Meg and John vs. The Bathroom: Demo Day 1

After dinner tonight we got down to business. We cleaned out the mess,

Took out the fixtures (gross!),

Ripped down cheap vinyl lining,

 

 and removed old, improperly-installed green board to find the disaster hidden underneath.

The wall with the plumbing is still untouched because we have to find the local shutoff valve. We think it is under the house, but it isn't accessible from the crawl space in our room, so tomorrow John is going through the much smaller crawl space that lets in from the toy room. My hero.

This is quickly (but I suppose not surprisingly) turning from our re-tile the bath project to our re-model the bathroom project. Let's hope it looks okay when we are through!

Meg vs. The Bathroom: New goals

A friend that is going to help us re-tile our tub surround came over today to give us some guidance on the demolition we need to do to prepare. It is looking like a lot. Then he put some more ambitious ideas on our heads for this bathroom remodel. So... all of our current goals are being thrown out the window, and our goal for the next week before I take off for my mom's house is to get the bathroom all stripped down and patched and ready to tile. If I can find the chargers for either of our cameras, I will post pictures. I seriously cannot hold on to those things for some reason!

Buh-bye poorly-installed vinyl shower liner!

Meg vs. The Hallway: Paint and Prep

Tuesday: Paint the front hallway. Start stripping the bathroom door.

The hall is painted, but I'll wait until we've touched it up and taken down the tape before I photograph it for posterity. The door is out on the deck soaking up paint stripper overnight. And I even mulched up a giant pile of leaves (the curse of the magnolia tree; we are the only people raking in June), then cleaned the house and cooked dinner (udon with veggies) while I was babysitting. Bam! I seriously stink, though, so I'm off to do my whale workout (i.e. pregnancy fitness video) and then to de-stinkify myself. Because these are the kinds of things you want to know about my day ;).

Meg vs. Miscellany: Ambitious day - check!

Monday: Re-fill that green waste bin. Paint a coat on the changing table attachment. Tape the front hallway. Hang the mirror in the living room above the bench.

We managed to get it all done! I filled up the can with lots more cuttings from our giant overgrown rose bush (tree) and a branch from the yucca tree next to it. I just finished painting the first coat on the attachment (John started, but I had to intervene because I'm anal about the brush strokes), I taped the hallway this afternoon, and John helped me hang the mirror just before bedtime. Phew!

I think the mirror makes this corner look much more complete, but I still feel like it's missing something. We are both leaning toward painting the mirror, a la this look (but not this color; maybe coral):

Source here.

Whaddya think?

Meg vs. Myself: Weekly Goals June 25-30

June 18-23
Monday: Sand and clean the trim in the front hall. Paint the trim.

Tuesday: Clean, tape, and paint the front hallway.

Wednesday: Prep the nursery dresser's changing table attachment for painting.

Thursday: Clear more brush, weeds, and trees from the back yard. Re-fill the green waste bin.

Friday: Remove the kids' bathroom door and start stripping the paint.

Saturday: Finish stripping the bathroom door. Start painting if possible.

As I mentioned, it has been a crazy week with one or the other of us being constantly sick. I think we are both on the mend, so let's hope for better work next week! In addition to what's on here, John also removed the hall closet door and took all of the hardware off of both doors, and I removed the junky molding from around the tub area in the front bathroom. John also talked to a friend of ours who is going to consult with us on the tiling projects in the next week or so. Part of me wants to ease up on the goals since we aren't finishing them, but I'm going to keep it ambitious because we have way too much to get done this summer. So here goes nothing.

June 25-30
Monday: Re-fill that green waste bin. Paint a coat on the changing table attachment. Tape the front hallway. Hang the mirror in the living room above the bench.

Tuesday: Paint the front hallway. Start stripping the bathroom door.

Wednesday: Finish stripping the bathroom door. Pick up new hardware for all the doors.

Thursday: Prime the bathroom door. Pull down the vinyl sheeting from the bath surround and inspect the green board behind it.

Friday: Paint the bathroom door.

Saturday:  Paint the closet door. Re-hang the bathroom door if it doesn't need another coat (or add another coat).

Meg vs. Staying Awake: Contagions.

Now that the hubs is feeling better, I have contracted whatever bacteria he had. Woot! We have gotten a bit more done, but not at all in the order we planned for the week, so I'll just give an update along with our new goals tomorrow. For now I think I'll lay down and read another book =).

