just wanted to wish a very happy father’s day to all of the dad’s out there, especially to the best men in my life, ryan and my dad – celebrating their 29th and 1st(!) father’s days. my dad sets the bar pretty darn high for all other dad’s out there, and i love watching ryan with henry; it seems that being a great dad comes pretty naturally to him. i am lucky to have my dad, and henry is lucky to have ryan.
(some scenes from the day)
{justine}
sorry to leave you hanging, here is the rest of our house tour!
first let’s take a trip to the basement, aka future man land.
to the right of the stairs when you walk down is the sitting area with a built-in tv cabinet.
beyond that is some space, with a built-in mini fridge opening in the wall, which is…interesting.
followed by the pool table, that we got included in the deal, fulfilling ryan’s dream of becoming a pool shark. there’s another wall opening, perhaps for a speaker? beyond the pool table is a built-in unit with cd holders (ok…) and yet another opening (on the left) for a speaker. seriously, cool it with the openings, mkay? the doors in the middle open for access to the crawl space storage area (creepy, i will not be going in there. but at least it’s cemented.)
coming around the circle is just some more space, probably to be used for ryan’s weights, followed by a bathroom with shower. (oh look, another speaker built into the wall, just noticed that). the door in the first pic below is to the water heater, furnace, etc, and the bathroom is next to the that exercise machine contraption on the right.
the rest of the tour continues two floors up, on the second floor. there’s hardwoods upstairs, which is great (though i need to buy lots of area rugs). some day we hope to restain the floors to match the new color of the rest of the house.
the first room on the left is our master bedroom. it’s huge. i’m still not used to the size, actually having room to walk around the bed without bumping into something. the room needs paint, a rug, a headboard (planning on diying), new, larger nightstands, dressers, drapes, probably new bedding…so everything.
there is an attached master bath, which is awesome. and has double sinks, which is also awesome. but everything needs updating, from the lights to the tile to counter top and fixtures. so someday we’ll be redoing it, hopefully creating a larger shower and getting rid of the jacuzzi tub (does anyone use those anymore? grossness. at least it seems pretty clean.)
next to the shower is a teeny tiny toilet room. 
accessed from the master bath is the walk-in closet. it’s great that it’s a walk-in, and it’s a decent size, though it was one of the smaller ones we saw, and could use a much better closet system.
moving down the hall, the kids’/guest bath is next to the master. again, pretty standard stuff that needs updating. love the natural light in here from the skylight.
across the hall is the second bedroom, which is now henry’s room. the two-tone walls are not my thing, so those are in the process of getting painted. it has a great-sized walk-in closet. but that ceiling fan – ugh. this house was built only 12 years ago and yet it looks like it’s from the 80′s.
next to this room is the next bedroom, the future nursery. pretty similar to the first bedroom, but a slightly darker blue. again, needs paint, new fan. this closet is a standard closet size, which is why it became the nursery (babies don’t need huge closets with potential to become a hideaway spot).
down the hallway (with more great natural light thanks to a southern facing window) is a good-sized linen closet.
followed by the final bedroom, which has more of the awesome natural light and a huge walk-in closet (and the same ugly fan). for now this will be used as a guest bedroom and my workspace, with hopefully a paint job in the future.
so that’s it! it’s a lot of house, so much more space than we’re used to (with a yard! and a garage!) and i’m grateful for it. but i’m also a tad overwhelmed with the amount of decorating and painting (i will never. be. done.) and decisions that have to be made. oh, and the cleaning. i am not looking forward to cleaning four toilets. but so far i am loving being here! it’s starting to feel like home, being here with my three boys and making the space our own. i can’t wait to share our progress so far! (you know, when i have time when i’m not painting or with henry or painting or organizing or painting or planning henry’s party).
{justine}
Filed under home
i’m a bit behind, house projects are taking over my life, trying to get them done before the big birthday party! because it’s only two weeks away (and only 2 1/2 until he’s one. one. one.), and i am seriously stressed about what there is to do. painting our entire staircase railing may have just been added to the list. but i did manage to get in a quick (like, 3 minutes until he wouldn’t stay on the chair) photo shoot to capture his 11 month-ness – in our new house, which has much better natural light, thank goodness.
holy cow with the putting things in and taking them out of things – it’s all the time. and i will find random things places, like a coaster in our laundry basket (or in the wash machine after i washed it), it’s quite cute. though he does it with his food too – mealtime can be interesting, such as this morning when he fished out my honeycombs cereal out of my bowl as i was eating it, put it on a (dirty) rubbermaid container we were temporarily using as a tabletop, put it back in my bowl, then put it in his mouth. quite the journey that little honeycomb took.
and the walking! oh my goodness, he is getting so good, like at least 10 feet good. he is walking all over the place, and so proud of it. his method of transportation is still crawling, but he usually starts walking and switches to crawling when he falls. lately he’s started to stand up and continue walking after falling, so me thinks he may officially be a ‘walker’ soon. my baby is growing up!
{justine}
Filed under personal
well, we are home. in our new home. it’s not so sweet yet though. which i’m sure is pretty typical of a move. leading up to the move was non-stop chaos. this past weekend after our closing was non-stop chaos as we tried to get things done like fix ugly paint treatments (plaster on the wall, not just sponge paint? thanks a bunch), paint and build a wall. all while staying at my parents, going back and forth to our house and having most our stuff in the city. moving day today was non-stop chaos, especially when all our stuff did not fit in the frickin moving truck! so yea, there’s that. we have to go all the way back downtown tomorrow with two cars to hopefully get the rest. meanwhile i have never been so tired in my life, so i’m laying in bed (on the floor) writing this, staring at the mess around me, not knowing where my clothes are, where my bath towel is, where henry’s diapers are…instead of organizing and trying to find things that i may need soon, unless i want to be a dirty, naked mom with a diaper-less baby. seriously, this place is chaos.
i will be here trying to make sense of this place and all our stuff, for like, ever. which is made even harder when i can’t move anything into the first floor except the kitchen and laundry room since we are getting our floors redone next week, and god forbid we have to move things twice in less than two weeks.
someday i will share the rest of the house as promised, too. and plan henry’s party. and paint this entire house.
moving sucks,
justine
edit: how could I forget? a huuuuuuuuuuuuuge (huge) shout out to my parents who are the best parents ever and help moving and renovations not be so sucky by doing tons of work (building a wall, drywalling, mudding, sanding, painting), cooking us dinner (and breakfast, and lunch) and most importantly, taking care of our little man henry.
Filed under home
