More Home Improvements

While the focus of our home improvement efforts was upstairs in the nursery, that required some changes downstairs as well. The guest room (now nursery) also was where the computer lived. With limited space, we took the advice of our neighbors and transformed the wet bar in the living room to a little computer alcove.

My father-in-law took out the cabinet and the sink when he came to visit last spring. It was a wonderful start and as much as he could do before returning across the pond. We've had unfinished walls and pipes sticking out since then waiting for help. My dad and Sandra decided to cut into the walls in the under-the-stairs closet and install a spring hatch to get rid of the pipes before finishing the wall. (They saw it on This Old House...all the talk of "the hatch" made me think of Lost, but hey, it worked!) Lots of sanding, two coats of paint, and some tiling work later, our new desk is in place and working well! Even Rafa approves!

In the middle of all the chaos, I happened to wander onto Craig's List. Our old dining set had come from the Irishman's Lad Pad. He paid $50 for the table and chairs. They were perfect at the time, but had seen better days. The cats loved the blue scratching posts chairs. Rafa slept in the upside down chair until it was picked up by a Freecycler. They were both sad to see it go!

My biggest concern was how to fit a high chair in the space. (And with padded chairs the space savers were not an option.) Thankfully I found someone wanting to get rid of a dining room table. The Irishman and I went to look at it and fell in love at once. It is smaller than what we had before, but comes with a leaf to make it bigger so we feel it is the best of both worlds. It is a solid table and the price was right. We are extremely happy with it!

Nursery Conversion

It is a quiet Sunday morning. The Irishman and his brother are both fast asleep. It looks like we will be going to late Mass today. I have finally gotten around to uploading pictures from last week's home improvement adventures. We are still putting things back together and have a ways to go before the nursery is baby-ready, but we are getting there!

I had to break the update into two parts. (Too many pictures for one post.) This one focuses on the upstairs guest room to nursery conversion. In order to get to this point there was the wet bar to computer desk conversion, but that is another story...

I was sent to get paint as my dad started to remove fixtures and outlet covers. As he did so the paint started peeling off the walls. Our townhouse is a year older than I am. It was a LOT of paint. If you look close in the pictures it looks like wallpaper peeling off the walls but it is all just layers and layers of paint. (I mentioned the unique colors we found in a previous post.) This discovery set back the painting process by about a day and a half. And oh, the DUST!!!

Did I mention the patching and sanding? Or the DUST??? What should have been a nice easy painting job turned into a fiasco. But at last our white textured walls are now an untextured semi-gloss green..."quaking grass" to be exact. (The daybed has blue sheets on it because we have a couple of Irish guys coming to visit this week. I am still looking for a new daybed cover for the nursery to match my crib fabric!)

The furniture is still at my grandparents' house. We are counting on our strong Irish guests helping us bring it back home. We painted the changing table we got off Craig's List and the dresser I had from when I was a kid. I am curious to see how the paint looks in the room. (The lighting in Grandpa's garage at night is not the best!) I've also picked drawer pulls...silver and white. I think it will be nice!

After we vacuumed and dusted the nursery, the Irishman decided to temporarily come out of DIY retirement and put together the crib. All it is missing is the mattress and the lovely bedding my mom is going to make for us. (Oh, and I guess the baby!)

It is all a work in progress, but we are getting there!

Disney: The Food

About a month ago a friend of mine commented on Facebook that she could tell I was pregnant because all of my status updates had to do with food. She may be on to something!

Before our trip to Disney I researched places to eat. My idea was that if we were going to spend good money to eat, we might as well eat in places that we liked! We made three reservations and were happy with two out of the three. The one we didn't like really irritated me, we we won't go into that...)

So, first up is Chefs De France in Epcot. We happened upon lunch here two years ago on a trip with the girls for my mom's birthday. The set lunch is fabulous. (Dinner not as much...in my opinion!) I have gone a couple of times since. It is only heavenly. My expectations this trip were high. I looked forward to it for days. The Onion Soup, the Croque Monsieur, the Creme Brulee...I can just about taste it now!

The best part? The place was even better than I remembered it! They had added to the set menu. (The Irishman loved his Quiche Lorraine.) As we were eating we saw a waiter come around with a cart. He seemed to capture everyone's attention. As he got closer we could see that he had none other than Ratatouille himself. They went from table to table humming and singing and interacting with the diners. It was most impressive!

Our favorite dinner was at 'Ohana at the Polynesian Resort. This one was new for both of us, but anyone who we talked to recommended it highly. Our biggest regret was that we didn't have the camera with us! (Cell phones to the rescue...) We had a view of the castle from our seats. It was impressive!

