Hi. Long time no see. Nice ant hills.

Hello Dear Friends.


It's been a long time and I profess, that I'm deeply apologetic for not updating sooner. It's been a busy busy few weeks around the Nap-time house and not because we've been busy busy busy doing work, but because Number 3 has decided that he's no longer willing to nap in the Pack'n'Play while his mama bear works her paws off. I learned this last week when I was busying myself around 11pm, assembling a shelf for our playroom and heard a little voice from above saying "Wash-a-hands in the toilet" and then a quick succession of flushes coming from the upstairs bathroom. A certain little person (not mentioning any names or birth place), has become quite the little toddler. Toddling his way up and out of his crib. Up and out of his play pen. Up and out of the rooms we put him in, turning knobs, unfastening diapers, and basically performing magical Houdini acts at the blink of an eye.

So to summarize where we're at with the Nap Time house. 
- The painting is complete, thanks to the Dear Painterman who finished up last week. 

I'll miss our daily visits. I told him that perhaps he should keep the key and just show up on rainy days, visiting us for coffee and light conversation while he works and I follow him around the house with paint chips clutched in my knotted fists.


The play room / den is set up (somewhat)


 Unfortunately, two weekends ago our front porch was broken into and the stools that belong with our play table were stolen. So if you live near and Ikea (which doesn't ship to where we are) and would like to be super duper generous and kind and mail us two more, we'd be forever indebted to you. 

Here is a link to the "before"

The floors in the Master Crack Den have been scraped and sanded. This was a project I had planned on doing myself, however, Dr. Handsome was slightly more than reticent to allow me anywhere near the sander, so we opted to hire a friend of ours who does casual floor refinishing. When I say casual floor refinishing I mean, he charged us next to nothing and we tipped him with a play date for his son and some beer. 

sanded. 

first coat.

and I do have to say, that Dr.Naysayer was wrong. I totally could have done the floors, after having watched carefully to what the Floorguy did, with a rented sander, it really wouldn't have been very difficult whatsoever. However, the cost of renter the sander, buffer, sand paper, edger, and finish, it would likely have cost me about the same as what it cost to hire our friend, which we are very fortunate for having such great hookups. 

So if you plan on doing your floors yourself - these are the things you'll need.

- an industrial floor sander

- appropriate grit of sand paper (you need a few different grits, coarse, fine and then super fine)

-a Shop Vac with a good fine particle filter

-a sharp paint scraper for edging and corners

-a buffer with superfine sand paper

-polyurethane

-a paint pad or very low pile paint roller 

and

-paint brush

-Clean your floors

-Sand your floors going in the direction of the boards, overlapping the last pass slightly (don't do more than two passes or you'll pop the tongue of your boards AND - on this note - it's best to get your floors assessed if they're in very rough shape, they may not be able to be sanded at all)

-Scrape the edges and corners well with a paint scraper

-Vacuum the room very well - let dust settle for 10 mins, and then vacuum again, ensuring that you get all of your dust up

-Buff floors with super fine paper

-Let dust settle for 10 mins

-Vacuum well again

-Apply Polyurethane to perimeter of room in a very light coat with paintbrush

-Then working from the farthest corner, coat the floors with a paint roller and polyurethane, lightly. 

-3 coats, 18 hours of dry time in between. Buff with super fine grit paper in between each coat, cleaning the floor very well each time.

Enjoy your floors.

So that's about it ladies and gents. 

I've also seeded half of the lawn, where there's no grass, but that's far from exciting. 

Tomorrow I'll do a little bit more work and post some more photos, but right now, it's off to dreamland for this nap time renovator. <3

-

With words, I wish I could convey what a beautiful day it was out there, but I can't. It's sunny, warm and absolutely gorgeous. When you live in a climate where the majority of the year the city is either in the midst of a deep freeze or just entering/coming out of one, you learn to take any sunny day for what it's worth, and around here, it's worth a lot. After days and days of rain that flooded our city's sewer system, houses and rivers, the glorious sun is drying up our soaked beds, and making everything feel a little bit greener.


