projects

Six weeks to go in this pregnancy and the pre-baby panic is beginning to set in as I look ahead to the hundred and one things I would like to accomplish before rounding out the third trimester.  The panic comes from the thought that I will never ever be able to get anything done again once I have three children, which is only mostly true.

This knowledge that all organization in my home will cease to exist with the arrival of Baby gives me bursts of energy from time to time when I feel exceptional motivation to clear out the laundry room disaster area and sort through the linen closet and move the living room furniture around by myself so I can vacuum underneath it. This is a source of great confusion to my husband, of course, who wants someone to explain his manic wife - is she really as exhausted as she keeps claiming to be or has super-woman claimed her when I wasn't looking?

 

My answer: How can you expect a pregnant woman to answer that legitimately?  I have no idea where a single one of my moods comes from. Third time around, he should know this already.

Instead of focusing on the things that really need to happen before the baby arrives... like cleaning Sommer's clothes out of her room so we have room for Baby's clothes and finding a new place to put Sommer's clothes in Annike's room which means finding a dresser for her and redoing the furniture arrangement in Annike's room so the dresser fits along with a new toddler bed that we don't have yet, forcing out some other pieces of furniture that need to be moved to other places in the house... okay, I am trying not to panic. Instead of focusing on the inevitable reorganization, I am throwing myself into an urgent redecorating of my house. Smart, I know.

This last week has included some painting projects. I have been hearing all about Chalk Paint, which is completely unrelated to chalkboards or chalk, and after using it, it is still unclear to me why it was given this confusing name. Since it is also completely unrelated to getting ready to have a baby, I decided that now was the time to try it out.

In case you are not caught up in the DIY world, here is my opinion on Chalk Paint (FEEL FREE TO SKIP AHEAD IF YOU AREN'T INTERESTED). First you need to know that the paint is famous for its use on furniture without any need for prep - no sanding, priming, or any of the most labor intensive parts of trying to paint varnished wood furniture. It dries fast and comes in 30 awesome colors, and since choosing the exact paint color I want usually causes me to make four or more trips to Home Depot, these features were a definite upside to the paint. If you are feeling extra creative, the paint can be antiqued or distressed rather easily, which I did not try on these pieces, but have a wall hanging that is just crying out for me to try it... after I get the baby clothes organized, that is.  The downsides to the paint are that it seems very expensive to me ($35 dollars for a pint! Seriously? Are we paying for a brand name here?), it can only be purchased through a few dealers (though we do happen to have one here in Soquel... open only 3 days a week, slightly inconvenient) or certain places online, and even though there was no priming or sanding involved, there were still a lot of steps because the paint needs a few coats and then needs to be waxed once or twice after the paint is dry (but I suppose that ANY painting project involves a lot of steps, so I should quit complaining.) The Annie Sloan brand would like you to buy all of their special products which each seem expensive to me. Since the whole point of a DIY is for it to be CHEAP, I did a ton of reading online first and found some inexpensive products that worked instead. I highly recommend this. Okay. Done now with my rant on Chalk Paint.

Pictured above is the end table that will actually be used in the baby's room, boy or girl. So this project was not a complete waste of precious third trimester time.

The week before last I updated some hand-me-down wicker furniture for a sitting area. This involved ordering a roll of replacement wicker from Amazon, re-wrapping the legs, and giving the set a few coat of fresh spray-paint. Almost as good as new!

Under normal circumstances (meaning not pregnant), I would have attempted recovering the cushions on my own. But I decided I had better save some time for the reorganization of the kids room, making space for the baby, and all of that other stuff hanging over my head. So I ordered replacement cushions.  The box they came in was the best thing that ever happened to my poor toy-deprived children (insert sarcasm here). The rest of the room will be pulled together soon... on another day of procrastinating the inevitable.

All in all, I think there is some sort of energy that drives pregnant women. It is that survival instinct that used to be dire to a woman's ability to care for herself and her family while pregnant... and in the 21st century just causes panic or anxiety, and can sometimes be channelled into useless housing projects. I am actually thankful for it, because without it I truly would be napping on the couch all afternoon instead of finding the energy to accomplish possibly one last thing before my life changes... forever... in a good way, of course... but perhaps in a less productive, less project-accomplishing kind of way.

... and now, on to the baby's room...