all about the bathroom

Omigosh the bathroom is 97% done!!!  The only tiny things left to do are just painting the trim, one more coat of paint on the ceiling and then that is it!  I'm so, so in love with this bathroom!  It's just fresh and bright and beautiful.

You can see the painter's tape at the top of this picture. Ha!  Whoops.  This morning I was looking at the doors and thinking how dingy they look compared to the new clean bead board paneling.  I guess that's how it goes, right?  

Here's a picture of the light fixture, which I love, love!  It is super bright and fun.  I wasn't over the moon about any of the options I could find locally, they all just felt like blah blah blah.  There was one at Home Depot but the color was weird.  Karla found this one on Amazon, it's called the schoolhouse light.  The globes are a white glass which just looks so good with the rest of the bathroom. Love.

Ok this is a silly little picture, I know.  But!  Aaron changed out the light switch in the bathroom to these push button ones.  So there are two, one for the fan and the other is for the light.  When the light is off the switch has a little night light!  I love it.  I totally geeked out on this!

Yesterday while Aaron was finishing up the trim I was working on getting things situated.  I dragged out the big boxes that the sink, mirror  and light fixture came in that had been taking up residence in the living room.  Which made me really look at this nook.  And I had a light bulb moment!  I made this banner last summer but could not figure a place to put it.  The top of this cabinet had an embellishment that I didn't like so I had taken it out and it left an open spot so the banner covers that nicely.  Usually the cabinet is open, it houses my tv in the top and baskets full of movies in the bottom.

And!  I finally put up curtains in my bedroom.  I tried to get a picture of how white and bright and beautiful they looked this morning.  Really though life doesn't always translate as well into pictures, does it?  

My Mom and I had a laugh yesterday on the phone.  Well, I might have laughed more than her, ha!  But, I'm pretty sure that she gave these to me and had picked them up at either a yard sale or thrift store.  She always finds good deals and passes things on to me.  Lucky me :)  So!  I've had these stashed for a million years and had never put them up.  I put them up and stood back to admire them and one curtain is about an inch shorter than the other!  Bahahhahaa!  I was laughing with her because I thought maybe that's why someone got rid of them! meh. I love them so much I don't really care.  I just love lace.

So today I am cleaning a bit, hanging up pictures and knitting.  I am just chilling out.  Taking my time.  I have to say I feel like I picked the right house because I really feel comfortable here.    I like coming home.  Hope you all have a great week coming up!

beach thoughts

I know I've been quiet for a bit.  There has been so, so much going on.  In life, in my thoughts, in my emotions.  Just too much really.

Last weekend Rocky and I drove over to the coast.  Monday, April 4th was the third angelversary of my Scott's death.  I knew what to expect from the previous 2 years.  This year there is a deeper sadness that I can't exactly explain, nor do I really want to.  Everything boils down to life moving on, away from him, without him.

Maybe I'll elaborate another day when I have the energy.  Really, though, I just miss him so much and he is missing so much.

As usual, the beach is the perfect place for me to be.  The water all the days I was there was the color of Scott's eyes - deep blue.  Depending on the clouds, it could change to grey as well.  For the most part the weather was perfect.  Blue skies, sunny.  But it was really very windy which made it cold.  Here you can see the wind blowing up Rocky's ears.  Oh yeah, don't mind my finger in the shot there. ha

Here's Rocky longing to run down the beach and make friends with the dog by the water.  Oh how he wished me could be "off leash".  But, I'm afraid I may lose him if I let him run free.  Because he would run and run.

Tuesday we just walked on the beach at Crescent City.  Again, super windy but walking it felt fine.

Coming home was actually nice, this new house is so comfortable.  The bathroom is still a work in progress, but otherwise is coming together nicely.

Today I painted the walls in the bathroom.  Some of the wall texture stuff got on the ceiling which needs to be sanded off and then I'll paint the ceiling too.  I really love the way this color turned out - it's really limey and sherbert-y.  Oh, yeah that is my living room lamp in there since the light is not installed yet.

