Home sweet home

After seven weeks, 35 additional commute hours (per person), countless take-out meals, and I-don't-even-want-to-think-about how many dollars, our remodel is done and we're HOME. Hooray.

The big part of the project was the bathroom remodel. We live in a 3/1 ranch, but didn't want to expand too much and price ourselves out of the market when we do eventually (please God) sell the house. So we opted to redo our existing bathroom, making it luxurious enough for the grown-ups AND durable enough for the kid.

Here's the old bathroom. As you can see, we had only a stand-up shower (no bath), a pedestal sink, and some interesting storage.


Here are a couple of pictures of the bathroom post-demo. We opted to move one wall 18 inches into our third bedroom/office, so that we could have a little extra room for the new tub setup and linen closet. You can probably see the nasty dirty termites crawling around -- their discovery set us back another couple grand, but we'd always suspected we had them so it was sort of a relief to deal with it already.


And now for the big reveal! On the right side, you'll see a new vanity, toilet, medicine cabinet and overjohn. We also installed new light fixtures, hardware, paint -- well, everything. Another nice space-saving change was the installation of a sliding pocket door (not pictured) -- now we don't have to make room for a big door swinging into the bathroom.

On the left side, we have a whirlpool tub/shower combo (sorry for the fuzziness in the second picture, and our new built-in linen/laundry closet. I didn't get any good pictures of the tub, but I've already logged some serious time and I will tell you it is HEAVEN. I am a huge bath fan and I can't believe I managed to live in a house for almost 4 years without one.

The other parts of the project were the replacement of hardwood floors in the bedrooms/office/hallway, since we'd had some termite damage and pretty much hated the floors that were in there. Here's one of our cats approving of the change (or maybe disapproving, it's hard to tell sometimes):

We also painted the baby's room, the office and the hallway. I'll save the nursery for some time when we actually have furniture (don't get me started on how long we've been waiting for THAT). The color turned out a wee bit, um, radioactive, so we might make another change. But hey, if one paint color is the worst misstep we had, I'm not complaining.

So there you have it -- the great Barefoot remodel of 2009.

A series of boring updates

First of all, thanks to everyone who encouraged me to write the love letter to the Mr. I really enjoyed writing it and giving it to him on our anniversary on Sunday. He was thrilled and so moved, and read it 5 times.

Of course, then we ended up bickering about our remodel and baby to-do list all through our dinner, but at least we had a couple of good moments first!

In other news, I am starting to feel like a major wuss because I am starting to get uncomfortable. I mean, come on, it's only 31 weeks, right? But between the shortness of breath, the random stretchy pains, the expanding ribcage, the growing boobs (seriously? MORE???) and the fact that I needed the Mr. to help me try on shoes at the shoe store over the weekend, I'm starting to feel like a big pile of suck. And I know there's so much more to come.....

BUT, the fabulous news is that our remodel is DONE. All that's left to do is have the cleaners come for a deep clean, move a bunch of furniture back where it belongs, and move back in this weekend. I'll post some pics once we've gotten everything looking all pretty.

Now all that's left is to wait for the baby furniture.....

Missing DayQuil

Having a cold and not being able to take anything for it kinda sucks. I think I've expressed about a gallon of snot in the last 72 hours.

I know that I'm guilty of this myself, but it's really funny the way people look at you these days when you're out in public and either sniffle, sneeze or cough. OMIGOD IT'S THE SWINE!

But it's not. Just a week of poop, followed by boogers. SEXY!

The good news is that the Great Remodel of 2009 will be done in a couple of weeks. Everything's looking great. I promise before and after pictures.

Now, back to the tissues.

We're off to see the pandas.....

The wonderful pandas of.....San Diego??

That's right, the Barefoots are off for a long weekend babymoon tomorrow morning. I am so excited for a break from work, work travel, remodeling, and sleeping with a husband and two fluffy cats in a very small bed. Just the husband for a few days, thankyouverymuch.

The last time we were in San Diego, a couple of months ago for my sister-in-law's graduation, we went to the Zoo with a large group and no one wanted to wait in line to see the pandas. I was, in a word, crestfallen. So on this trip WE WILL SEE SOME EFFING PANDAS, even if it means I have to camp out at the gate. Baby needs pandas.

Other than the line, now all that is standing between me and my pandas is a workday in LA, a flight home, an unpack, a repack, a snap decision about bathroom paint color, a trip to the hardware store to purchase said paint, and a flight back down to San Diego.

That doesn't sound so bad, right? RIGHT?!?

Remodel hell

Apologies for being remiss in blogging. We've been trying to adjust to our first week out of the house, and every spare minute has been consumed with visiting virtually every Home Depot, Lowe's, flooring store and plumbing supply store in the area to get what we need on short notice.

