Under Construction: The Shop

Don't want to miss out on any of our renovation shenanagins? 

Click here for a full list of my posts on it!

Not too much has been going on inside the house (with the exception of me starting my nesting phase and going through ALL of our moving boxes and deciding what to keep, donate or throw away), but this post is mainly for the guys ;) Well, and a little bit for the girls. I think some of you might appreciate a part of it.

One of the big selling points to my husband in buying this house was the shop in the backyard. It's 26' x 36', 15' tall and is pretty much a match made in heaven for my car / house project obsessed spouse. Every time someone comes over to the house for the first time he leads them through a very quick tour of the inside and then promptly says "but you've got to see my shop!" and most men drool. 

Being renovators and keeping up with his passion for cars means we need a good amount of work space. So this shop fits the bill for him quite nicely, but he's been itching for the last 3 months to get that shop in order. Until now it's mostly been one of the storage areas for our extra furniture, random boxes and all of his tools. His goal for his Christmas holiday is to get my Duraburb project finished, so that means he's got to get the place organized. Which led to him deciding to build our loft and the designated mama-baby area.

For those of you who are asking yourselves 'what the hay is a duraburb?' it's Adam's current automotive project in converting a gas guzzling Suburban into a diesel monster. It allows us to have the space that our growing family needs but not have to pay the premium of 7 mpg (instead we are expecting a more comfortable mid twenties). The name "duraburb" comes from the combination of a Duramax engine with a Suburban. It's affectionately called my "rig."

You see, even when the renovation is complete, this man's work will never be done. He thrives on projects (have I made that obvious enough yet??) and even when the Duraburb is done he's got an old BMW project waiting in the wings. It's set up for a lot of garage time for Daddy and although it's his passion and he loves doing it, he obviously misses his family while he's out there. So he graciously has set aside space in the shop that will be sectioned off as a safe, comfortable play area for myself and the kids.

This weekend he got the framing up for the loft and the plywood platform laid down. 

Our plans for this mama-baby area is to lay down the extra carpet that we have left over from our install, a couch, perhaps a small tv, toys and I've suggested that maybe he can build a little playhouse in there when he has some spare time. I've been trolling ideas on Pinterest for some really awesome playhouses lately and I know he will be able to deliver :) 

The mommy-baby area will have a half wall surrounding it with a gate to enter in through, so I'll be able to stand up and talk to Adam while he's working, without having to worry about kids getting into the shop area.

The shop already has a pellet stove in it (which will be outside of mama-baby land) so even during the colder months we'll all be cozy and get to hang out as a family together.

He still needs to build a permanent ladder and eventually will devise a pulley / elevator system to help get totes up and down without having to carry them up. Basically that means that I'll have no excuse that I can't go out to the stop to get the Christmas decorations down... ;)

Under Construction: new garage doors and yard work

Don't want to miss out on any of our renovation shenanagins? 

Click here for a full list of my posts on it!

Well, the renovation was on a partial hold for the last couple months for the end of my pregnancy and the birth of Ruby, but the last 2 weeks have brought us absolutely gorgeous weather and my energy has returned so we've been getting quite a few projects done around the house.

Sometimes I just have to stand back and laugh at the way that we go about our renovation. Home improvement projects are very daunting to most people and may require weeks (months?) of preparation. Some researching on how to do it, sourcing the materials and him-hawing over options. Us? Nah. Adam woke up this past Saturday morning and said "today I'm going to put in our garage doors."

Ok, let me back up a few days.

The Suburban "Duraburb" project is done and Adam started parking it into the (in my opinion) very skinny garage. Our house was originally had a 2 car garage (2 single doors) but the previous owners converted one of the stalls into a room for their daycare. We value garage space over weird/extremely cold rooms so the plan has always been to convert it back into garage space in the next year or so. I've been driving the Duraburb around for a couple weeks and am pretty comfortable with driving it and parking it in easy spots but the garage was another story. One morning I was getting ready to go to my local MOPS group and all I had to do was pull the Duraburb out of the garage. It was a tight fit but simply driving it out of the garage shouldn't be a big deal, right? Even after loading up both of the girls (who were NOT happy) I felt that I had succeeded in my attempt and started pulling out of the garage. Well...*somehow* the garage door had slid down just a teeny tiny bit and it was enough to catch the back roof rack as I pulled out. Thankfully a neighbor was walking by and I had already slowed down to let him cross, so I was literally creeping along but it was enough to bend the roof rack a little bit. This was the fire under Adam's ass to fix our garage situation.

