Baby's Basement

Three months ago I kept telling myself, “just let me have this baby, and then I’ll have plenty of time to sit around and catch up on all my odd hobbies.” Everyone who laughed in my face when I said that was more than correct! I’m lucky if my teeth get brushed during the day. Forget about makeup or blogging! But, I’ve got a rare moment right now that’s left me showered, dressed, fed, and staring at a precious, dreaming baby girl (who, by the way, slept for five solid hours last night—can I get a whoop whoop!). So, I think it’s time I catch the world up on my wild horse race of a life.

The really impressive event happened on April 23rd. I showed up to work, as usual, despite feeling a bit under the weather. By about 9:00 I vaguely connected the sharp abdomen pain to the fact that I might possibly be starting labor. But I had 27 students in the room waiting for me to instruct them, and the labor probably was a false alarm anyway. So I just kept teaching. By lunch time I noticed regular contractions and visited with the nurse, who informed me I would be having a baby today or tomorrow. I didn’t really believe her. Everyone told me that labor was serious pain and if I could still function I was just calling wolf. So, on to fifth hour. My emotions were a bit all over the place; I’d overtly giggle one moment then lash out at a saucy student the next (he deserved it anyway…and I had a good excuse).

It wasn’t until about 2:00 that I finally admitted I was in real labor and told my neighboring teacher. She rather freaked, but I only had 30 minutes left in the day, so I thought I might as well finish it out. Now, this (my 37th week of pregnancy) had been a weird scheduling week where I didn’t get a plan period Monday or Tuesday. I was anticipating teaching through Friday before taking my maternity leave and had three 90 minute plan periods during the latter part of the week. Needless to say my lesson plans for the substitute were far from fruition. This latency left me curled up over my computer at the last bell, desperately typing up the next day’s agenda, and breaking frequently to wince and breathe. Nevertheless, plans were completed and printed before I left the room that day. I was even dumb enough to grab a stack of grading on my way out the door. (I really thought this was a false alarm still.)

The rest of the day was a rush and blur. My mother had booked her flight weeks earlier for the 23rd and threatened me that if I didn’t “lie down and cross [my] legs” until she got there, I’d never hear the end of it. And, she mentioned, in recompense for her leaving town on my dad’s birthday, I should probably have the baby before midnight, as a present for him. Mom arrived at our house around 8:00. My water broke at 9:00, we made it to the hospital twenty-two minutes later, and Eliza Louise Banks was born at 10:41 p.m. What can I say; I’m an obedient daughter…

She is wonderful and has blessed our lives immensely! 



Weeks following consisted of major partying with extended family along with major renovation of the basement. Kara, my sister who moved in with us in April to attend SLU’s nursing program, spent weeks painting and hanging molding. Jaron labored excessively over the drop ceiling. The carpet guys worked slowly one hot afternoon, and Dad contributed, once again, straining his legs and eyes cutting all the tedious angles and circles in the ceiling tiles. Extraneous finish work still stands incomplete. But, maybe now that Eliza and I have gotten used to each other, I’ll plenty of time to sit around and catch up all the odds and ends.

She's Here!

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The Basement Begins

Get ready. I’m thinking there will be many posts about the downstairs. To introduce, the basement was almost completely unfinished, excepting a bit of work done by the previous owner, most of which we’re having to redo because he botched it so badly. But, hey, kudos to him for trying.

We were lucky enough to convince my dad to fly out and help us do some of the more mind-boggling prep work that we really didn’t have any idea how to start. Since Jaron’s on break, the two of them got quite a bit done.

Day one, dad and Jaron tackled the plumbing issue. The guy who lived here before us had set everything up to have a sink, toilet, and shower in the bathroom, but he failed to properly vent the sink. Our inspector kindly pointed out that we would need to fix that right away. So, that was first on the list. The boys had a tricky time figuring out just how and where to add the vent. The only real solution involved shoving a large piece of PVC into a small space. This took a lot of cutting out parts of studs and some tricky shoving.  At about 7 p.m. they had everything in place and were ready to settle down for a movie. But, then I washed my hands in the upstairs sink and water leaked all over the basement. Oops.

Jaron's a good helper...

Finished product (take 2)

 They were troopers and went back to Lowes and bought all those millions of PVC pieces again, cut out all their earlier work, and started over from the beginning. Both were a bit more attentive the second time around and by 10 p.m. we had up-to-code basement plumbing and no leaks!

When the plumbing was finished, the boys textured and painted the bathroom walls, laid the floor, installed a toilet and sink, and my dad even patched the busted shower floor so we don’t have to replace it. Go dad! So we now have two functioning bathrooms, so long as you don’t require a door to the shower or room itself…

old bathroom

old bathroom prepped for painting

New sink, mirror, and light fixture

new floor and old toilet (from upstairs bath) re-installed

before work

.

