Our new house!

Things are clipping along with our new house. We had the home inspection yesterday, which went pretty well. There are a few items that they need to address -- the only major one being that one of the A/C units didn't work (which isn't surprising considering how long the house has been vacant). The home inspector said the house looked to be well built, so we are happy on the whole with the inspection.

Both of us are happy to find ourselves liking the house more and more each time we go there. It really will be a great place for us. I also was pleasantly surprised by some of the features that had previously missed my attention. The kitchen cabinets have built in slide out shelves in several places (yay!) and there is under cabinet lighting in the kitchen as well.

On the other hand, there is a LOT of work to do yet. The backyard will need a major overhaul at some point (we think we'll need/want to add more substantial retaining walls to prevent erosion), which is the only major project. However, every wall in the house needs painted, including the ceilings. The paint is builder grade and the walls are un-primed. We knew to expect this, after having lived in a new house once already. I know it will eventually all get done, but I'm a perfectionist and want the house in tip-top shape when we move in.

Here are a few pictures of the new place:

My Newest Project

For a while now I've been contemplating what to do about furniture for Lucy & Hannah's room. I knew I wanted twin beds whether they shared a room or not, because I liked the idea of having a few spare beds in the house for when company stays. With the boys, we got basic metal beds and sturdy, but not top of the line, wood furniture. The boys have done a pretty good job dinging up the wooden stuff, so I'm loath to spend that much on furniture again (even though we really didn't spend much in the big scheme of things). After scouring design blogs for ideas, I decided to look for used solid wood beds that could be painted. I wanted something sturdy that could be spruced up with a little elbow grease.

Last weekend I found some on Craigslist and we picked them up. They looked awful!!! However, after 5 days of intensive work, they are looking much better. I sanded them, primed them (twice) and have one coat of paint on them. I went with a black paint, because we'll be doing a "board and batten" treatment on the bottom half of the walls, which means the backdrop to the beds will be white. I wanted something neutral, but something that would stand out. My inspiration for the room is very much driven by this blog post:

http://emilyaclark.blogspot.com/2011/03/paneled-headboard-project.html

The girls room will have sloped ceilings with short walls on two sides. So, I have decided to paint the ceiling (and top portion of the walls) PINK. Lucy will love it! Hannah probably won't love it so much, but the girl already has a room completely to herself at her dad's house, so I'm thinking this is pretty fair (and she's ackowledged that herself).

I had intended to show pictures of the beds, but my crappy little camera (the point and shoot I picked up for our Disney trip) isn't cooperating...the pictures are REFUSING to be removed from the darn thing. So, the pictures will have to wait until later!

Ugh...I feel a breakdown coming on!

Seriously, I'm starting to feel the stress of this move at a whole new level. I really, REALLY, can't wait to be done with this. Today I was wondering why we ever went down this road (optometry school, that is). It was an easy decision at the time: Jeremy needed a career that would satisfy him and we needed a life that we would both be happy with. But, at that time we were young, freshly married and had nothing to lose -- no home, no assets to speak of, and it was just us and Hannah. Now, 10 years later, we have a lot to lose -- we have three more little people to care for, equity in our home and a secure and comfortable life. In three years, I'm sure I'll say it was all worth it. Right now, however, I'm doubting our choices. I feel a bit like I'm standing blindfolded on a high dive and I'm just waiting to jump so I can find out if there is water in the pool or not.

Anyway, last weekend we went and house shopped again (as our first choice didn't pan out). We ended up choosing one we had checked out on our first trip (which was our 2nd favorite, but was so outshined by our 1st choice that I didn't remember much about it). We made an offer and it has been accepted. Now we're just waiting for the home inspection (ugh...another trip to SC this weekend for that) to firm up the deal. We're set to close no later than June 30th. The home is a "new" build -- it is still owned by the builder, however it was built in 2008 and was occupied shortly by someone who had a "lease to own" contract that went sour. I'll post some pictures after our trip this weekend (assuming the home inspector doesn't find anything wrong that would end this deal).

To top everything off, I've been working like a mad woman on some projects (quilts, furniture refinishing and prepping the house for the movers). I haven't gotten more than about 6 hours sleep a night in several weeks (and I'm one of those 8 hour sleepers). I'm EXHAUSTED. And I'm calling it a day...perhaps a good nights sleep will help my perspective just a bit!