So this past Saturday morning he went to Lowe's just to check their prices on garage doors and found that coincidentally they are having a super-sale and picked up 2 garage doors for cheap! We tend to have a lot of luck with getting super good random deals at Lowe's. So he came home and literally started cutting a hole in the side of the house.

If you know me personally or have been following the blog for a while, you know that although Adam doesn't have any professional experience in house renovations / improvements he just has a knack for these things. His engineering background gives him the basis for a lot of the projects that he tackles and where ever there are hole in his knowledge he picks up pointers from the internet or friends/family who have already done it. In the 1 1/2 house renovations that we've done he's actually got a pretty good record of success. Sometimes it's a windy road with a few detours, but I have to say that I'm very proud of him for always completing a project.

Ok enough blubbering about my handy husband, back to filling you in on what we've done.

The way that we tend to start our projects is by the seat of our pants. We decide a few days before or the morning of (as was the case here) that we want to get something done and pretty much do it. Yes, we have a list of house projects that need to be done. Yes, they are organized by priority. But sometimes that list is set aside and we just do what we want to do that weekend.

Case in point: he cut a hole in the house and installed one garage door in a day.

Sunday morning he moved on to the garage stall that already had a garage door (the one I had pulled out of). The original width was 8 ft and both new doors are 9 ft. This is plenty of room for me to comfortably park the Duraburb in the garage. Whew! He managed to finish this project in time for Penny's 2nd birthday / meet the baby party that we had planned that afternoon too.

Over the last few weeks we've been working on the yard as well. The side yard leading from our driveway to the shop was in dire need of drainage so Adam and my step-dad worked for a couple weekends to lay down drainage pipes and dig trenches. Last week a couple of our neighbors literally volunteered to throw almost 10 tons of gravel over that driveway that Adam outlined while he was at work. We have been seriously blessed with great neighbors who have welcomed us to the neighborhood and are a constant support!

Meanwhile, my parents have been visiting almost every weekend and my step-dad is a machine when it comes to whipping a yard into shape. For both of our renovations that has been his area of expertise and the man is tireless. Normally I'm not much of a yard person but he inspired me a bit and I've been working on a couple small projects throughout the yard (as nap time allows).

My first project was to weed our raised bed. Penny and the chickens became my helpers (as helpful as a toddler and five chickens can be) by dumping the weeds into a bucket or eating bugs that I unearthed - respectively. I need to fill the garden with some topsoil and then Penny and I can plant our first veggies together! I'm thinking snow peas, radishes, cucumbers, sunflowers and setting aside some room for a couple pumpkins.

I started walking around the yard and found a few areas where there had been paving stones laid out but had been overgrown for several years.

My yard projects are usually limited by which child I have with me at the time. If it's just Penny then I'm pretty free to do mostly whatever I want to do and she's become a good helper. If Penny is down for a nap but Ruby is awake then I wear her in our Boba and I'm limited to tasks that keep me standing (such as clipping branches or raking). It's not too often that I'll tackle yard work when I've got both of the kids - but we still go outside and play :)

This run of great weather has been a great motivator in getting the outside of our house looking more presentable and I've been enjoying taking the girls on walks during the day and when Adam gets home we typically take another walk after dinner. It's not too often that we get weather like this in Washington this early in the year so we take advantage of it while we can!

Under Construction: Settling In

Don't want to miss out on any of our renovation shenanagins? 

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The last couple weeks have been quiet in regards to renovation updates because we've just been knocking off little items in our to-do list that aren't really update worthy. However, since a few weeks have passed without any pictures, I'll go ahead and give you a tour of our somewhat organized chaos :)

Last weekend was dedicated to moving the duraburb project forward...as in, getting the vehicles over to our house and in the shop. Up until now the Suburban and the donor truck were living at my brother in law's house (we didn't have any space at our rental) and it wasn't until last weekend where we were able to get a car trailer large enough to move such large and heavy vehicles. Now that both cars are here, Adam is able to pop into the shop as he has time and chip away at the project. For those of you who are asking yourselves 'what the hay is a duraburb?' it's Adam's current automotive project in converting a gas guzzling Suburban into a diesel monster. It allows us to have the space that our growing family needs but not have to pay the premium of 7 mpg (instead we are expecting a more comfortable mid twenties). The name "duraburb" comes from the combination of a Duramax engine with a Suburban.

