I hate my city

Uh, this might seem like a weird post for the one immediately following our 'look how much we love our house' feature in the paper...awkward.  I have straight up had it with our city.  In the 5 years we've lived here, we have watched our services go down (recycling pickup every two weeks instead of every week, skipping garbage/recycling pickup if your day is a holiday instead of moving it one day later) and our taxes go up.  We currently pay just over $4600 a year for our property taxes, is that not ridiculous?!  Our water bill increases.  Our street doesn't get plowed for over half a day after a snowfall, and after one storm this winter our street NEVER got plowed.  We were sliding around ruts of snow for days.  Our street is full of potholes and good luck catching the dump or any city offices while they are open.  Our assessment keeps going down, making this all the more irritating.  Then a couple weeks ago, the city sidewalk inspector made his rounds and gave me the cherry on the top of my annoyance sundae.  

Shortly after the green spray paint, we got a certified letter note on the door.  What is that, city?  You want me to go to the post office during my lunch hour and wait for 30 minutes for this stupid letter?  Great.  The post office workers yukking it up about how I better 'get ready to shell out some dough for my sidewalk' when handing over the letter was also enjoyable.  It said that we had to fix the difference in elevation between the 75 year old flagstone approach and the sidewalk.  That sand you see by the street was the city fixing a water leak the same day we got the letter.  It is still a pile of sand two weeks later, they are supposedly planting grass...I'll believe that when I see it.  

We have the only flagstone walkway in our neighborhood, and I'm sick at the thought of replacing it.  I decided to call the sidewalk engineer to see what our options were.  When I called the number on the letter, it brought me to a voicemail system where you couldn't move forward without a last name or an extension, of which NEITHER were included on the letter.  Classic!  I called the public works commissioner because his name was on the letter.  I bet he loved that.  

I finally got in contact with the engineer and he told me my options were to get the flagstone level/replaced with a contractor, have the city rip it out and put in bright white concrete, or rip it out entirely and plant grass.  Of course all these options require me going downtown to buy a permit.  And we have until June 21 to do it.  I am so upset about messing with this original part of the house.  

I refuse to have the city pour regular concrete in there, but I don't know how much it will be to fix the flagstone - and if it will even match the old stuff.  I also don't want to take the entire thing out because we use it all the time.  Anyone have any advice?  

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Feature

A few weeks ago, I was contacted by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel to have a reporter come out to the house and do an interview for the paper.  They were interested in our home renovation story, and also the Renovation Roadtrip we participated in last October.  The timing was a little stressful since we had JUST refinished the upstairs floors and the house was a hot mess, but it all turned out great.  Ok, we are still looking for stuff that I shoved into random closets....but anyway, the story is in the paper today!  Check it out HERE.

Oh, and I really wish I had worn a different sweater.  You just can't remember to suck it in all the time, right?  

There are also lots of links to the Roadtrip, I hope Meryl and Chris are ready for the traffic!  Thanks to Jackie Loohauis-Bennett and Rick Wood for coming out to Racine and giving this blogger a thrill!  

10 months

Ashford turned 10 months old on the 5th. 

He has two more top teeth coming in, which brings his grand total to 6.  He has also eaten all the paint off his pretty white crib.  I got this just in time to not prevent the damage.  Luckily, it works, and I guess I can always touch up the crib later.  Grumble grumble.

This kid has been all over the place, non-stop.  He is able to walk with a walker toy, stand without holding on, and crawls and scoots on his knees so fast!  He also loves to randomly cry for no apparent reason, and has started crying when other people hold him.  Boo.

We have started adding some formula to his bottles so I can pump less.  He hasn't been that interested in nursing (and loves to bite!), so it seemed natural to stop that at this point.  I'm sad about it, but I will still be pumping for a while, and he will have my milk until he's 1.  It was a good run.     

Unfortunately, he still doesn't like to eat solids, whether it's purees, pasta, fruits, meat, you name it.  I joke that I will have to give this kid formula until he's 2 because he won't eat anything.  I joke in a sad, defeated way.  I hope he comes around, we are both tired of wrestling with him over food!  At least he still loves baths.

So, that is the kid in a nutshell.  Keeping us on our toes, and keeping me from wasting the day by sleeping past 6am.  Ever.   

I am taking him to swim lessons this Saturday, I can't wait!  Although, I'm less than thrilled to get myself into a suit.  I did find one that flatters my 'still 5 pounds to lose' bod, though...just in case you are looking!  

The 'not bathroom'

When we bought this house, we were told by our new neighbor that the little room attached to our master bedroom was a full bathroom at some point.  

I have no idea why they knew that or what made them tell us about it before we even closed on the house...maybe because Boozy Susie took out the plumbing for no good reason and they couldn't believe it?  Since we were never able to find any traces of plumbing, I started referring to it as the 'not bathroom.'

To be fair, it usually looked like this:

I realize I have a problem with organization.  Anyway, we are lucky enough to have the original blueprints for the house, and it appears that this 4' x 5' space used to have a sink....and a closet rod.