Now, those who know the Irishman know that he takes his meat seriously. Unlimited skewers of steak, turkey, pork, and shrimp? He was LOVING it! The woman doing the Hawaiian entertainment gave us leis to celebrate our anniversary. (I got two...one for me and one for the baby) The bread pudding was amazing! We saved the special anniversary cupcake for breakfast the next morning. (Because what is better than cake for breakfast?)

And on that note, I am going to fix myself lunch. I am happy to report that this morning I finally emptied my Google Reader Unread Items. (Impressive considering I started the day over 200!) I have started downloading pictures from last week's renovations. One of our neighbors came last night to help Morgan remove the desk left in the guest bathroom. It is slowly coming together. Next up: I have an organizing date with my craft boxes.

Disney: The Parks

Well, better late than never! I am taking a break from my to do list. The unpaid workers have returned to Montana. The nursery is now green, the furniture is in Grandpa's garage painted a darker shade of green, and I am sitting at the computer desk where there was once a wet bar. The Irishman set up the crib last night. It is only missing the mattress and the baby. There is a lot to do and will be many pictures to follow, but I wanted to share the pictures from our Disney trip first!

We went to Orlando to use up two-day Park Hopper Passes we had from a previous visit. Now, the Irishman and I have been known to take Park Hopping to the extreme. A few Christmases ago we did Animal Kingdom (once), Epcot (once), MGM (twice), and Magic Kingdom (twice) all in one day. This time, we did things a bit more leisurely!

We took advantage of the extra hour we got for staying on property and started at Magic Kingdom. We had a great time and even rode a few rides we hadn't done before. Thunder Mountain is the Irishman's favorite so he rode that one without me. We left just as the crowds and the heat arrived!

We went to Epcot a total of three times in two days! We had two dining reservations there and then made a special trip back our last night to ride SOARIN'. We walked around the countries and stayed for Illuminations one night. EPCOT has some of our favorites.

The Irishman has always liked the Muppets. (There is a story about when he was a child and he ripped Muppets wallpaper from a friend's bedroom wall...) He has decided that he would LOVE to get Muppet puppets for the baby. I have not seen them anywhere. That did not stop him from looking...everywhere! As a compromise, he bought a stuffed Fozzie Bear from Hollywood Studios for the baby. We also waited in line for the new Toy Story ride. I have always been a bit of a Toy Story fan, so it was worth it!

The one thing we did NOT get to do was the American Idol Experience. Now, the Irishman has been doing this thing all summer where he pretends to be Simon Cowell and he says, "SORRY!" In fact when his sisters were here he cut out a picture of Simon and would hold it up to his face to say, "Sorry!" Our lunch and dinner reservations didn't allow us to attend the American Idol Experience, but we did find this background to photograph. (One of us had a little more fun with this than the other...)

All in all it was a GREAT trip. We took a lot of breaks and ate a lot of good food. (More about that in another post...)

Upside Down

I thought about posting the next batch of Disney pictures. The thought of it made me want to take another a nap.

My house has been turned upside down. There is actually a desk literally upside down on my coffee table. Things took a turn for the worse two days ago after I finally purchased paint. My dad called us upstairs where he showed us that the wall texture was peeling off. The layers of paint/texture were so think it looked like wall paper. In fact we found that one wall in the room used to be lipstick pink. The wall next to it? A turquoise color with splashes of pink.

That meant that "we should be ready to paint by this afternoon or early tomorrow" didn't happen. It took all day yesterday to get the gunk off the walls. The last 6 hours have been spent sanding and prepping for paint.

I am currently being lulled to sleep by the sound of sanding and a shop vac. (With every song ever recorded by Chicago blasted from Dad's iPod through my now very dusty speakers.)

When he came down for lunch, my father looked like he had bathed in white chalk dust. I was going to put the clothes I washed on the clothesline and then noticed the dust pouring out of the upstairs sliding glass door. My otherwise green patio umbrella has fine white layer on top. (I wonder if I can convince the Irishman that it is Florida snow?)

This morning I was promoted. In addition to my duties as cook, they added errand girl. I bought the wrong shop vac filter. After my second trip out, I cheated. I served Home Depot hot dogs for lunch. Yep. You read that right. It was classy.

The cats are following my every move. They are not fond of the noises or the "strangers" who have entered their houses. I was told Rafa cried like a baby when I left for my second trip to Home Depot. Not sure I can blame him!

So...I am off to hide again. I am dreaming of a put together house with a computer desk and a green nursery. Someday soon...

Irish Charm

I'd researched places to eat at Disney for several days before the Irishman got around to calling to see about reservations. Of course that meant that when he did call, most the places we wanted were booked. He was getting frustrated after talking to the first operator and hung up sounding like the husband who messed up.

I did a little more research and had him call back. This time he used his Irish charm.

He laid it on THICK!