It's 8:30 am. Dr. Handsome is still at work this morning, likely sleeping off a few delirious hours before he makes his way home after a long call shift last night, Number Two went off to school happily and the two  Littles are still sleeping away thanks to blackout blinds and a careful avoidance of creaking floor boards upstairs. We've learned to not open certain doors and to step lightly on the joists. Walking up the stairs is like a circus act. It's a funny thing - the lengths you will go to when you know that with just a little bit of sacrifice (forgot your socks? Too bad!), you will reap the benefits of a.) a 6am two baby wake up or b.) a 9:30 am baby wake up. I prefer the latter. 6 am and 9 am is a three hour difference of when nap times fall, when meals get eaten and the number of melt downs that can be estimated prior to bed time. 9 am, is our favorite time of the day. It also means I have two whole hours of quiet to do luxurious things like drink three day old coffee at my leisure and unload a dishwasher without anyone climbing into it.


So you're probably wondering to yourself "Why is she writing about her kids and not her DIY reno's? Get on with it, mom..." Well here's the deal. Yesterday - for the first time in two weeks, I didn't go to the house. I felt like an addict cutting myself off cold turkey and a number of times had my keys looped around my finger to head out the door with the Littles to go and see the progression of the paint work, but rather than go, yesterday - I committed myself to helping someone else go - on the potty that is. Little Number 3 will be turning two in just a few weeks and yesterday morning we made the decision to make an attempt with some potty learning, and well, it went really really well. I don't have incredibly high expectations - for one, he's a boy and as a mother of a number of boys, I know that boys can take considerably longer to potty train, and secondly, he's still pretty little, as a Little. But he did great. I loaded him up with a full sippy of ice cold water and set the timer to beep at 20 minute intervals, and each time, on command, Little Number Three went over to his seat and happily produced a quarter teaspoon of pee for me. Brings a tear to my eye, i'm so proud.

So alas, with that being our focus of the day yesterday, I avoided the House. The painters are still working away, the house has painterthings everywhere and it's just too hard to manage the Littles when there is much much much messy painting fun to get into, plus, Little Number Four is one of those types who prefers to be in arms all of the time, which just adds to the juggling. If you have four kids, it's best to have more than one set of arms. Dr. Handsome and I will head over tonight to take a peek at the progress and perhaps i'll steal a moment or two to fire off a few shots of the work that's been done.


To keep you entertained, here are a few new things i'm in love with.

The Decorated House Blog

a gorgeous blog with many DIY projects, decorating ideas and tips on how to make your beautiful house, even more beautiful. Go and read it and become a fan!

Old House Web

-This is a fantastic resource for all things related to old houses - from architectural details, refinishing and restoring, decorating, DIY projects, major renovations and how-to's. Check it out!

Lula Honey

okay, I admit that I am biased towards Lula Honey. This is my long time girlfriend Ang's site of fabulous finds for children. She is a brilliant designer and I have a shared appreciation for her aesthetic. <3 her stuff. Please check her out! Plus her own clothing line for little girls is absolute perfection.

So that is that. I'm off to go and trapeze my way up the stairs, hop into the shower and get on with my day. Hope you all enjoy the weather you're having, rain or shine - indoors and out. <3 D.

Think, pink.

Is it possible to love your wall colour?
I mean love love. Not just strongly like, but looooooove. LURVE love.


Love love love.


After the pain suffered earlier on this week from the epic wall colour failure, today I was able to look my walls in the eye and make amends. We're friends again.


Hello walls. It's good to see you. My you're looking beautiful today. Your colour really brings out the grain in your window frames. Let's have dinner soon. Kissy kissy smoochy smooch.....



Thanks to Dear Painterman, yesterday we spent 4+hrs working on the walls. I nearly had a stroke when I walked into the house, only to see that the walls which had been repainted for the second time, in a shade browner than I'd ever care to admit to liking, saw that they were Mother Freakin' Lavender again. AGAIN!


I threw up my hands in disgust with whatever I could find around me to blame the purple hue on. The floors, it must be the oak floors. The sunlight - maybe it was the UV rays coming in that were throwing our eye off - the colour was EXACTLY the same colour that I have in my current house which reads almost charcoal grey - so double you tee eff? I could not for the life of me figure out what was going on and said to Dear Painterman, whatever, we'll live with it - just go ahead and finish the work. Grumpy as all get out.