Look at what I made!

As I am waiting (impatiently) for the batting for the quilts, I am occupying myself with decorative pillow making. Look what I made today:

It turned out okay, but I could point out a thousand flaws. I'm not sure if I'll make another one, even though I have the pillow to do so. It was a ROYAL pain in the patootie! On the other hand, I'm a stickler for symetry...if there are two twin beds in a room, they both should have the exact same trimmings (at least in my little corner of the world). We'll see...tomorrow we are house hunting, Sunday we have a fun day planned with friends and maybe by Monday I will have forgotten just how hard it was to sew the rufles on!

Stupid ironing board!

So, today I got a lot of work done on my quilt (and quilt related) sewing. I finished two flanged pillow shams, which turned out quite well (actually, I can't find a single thing wrong with them, which is a first for me -- I am usually overly critical of my projects). The dot fabric on the sham is the same as the backing of the quilt, which Lucy announces that she "loves" every time she sees it. I'm glad she approves!


I also got all the strips cut for the binding and have one quilts worth sewn together, ironed and ready to go. I also ironed today -- A LOT. I'm using the same ironing board that Jeremy got when he went to college, oh, almost 14 years ago. Now, anyone who knows me well, knows that Michelle doesn't iron. I'd rather rewash, throw it in the dryer or wear it wrinkly. So, needless to say, I haven't taken a good look at the ironing board in a long time. I noticed when I got it out for this project that the cover was pretty ragged and the padding was shot. I decided that would be my next sewing project -- make a new cover with padding for the ironing board.

Anyway...fast forward to tonight. I went to move the ironing board so I could work out and noticed some yucky drippy marks on the floor (looked kinda rust colored). I figured it actually came from the iron, but looked around and couldn't see anything. I grumpily dug out my carpet spot cleaner and scrubbed it up. After I worked out, I broke out the sweeper and had to move the ironing board again. This time I got a deluge of rusty water ALL OVER my off white carpet. Yep, seems the underside of the ironing board is severely rusted and all that wonderful steam today (plus whatever water I spilled re-filling the iron) was macerating on the underside of the board into a wonderful rusty mess. Ugh...this time we had to break out the carpet shampooer. So, my project is kind of on hold until I can get to the store to get a new ironing board, because there is absolutely no way in hades that I'm putting my expensive fabric and hours of work back onto that rusty thing!

Whew!

Tonight I finished the 2nd quilt top! Yay! Seriously, I am amazed that I got them done that quickly (I started piecing them last Thursday). On the other hand, I have spent almost every spare moment since last Thursday on the sewing machine. I've also put in some late nights and it is wearing on me. I'd love to stay up tonight and get more done, but I'm pretty much shot and need to catch up on my sleep a little.

I got the ruffles made for the pillows I want to make and I picked up the pillows (finally decided to go with round) today. Unfortunately, I seem to keep adding to my "to-do" list, so I'm not really making any progress. And, gee, this project is getting kind of expensive. I realized today, as I was perusing Hobby Lobby & Joann, that I could have saved a lot of money if I had picked fabric from there instead of ordering designer fabric online. But, I do love the fabric (and whats done is done, so no use crying over cut fabric). Lesson learned for next time, though -- thoroughtly calculate the project costs before jumping in!

My little Fancy Nancy!

I snapped this photo last Tuesday as Lucy & I were heading out the door to take Ross to preschool:

Isn't she a sweet little diva? She loves her accessories! I didn't think to get a good shot of her whole ensemble, which included her purse (a Disney purse designed to look like a Dooney & Burke knockoff). She called her scarf a "wrapper" all day, which I found hysterical. I love my little girly-girl!

Making progress!

So, last night I stayed up LATE (well after midnight, which is not good for a woman with three small children who get up by 7:00) and finished the top for one of the quilts. I am very pleased with how quickly these are going together, but panicked at the same time. I MUST get these done before we pack up to move for two reasons: one is that Lucy will need bedding for her new beds when we move and the other is that I just won't have time to work on this after we move and I'm busy cleaning/painting/organizing and settling in to the new house.

Here is a little peak at what the fabric looks like (those are what I have done for the 2nd quilt top):

And my lovely little stacks of blocks:

I'm really happy with how these are turning out. I only hope I can get them done quickly enough to do the fun stuff, too, like the decorative pillows and shams I'm itching to make!

