House Paint!

So remember this list of all the things we want to do to the new house? My mom called me that night and said: I’m tired just reading this list.  And honestly I kind of felt the same way! I love projects as much as the next person and seeing the house transform over time, but as the husband and I were talking, we realized that ‘paint this room’ showed up on almost ALL of the rooms on our To Do List.   If he and I were left to paint all of those rooms ourselves, it would be 5 years before we get the house painted… and probably the tall stairway would never get painted.

So this happened this week (want to see the before pictures? Click here):

kitchen

We decided to bite the bullet and hire out the house painting.  All I have to say is Best. Decision. Ever.  These guys were awesome, a week and a half after calling them, they came, moved all the furniture, took what few things we had hung on the walls off, patched our holes, and painted THE WHOLE HOUSE in 2.5 days.  Seriously… all of it. I only have pictures of downstairs because everything was drying and needed to be put back and pictures taken… I’ll show you those next week.  Since I only had a week and a half to pick Sherwin Williams Colors (which I’d never really used before) I spent a long time googling/pinteresting colors and we mostly decided to paint the whole house just one shade of gray, except the Dining Room and Master Bathroom are a darker blue color.

I painted 6 different gray swatches on the wall, but ended up settling with Light French Gray (the painter used all Sherwin Williams level 200 paints… which bonus are 0 VOC which means they don’t smell all that bad and are safe to be around for baby).

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I love this color! It is exactly what I was hoping for- a very cool gray that doesn’t have much (if any beige undertones) but also doesn’t read as blue.  It definitely makes our white kitchen and white trim pop!

livingroom

Since all these spaces are so connected we wanted to go with the same color in all of them to make them feel like one large space- and while they were at it I had them paint the laundry room the same color.  I need to do some other things to make our laundry room more functional: like a drying rack, another shelf there on the left side, but since this is right off our kitchen, it has great storage space for us and is also the perfect space for Lexie’s food and water. And because the husband and I are super short… we need a step stool. But with this little step stool I can reach everything without having to climb on the dryer, which is getting harder to do as the months progress!

laundryroom

Then in the Dining Room we went with Sherwin William’s Storm Cloud which I found because I found a bathroom on Pinterest done in Jubilee and liked the shade, but wanted it darker and moodier, so I just dropped down a spot on it’s swatch.  I worried a little that it would be too dark, but I think with such a large room with so many windows it ended up PERFECTLY.

diningroom

I definitely want a new light fixture above the table, and desperately need some curtains on the window in the picture above, but I love the way this room is coming together!

diningroom1

It is definitely still a work in progress (and I didn’t notice that they didn’t center the piano… guess I should go home and fix that) but I could not be happier with the color!!

It feels like a brand new house! I’ll be back next week with the upstairs pictures… you won’t even recognize our master bathroom and bedroom… HUGE transformation!

 

 

It’s a Coral Life for Us!!

Poor Reese is surrounded by girls… Me, Lexie and Baby Popst! We are super excited to announce that this little baby is of the female variety!

coral

Which also means that the secret things (like these cute little coral pots) I bought a few weeks ago in Waco that were the perfect shade of coral don’t have to be returned or regifted!

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See this post for sources!

Week 18 Bump Update

week18

 

Baby’s Size: An heirloom tomato. Not to be confused with a regular tomato… we would hate to be inaccurate.

Baby’s Progress: Baby is developing his/her smell, taste, hearing, vision and touch. Baby weighs about 8.5 ounces, and could be growing hair.  And hopefully baby will be super cooperative tomorrow at the sonogram and show us whether it is a he or she… probably baby is as tired as we are of referring to it as an it.

Weight Gain: I’ve gained another half a pound, I keep expecting to step on the scale (I check every Sunday) to have gained 2 or 3 lbs, but I guess slow and steady is a good thing.  My mom friends tell me I’ll be laughing at the end of my pregnancy when I’ve gained 40 lbs about my excitement to be up half a pound, but it is crazy to me that my body weight can shift enough to really look PREGNANT but not have the weight gain to show for it!

Sleep: Sleep is getting more elusive… I have definitely had a few moments of can’t get comfortable so I can’t fall asleep, so I can only imagine as I get closer to the end how uncomfortable I’m going to get.  Reese spend a couple nights away leading a confirmation retreat this weekend, which gave me the motivation to sleep with the giant pregnancy pillow I have… sadly for Reese I discovered how great these things are… so now it’s me, husband and GINORMOUS pillow in our queen bed every night.  Lucky husband!

Milestones: I can’t really think of any major milestones on the baby side of life, but we did decide to hire a house painter, so the nursery will finally be the color we want for it! (see the paint swatch behind my head in the photo above? I was testing out paint colors and forgot this was the spot with the best lighting in our new house, so… pose with the test swatch!!)  Oh… and I finally got my haircut… and added bangs!

Favorite clothing item of the week: I tried out a long sleeve t-shirt dress from Gap Maternity (its a little older since it’s a hand me down from a friend but similar to this one… mine is just right above knee length) and it was super cute and super comfy!

Symptoms: Gloriously I am mostly symptom free for the moment so I am just enjoying this time and trying to use it to my full advantage! This isn’t really a symptom, but this week I have really been craving a glass of wine.  I’m not a huge drinker, but definitely enjoy a glass of wine when I am out to dinner or over with friends, and twice this week I’ve been around people drinking and just REALLY REALLY wanted a glass.  I know some people/doctors say that a small amount on occasion is no big deal, but since I’m already drinking a small amount of caffeine (totally approved by my doc) I decided I’m going to abstain from alcohol the whole pregnancy.

Workout: I went to Camp Gladiator once last week, and have been trying to get in a few walks.  I’m pretty amazed at how tired I get… I don’t really feel all that different than my pre-pregnant self, so it kind of amazes me how much changes when you are pregnant!