Well, she’s back.

[If you just panicked and thought to yourself "OMW is AllisonO wearing a GAS MASK while 7 months pregnant?! How did OBaby turn out OK?!", then you should probably take a deep breath, and then go here and here to read the Holy Pregnancy I'm Nesting and I Want Dark Wood Floors tale.]

Many of you have joined O My Family in the last few months, whether from Divine Caroline, Cupcake ’10 or by googling “outie bellybutton when pregnant”. So, I wanted to say welcome, and that yes, it will go back to an innie someday. Don’t fret.

These last 5 months with OBaby it has felt like our life took something of a fork in the road from our previous trajectory (actually, maybe a winding cloverleaf freeway exit is a better analogy?).

We were hardcore, fast-paced, DIY, I-don’t-never-pay-nobody house renovators.  Then we became parents and suddenly the biggest problem these weekend warriors were solving on a Saturday was how to venture forth from our house for a trip to Target in presentable fashion.

In fact, right up to my due date, HECK, 14 hours before I delivered OBaby, we were working on the laundry room that we have built in the basement. When we moved in, it was a dungeon with cinder block walls, asbestos in the floor tile, and a concrete basin sink complete with 80 years of filth. Today, she looks like this:

Notably missing are the trim around the window, the ceiling, the cabinet doors, and what the crap happened to the bottom panel on my washer? BUT. B.U.T. It’s a freaking room. With non-toxic flooring. With a counter top. With walls.

And the bathroom. Did you come along before or after the bathroom?

Before:

During:

After:

Close up of the tile:

To answer your questions, yes, the Peptobismol pink tile was the original 1935 bathroom. Yes we took it down to the studs ourselves (through the concrete and wire lath walls). No, we did not pay a single person to touch our bathroom. Yes, we raised the arch above the tub to be 9 inches higher than it was originally. Yes, we bought our vanity from Costco (what does that store not sell?). Lastly, yes, we dismantled the only functional toilet on the ground floor of our house when I was pregnant and my badder was the size of an acorn.

And as if that first picture wasn’t teaser enough, you should probably go back up and read the two posts I linked to that show the absolutely ridiculous transformation of our hardwood floors.

They weren’t always this beautiful:

Yes, we fixed the yellow and purple trim. In fact, we had not been off the plane returning from our babymoon more than 2 hours and we were painting trim. You can read about that here.

I wasn’t kidding when I said we were hardcore and fast-paced.

While a huge, outie-bellybutton-inducing pregnancy did not stop us from taking sledgehammers to our walls and drum sanders to our oak floors, I have learned that having your first baby has the tendency to stop you in your proverbial tracks. Five months in though, we’re feeling pretty good. Feeling like, if I bounce OBaby on my hip or wear him in the ring sling for just long enough, we might be able to get back to attacking our house…

one drafty, energy inefficient window at a time.

This post, as with all house projects, is:

To be continued…

True to form, DanO’s family swept in and met our need this evening, inching DanO closer to the finish line in The Great Laundry Room Race of 2009. Around 7 o’clock this evening, three ready and able helpers arrived to prime and paint our walls, meanwhile, I went into a trance every 8 minutes. Not so helpful.

Unlucky for DanO, Nugget is inching his way toward the finish line too, one good, strong contraction at a time. For the time being we’re off to repeat our bathtub cinema routine from last night, and then we’ll head to bed, nice, calm and normal, acting almost as though we won’t be HOLDING OUR SON IN THE NEXT 24 HOURS (which you and I both know isn’t true).

Then I will lay there, awake, thinking about blue laundry room walls and blue baby eyes.

Sweet dreams!

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Thank you for all of the love and well wishes you’ve sent our way! We’re thankful!

I could be mistaken, but I do believe that is sheet rock. on.my.walls.

Which makes them, you know, walls.

Walls in the traditional sense, that is.

We like traditional around here.

We like our walls sheet rocked, our summers hot, and our meatballs Swedish.

We also like our laundry rooms beautiful, and beautiful

robin’s egg-painted laundry rooms need walls.

And chairs.

For pregnant, cheerleading wives, of course.

This very pregnant, cheerleading wife would be 100% ok with either winner at this point

Ahem.

is cheering wholeheartedly for DanO.

