowblowed.

We made a snowman. And by we, I mean Jason and Ashton. I sat just inside the sliding glass door in the kitchen next to the space heater ;) 

You're thinking, that snowman looks a little circus-like. I think it's the hat. Actually, the hat, eyes and buttons are Ashton's shape sorter that we repurposed:

I realized I had no coal, carrots or corncob pipes so I went digging in Ashton's toybox and settled for these substitutions. The mouth is a wooden piece of watermelon from his fruit cutting set. I'm nothing if not resourceful.

After a non-existent naptime (a whole other sordid story), we went out for a walk. 

Being dragged in a sled is exhausting work and sustenance was required.

You'd think that having snow and wind in your face would really detract from the snacking experience but apparently not.

Anyway, after a little sledding and a little walking, we ended the day with a monster Duplo train.

And then it was business as usual until about 9:30 pm. Jason and I were sitting there enjoying our fire and watching TV when this ridiculous noise started coming from our neighbor's house. Their snow removal guys had finally showed up and were snowblowing their driveway. At 9:30 pm. So I did what any almost-9-months-pregnant lady with a sleeping toddler upstairs would do. I shrieked and flapped my arms while glaring out the window and then sent my husband over there to handle things. He did. It wasn't exactly a friendly exchange but he proposed they move the cars out of the driveway and use the plow on their Jeep to move the snow. Or, you know, shovels. NOT a snowblower. So our neighbors had to come out blah blah blah and I think there was annoyance on all sides. But I was one step away from calling the police to report a noise disturbance if they didn't stop. Like, I had the number ready on my phone. I am a month away from my due date and had just spent all day cooped up in the house with a kid who didn't nap. Don't mess.

Anyway, LUCKILY I was able to settle back down and continue watching the very important Hollywood Week episode of American Idol. 

And that, my friends, was our snow day. I'm hoping to share some house updates in the next two weeks so I can stop with these kinds of posts ("Here's Ashton doing this: {INSERT PICTURE}" and "Here's Ashton doing this: {INSERT PICTURE}". My deepest apologies - that's just all I've got lately :-/ 

Ka-ching!

Yesterday was a wonderfully abnormal day for me. Instead of playing trains, first I got to go to brunch with my girlfriends, and then later that day we headed out to Berg and Karen's for their annual Superbowl party. What does this mean? Well, it means that I got dressed in an actual outfit, with real jewelry, skinny jeans, boots, the works. And I stayed in it all day. Why change when I looked so fabulous? Anyway, that's not the point of this post.

We got back from the party after halftime and were in the process of putting Ashton to bed. I guess because I had my hair down all day, Ashton had failed to spy my earrings:

The light must have glinted off them just so because when I turned around to take him after his tub...

In a flash, my sweet little boy turned into a relative of Golum from Lord of the Rings. "COINS! Mommy's coins! I want them! I want see coins!" and lunged for the shiny "money" hanging from my ears. I jumped back - who was this monster??

After he was calm, I did let him take a closer look but I swear he was mumbling, "Coins...Ashton want coins...I see them..." and rubbing his hands together.

Maybe it's time to break open that piggy bank or start him on an allowance. Something. I hid the earrings in my jewelry box last night but still slept with one eye open. Who knew toddlers could be so greedy? 

Morning surprise

I walked into Ashton's room this morning to get him up and out of his crib. I do this incredibly frequently (as in, every day) so I knew from the second I opened his door that something was amiss. And it didn't take long to figure out.

Minus Ashton, the scene looked like this.

There are three distinct things in this picture that were in his crib last night when I put him to bed that were not in his crib this morning. Let's zoom in, shall we?

The blanket doesn't bother me. But you guys are smart: if his pajama pants and his diaper were on the floor, and there was no magic fairy that changed him in the middle of the night...

I approached his crib cautiously. How long had he been naked from the waist down? Was there a #1 or #2 waiting for me? Was Ashton even going to be there in light of the carnage on the floor?? So many unknowns.

As a quick aside, Ashton likes to sleep on his front with his butt up in the air. Kind of like this:

(That's not Ashton OR our dog, but the only picture I could find to illustrate his position.) Anyway, I approached his crib from the rear and found him like this, sans pants and diaper. Suffice it to say, I was treated to quite the view. Good morning to me. And then, my darling two and a half year old popped right up and said proudly, "Ashton take off diaper!!" I tried to ask him why he did it and when he did it but he didn't give me much of a reply, which was fine. All I really cared about is that there was not a huge mess to clean up and a kid to throw in the tub. He continued to show me he had taken off his pants and his diaper, smiled and said he wanted to see Daddy, presumably to brag some more about his heroic feat.

Crisis averted, this time. I will be sticking to one-piece pajamas. That's all.

(p.s. if you did not see the series of viral photographs of the toddler that naps every day with his puppy (from which the above one was taken) I highly encourage you to take a peek for your daily dose of omg-that's-so-cute-it-almost-hurts.)

Bored.

Have you heard the latest update? It's cold here. What else? Oh, it's cold here. Did I also mention...it's cold here? I woke up to these very large frost crystals on the window the other morning...

