More (Belated) House Before-and-Afters

Well renovations have been finished (for now) for a couple of months, and I'm FINALLY getting around to posting a few more of our before and after pics. Click here for the first set of house photos.


One of the rooms that changed the most was our living room:


Before:

We had tons of friends and family helping out constantly to help us paint and get everything ready for move-in!

After:

Jeremy's baby in this house was definitely the fireplace. We had a vision of a beautiful stone fireplace and concrete hearth, and this is what the house came with:

So for two months Jeremy demolished the old fireplace...

Framed out a symmetrical one (who makes a fireplace weirdly unsymmetrical?!)...

Carved a new mantle out of cedar...

Poured a concrete base for a hearth...

Complete with our names in the concrete :)

And layered moisture barrier, metal lathe, mud, stone, and grout...

Which was the messiest project I've EVER seen!

And finally, voila!

After:

We have some dreams for the kitchen, but so most we've done so far is paint and replace this stove that was older than me and burned EVERYTHING:

With this one:

My yoga room was originally the only room in the house with carpet (and it was nasty!). My FANTASTIC brother-in-law and father-in-law laid gorgeous wood flooring for me:

And Jeremy built me shelves for all my teaching equipment. I love having this little space!

Still to come (Eventually) - master bathroom renovations are on hold for quite a while, but the baby room will be ready in a couple of months. It's currently our office/music room and a disaster :)

Thanks for peeking in!

K

Humorous Thoughts on Pregnancy

First of all, because it would be stereotypically un-pregnant of me not to, here's the bump picture:

A couple of weekends ago at my parents' new house in Houston - 14 weeks 

On to the funny stuff. 


In the past few months I've noticed that pregnancy not only does weird things to your body and mind, but makes people around you act weird as well. Here are some things I've found humorous.




- Pregnancy seems to be the only time people think it's ok to show the world pictures of their internal organs. While this is weird to me, I still have a picture of my uterus on my fridge. Of course the cute part of the picture is the teddy-graham baby. 


- It's the first time in my life that family, friends, co-workers and strangers have felt it's ok to say "You're getting so big!!" (If you're one of the dozens who have said this, fret not. I've embraced that this is also the only time it's socially acceptable to GET really big ;)


- I'm keenly aware that someone else's teeth, brain, and elbows are inside my body. It's miraculous and a little freaky. It's even more miraculous and freaky to feel that someone else moving.


- I'm constantly tempted to be more sarcastic than ever. Each time someone looks at my belly and asks "Are you pregnant?" I want to respond with a straight-faced "No, I just ate a really big burrito for lunch" or "No, I'm just one of those rare people who gains weight in the shape of a fetus."


- It's odd that most pregnancy books and websites relay the baby's weekly size in produce of comparable length. Why not something that the baby actually resembles, like "raw shrimp baby", "tiny alien baby", "a little less tiny alien baby", etc.? 


- This produce analogy is also intimidating. I made the mistake of looking ahead a few weeks. Turns out by Christmas I'll have a "large eggplant" baby. Umm, excuse me, I don't think that will fit in there.


- Hormones have made my dreams a little bizarre. A few examples:


          - I thought I was pregnant, but after my mom gave birth to the baby, I realized it was her that was pregnant all along.


          - I gave birth to a full-term baby at 20 weeks, and panicked because we had no baby equipment. So to remedy the problem, my family AND Jeremy's family went shopping for us, then all 25 family members proceeded to live with us for 4 months.


          - I had lunch with Sheldon Cooper (from The Big Bang Theory) and Agent Kimble Cho (from The Mentalist). It was the best lunch date ever.


          - I flew to France with a very random assortment of friends from various stages of my life, but made the plane turn around when I realized I'd forgotten my jacket and shoes.






Despite the humorous aspects of pregnancy, I've realized more everyday how miraculous it is that God is growing this little life. I'm very aware that this is the most significant thing I've done in my life thus far, and I'm not even in charge of it. What a commentary on how God is really the author of life. 


If you got this far, thanks for reading :)


K