I was rolling on the floor in laughter listening to him. He was extremely polite to the lady on the phone. He played up the fact that his wife told him to call and he put it off so do they have anything available at ____ place on ____night? I could only hear his side of the conversation, but she would start telling him about the restaurant as she looked up the times and he would answer back with, "Oh really? That sounds great. I hope there is something available." "Oh, no. I've never been but my wife told me about it." "Yes, that is what I have heard." "You do? That's brillant. Thank you so much."

At one point the lady on the phone asked if we were celebrating anything this trip. He was sure to mention that our anniversary was last week. He also worked in there that we are expecting a baby. She must have asked where he is from because they had a whole conversation about Ireland and Irish food as well. He hung up the phone with three reservations. I gave him a hard time about the level of Irish charm applied.

When we checked into the hotel, we were given "Happy Anniversary" buttons. They also upgraded our room size and gave us a pool view. (The picture of the pool was taken from our front door.) I gave the Irishman a hard time about how nice it was of his "girlfriend" to put in a good word for us. I unpacked all the goodies we bought and we took a dip in the pool before taking a boat to Downtown Disney.

Now when the Irishman was on the phone with the Disney rep, she was really pushing Raglan Road once she learned he was Irish. Morgan wasn't really that bothered with it, but I pulled up the menu and decided it did sound like his kind of place.

We got a table right in front of the live music. There was a platform in the middle for the Irish dancer. The Irishman LOVED the meat meal. They let me order from the kids' menu which meant I had room for dessert as well. We were both quite happy. We even requested a song...Wild Rover. They were all too happy to play it for us.

There was even a moment of Irish bonding...

"Ah! Where are ye from?"

"My brother lives in ____"

"Ah, 'tis around the corner!"

"How long have you been out here?"

We took the last boat of the evening back to Port Orleans. Our tummies were full and we were tired, but it was a fantastic start to our mini vacation. All because of his Irish charm!

People Say the Funniest Things...

We had a wonderful trip to Disney. I have almost uploaded all the pictures and just need to organize and fix a few. I sat down today and made a list of my next 5 posts. I like it when I can plan ahead like that.

Right now though? I am hiding.

My dad and grandfather are cutting holes in the walls. Literally. We had a wet bar downstairs that we are getting rid of in order to move the computer down there to make room for the crib in the guest room. Follow all that?

Getting rid of a wet bar requires plumbing work. (I never thought work done on my house would come with the statement , "Just like we saw on This Old House!")

It also requires getting into the closet under the stairs. (Why yes! That is a Christmas tree currently residing in my living room!)

For the last two hours my water and possibly the water for three of my closest neighbors has been turned off while they cut they get rid of the pipes.

My job was to make lunches. It is now after lunch. So I am hiding.

Anyway...that is not the point of this post.

The Irishman went back to work today after two weeks off. In typical fashion, he lost his keys. We'd given the spare house key to my father, so I had to wait for Morgan to leave before heading to water aerobics. I got to class about 10 minutes late. Thankfully it was the fill-in teacher I do not like as much, so I didn't mind too much.

When I got into the pool though these two ladies were looking at me. I thought I heard a "Did you tell her?" I was afraid they were going to comment on my tardiness. The one spoke up...

"I hate to tell you this, but this isn't working for you."

(I am sure the look on my face was priceless...)

"You keep coming but you are still gaining weight!"

They were really sweet and asked if it was a boy of a girl and so on. We talked about their grandkids and all.

Then, after class I was getting changed in the locker room when I noticed this older woman walking in. She looked a bit weak and like she may have been a cancer patient. I saw her looking my way and as I was walking out she stopped me. I was expecting her to say something about my belly or to ask about the baby.

"You have the prettiest, straight toes."

People say the funniest things!

On the Road Again!

It is well documented that I love to travel...but I HATE to pack!

The Irishman and I are heading to Disney for a couple of days. We have Park Hopper Passes left over from our last trip, so we decided it would be a nice couple of days away. I have spent almost a week researching the BEST places to eat and all...and then my darling husband decided to wait until the last minute to call for reservations. We did get in to all the places I wanted...just not at the times we'd hoped. It should be fun though!

When we get back I have a party to go to and then my Dad comes in town. Yep. My to do list is scary. I have over 200 items in Google Reader to read. The furniture my Dad is coming to paint? It is still full of things that need to be emptied. Towels and sheets from the last house guests? In the hamper. Finding that last bit of fabric for the baby's room needed before paint colors can be selected? We won't even go there!

But you know what?

I'm going to Disney World!

It will all wait until we get back. I have a plan to give my dad and grandfather. (As project manager for the nursery conversation this is what I've been told my job entails.) There is furniture to pick up and a wall downstairs that can be fixed while I catch up on the rest. I rescheduled (again) my ESOL certification test so that is one less thing to think about. It will all get done.

So, I apologize if I am not in touch. I have a very important date with my husband and a mouse!

Now to start packing...