All of these augmentations have two things in common: 1) they sneak up on you from out of nowhere 2) they always sound like a really good idea at the time.

“Well, while we’re staining and finishing the floors we’ll need to circulate outside air. We have a large fan that could fit in this window but it’s blocked, so we should probably just un-install this old window air conditioning unit that’s in the way and put the fan here.”

And then poof: 30 minutes into the grand ‘sand, stain and re-finish the original hardwood floors‘ project, we’re not sanding, staining, or re-finishing anything. Instead, we’re knocking a rusted, non-functional, eye-sore of an AC unit out of our dining room window.

Those two relate, right?

I think this is DanO’s dad’s – the soon to be grandpa – first photo appearance on here! Internet, DanO’s dad. DanO’s dad, internet. He knows everything, ever about house projects. He also makes a mean loaf of homemade bread.

Oh, I left out a third thing scope creep culprits have in common: halfway through, I inevitably ask myself “How did we get here?”

Like in the story of the laundry room renovation basement stairs rebuild:

(Grab a blanket and snuggle up; this is a good one.)

One upon a time, I was pregnant and really zealously ambitious. I was also crying a lot for unclear reasons and DanO was in his 20th week of trying to keep me calm at all costs.

One time he even drove to Red Robin in a snowstorm to get me a Bleu Ribbon burger, but that’s another post altogether.

I had just emerged victorious from the “we can handle cloth diapering!” debate with DanO, and I had my eyes set on the “now momma needs a new laundry room in which to wash these CDs” battle. I requested asbestos free flooring, a counter top, a sink basin, and “new treads on the basement stairs”. Some of the old ones were warped and slanted and a little unsafe, in my opinion.

Somehow, “new treads on the basement stairs” translated into “entirely tear down the old stairs, change their positioning, re-design them to have a better slope, and rebuild them from scratch”.

::dramatic pause::

I think somewhere along the way we began dealing with scope creep’s uglier, worldlier older sister, “scope sprint“. But it still sounded like a good idea at the time.

So, one Saturday morning, we awoke to find ourselves with no basement stairs.

Cue: “How did we get here?” and a teary-eyed “Where is my counter top? ::sniff:: All I wanted was a @#%&$ counter top!”

Yes, I actually said “at sign, pound, percentage, ampersand, dollar sign”, in case you were concerned that something less innocent came forth from these lips.

Ahem.

But my man, you guys, my man rose to the occasion. Like that one time with the Red Robin burger, but better.

He formulated a plan. Circled his prey. Stared down his opponent.

Then began whipping it into shape.

Using big, manly power tools.

Big, loud, manly power tools that require the use of ear-plugs.

Earplugs that meant he couldn’t hear me as I cat called him from the kitchen window.

Which I totally did.

Et voila! A stair stringer formed by DanO’s very hands (with the use of a circular saw and brute amazingness). Then there was evening, and there was morning – the second day.

And then there were stairs and preggo saw that it was good! They are so sturdy and so fabulous and so DONE.

Well, technically they’re not done-done until we hang drywall on that framed wall to the right and put up a railing on the left. Oh, and we also installed two stair lights, wired up the switches for the four recessed can lights in the laundry room, ran power to the new task lighting over the (not there yet) counter top, and framed out a new under-the-stairs closet for storage.

Wait, how did we get here?

]]> http://omyfamilyblog.com/2009/07/scope-creep/feed/ 3 http://omyfamilyblog.com/2009/06/of-progress/ http://omyfamilyblog.com/2009/06/of-progress/#comments Thu, 11 Jun 2009 13:01:06 +0000 AllisonO http://the.olfelts.com/?p=2073 I’m going to try really, really hard to write a pregnancy update without using any words or physiology terms that will make the (one or two) male readers out there queasy.

Well, that assumes that “cervix” and “dilation” don’t make female readers queasy, which may or may not be true.

Oh shoot. I just said cervix. Scoozi.

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Like it or not, things are moving along around here.

At my 34 weeks doctor’s appointment last week I shared a couple of symptoms I’ve been experiencing that concerned my doctor (see? look at that physiology term omitance! you’re welcome). She didn’t run in a panic up to the maternity ward and have me admitted or anything, but it did raise the question of whether or not Nugget is planning an early(ish) escape.