I almost forgot.  Yesterday I actually sewed something in my new sewing room!  Yes.  So a friend of mine asked me to make a mastectomy drain apron for a friend of hers that is having a mastectomy in May.  Of course I said I would make one for her!  I googled it to get some direction.  Turns out they are so easy.  I am going to make a couple so she can choose.

unpacking

So it's been exactly a week since we've officially moved in.  While life feels unsettled and unorganized, it's been mostly good.  It's super quiet out here.  I didn't really realize exactly how much background noise there was at the other house.  I was right off a main street so there were lots of cars, sirens, the TRAIN! and there's a little park across the street.  I didn't know how much I was blocking out till I didn't need to.

There hasn't been much time for knitting.  I feel that I should be unpacking or cleaning or painting before I do fun stuff.  But, mornings I let myself knit for about a half an hour.  This sock is coming along nicely.  I'm sort of following the Bickersstraat pattern except not doing the purl rows in between the eyelet rows.  This yarn is so super soft and I am loving the speckles!

 This morning I got up nice and early and my room was literally glowing with the sunrise.  It was so gorgeous!!!

 So I have a little progress I can share.  I have one corner of the sewing room kind of put together.  I say kind of because the shelf on the left is mostly empty still.  I used to have fabric on it at the other house and I may still do that here.  Although.....I started thinking how nice would it be to have both closets fully shelved and fabric in there???  That way I can close the doors and shut out the visual noise.

Instead I could put books on there and my scrapbooks?  Then I can get rid of one of the bookshelves in the spare room and make room to put the dresser in there.  Hmmmm.

Here's the view looking in from the open door.  I am thinking my sewing table will go there and maybe have the design wall next to it.  You can see it's still kind of a mess.  And the boxes with fabric all in the closets :) 

So here's the living room coming from the hallway.  On the left there you can see the bathroom sink :)  Doesn't everyone have one of those in the living room??? ha!  I haven't put up curtains yet.  I am seriously loving all the light.  I haven't put up pictures or art yet.  I'm getting a feel for where I might want them to go.

So, this is the bathroom cabinet/vanity.  See the wood color on the inside?  That is the color that the whole thing used to be.  But I decided I wanted white.  Well, the color is actually called "polar bear".  It was worn and dingy looking and I'm trying to save a little moolah since the whole re-do the bathroom thing was a surprise!  I really like it though.  I'm going to put a 'satin nickel' pull on the front of the door and the drawers I might do this green glass I found.  Unless it looks weird to have different colors then I'll find silver pulls.

 It's funny how quickly we've gotten used to living here.  I really loved the house I was renting.  As crazy as it sounds it was like a friend to me.  It saw me through a really, really hard time.  But, like I mentioned before, God knew I was ready for something new way before I did!  So I thought it would be hard to leave, but turns out it hasn't been.  I'm thankful I lived there, and glad I still do for the rest of the month so I have somewhere to shower!

Oh!  I almost forgot!!! The shower.  So much progress has been made but it's not quite done yet.  Karla's husband Aaron has been working on it and it looks amazing!  I am very blessed that he offered to help.  I wasn't sure about the large tile at first - it's 12' x 24'.  But, I really do like it.  It's bold and I think it makes the shower area look bigger.

moving update

I was so busy this past week that I didn't even know that it was daylight savings time.  I barely realized today was Sunday and thankfully was not expected at work!

Tonight is the first night sleeping at my new house.  Yesterday was moving day and it was a DOOZY!  First of all it was snowing sideways all morning and blowing wind hard.  I know the weather changes quickly here though so I didn't cancel.  Thankfully I have hardy friends who weren't fazed in the least by the weather.  I am so, SO thankful for my friends.  Truly I have received so much help, it's been amazing.

I thought I was going to have all the small stuff moved before moving day.  Which seriously I did move a lot but it was like where did all this junk come from???  There were bits of random stuff here and there.  In my head I pictured a 15 foot moving van that would be mostly empty because all there would be was a couch, armoire, dressers and bed.  HA!  Two truckloads later....