Meg vs. The Back Yard: The usual.

Thursday: Clear more brush, weeds, and trees from the back yard. Re-fill the green waste bin.

Done! And the bonus to this is always that the kiddos spend the afternoon happily playing in the yard. I am excited to make it more kid-friendly.

Meg vs. The Garden: A very small harvest...

Check out my harvest of snow peas!

Yeah, that was it. There are still maybe 3 more on the plants that could possibly get big enough to bother eating. I have a feeling that all my harvests, except for maybe the zuchinni, will be like this. It's my first garden; what can I say? I planted these late and it got warm early, so I can't be too surprised that my snow peas were not particularly abundant. The plant looks downright sad; I think it's time to pull these and my lettuce/spinach out and toss in something more summer-friendly. At least I tried!

These were very tasty with Ranch. Totally worth a bucks' worth of seeds.

Meg vs. The Nursery Dresser: Back to priming.

Wednesday: Prep the nursery dresser's changing table attachment for painting.

I forgot that I had already applied liquid sandpaper to the parts, so all I needed to do was prime today. They are done except for the part touching the floor, which I'll have to roll over quickly tomorrow. I'm just glad I actually did something I intended to do this week!

 Also, I still need to get the garage junk under control. It's like a catch-22; I can't clean the garage with the furniture and stuff in there that needs addressing, but I can't address them while the garage isn't clean. Sigh. John suggested I just take the kids to my mom's for a week or more while he and a friend tackle the big house projects. Maybe I'll have to take him up on that. First I have to get him to go to the doctor so he can stop being sick and I can put him back to work!  =)

Meg vs. The Hallway: Trim Cleaning

Monday: Sand and clean the trim in the front hall. Paint the trim.

The hubs is sick and we also had a few visitors, so we took it easy today. I am a little tempted to go work some more right now, but the hall is just outside the boys' rooms, and they have not been great sleepers lately. Not worth it. Maybe I'll do something else to get ahead on the rest of this week's projects, since this delay will prevent me from meeting tomorrow's goals, too. I am not sure how we are going to pack in all the needed work this summer! That's life I guess.

Meg vs. Myself: Weekly Goals June 18-23

June 11-16
Monday: Paint last coat on the dresser. Work on organizing/rotating kids' clothes.

Tuesday: Spray finish on the dresser. Clean out the fridge.

Wednesday: Take at least one box of junk from the garage to the thrift store. (The box is ready, I just need to take it!)

Thursday: Fill the green waste bin (weeding, de-tree-ing, raking leaves, etc.)

Friday: Clean out master closet, rotate regular and maternity clothes.

Saturday: Paint at least one of the hallways. 

Not terribly shabby, especially considering that we had extra kids at the house about half the time. I also finished reading The Grapes of Wrath and started on The Bonesetter's Daughter. I don't know why I have been compulsively reading lately, but I'll enjoy it before the hubs goes back to school, we have another baby, and my brain shuts off completely for several months.

On to next week!

June 18-23
Monday: Sand and clean the trim in the front hall. Paint the trim.

Tuesday: Clean, tape, and paint the front hallway.

Wednesday: Prep the nursery dresser's changing table attachment for painting.

Thursday: Clear more brush, weeds, and trees from the back yard. Re-fill the green waste bin.

Friday: Remove the kids' bathroom door and start stripping the paint.

Saturday: Finish stripping the bathroom door. Start painting if possible.

Meg & John vs. The Halls: Painting

Saturday: Paint at least one of the hallways. 

Lucky for me, John took care of this the other night. Here is the hall outside our room:

I taped the other hall in preparation for painting the trim, but that's as far as we managed to get today. I told the hubs to take things easy since it's Father's Day weekend.

Meg vs. The Closet: Clothing control

Friday: Clean out master closet, rotate regular and maternity clothes.

I have a box of maternity clothes. As my pregnancy gets farther along, I start pulling out the smaller things little by little. Then I finally hit a point that I must admit to myself that I cannot wear any of my non-maternity clothes without looking foolish. I hit that point a while ago but didn't do anything about it, which meant that my closet and dresser were a mixed jumble of clothes and I was constantly digging to find something that fit.