My rant for the week:  Why on earth is every non-Home Depot-like home supply retailer CLOSED ON SUNDAY (and sometimes Saturday)??  And even when they're open on Saturday, their distributors are almost always closed, so if you need to order something that's not on premises, they can't tell you if they have it in stock?? Presumably, most people doing remodels have JOBS so that they can PAY for all of their faucets and tubs and tiles and high-efficiency flush toilets.

(And on a related note: why can't anybody ever tell you exactly when an order you place will arrive?? Or accept an extra fee for extradited shipping? If only Amazon.com carried whirlpool tubs.)

Consequently, we've ended up buying a lot of big items at Home Depot. Sure, we saved some money, but we would have much preferred dealing with a smaller shop on most things. But we didn't have that option, since, you know, work and stuff. Doesn't strike me as the best business model, but what do I know?

And finally, if I have to hear one more salesperson say something to my husband along the lines of "Oh, we should give you wife what she wants, and keep her happy (wink, wink)," I am going to blow a serious hormonal gasket. The reason why I am making most of the decisions here, buddy, is that I HAVE DONE MOST OF THE RESEARCH AND KNOW WHAT I WANT. I've almost walked out of a couple of places for this reason alone, but have not (because I am actually a rational BUSINESS PERSON in "real" life and not just a PREGNANT WIFE) in the cases where we had managed to negotiate a good deal. 

OK, end rant. Sorry for all of the caps -- they felt good. Things are going along on schedule, which is great. We're surviving at my mom's house -- she's been great, so no real complaints except we're sleeping in a very small bed and the location of her house adds 20 minutes on to anyplace we want to go.

The fun news is that the chicklette is kicking. A LOT.  And we think we have a name. And I'm having a prenatal massage today. And my shower date is set for October 24th. I'm sure there will be many posts on that, since apparently all of the various limbs of my family tree (most of whom don't speak to each other, at least not in a way that would be considered appropriate for a baby shower) will be flying to and converging upon the Bay Area. 

So, life is good, but life is crazy. Good practice, I guess!

Bye, bye, bathroom

The demolition started this morning.

I took my last shower in our shower.

The Mr. took his last poo in our toilet (and was very proud of it, thankyouverymuch).

The contractor found termites in our wall.

Tonight we move into my mom's house.

Tomorrow we pick tile, fixtures and a tub.

Does life get any more exciting than this????

23 weeks!

Lots of random updates and other incoherent thoughts on this lovely Friday:

• I had my 23-week appointment today, and everything looks great. The chicklette's heart was banging away at 146 beats per minute, and just as my OB asked me if the baby had been active, she gave the Doppler a good kick. Cheeky little girl. And in quite possibly the best news of the week, my weight gain is "looking good" -- only 2 pounds this month. Wooohoo!
• I've been doing a lot of driving to work this week, and have been really enjoying the Pregtastic Pregnancy Podcast. I've learned all sorts of things about epidurals, yoga, sex and traveling while pregnant. If anyone's got time to burn in the car and wants to listen to a bunch of preggos talk about their experiences at different weeks in their pregnancy, there's an hour episode each week that's free on iTunes.
• We decided for sure to go ahead with the remodel. So now I have 48 hours to figure out what kind of tile we want. I've got no frickin' idea. Oh, and I think we move into my mom's house on Tuesday. Lovely.

Anyway, that's what's going on with the Barefoots. Wishing everyone a wonderful weekend!

The tub of my dreams

We started baby shopping in earnest last week. We ordered the crib, made some nursery design decisions, and most importantly, got Grandma to splurge on the baby item I have been coveting for years -- the Sleep Sheep. (Is it wrong that I want one for myself now? He's just so soft and cuddly.)

In the midst of all this cuteness, though, the item that I am most excited about is a bathtub. Not a baby bathtub, but a mommy bathtub.

When we bought our house 3 years ago, we loved so many things about it -- the open floor plan, the back yard, the 11 skylights and the natural light they provided. But there was one thing missing -- a bathtub in an otherwise gorgeous Spanish-style tiled bathroom. Now, this wouldn't be a big deal for some people, but I love me a good bath. I used to take one almost every night when we lived in San Francisco.....so soothing in the cold foggy weather, and such a nice way to kickstart the falling-to-sleep process.

We've known all along that at some point, we'd likely have to remodel our bathroom to add a tub and fix some plumbing issues. Well, we've decided that time is NOW. Which is creating all kinds of fun prospects -- spending $30K of our savings, living with Mom for 6 weeks, and having to somehow get our nursery together while not living in the house. But it's now or never. I don't want to be living elsewhere once the baby comes.

So, away we go. Construction could start next week. I'm just holding on to the image in my head of lounging in a tub during my third trimester, with some aromatherapy candles and a good book (and probably a curious kitteh sticking his paws over the side). I just hope this isn't one of those Money Pit situations where 6 weeks turns into 12. ("Two weeks!")

Calgon, take me away.....