We've also organized the house to be livable during this 'resting' period of the renovation.  Our furniture is more or less set to where it's going to go, all of my kitchen appliances are functional (3 weeks without a dishwasher or kitchen sink were kind of brutal) and we've made all of our living areas child-safe. We're in the process of making a final decision on the island cabinets, so that means the island is still exposed, but fear not - the electrical may look scary but it's totally safe.

Penny's room has also made some progress. At this point I haven't gone out of my way to set it up exactly the way we'd like it, we've just made do with the things we have and as we have time we'll touch up the paint, add trim, get nicer curtains and make it into a 'real' bedroom for her. But she absolutely loves her big girl bed - and has been sleeping in it by herself since the second night after we moved in.

As the weather cools off the time has begun for us to take a look at the heating situation in the house. When the house was built, each of the rooms were meant to be headed by cadet heaters. They're kind of inefficient and energy-suckers. So at some point a pellet stove was installed in the main room - pretty much as the main source of heat for the entire house. Not really sure how that worked out for the previous owners, and we've never owned a pellet stove before so we aren't sure what to expect. It sat on a very unsafe, makeshift hearth that we tore up for the carpet installation so Adam is building a sturdier replacement. Next on the list obviously would be to build a safety gate around the stove so that little hands can't reach hot parts.

...And that's pretty much it. Not a whole lot to share, but it definitely is beginning to feel like home and we're settling into a routine.

Memorial Day Recap Part II

Part I of our Memorial Day weekend camping trip

Friends, I am not what you would call a "fair weather camper." I've grown up in the Pacific Northwest where rain is just something you deal with. It's an act of God if you go camping in Western Washington and you don't get any rain. So I'm fine with that. I'm totally fine that my and Penny's fingernails came home with dirt in the cuticles. I'm even fine with the fact that we didn't shower for 4 days. What I'm not fine with is being too cold to go to sleep!

We took this first camping trip with Penny with open eyes to see if we tent camping was still a possibility with our mini circus of toddler + 2 dogs. Penny really surprised us with how able she was. We taught her from the moment that she noticed the (empty) fire pit, that it was hot and that she needs to be careful. She never strayed from the site (but thought it was fun to run around the car and meet us at the other side) and didn't eat too much dirt. Camping with this very mobile and interested toddler was easy and fun, which is not entirely what we expected. We prepared ourselves for sleeping at night to be difficult for her due to the cold or natural noises, or that she would just get into too much trouble. What ended up happening is that we realized that for Adam and I that camping in a tent is no longer fun or comfortable. I, sadly, am becoming a fair weather camper.  So a trailer is in our very near future. And I think I'm coming to terms with it. Besides comfort being a factor for us, a camper would also give us a place to safely leave our dogs in case we wanted to go somewhere not dog friendly. Leaving dogs at a campsite isn't responsible and having them cooped up in a possibly hot car all day isn't an option either. Perhaps more on that in the future.

As an aside, this whole weekend was made easier by the addition of our new family rig. We bought a older suburban after spending this last year realizing that our beloved Volvo V70 station wagon just isn't cutting it anymore. I know, a car is like a purse. You get a bigger purse, you start to stuff it with more stuff. The issue is primarily with the two of us, 2 dogs and *currently* one child, we quickly fill up the Volvo on our weekends. We visit both sides of our family very regularly. The car is pretty full with just a weekend full of stuff and our 5 bodies. Eventually, we'll have more kids, which will take up more space and come with more stuff. We are also transitioning to having most of our family vacations be road trips. So naturally the idea would be to get a bigger car. Unfortunately, bigger usually means horrible gas mileage, which doesn't really jive with this mama's ecofriendly goals and this family's desire to stay single income!

So what the husband has decided to do is create what is called a DuraBurb. For those of you who don't know, Adam has a degree in vehicle engineering and knows a thing or two about cars. Can you guess how many cars we have? I can tell you that each member of our little family (2 of us, Penny and the 2 dogs) would each have a car to themself and more. Yea, we're those people. We try to justify that each car we have has it's own purpose, even though we currently have 2 "toys." Ok, I am making every attempt to keeping this post relevant and keeping boy-stuff out of it. But the hubs wants his little spotlight here every once in a while too..

Back to the DuraBurb. It's a Suburban (traditionally gas guzzler) with a Duramax diesel engine + other parts swapped in. Modern diesels are much more energy efficient (and quieter) than their older counterparts were. All said and done, this Family Rig will go from getting 13 MPG on a good day to about 27 MPG. And seat 9 passengers, and tow whatever we want. So now all my friends are joking that I need to fill it with kids and we're good to go. We started by getting a donor truck with the desired diesel engine + parts, took all that stuff out, got the Suburban, and next step is to do the swap - which will be this weekend. Hopefully it'll all go smoothly and it'll be up and running before the end of the summer!