Which were kind of pretty I guess. But *siiiiigh*, this is such a tough time of year. We spend a lot of time at home where nothing really happens and this blog is suffering as a result. I'm sure I don't need to point that out. So I figured if we are bored, it's only fair to pass it on and let you be bored too. This is how bad it gets around here:

1) We make hats out of pipe cleaners and a colander.

2) We practice putting our shoes on in various yoga poses. We've agreed that downward-facing dog is the toughest.

3) We take long baths with bubbles. Honestly, Ashton was in the tub for nearly 45 minutes the other day. Why? Because what else are we doing??

4) We watch a little too much TV. This temporarily alleviates the boredom but causes dry eyes due to complete cessation of all blinking activity (otherwise known as "Mickey Mesmerization Syndrome").

5) We practice our math (video). Ashton can actually count all the way to 13. I realize that in this clip, I started recording late, he misses a couple numbers and the order is not entirely sequential, so this is not exactly what you call "hard evidence". Perhaps if I get bored enough I'll chase him around and see if I can get a better one. For now, just take my word for it. We count a lot. A lot. A lot.

6) We whine at the view out of our front window.

Yes, there's a lot of whining. Mostly by me. There's only so many times you can play trains or cook muffins. While I'm on muffins, and baking in general, Ashton loves to help and mix and will do it all day long. But he never eats the fruits of his labor. I go to all this trouble to find egg-free recipes and he takes one look, shakes his head and says, "No, uh uh, no thank you Mommy." Originally I thought he just didn't like "bits" in his baked goods, so I made his cookies without chocolate chips and his muffins without blueberries. But it seems he's just not into the carbs. For most, that would be a good thing as we all tend to put on a bit of pudge this time of year. But Ashton is the opposite, he's growing leaner by the day. I guess that comes with growing up, growing taller, and asserting a firm "NO" to basically every food except cereal. But I miss the chubby fingers and thighs, funny how I'm already nostalgic about the early life of my two and a half year old. Good thing I have another one coming soon! I'm certain I'll look back on this post a couple months from now and WISH Ashton and I had the luxury of being bored. But for now, *siiiiiigh*. Send new toys. 

Bumpdate - 32 weeks

Well we're roughly 8 weeks out folks. Some days this baby can't come soon enough, and some days I'm glad it's going to be in there another couple of months because what-in-the-HECK-am-I-going-to-do-with-two? And two in diapers!! ACK!

Okay I'll save the freak out for later. I still have 8 weeks after all and there are lots of positives to focus on.

First, I've had an almost easier pregnancy this time than I had with Ashton. My weight gain is about the same (right now I'm +27 pounds as of my appointment yesterday, my OB expects I'll put on a couple more but should be roughly +30 in the end, my goal) but I've been less achy and have had far less discomfort. Going into my pregnancy with Ashton, I was running every day and getting lots of exercise walking around the city because I worked downtown. I was in good firm shape and the "growing process" was a bit painful with him. This time around? Well don't you know, everything is just already stretched out. I am not sore at all! Knock on wood.

Second, I'm told the baby is head down and facing back, which is good news for D-Day (D for Delivery). The funniest thing I will never forget: we took an all-day baby class at my hospital, Newton-Wellesley, before Ashton was born. Our teacher was describing the labor process, and she said with your first baby, the birth canal is basically this:

A dense, overgrown trail that the baby has to bulldoze down through  - an arduous process that can make first deliveries long and difficult. But due to this baby's efforts, any subsequent babies are treated to a birth canal that looks like this:

It's just an open road. The sun is shining, the pavement is smooth and there are signs that say "EXIT THIS WAY". Babies traveling this route enjoy a much higher speed limit and it's often easier-going for the mom as well. Here's hoping.

Third, I love the stretchy clothes. The best thing about pregnancy is not having to wonder about whether you look fat, because, well, you do. It's a virtual certainty. But it's a comfortable fat because of the elastic waistbands and long ruched tops. Amen sister!

Fourth, watching Ashton gradually get it - that a baby is coming. He knows Mommy is big because there's a baby in her tummy and when it is big enough, it will be ready to come out. Not today, but soon. Our speech therapist brought me a few books specifically about a little boy becoming a big brother, how different babies are from big kids, etc. We sit down to read them and Ashton is completely fixated on the pictures. I can tell the wheels are turning and it's easy to see that he's really learning in those moments. I watch his eyes and face and can't imagine having another child that I could possibly love and adore as much as I love and adore him. But I know it will happen - it's crazy! 

I'll post again at 36 weeks and answer all your burning questions about the nursery, whether we have names picked out, etc. but for now, all is well! And because I love a good before-and-after/comparison photo/whatever, I'll leave you with my roughly 32-week selfies (I really hate that word) from both pregnancies. Voila!

You know, that's the first time I've put those side-by-side. I think my Ashton photo was taken more like 30-31 weeks (at this stage that makes a difference) but I really am bigger with this one. Oh well, refer to #3 above.