About an hour later, he says to me "Do you want me to patch the hole in the ceiling" (in the dining room) which meant that we were going to be paying even more, on top of our screw up, we'd be dealing with having to have the ceiling painted, but Dr. Handsome and I conceded that if we were going to paint the ceiling, now was the time to do it before the final coat of paint went on to the walls.


So there we were, Dear Painterman and I in the kitchen, sorting through the 1500 or so white paint samples to find one that would work with the walls. Why? Why not just find "white" and paint it that colour? Well I'll tell you why - white, isn't white. White is green. White is blue. White is d*uchebag beige. White is pink.


What? What did I just say?
White is pink?


Back up a second there Chico - and back your butt back all the way into the dining room.


There we were, Dear Painterman and I, staring gobsmacked at our five white paint chips that were all staring up at us, mocking us. Pink. WTF?


In a simultaneous motion, both of our heads travelled upwards as we collectively had a Eureka moment. With Dear Painterman clambering up the ladder as fast as his little legs could take him, he pressed the paint chip against the ceiling - the white ceiling and there - there the ugly truth came out. The G*d damned ceiling was painted mother-effing pink.
I kid you not Dear Friends, I kid you not. White paint chip. Pink ceiling. Pink ceiling + grey walls = LAVENDER.


Easy peasy - we paint the ceiling. We paint the freaking ceiling, and the walls are magically transformed to the colour we picked out on the chip. Brilliant.


(click on all photos to enlarge image)

dining room.

dining room before

living room.

living room before

stairway to heaven.

stairway before

master.

(check out the ceiling) 

and click here for the before.

master br. ceiling paper(ed).

ceiling before

Now Dear Readers, here's what I have to tell you. #1. If you want to paint your ceiling, don't buy cheap crappy crap ceiling paint - the kind that rolls on pink and then dries white? Yeah, guess what? It dries pink. I don't care what the fancy pants paint companies will tell you, that paint, will dry white. #2. Pick a paint colour for your ceiling that will compliment your walls. It's not hard, it's not painful, and in the end, it will save you money and time and endless frustration when you stare at your walls and hate them, wondering why they look so terrible. Terrible and pink.

But now my walls are beautiful and grey, and my ceilings are perfectly, white.

and #3. Keep reading <3

D.

Colour Me Bad...

Well the day of painting came on Friday morning. Equal in excitement value to me as Christmas morning, hearing that early morning phone call from my painter letting me know that they were in the house and getting started on the living room, had me nearly bursting with excitement.


For weeks, almost months - Dr. Handsome, the Great Girlfriends and I agonized over hundreds of thousands of paint chips. This delightful agony was made even more agonizing when #2's father, a real estate developer, dropped off his contractor kit of paint samples. Virtually every colour that has ever been imagined lay in the 10x14" blue box.


As a child, I was that kid who would spend hours organizing and reorganizing my crayons, then markers, and then as an adult my dozens of MAC eye shadow pots, creating rows and rows of beautiful colour rainbows. All of the beautiful variations and combinations you could make - finding complimentary colours and contrasting colours, this heavy blue box of colour just about sent me over the edge.


We picked colour after colour, tone after tone trying to find the perfect ones.


We knew we wanted greys - with a vision of soft, pewter and dove greys blanketing our walls offering up the drama and depth we were looking for but also the neutrality of a grey to help bring out the beauty in our meager - but still beautiful - art collection. From large colourful graffiti pieces to small hand made crafts that #2 has made over the years as well as my photography - we wanted it all to stand out for what it was, rather than have the walls taking over. But we also didn't want to be stuck with what my girlfriend's ex husband would call "D*uchebag Beige".


So grey. Hello grey!
Did you know that for as many colours as there are in the world, there are as many greys? Brown greys, green greys, purple greys, pink greys, d*uchebag beige greys, blue greys... and the list goes on. In each triple deck of cards thick wad of greys I'd pick up, there'd be fifty to each colour tone, and then saturation and the level...