Not sure what was popular in the 30's, maybe they liked to splash their armpits quickly before getting dressed?  Either way, it doesn't appear that it was ever a two piece washroom, let alone a full one.  While I would've loved a half bath attached to the master, we decided to leave it as a closet to avoid an expensive 'can of worms.'  It had some laminate floors, not sure if it used to be tile back then?  This room also has drywall while the rest of the house is plaster, so something happened in here.  

We pulled out the laminate in anticipation of our floor guy adding new red oak to match the bedroom.  

And this is what I saw when I got home from work a few Thursdays ago....  

The transition turned out beautiful!  It looks like it was always there.  

Of course, I already have a bunch of junk back in there.  

Now I just have to:

Replace the boob light with a DIY chandelier (hope that project is happening soon)

Paint the ceiling

Paint the walls Behr Aqua Smoke to match bedroom

Add base and shoe trim 

Paint all trim and window/shutter

Research, purchase, install closet system.  Any suggestions?  

Finished refinishing

Yep, we refinished our two remaining rooms upstairs over the last week and a half.  We are very tired and very done with refinishing floors, luckily we really are done - until we buy a new house.  We've been sleeping in our living room on a mattress and were delighted to move our stuff back into the room today!  Here's the before of the master bedroom:

We chose to have our floor guy (Anchondo's Flooring) sand for us, so we could have it done while we were at work, and not have to worry about the mess.  It was a great idea, and the professional equipment sanded these floors better than we ever could have with a rental.  The stain went on MUCH better after his sanding.  

And, the master after we worked our butts off staining and applying 3 coats of poly:

Delicious espresso goodness!  While the master floor was not in bad shape, the guest room floor had significant water damage....

We were so happy to see the stains were completely gone after the sanding!

We not only stained and poly'd the floors, but also repainted this room.  We had enough of the peanut butter color on the walls, so we went over it with Benjamin Moore Bleeker Beige...so much better!

Many subsequent hours were spent repainting the trim, cleaning up, and then putting our lives back to normal.  But before we put everything back, we let baby enjoy some crawl and babble time in the echoing room.  

I will be sharing more about the process soon, but you can see our hallway and back bedrooms refinishing here, Ashford's nursery floor here, and the way we did our very first refinish job here. 

9 months

Ashford turned 9 months old a couple weeks ago.  Taking his picture in the buggy is becoming quite impossible.  He keeps standing up because sitting is so BORING...

I reach out to stop him from falling and sit him back down, try to take a pic fast, and end up with this:

A blurry jack in the box, you can't keep him down.  For long. 

This hat sort of represents how I feel on a daily basis.  He has cut his top two teeth and is into EVERYTHING!  At his 9 month appointment, he was 18 lbs 5 oz and 28 inches long.  He is wearing 9 month clothes and eating solids a little better than before.  

He loves to babble and laughs at the funniest things...he has also decided he loves baths and hysterically laughs and waves his arms and legs when he sees the bath tub come out.  As for the toothbrush, he likes to play with it and lets me brush his little teeth for .2 seconds before biting it. 

My favorite pic was an accident.  He was standing up and laughing, I gave up trying to put him back down and snapped away while holding his hand.  I love it when that happens!

We are also working on a rather large project....more to come!

8 month update

Here I am.  I kept starting this post and then deleting it because it would end up depressing or apologetic or somehow 'woe is me,' so I have put it off.  I will just say that I've basically been a single parent for the month of February and it does not agree with me.  Actually, I don't know that being a parent at all agrees with me....but Shaun is home and isn't traveling next week, so I can relax a little knowing I will have his help.  Ashford is 8.5 months old and he is what I guess you would call, "needy."  Or, "whiny, crabby and exhausting."  It's a very good thing he is adorable.         

He is taking steps with his rolling walker.  Crawling so fast I almost can't catch him.  Getting very good at holding his own bottle and feeding himself puffs.  He also lets us hear that cute laugh more often.     

He was not really interested in sitting down for his 8 month photo shoot, which is sort of the story of my life.  I see his butt a lot more than I see his face these days.  He has also started crying during diaper and clothing changes, I pray it's just a phase. 

He continues to put everything in his mouth, including cabinet handles, the dishwasher door, fur throws (complete with cat hair), you name it. 

He still doesn't like eating solids, and lately isn't nursing or taking bottles too well, either.  All he wants to do is play, which might be ok, except his version of fun has nothing to do with his toys and everything to do with stuff I don't want him to touch.  He does love his take along tunes and a few other noisy toys, thankfully.   

We managed to take him out for some winter photos in January, my mom got him the most adorable and impractical baby peacoat.  Who can resist a dapper baby?

And then we had a little snowfall and got him into a snowsuit for some pictures.  We took about a half hour prepping the baby and ourselves to go out, and then came back inside after 5 minutes and left puddles everywhere.  Sounds about right.  

He had no problem crawling through the snow, but I did receive a 'look' that told me he might not appreciate the extra effort.  

We are amazed that he still has his bright blue eyes.  It appears they are going to stay, but I'm not paying out any bets until he's 2.  

I'm hanging in there, and trying to keep up with other blogs as much as I can.  Now that Downton Abbey is over (and broke my blubbering sleep-deprived heart) I have a little extra time.