On a related note, have you ever felt a Braxton Hicks contraction? It’s called a ‘practice contraction’ but I’m not really sure what’s practice-y about your entire abdomen clenching up and becoming rock hard. And I do mean hard. Hard like convincing your husband that cloth diapers are worth it, hard. Hard like shaving your legs when 35 weeks pregnant, hard.

I digress.

So Nugget’s escape, it turns out, is beginning to announce itself (how’s that for a euphemism?), which is slightly earlier than typical. After my appointment I was told to monitor and record certain symptoms and to call Dr. J if they surpassed a set rate. I called about 18 hours later having far surpassed the rate, and Dr. J had me come in and be monitored. They hooked me up to a doppler reader (I think that’s what she called it?) and took a recording of Nugget’s heart rate and other activity for about a half of an hour. The print out kind of looked like a seismograph reading and you better believe that DanO had a blast analyzing the high-tech equipment in the room.

The great news: Nugget is cookin’ along in there, doing well and very healthy. This is the first concern when signs of an early labor are present, because sometimes baby knows s/he isn’t doing well and needs to get out of there. Praise God, that is not the case with Nugget!

And so we wait. We are slightly early enough in the pregnancy that the doctors might decide to try stop or slow labor should it officially begin, but that will only be the case for 6 more days. Anything on next Thursday or later is fair game.

Well, medically speaking it’s fair game, but…

I don’t think my doctor is taking into consideration the state of my laundry room. I mean, progress is progress: just look at all that framing and PVC plumbing.

But, if you please, disregard that pile over there.

Thank you kindly.

So it’s officially a race in O My Household: Nugget’s arrival v. DanO’s laundry room completion.

Any wagers?

Or if thou wilt not… my husband will come at you with a sledge hammer.

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This weekend started like any other weekend. Saturday morning, the first time in 5 days that we don’t have to get up at 5:50, DanO is usually bright eyed and bushy tailed at 6:15 a.m. .

(Grammar help needed: What is proper when ending a sentence with an abbreviation? Just put two periods next to each other? I think that looks weird.)

And what does one do when they can’t sleep at 6 a.m. on a Saturday? Why, one installs refrigerant grade line sets for an AC unit, of course! Subsequently, one checks online to find out what time Menards (local hardware store) opens, is pleased to discover that it opens at 6:30 a.m. for men such as one’s self, and then one scurries on over there for some elbow joints and… and… whatever else one needs.

(I can only pretend to know what I’m talking about for so long. It’s tiring, you know.)

Around 8 a.m. the watermelon on my abdomen and I decide it’s a good time to start our day. This involves moving myself from a laying position on my bed to a reclined position on my couch.

DanO continues to travel from the basement to the outside AC unit and back. I use a great amount of energy to rise from my couch and pour myself a bowl of cereal. DanO hollers and asks me if I could please bring him his drill/screwdriver/flashlight/breathing mask/pipe wrench. I bring him the item and ask him if he’ll stop and eat some cereal. He says “soon“. I optimistically pour him a bowl of cereal and wait for him to join me.

DanO asks for another tool. I say “Cereal first”. He complies.

Now, on this particular morning, DanO went over to his parents’ house after breakfast and worked with his dad and brother on their basement which they are currently finishing. My theory is that this got under DanO’s skin. Inspired him. Gave him a vision. Made him jealous of all that clean, finished basement space his parents have, because by 9pm Saturday night, my basement looked like this:

What? Don’t act like you’re not impressed.

What you see here is the shattered remains of a very old laundry basin sink made of concrete which used to be resting (not secured at all, turns out) on those very rusted spindly metal legs seen in the top half of that glamorous picture. I’m just not comfortable with the thought of scrubbing onesies and cloth diapers over that hazardous thing, so it had to go. A lot of other things had to go too, like the flooring. And the walls. And some of the pipes. And parts of the stairs. And the dryer vent.

Our plans are big: Wall out the cinder block so that it feels like livable space, put in new flooring (sans carcinogens), build in cabinets and a counter top, give the bathroom down there an actual door (as if there’s something wrong with a slatted bi-fold door for a ba√±o…), and let there be light.

There’s something beautiful under all that asbestos, I’m convinced of it.

In the meantime, DanO is having a grand old time busting it all to pieces.

Will you please look at that smile?

Some things never change.