Stay tuned for that tasty recipe that I've been tantalizing you with for 2 posts...

What is your family "rig"? Is it the ideal size for your family?

Now, honestly, readers of mine - 

is the Duraburb project something you'd be interested 

in reading about  in future posts? If not, I'll definitely spare you :)

Pierogie Babies: Almost there!

Ruby

Well, clearly a lot has happened since my last pregnancy check in on the blog (uhm, 6 weeks ago..oops). Little Ruby has been rolling, shaking, twisting as normal and head down. It's so hard to summarize how I feel these days! Excited to meet her (beyond all measures), but also completely content in her coming in her own time. I had Penny at exactly 39 weeks so next week is when I'll really go on watch. However, yesterday I was hit with some major nesting instinct and pretty much tore the house apart, so we'll see what happens ;)

Penny

As always, Penny is such a joy. Over the last month or so she has started talking so much and her memory is impeccable. We visited the Aquarium/Zoo about a month ago and she still talks about visiting the sharks and all the things she saw there. We also got chickens about 3 weeks ago and she gets a real hoot (ohhhh bad bird humor) out of them. We have a bay window that looks out into their pen and it's one of her favorite places to hang out if we're not visiting them in the backyard.

My Duraburb has been the main mode of family transportation for the last couple weeks and she very delightfully squeals "mama's honk honk!" whenever she sees it. Though yesterday she asked about Daddy's honk honk (which I'm assuming she meant the old green truck we've had that we sold about a week ago) and I had to very proudly tell her that only mama has a honk honk now - Daddy does not! Adam traded in his very tired commuter car (my faithful high school ride, mind you) and got an early 2000's Saab to replace it. We also are planning to downsize even more by selling my Volvo when the Duraburb is completely tested and ready to hand over.. Which will bring us down to 4 cars from 7. To be fair 2 of them are Adam's toys so they spend most of the year patiently waiting for the perfect ride.

The last 2 weeks have been rough for our family though. I came down with a mild cold, got better and then fell deeper into it. Then Adam caught it. And now Penny has a mild flu. This is the first time that she's ever been sick for more than a day (halleluah for nursing through toddlerhood!) and it's just been heartbreaking to watch her go through this. There's been tons of extra snuggles and she's been back in our bed for the last 3 nights and I'm happy to say that she is very close to being her old self again as of this morning. Which is a good thing, because with the end of the pregnancy drawing near I need to have my whole family in the best shape possible.

One last thing before I go.. As I was brushing my teeth last night and sitting on the edge of the tub last night, Penny walks up to me and gives my big belly a hug. She sweetly kisses it and says "wef bebe Ribbit" (love baby Ruby). It made me think of this saying that I'd like to have put up on their sister room someday..

The fun part.. Cast your guesses on Ruby's birth! Here are the stats from Penny's:

Born at 39 weeks gestationally (today 2/20/14 I am 38 weeks 3 days)

8 hour 40 minute labor

Born in the water

6 lbs 14 oz, 17 3/4"

RadioShack Makeover Update #mc

I participated in a campaign on behalf of Mom Central Consulting (#MC) for RadioShack. I received a gift card to facilitate a shopping trip and promotional item as a thank you for participating.

Did you see my post about the awesome deals you were able to find at RadioShack's "Name your Deal" Black Friday extravaganza?

This weekend I unburied myself from all the blankets I've wrapped myself in (I'm a WA gal - anything under 40 and over 70 is just too crazy for me) and took to my local RadioShack store to see for myself all the awesome deals they have.

Now I live in a small town where changes are sometimes slow going, but what I hear is that by the end of this year (2013) RadioShack will made improvements to nearly all 4,300 stores throughout the nation. Most of these stores will a get a full makeover to make them look more visually appealing and easier to find what you're looking for, as well as updating product categories.

When I visited my store I picked up something that I've been partly dreaming of / partly not sure if I wanted to open this can of worms. I'm talking about portable DVD players - specifically for the car. We're a very mobile family and the holidays are a 3 month marathon of trips between both sides of the family. Penny has gone through phases where she tolerates car rides, but as she grows older (and when Ruby is born), peace of mind and sanity for these several hour long car rides is kind of becoming a must. But then on the other hand.. is this a world I really want to dive into? 