At the end of the day I had all my stuff here at the new house, but George, my coffee and a working shower at the rental.  So I horked Rocky in the car and we went back there last night.  I had left my air mattress there so I grabbed my sleeping bag and pillow and called it good.  Except it was not good.  Rocky felt that he needed to "share" the small air mattress with me.  But!  we made it.

This afternoon I decided it's now or never.  And I did not want a repeat of last night!  George did not appreciate the car ride at all!  But she did good and she is loving this house.  She has checked every room and is very comfortable here.  She's even snuggled with me on the couch. Awww.  Rocky is sound asleep on the couch.  I don't think he liked sharing with me either :)

Everything is still pretty much torn apart which is to be expected.  You can see how nice and bright it is though after painting!  The paint I picked is called "twinkle lights" and I really super love it.  The house gets a ton of natural light so it didn't seem very dark before but after painting it's even brighter.  Again, I have friends to thank for that, too.  A coworker volunteered her husband to come over with their paint sprayer and it was amazing!  

Anyways, that's all for now.  I just wanted to check in and let you know how things are going.  Have a great week!

reality sets in

I'm not going to lie, my first weekend of being a homeowner has been hard.  There has been panic and tears.  We knew that was coming, right?  I was way more naive and optimistic than I'd like to admit.  I really kind of thought I'd get away with cleaning, regrouting and painting.  

It started small.  I was trying to get the grout from in between the tiles.  Which actually turns out are pink tiles painted white!!!  The grout also was painted over.  The caulk was very, very difficult to get loose.  It's super thick and like rubber glue.  One of the tiles at the bottom was sort of bowed out a bit.  I was working at the caulk and I noticed it was loose.  I really wanted to ignore it.  But it's like a loose tooth, it wants you to pull it!  So I did.  See that empty spot?

Yeah.  I have no idea what was actually holding the tile in place!  Whatever was behind it has crumbled completely away.  Right here is when I started panicking and crying.  All I could picture at that point was that I'd have to rip the entire bathroom out.  And dollar signs.  And I don't actually know how to do anything.  I mean youtube only gets you so far and frankly I don't have the wifi set up out there yet so I'd really get no where.

Thank God for friends.  Seriously.  I called Karla who said she and her husband Aaron would drive out and take a look.  They assured me it wasn't as bad as it looks.  The wood is still solid, and can be worked with.  That was Friday night.  First day of homeownership.

This was Saturday: 

Aaron took all the tile out.  Mostly the water damage is under the window.  The other two walls look okay.  Then, he took out the old light fixture to put in a new one I bought and the new one was too long and hit the medicine cabinet.  He took the medicine cabinet down and surprise!  There is just hole in the wall behind the cabinet.  

Um, yeah.  I did cry some more, not going to lie.  Because I'm overwhelmed.  But!  The good side is that I found this all the first day instead of after moving all in.  At least right now I still have my rental for 27 more days, where I can shower :)

Karla was a rockstar yesterday and painted most of my new bedroom.  Today all I had to do was one more coat on one wall and along the top where she couldn't reach and a few touch ups.  And, I have really not painted before - other than one room at our old house.  Yep, amateur hour over here!  I globbed paint on the ceiling.  It's a pretty close match but it you look too closely it's obvious it doesn't match.  I avoided the bottom trim because I was fairly certain I'd end up painting the floor too.

I've been taking Rocky with me each time I go out there so he gets used to the new house.  Today he was really relaxed and is more comfortable going in rooms without coaxing.  Here he is snoozing on the job!  hahaha he made himself a little dog nest with the sheets and towel.  

I plan to get out there after work every day and paint a little each time.  Oh and there are tack strips that were left from old carpet that was removed so I plan to pull a bit of those each day too.  Fun, fun!  I think it will be satisfying (?) once each project is done.  I have a feeling there will be no shortage of projects! ha 

house dreaming

I can finally share my big news here: I bought a house!  I signed closing papers yesterday and got the keys in the afternoon.  I still have to keep telling myself it's real, it's really real.  I bought a house, me, by myself.  Well, I have to give the biggest of shout outs to God.  His hand has been on this from the beginning, before I had an inkling that I for reals wanted to attempt this endeavor.  And He has made every step of this house happen.  Seriously.