Eh...re-thinking the house hunt!

So, house #1 didn't work out. Oh well. I had my heart set on it, but we didn't get it. That is okay...we'll figure something out! I guess we'll be making another trip to SC soon.

On a cheerier note, I'm thoroughly enjoying my quilting project. I have all the squares cut out and am ready to start sewing the pieces together (I'm just waiting for a new foot for my sewing machine which will make it easier to keep my seem allowances at the proper spacing). I have one of the backing pieces sewn together, too, which was a bigger project than I had anticipated. I choose to use one of the busy patterns on the front on the entire back (to help mask kid dirt). It was difficult only because the pieces of fabric were so large that they were really hard to lay out and line up. The pattern on the fabric matches almost perfectly. The pattern is a polka dot pattern (a series of large and small rows). The last 18 inches or so of the seam have veered off ever so slightly. I'm contemplating tearing out the stitches, but I'm inclined to let it be. For one, when I lay the fabric out it isn't really noticeable. A more compelling reason is that I don't really believe I'll make it better by messing with it. I think I could spend hours tearing out stitches and re-aligning the fabric and end up with the same result.

So, while I wait for my new machine foot, I've decided to take a stab at making a pillow like this:

http://www.etsy.com/listing/67951758/custom-made-ruffle-rose-pillow-small?ref=pr_faveitems

I love it! I'm just working with the scraps I have from the quilt to see what I can whip up. I'm not sure if I'm going to make it a round pillow or use one of the several dozen square toss pillows we have sitting around the house already.

I really should get out my camera and start taking some pictures of this project...maybe tomorrow!

Quilting lesson #1: Abstract Prints Rock!

And geometric prints are a total pain in the patooty. Ugh...why didn't I think of this before? Of course, I love the fabric I picked for the girls quilts, so I suppose I wouldn't do anything different. I just wasn't prepared for the fact that it would be difficult to fold the fabric and cut it so that the patterns lined up well and didn't end up crooked (of course, I SHOULD have thought of this). That all being said, cutting the pieces out for the quilt is proving to be a much easier and quicker process than I had anticipated. I have all but three yards of the fabric cut (and one of those yards is still on its way -- boo on back orders). Rotary cutters are the bomb!

The best part of this project? I'm getting lots of time to catch up on old movies. Today I broke out "Anne of Green Gables". It makes me think of middle school and my friend Elaine and how we could watch the two movies in the series over and over and over. It also made me realize how much better DVDs are than VHS tapes (something I don't think about because I NEVER watch VHS tapes anymore). It took me 20 minutes to get the movie going because our VCR would spit the tape out instead of rewinding. Not sure if the problem is the tape or the machine, but I'm definitely not replacing the machine at this point. I'm having the urge to re-read the series now, even though it is seriously an inappropriate reading level for me. Of course, I've read them probably 15 times already, but the last reading was probably 14 years ago.

New beginnings...

Yep, I know it has been a long long time. But, I'm back and ready to start journaling some of the events going on in our life right now. Our current house in under contract and we are set to move out in early June, we're writing an offer on a new house at the moment, Jeremy is negotiating a practice purchase and I'm learning to quilt (yes, the last isn't a big thing, but probably what most of my posts will be about).

Lucy has never had her room decorated -- it is the same boring beige walls and hand-me-down bedding that her brothers had. I've been chomping at the bit to decorate it since about 2 minutes after we brought her home. Jeremy made me wait until we moved. So, I've been obsessing over exactly what to do for her room (and also Hannah's, as they are likely to be sharing a room). I've been completely unable to find exactly what I wanted for bedding, so I've decided to make the quilts myself. The driving motivator in this is that I really want to be able to accessorize the room out with matching cushions, curtains and pillows.

So, a couple of weeks ago I finally purchased a new sewing machine. I've only test run it on scrap fabric, but it is FABULOUS! I can't believe I've been suffering through with my grandma's old 1940's Singer all these years, when the new machine only cost $109. Seriously, all that cussing wasn't worth the money I "saved"! I can't wait to use it!!!

The first of the fabric arrived today. My plan for tonight is to break in my new rotary cutter. I'm scared, though...the fabric is so pretty and I don't want to mess it up!