No more! All of my maternity clothes are hung up in the closet, and all the clothes that don't fit are folded in the box. It will be a nice day when I can get them out again, but for now I will keep them out of sight and out of mind, since I already feel like a whale and I've still got 3 1/2 months left.

Meg vs. The Garage & Yard: Cleaning up.

Wednesday: Take at least one box of junk from the garage to the thrift store.

Did not happen. Ended up babysitting and having other stuff going on. But hopefully I can catch up by the end of the week!

Thursday: Fill the green waste bin (weeding, de-tree-ing, raking leaves, etc.)

John took care of this; pulled out the chainsaw and cut up all the branches we had sitting around, took down most of the dead tree, pulled weeds, etc. etc. I went out and raked leaves after the boys headed to bed, and we babysat and got a bit of cleaning done, too. Go us.

Meg vs. Cleanliness and Polish: Fridge and more dresser (of course)

Tuesday: Spray finish on the dresser. Clean out the fridge.

Three coats on the dresser, and now it's in the garage curing for a few days before its final move into the nursery.

I have needed to clean out our fridge since before our vacation. I'll spare you any pictures--suffice it to say that it was gross. But no longer! I would reward myself with a treat, but the hubs made me sign up for LiveStrong with him (he wants to lose a few pounds, I want to avoid achieving blimp status), and I was forced to view how many calories I have already consumed today. Time for a glass of water and a lot of sleep!

*Bonus: We got paint this afternoon, and the hubs decided to paint one hallway tonight! Yay for getting ahead!

Meg vs. Organization: Dresser and what to fill it with

Monday: Paint last coat on the dresser. Work on organizing/rotating kids' clothes.

Check!

Here's my version of Goldilocks:

 Too big, too small, just right.

More dresser pictures to come after it is done. For now it looks essentially the same as the last pictures I took. Bo-ring.

Meg vs. Very Little: Weekly Goals June 11-16

As you can probably tell by the complete lack of posts, this week did not go as planned. Here are my excuses very valid reasons:

It was very hot, and the hubs decided he wanted to clean out our room instead of cleaning out the backyard. That is what I get for setting goals for both of us... Our room looks awesome though.

We had a couple of family dinners and our boys had lots of cousin time. This required a lot of prep and recovery work.

We locked ourselves out of our house, which destroyed an entire morning. Had to go pick up the key from my sister in Napa.

I am pregnant. This trumps all other excuses.

Anyhoo, here's the report:

June 7-9

Thursday: Do some serious weeding/clearing in the back yard. Make a plan for the yard with the hubs.

I realize this is nearly impossible to see, but it's my only proof. This took longer than I expected, because we had to go through each tree and plant and decide which would go and which would stay. My default position is that things should go, John's default is that they should stay. But we finally came to an agreement. Let's hope it looks better than my drawing in real life!
 
Friday: Paint one last coat on the dresser. Start stripping the old interior doors.

Saturday: More door stripping. Spray finish on the dresser.

June 11-16
Monday: Paint last coat on the dresser. Work on organizing/rotating kids' clothes.

Tuesday: Spray finish on the dresser. Clean out the fridge.

Wednesday: Take at least one box of junk from the garage to the thrift store.

Thursday: Fill the green waste bin (weeding, de-tree-ing, raking leaves, etc.)

Friday: Clean out master closet, rotate regular and maternity clothes.

Saturday: Paint at least one of the hallways.

Meg vs. Myself: Back at it! June 7-9

I had a lovely week and a half off, and now it's time to get crackin'! We have just under two months before the hubs is back in school and I am going to be mostly out of commission, and, well, you've seen my to-do list.

Here's my report for the week before we left:

May 21-26
Monday: Prime the dresser! Do a quick sanding.

Tuesday: Paint the first coat on the dresser!

Wednesday: Paint the second coat on the dresser

Thursday: Pick up new furniture from our friend? Start packing for our vacation.

Friday: Help my big sis move into her new place. Take them any of our food that will go bad while we are away along with some additional groceries.

Saturday:  Drive to Anaheim. Vacation time!

June 7-9

Thursday: Do some serious weeding/clearing in the back yard. Make a plan for the yard with the hubs.

Friday: Paint one last coat on the dresser. Start stripping the old interior doors.

Saturday: More door stripping. Spray finish on the dresser.