The next big project was framing out a room and closet (for Kara!!) in an odd space around the corner of the bathroom. From what I can tell, they didn't have any problems with this part. I came home from work one day and they had it all finished before dinner time

measuring twice

  

my dad's a good helper, too!

finished wall!

and an itty-bitty closet

Then came the real challenge: lighting. I think my dad and Jaron spent 2-3 days on this project alone. They struggled so much that I had to take a day off from work to help them! ;)

For those of you who have toured our basement, you’ll remember that a single Coors lamp provided light for the entire 30’ x 16’ basement—actually that lamp didn’t even have a bulb in it, now that I think of it. Needless to say, my Dad was a little more than ready to quit working in the dark. He and Jaron installed 8 can lights, in two perfectly-spaced rows, down the center of the main living area. That was the easy part, and I’m sure it wasn’t all that easy.

this is the type of can light they installed

two of the eight rows

wiring for the hall lights

Jaron really wanted to stretch everyone’s electrical knowledge and requested a 4-way lighting system (meaning electricity to three switches plus one set of lights).  The idea is that the light over the stairs and hallway be controlled by switches in three different locations.  It only took us two days to figure out how to properly do that. The 4-way lighting system is actually really simple, but we ran into so much trouble trying to tap in to the existing power lines! We had it working multiple times, but always with a glitch—the upstairs kitchen lights came on, too; or, the stair light didn’t come on with the hallway lights; and (my favorite), when everything was lighting up correctly but the one switch at the bottom of the stairs blew the breaker every time we used it. I’m sure the inspector would have loved that!

After 12 YouTube research sessions and 32 trials, we finally figured it out. Again, at about 10 p.m. You should have been there for the party after that one!

So, thanks Dad and Jaron for putting in so many hours down there. It still looks like an unfinished basement, but we’re so much closer now to actually being able to use that space. I can’t wait!

Bedroom Part 1

I know. I know. It's been way way too long since I reported house progress. Well, basically that's because the house really hasn't progressed. Sunbathing by the poolside, running way too much, traveling, and sleeping in ate up way too much of my summer free time. Don't you hate that? I had such high ambitions improving a long list of household issues. Yet, I only accomplished 1/2 of one project.

Here it is.

I started with a powder blue bedroom (gross) with tacky plastic baseboards and dilapidated blinds. 

  
And this old dresser set that I've been meaning to stain. Still haven't. That will be my next report.

So, I painted the ceiling where the last owner goofed and colored baby blue outside of the appropriate lines. Thank goodness the white paint I chose was the same (and not too much newer) than the original ceiling paint. I was not looking forward to painting the whole thing. 

Then, I added green on our accent wall. Sorry to everyone out there who thinks green is gross. I'm sure there are plenty of you. You probably won't want to rent my house in two years...

The three other walls are beige, however, this beige is an unfortunate event in and of itself. I noticed that we had run out of the millions of gallons of beige we purchased shortly after moving in (for which we got a steal of a deal through a friend of a friend). So, I went to a cheaper place to buy more (not wanting to bother the friend of a friend for one gallon, and also not wanting to fork up the arm to buy without the deal). I digress. I go to Lowes with the exact swatch I want. They make it, no problem, give me the paint, I got home and get to work. Two coats and four hours later--definitely not the same color. It's REALLY really close. Just, not quite as lustrous and rich as the rest of the house, and just a hint lighter. So, I sat with it for a few days trying to justify purchasing said expensive paint and donating another four hours to the project. But, cheap as I am, I just left it. None of you will probably notice, except my father who will berate me for having mis-matched paint if he ever sees it. But, then again, he's color blind so maybe not. 

Then, of course, came new blinds and outlets. No big. I'm getting faster on my outlet-changing time. Thinking about trying out for the Olympic team. I hope they let me race with the electricity off. Otherwise, no game. 

I even did my first phone jack. Those wires are sooo small! And there are way too many of them.

Then I did the baseboards. I'm not very good at this part, as my father and husband will attest. Something about the exact 1/16 of an inch and geometric planning. I don't know. I just get so bored so quickly. Then my mind wanders and I forgot that measurement, even though I just wrote it down and looked at it.  Too late, just cut the board.

Anyway, I only had two ugly seams to patch due to miscalculations. And no one's aloud to look a the back corner of my closet. You couldn't if you tried--too many shoes! Hah!

here are the old baseboards

you can see the new baseboards here

So, I had this great idea to frame my windows. I love how that looks in other people's houses. After tacking up a test board, I realized my sill was far too short, and that my windows were not actually build to have things nailed to their perimeter. Bummer. No frame. Next house. I still need to redo the apron, Jaron says it's too sharp of an angle.  

And that's about it for now. I'll post some more pictures when I finish the windows, closet doors, and dressers. So much still to do. 

Also this summer:

 Jaron met Laman and Lemuel

 And I found some crazy waterfalls! 

 Ok, Jaron found them too...

Happy Birthday Jaron!

Well. This has been a work-filled week. And I’m supposed to be on summer break! The end result was worth it, though. We finally updated, unpacked, and cleaned enough of the house to allow guests to see what’s been hogging all of our time.

We had originally hoped to have a party at my birthday, in March, and have everyone over, but the house was definitely not ready then. So, we pushed the party back to Jaron’s birthday, last Tuesday, and we just barely made it.

Over the last two weeks, we finished the scraping, plastering, sanding, plastering, sanding texturing fun of the paper bag wall. Then we painted it, and I’m completely in love with the color!

Jaron stayed busy cutting and hanging the moulding, while I came behind him caulking and patching it all. I successfully replaced six outlets, seven light switches, and one doorbell without getting shocked. Jaron also worked hard hanging all the new doors and knobs. I think those doors make the biggest difference—they just make a whole room, hallway, whatever, look so new! It’s great!

 Overall we didn’t have any major hang-ups. It’s rather surprising now that I think about it, actually. The biggest time-consumer was just sifting through all the papers and piles of “temporary” holding spots that appeared while all the bookshelves and filing cabinets gathered dust in the basement.   

Hallway from the bedroom

Hallway from the kitchen

 

 

I think Jaron had a good birthday party. :)

Complete with flowers from our yard!

 

And we went scuba diving!