Finally on Thursday afternoon, Dr. Handsome and I sat down in the house with many many many colours laid out in front of us, and we walked from room, to room, to room looking at each one in different lights and breathed a sigh of relief when we were able to narrow our 90 picks down to a mere 10, and then 6. By midnight, we had sorted it all out and I dropped the chips off into the mailbox of our Dear Painterman, and off to home to sleep I went.


But I couldn't sleep.


Christmas Day feeling again. You know, when you're TRYING to fall asleep with every bone in your body but your mind is telling you "In just a few hours you're going to get a great surprise!!!!!!!" so you lay there awake and then when you do finally drift off, you DREAM of what you're so excited about? Yes! That was me!!!!


*insert clock ticking away*


Friday morning phone rings, painter is painting, and I am just about to burst until I hear it - a little tiny niggling of doubt in his voice when I ask him "Does it look great?!" and he says "Well...."
And that was enough.
I packed up the sick babies (yes! still sick!!!), covered them in towels and popped Iggle Piggle and the Pontypines into the truck's DVD player and drove over to the house.


Inside of me a conflict was brewing. I wanted so much for that proverbial Pony that i'd been waiting for my entire life to be standing there, painted on my walls but instead I was greeted with the ugliest, lavender slug. Ugly, ugly, ugly. Dear Painterman, ever the optimist said "Maybe you'll like it when the second coat dries", but in my heart, I felt sad and crushed. Walking through the house, I could see it - all of the colours were wrong. All of those hours and stupid little paint chips had culminated into one big whopper of an ugly lavender interior. My beautiful Craftsman house looked like it had the interior colour selection made by a colour blind monkey. *SOB*.


Dejected and feeling really bummed out, Dear Painterman said "Well, I've only bought four gallons, so we can start from scratch, think about it". They finished up the ceiling - White for Dummies and packed up for the weekend, leaving me with yet another mind numbing 48 hours ahead of picking (and hopefully not completely screwing up again) new colours of paint. New mother friggen grey.


Saturday, in a post-call haze, Dr. Handsome and I returned to the house, shaking our heavy heads, we left and I made a promise that I'd do better next time. The drive home was eerily quiet, aside from #3 who was on repeat asking for a bowl of cereal and a cup of coffee (he's yet 2).


So out came the colour charts, again. Laid out on the table, under our own pretty lighting, we looked over and over and over. Thankfully Benjamin Moore has created the Historical Collection, which is basically "Craftsman House Painting for Dummies" -  a fool-proof system using period accurate colours that work with the wood and architecture associated with these homes. Sigh. I had no idea that it was this bad. I feel fortunate that I can even pick out my own pants in the morning.


With that knowledge in hand, as well as an armful of "Okays" approved by Dr. Handsome, the Littles and I trudged off to Rona and met "Jen".  Hallelujah! Immediately she picked out two colours that I've absolutely loved for the past three years, one of which we have our existing den painted. I immediately took a liking to her and had her mix me up a sample batch of the paint that I was hoping would work.


And this is what we came up with:

hallway

living room

dining room

Now. Before you get all uppity and say "but those are all d*uchebag beige", I'll remind you that what you are seeing are brown based greys which are what we NEEDED in the room to work with the coolness of the light coming in and the warmth of the floor - so ON the walls, they look grey, which is what we wanted! YAY! YAY for Rona Jen! YAY! for D*uchebag Beige (that look grey, really)! and YAY for paint samples that I can slop on to the wall and burst out into tears for the price of 1L instead of for the price of 1 Gallon.

So tonight, tonight - I can head to bed, warmed with the thoughts that tomorrow morning, my Dear Painterman will call, get the new paint numbers and off we go, painting the pony back into the room.

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a Good Night.

<3

Crack den Ceiling Repair. Day two.

Have you ever met one of those wonderful couples that are so incredibly in love that they do things like finish one another's sentences, and say things such as "We never fight".