After Scott died, someone asked me at the funeral (yes at the funeral) if I was going to stay in this town.  I don't have family here, so it may seem logical to leave.  At that time my first inclination was to run.  Run away from pain, from memories.  But.  The first year I spent a lot of time at the coast, a lot.  That is the perfect place to run away to.  Naturally, I thought, maybe I should live on the coast.  But.  Every time I'd think of starting over somewhere I would shut down.  It overwhelmed me, and frankly I have enough that overwhelms me.

I did start to notice how I'd feel driving home.  I became aware that this town feels like home to me.  I used to feel that way driving to Chico, which is where I grew up and my Mom still lives.  But, somewhere along the way it changed.  I never felt like I wanted to move back to Chico, it's too much for me - too hot, too many people, too expensive.  Still I did struggle wanting to be closer to my Mom.  I looked at real estate websites and rentals.  By myself I can't afford to live there, and I didn't want to start over with everything.

Always, simultaneously I was watching the real estate here.  Last year was the perfect time to buy.  Prices for nice places with land were cheap.  I still hesitated, but did start the groundwork for "what if".  Finally I had a conversation with Mom.  Of course she wants me there.  What I didn't expect though was her complete support - she was more gung ho than me!  I shouldn't have been surprised though because she has always, always been my biggest supporter.  I guess it was more of a relief having her encouragement.

So fast forward to this year.  Naturally, which I think is normal with real estate, there was a first house.  I loved it.  Had so many dreams and plans for it.  But, every step of the way with that house was painful, like pulling teeth.  Like it would be difficult then easy.  So each time it would get to easy I thought, it must be okay, it must be meant to be.  We went back and forth with the seller.  He finally accepted my offer with an exception.  At that point I realized I might be pushing something that God had given me warning after warning for.  I could push it.  And then be in a huge mess.  So I said no.

This house has been the exact opposite of the previous.  Everything has gone smoothly.  It is a foreclosure so I'm not going to lie, it's a mess and dirty and needs a lot of work.  Mostly cosmetic work though (that I know so far).  And, I have to say I have had the best people helping me.  My lender, Karlie, has been amazing.  Like the best.  Easy to work with, knowledgeable, reassuring and an advocate for me.

 It has everything I had on my wish list.  Wood floors, a dining room, a fireplace, a sewing room, a garage, nice light and a nice yard for Rocky.  The funny thing is I didn't even know a fireplace was on my wish list!  But the first house had one and I found myself really dreaming of knitting in front of it, Rocky and George cozy in front of it, a mantel to decorate.

These first two pictures are the living room.  Eventually I'd like to put in a gas insert fireplace.  It is functional as is but that scares me, open fire!  I really love the wood parquet flooring.  It's super dirty because it was under super dirty carpet so I'm hoping it will clean well.  Eventually maybe I can have them refinished or put in laminate.

I took Rocky out there with me to get the keys.  He was very apprehensive but did pretty well.  He's in the dining room in this picture.

I know this isn't the greatest picture, but this is the window box in the kitchen window!!!  I love it so much.  It has little side panels that open, and it's huge!  All my little kitchen plants will go in there.  Plus maybe some little herb pots?  Basil, oregano, yes!

I expected to be a big ol mess yesterday.  Thankfully I wasn't too bad.  I only cried a couple times which is way better than I thought I'd be.  Scott is never far from my thoughts.  I will always wish he were here, that I could share with him whatever is happening in my life.  My mindset has shifted a bit with time, which I think is pretty normal.  I now can imagine how he would be in a situation.  At the beginning my mind rebelled against that notion because I just wanted him here!  Which I still do, will always do, but I've accepted a bit that he's not here.  So now it's like I know how he would react - he would be encouraging, he would be all for it!  He would tell me I can do it.

