What we are doing:

In what spare time we have, we decided to spend it (and our savings) on remodeling our rowhouse in South Philly. When we purchased our casa it was a 3 story, 5 bedroom, 1 bath that hadn't been touched in 50+ years. It's currently a 4 bed, 2 bath construction site with so much more to do it's hard to believe.

We use this blog to mark progress, say hi to friends and family, rant about the process of remodeling, and try to have some fun along the way.

- Bryan and Christina

Saturday, February 21, 2009

Knowing when to just walk away

So it's Saturday night, and I left the hospital early to try and pick up the house tonight/tomorrow morning in time to get back to the hospital for Christina to be induced. Yep, it's here. 2 weeks ago we looked like we saw Bigfoot walking into a Wawa after we got the news, and now we're apparently ready to be parents? Life is insane sometimes.

On the kid front real fast: everything is great and like I said Monday is GO TIME! We had a tour of the NICU this evening which was actually not terrifying in the least bit. Well besides finally having it all hit me like a ton of bricks...we're actually going to have a kid in the next 48 hours. Damn.

On the house front, it's been a looooooong week. In between trying to balance work and entertaining Christina at the hospital, I was responsible for priming and painting just about 65% of the surfaces in the house. It was a long week (but thanks to Cat, Joey and Rich for the help!). I'm posting some pictures that are small, so click on them to see the full size.

Oh, and you'll note that the picture quality looks vastly superior than the usual drab ones that we have. Well that's from my father-to-be/weekend house warrior present, a new Nikon D40 camera. It's nothing too fancy, but it'll be sweet in the upcoming months with the baby, and it helps with the house shots a bit too. Some shots are with the flash and some are without. I was playing around a little.

The pizza boxes really make the place feel like home I think. That, and if you look really closely at the living room blinds, those should be white. Not the shade of beige they appear. I guess that is what 12 solid months of dust will do........

At this point, the priming is done (all 8 gallons of it) as are all of the ceilings. I did manage to get the nursery walls painted, minus the soon to be magenta one. My goal today was to work on the main colors throughout which is an MAB color called "Lemon Ice". It makes me want pie when I see it. I hope that feeling doesn't last forever. Anyway, when the realization of the fact that I will be a father before the next Flyers game hit me, we decided that he rest of the wall paint and the floor paint can wait a bit. I needed some time to decompress.

I wasn't going to argue. I'm tired, sore and really lacking decent sleep.

So the plan is that after the fun with the kid subsides a bit, as she'll be in the NICU for 1-2 weeks, I'll work on her room to complete it which includes wrapping up the electrical items. Not a big deal. We did decide to paint the floor of the nursery and the second floor hallway to speed up this process to be able to then get the baby furniture in and set up. There is apparently no rest in any of this.

On a totally more random note, I was playing with the new camera today in the hospital and I realized something that must be pretty obvious to everyone else in our daily lives. While Christina is working to keep our kid healthy by being in the hospital room for 2 weeks, being stuck with needles over and over each day and braving hospital food, to the left is how she looks at this point. A portrait of beauty and grace as usual.

To the right was me this afternoon. I am way out of my league, and badly need a haircut.

That's really it right now for us here on South 13th Street. I mean aside from needing to finish painting the walls and floor and trimming out the nursery, assembling the furniture, cleaning the place up, buying diapers and even premi clothes...it's like sitting on a beach.

A beach next to the great Sea of What Have We Gotten Ourselves Into. It's a beautiful view.

- Bryan

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Your hair is amazing. What do you mean by "paint the floors?" Over the wood,instead of refinishing?