Thankfully, Dr. Handsome and I are one of those couples who are not such as the above and are not so proud as to shy away from a good relationship building task. In fact, we are so incredible and wonderful that after our last "relationship builder" last year when we attempted to assemble a crib together, we've honed our bickering skill to the point that we know our limit - well before he screwdriver fly's across the room. Well before we take what is said personally, and so once a year, we put our love to the test to see if we've achieved perfect-dom, and attempt something absolutely stupid, such as... 


wallpapering.


So that was yesterday and yesterday is in the past and we're all smarter and happier and brighter and moving forward from yesterday, aren't we? Yes we are.


With babies still sick, still dosing the Gravol, armed with even more wipes and plastic bags and diapers and changes of clothes in tow, I headed over to the house, put Pukey and Poopy down for their respective naps and got to work.


This time, alone.


Now you might be saying to yourself "She's going to hang wallpaper on the ceiling, alone?"


And yes, you're absolutely correct. 


Now while I know you're shaking your head in disbelief, you must understand that things like barbecue and crib assembly, one might be better off doing the work, guided by flexible appendages as supports, rather than attempting team work with someone with whom you must sleep next to and parent with for many, many years ahead. Wallpaper, in my opinion, falls into that same category. As difficult - no - as impossible as it might sound - it is easier in fact, to wallpaper alone, than to wallpaper with your spouse, when you and your spouse are both two people who are always right, but share very different opinions on who in fact, is correct with their approach. (for what it's worth, I'll say right now - that it's my way that is the correct way.)


So to work I went.


What I should have done is set my camera on a tripod on a timer to take photo's of my work in 30 second intervals. There, would be a comedy of errors for us all to laugh at, one by one, each one become more and more ridiculous than the last, like Sunday night's on America's Funniest Home Videos, the dog with the sunglasses on his arse and then the dad getting whacked in the yarbles by the son and then the kid barrelling down a hill on his bike when the front wheel slips from it's quick release. 


If you can picture it, there I was. Standing on my scaffolding, wet roll of wallpaper in hand. In my mouth held an open Xacto knife, blade out about 4", tucked under my chin was a smoothing brush and between my knees a scraper. Across my shirt, held a half dozen or so pieces of 2" long strips of painters masking tape and deep down, beyond the recesses of my atria of my warm little heart was that little train, chugging away "I think I can... I think I can..."


Holding the wet paper to the ceiling with my head, I used my fingers to line up the pattern against the now dried paper from last night and slowly, slowly, knife in mouth, I backed up, unrolling as I went.
Down dropped the brush. Insert mumbled expletive.
Back up a few feet, unroll, unroll, carefully line up paper pattern... you're doing a good job, careful, careful.... you have a knife in your mouth... unroll, unroll - dammit, the pattern is off. Move forward. Drop scraper. Mumble expletive. Re roll paper, slowly, slowly... unroll, unroll, smooth with hand, smooth again PERFECTION! Tape section in place with masking tape. Repeat until you reach the end of scaffolding and then with all of your 118lbs, knife still in mouth, begin rocking your body back and forth until you gain enough momentum to get the scaffolding (which by the way has the worst casters on the face of the earth) rolling the remaining four feet across the room and continue what you were doing.


And repeat. And repeat again, when all of the paper (which was too wet, and I knew it) sags and sags and sags all of the way off of the span of ceiling on to your head.


And so it went, for three hours.


I have done some very exciting things in my lifetime, stories of which I will regale my children with when they have come of age, but this one, this one - is up there in my top ten of great things I've done. In fact, when I die, I want this included in my obituary "Hung wallpaper on the ceiling by herself".


So proud of myself I was and still am. In those three hours I laid a FULL TWO STRIPS OF WALLPAPER. If you break that down, it took me about 2 minutes per inch of paper that I rolled. By gosh darn it, I did it, all by myself and it didn't look to terrible in the end. By the time my fevered children woke from their naps, vomiting again, and soaked in their own excrement needing baths and Tylenol, I was beaming with pride for what I had accomplished. 


And while you may still be sitting there, shaking your head - all I can say is that by doing tasks like these alone, might be harder, but it brings Dr. Handsome and I closer to being one of those couples who are so contrite to say "We never fight"...


Photos soon to follow. <3