One last thing and then I have to go and start cleaning.  Everyone who knew Scott was devastated by his death.  His Dad had so many plans with him for retirement: hunting, fishing, hanging out.  At some point, not right away, he started to say he had to dream a new dream.  I'll be honest, I hated that saying.  I did not want to dream a new dream, no.  Nope.  no new dream.  All my dreams included Scott, I could not imagine anything without him in it at least somehow.  God knew that wasn't healthy for me.  I fought dreaming, I did.  I don't know when or how, but God slowly put a house dream in my heart.  And now it's happening and I am so thankful.  So very thankful.

monkeys and kitties

Okay, so this is going to be a bit of a catch up post.  The last couple things I worked on were gifts, and I wanted to wait until I gave them to post about them.  First up is a baby quilt.  One of the nurses at the office is having a baby boy.  She has had trouble getting and staying pregnant so this has been a very special expectation for her and I wanted to make something special.  She's had the name picked out pretty much since they found out it's a boy, Uriah, and that the theme would be monkeys.

I know it's a little risky embroidering a name before the baby is born but I went ahead anyway.  The middle looked too bare without something there.  I drew out his name and then a little monkey holding onto the tail of the R.

I realized just now that I didn't get a good picture of the finished quilt!  This is very blurry I know, but you can at least see what the whole of it looks like.  For the center I followed the Building Blocks Baby Quilt on the Moda Bake Shop website.  I had intended on following the entire pattern until I finished the borders on the middle part.  Then I was like, nope!  Also I wasn't sure I'd have enough of the darker navy print to get a bigger border.  I did use that print as the binding though since I do a bias binding it doesn't need much to get enough binding for the entire quilt.

I got out of my comfort zone for the quilting.  I did all over loop-de-loops in the patchwork area.  In the white borders I did straight line quilting and then stippled teensy tiny in the middle.  I did NOT like the loopies.  Nope.  Too easy to get out of control, stitch definition suffers and the quilts are too heavy for me to maneuver that way.  Even though it's a baby quilt it gets heavy!  Finished size was just about 50"x50".  Yesterday was her baby shower, which I did gift it them but it was the longest shower in the world so I left before I saw her open it.  I'm bummed about that but I went with a friend and we had already been there over 2 hours and it was going to be at least over another hour before they would be getting to gifts, so we gave up.  Boo.

In knitting news I finally knit a Bakery Bear!!!

Doesn't look like a bear though!  ha!  I have seriously been wanting to knit a Bakery Bear since the pattern came out.  I bought the pattern ages ago, but have just been working on so many other things!  One of the doctors at the office who is really cool just had a baby.  Well, rather, his wife had a baby! Her name is Karleigh, and when I heard the name I wanted to knit a little kitten!  It's like I had to.  Had. To.  And I knew that she needed to have tights and wear a little lacy dress.  I originally wanted a fuzzy yarn but couldn't find one suitable.  However.

 At Joann's I lurked the 2 yarn aisles searching for the perfect, right yarn.  These 3 wool ease yarns have been on my radar for years.  They just look like the go together.  I've always tried to think of a good reason to buy them but didn't have a project.  Until now. (cue maniacal laugh)  Yes!  

Boy this picture is pretty washed out.  Sorry about that.  But!  you can see the lace pretty well on the dress.  I've had a book in my crafty library forever called The Encyclopedia of Knit and Crochet Stitch Patterns.  It has all kinds of knit and crochet techniques and stitches and gives you the pattern of the stitch that you can add into any pattern that has the right stitch count.  I don't know if that makes any sense?  I've always wished I could be clever enough to make up a pattern and I think fitting a stitch into an existing pattern may be the closest I'll get to that wish!  Anyhow, this is stitch pattern #311 in the book which is like a lacy drop.

I used the ears from the knitted fox pattern I have from Little Cotton Rabbits, I just added 2 rows to make them a bit bigger.  I used the tail pattern from the Gelato Giraffe pattern by the same designer as the Bakery Bear, again just extended a bit and left off the fringe.  The nose is still the same from the Bakery Bear pattern I just looped the yarn about the bottom and pulled tight to make little kitty cheeks.

Speaking of kitty cheeks.  George was not having it when I was trying to take pictures of the kitty.  First off this is her chair.  She was not willing to share her chair with another cat, real or not!  ha

I have another big project in the works but I'll share more once it gets closer :) (hopefully next weekend) I just don't want to jinx anything!  Hope you have a great week!