Well, I decided to give it a shot anyways and picked up a snazzy portable dvd player to keep in my Duraburb when it's complete.

Check out the RadioShack Holiday Hub to see how you can complete your Christmas shopping list (or just pick up something 'just because') to find more great deals.

Do you use a dvd player in your car for road trips? 

Pierogie Babies: 32 weeks 22 months

Ruby

I feel myself growing exponentially at this point! This big ole belly keeps getting rounder, more in my way and less is fitting. Good news for us :) I have a feeling that this little girl is going to be a night owl - most of her crazy dance moves start around 7:30p and subside about 30 minutes after I lay down to go to bed.

The due date was under question at last month's midwife appointment because the 2nd trimester ultrasound (my only one) showed that she is "measuring a week small." My midwife suggested that perhaps instead of a 3/4 due date we might be closer to anticipating a 3/14 due date. My own intuition and simply feeling the size of this little girl inside of me tells me that my LMP date is more accurate than the ultrasound's suggestion and that I will deliver at 39 weeks according to my first due date - so put your guesses in folks. I'm 80% sure I will have Ruby the week of 2/23.  Plus, in case you haven't noticed - I have small kids. Penny has measured in the 15th percentile her entire life, but is a very healthy & proportional kid. 2nd trimester ultrasounds really can't take into effect family genetics and this tree bears small fruits.

For one reason or another, I have to visit the dentist A LOT. I take really good care of my teeth but I'm thinking that genetics and 3 years of pregnancy // nursing // pregnancy are beginning to take their toll. Last year I had the pleasure of 2 crowns and 2 visits for fillings in addition to just one cleaning. I visited the dentist this week to get some fillings taken care of and the dentist (my second female dentist ever) made a comment about just how much my gums are bleeding during the procedure. It's pretty common for pregnant women to have swollen and bleeding gums due to hormones, but I guess it was to the point where she wasn't able to get work done! So lucky me, I got to go back in yesterday to that final filling done. Oh, and next week I'll be going in for my cleaning too - that's 3 dentists visits in 9 days, folks. My jaw and gums are sore.  Miss Ruby was bouncing away, not seemingly startled by the drilling, and the silver lining is that I got to listen to my music for a couple hours instead of Penny-tunes. I made a comment to a friend that luckily it's my mouth that's a wuss, and not my youknowwhat, because I can take natural birth like a champ. Dental work? You've got me whining all evening and I just can't handle it.

Penny

This little lady of mine is a hoot and a half. Over the last 2 weeks she's started to come up with 2-3 word sentences and I've had many a conversation with her. A couple favorites from the past few days:

Conversation 1:
We're on our way to my dentist appointment (during working hours), where Adam was going to meet us and take Penny to the local mall for the playground:
Mama: Penny, you're going to get to play with Daddy in a few minutes!
Penny: {somewhat confused} Daddy - working? ("working" is a common word around our house - Daddy is gone because he's working, or you need to give Daddy some space because he's working {on the house})
Mama: No, Daddy will play with Penny!
Penny: YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

Conversation 2:
I'm making dinner and give Penny a covered cup with a straw full of milk. She runs off happily, after a few minutes I hear "messy. raining. milk."

Conversation 3:
Penny wakes up from a nap and I hear her stirring over the monitor. She calls out for me, as she usually does, and I sit and listed to hear what might happen next. She started to get out of bed and I can hear her organizing her stuffed animals.
"Mama, Daddy - working. Yeah. Meaty play." ("Meaty" is what she calls herself, hilarious!)

Christmas break projects

Adam took the second half of December off and spent that time working on our Duraburb project. This is going to replace my current ride (our Volvo wagon) and this has been a fun project for him as an engineer and gear head. He put in a ton of hours during his 'vacation' and on the night before going back to work he got it started for the first time! This is quite the accomplishment because he's done full OEM engine replacements before, but this was taking a diesel engine from a different truck and putting it into a Suburban - not something that Chevy originally intended. Pretty proud of my man this week.

And as for me - well, one of my resolutions this year was to start and finish a project of my own (besides growing a baby, of course). On my last Pierogie Babies post I mentioned that I had my eye out for a solid wood dresser that I can upcycle to put into Penny and Ruby's room (check out my Sister Room Pinterest Board). Right after New Years I found the perfect French Provincial style dresser, nightstand and mirror set on Craigslist - and this week I've gotten to work sanding off the really crappy paint job. I'll unveil the project when it's all done, but in the meantime you can check out my inspiration dresser upcycle board.