Harrigan Update

Obviously, I have been updating a lot about the progress on our house. I have kind of brushed over some of the other exciting things that have been going on around here lately.

I mentioned a few weeks ago that we are expecting baby #2. Before Charlotte was born, Tim and I honestly weren't sure if we wanted more than one kid. Pretty much as soon as we got home from the hospital with Charlotte, we knew we wanted a second baby. I am an only child and Tim and his brother are quite a few years apart. We thought 2 years apart sounded perfect for our family. Shortly after Charlotte's first birthday, we decided to try for a second. We found out the first week of December that I was pregnant!

The first 10 weeks or so were rough. I wasn't "sick" but very queasy and very tired. Dealing with that, work and chasing a toddler during the holidays was difficult and I was so thankful to get some relief. We held off on telling our parent's until after my first OB appointment. It was SO hard to keep it a secret over Christmas!

I definitely started showing MUCH earlier this time around. I took out the maternity clothes at 14 weeks and have been enjoying my maternity pants ever since. We were really on the fence about if we wanted to have an elective gender ultrasound this time around. Mainly, the cost of doing so. Ultimately, curiosity got the best of us and we scheduled an appointment without telling anyone art 16 weeks, 5 days. I thought we were having another little girl and had a name all picked out. Tim and my mom also thought it was going to be another girl. My pregnancies were pretty similar at that point and I kept having dreams about two little girls. When we went in for our ultrasound, the tech said "first impression is it is a girl"... a few minutes in he said " I am going to change my mind on that, you are definitely having a boy"! Tim was ecstatic, I was going to happy regardless!

We went that evening and bought some "It's a boy" balloons and told our parents who are SO excited we will have one of each. This is the picture we posted on facebook.

I had an anatomy scan at 20 weeks to confirm gender ( along with other important developmental milestones). I was SO nervous. The first thing the tech says... "so you are having another girl" immediately followed by " Oh wait, its a BOY".  Apparently, our little guy is just a little shy at first :)

We have decided to name him Brayden and have started working on his nursery. We are both excited and nervous. I think the nervous part is more about how Charlotte will react and how that period of transition will go. I know its normal to feel that way so I try not to let the anxiety get to me too much!

I have been feeling great and am just hoping that will last through the summer! I am now 26 week a long and will likely be a repeat C-section at 39-weeks. I feel a bit guilty about not doing weekly posts with this pregnancy like I did for Charlotte. I am taking weekly belly pictures and posting on Instagram. It is SO much harder to be consistent with things when you already have a toddler running around. I am going to post about Brayden's nursery in the upcoming weeks because it is starting to look AMAZING :)

Construction: Week 3

So much to report this week! We were away last weekend at Disney. We came home Monday to find our drive-way loaded with supplies and a dumpster.

Tuesday morning the framers arrived at 7am. I had no idea what to expect and was amazed with the amount of progress when I got home from work that evening. Here is where we last left off:

And this is what things were looking like Tuesday:

Ignore how "lime" my house looks in this picture!

The framers and roofers works togther to open my existing roof and tie in the new addition. They put in a FULL day. To be honest, after the slab was poured I was a little concerned about the size of the new room and patio. After seeing the framing in place, I was surprised about how much bigger everything looked.

New "bedroom".

New patio

Wednesday morning, the framers also arrived at 7am. As I was leaving to drop Charlotte off at my mom's, the roofers also arrived to begin working on the roof. When I got home from work that evening, there were NO shingles left on our house. And the framers has completely finished up. 

Standing in the new closet, looking into the room. 

Where the new window will be. 

This window will be the new door into the room. 

HUGE storage closet!

New patio. 

Thursday morning, the installer was coming to remove my existing sliding glass door and install the new window on the room. The roofers were also there working on replacing tar paper and waiting on an inspection. I came home from work and the roofers were just wrapping up. The new window was in and the sliding glass door was gone. Unfortunately, the door could not be installed that day but they made sure we were covered up for the night. 

That night, my dad came over and we walked the room and marked where we wanted electrical outlets/ cable etc. We thought the electrician was coming Friday morning but he isn't actually coming till tomorrow. The roofers got held off due to another issue with the inspector. We also had another a/c company come out on Friday to walk the house and give us a second estimate on some work we would like to get done. We are waiting to hear back from them before we make a decision on that. Hopefully will be able to do so this week as we are ready for a/c rough in on the addition as well. Luckily, we did get a door and a deadbolt installed where the old slider use to be.

While Friday was a slow day, I am SO, SO happy to see some real progress this week. Tomorrow morning we are scheduled for an inspection. If all goes well, the roofers anticipate finishing up either tomorrow or Tuesday. We also have the electrician coming tomorrow.

Construction: Week 2

The forecast this week was looking pretty rough so I wasn't sure what, if anything, would be done to the addition. Luckily, Monday morning was overcast but no rain! The construction crew showed up before 9 and got to work on the back patio. I was at work all day but was able to meet with the them briefly before heading out for the day.

We decided against pouring new concrete over what will be the new patio. You can clearly see this in the photo above. There are several deep cracks in the concrete already and the contractor felt pouring over it would ultimately result in the same cracks showing through. We eventually planned on either tiling or putting pavers out there anyway. You might remember that we did tile in the front patio over 2 years ago due to the cost of pavers. In retrospect, I am not sure that was the best idea. There are several areas that are cracking and I am pretty sure it is due to the same issue that our current contractor is concerned about for our back patio. So as of now, we are pricing out pavers since it is a smaller area and we want something to last.

Tuesday and Wednesday it rained. We tentatively had the framers/roofer scheduled to start on Thursday but due to the rain earlier in the week, everything got pushed back. Everyone did come out and take final measurements for supplies. We are scheduled for a supply delivery on Monday morning and to start framing on Tuesday. The weather looks good for next week so I am hoping for a lot of productivity!

Cozy Coupe Makeover

Charlotte loves her a play car. Anytime we take her out and they have a play car, you can guarantee she will be in and out of it 100 times. My kid also LOVES the mouse... especially Minnie! I had seen some really cute "Cozy Coupe" upgrades on Pinterest. I wasn't actively looking for one but one Saturday we stopped at a local shop, Reruns for Little Ones, so I can try out a toddler sized Tula. As we were walking up, we spotted a used Cozy Coupe for $15. Charlotte immediately started saying "my car" so we knew it had to come home with us!

We decided to go with the Minnie Mouse theme. I went to Lowe's to pick up some plastic outdoor spray paint. They were out of white so I picked up red and black only. I read a lot of reviews online and no one mentioned primer. However, the guy at Lowe's was adamant about us priming first. So I also picked up one can of primer.

Back at home, Tim literally set up a car wash station for the coupe. After everything was cleaned off we took it apart. We actually used WD-40 to remove any stickers/residue.

Since I am pregnant, Tim had to do all the spray painting. Even though the body of the car was already red, we gave it a coat of primer and two coats of red paint. A lot of the tutorials I read said to sand the car. We had several rough spots so we did attempt this however they are visible through the paint. I would skip the sanding and opt for the primer. All the yellow parts got a coat of primer and two coats of black paint.

We gave it a good 48-hours to dry before re-assembling the car. Once it was re-assembled, we applied two thin coats of Rustoleum's plastic sealant. Then came the fun part... deciding how we wanted to finish it. I originally was planning on spray painting on white dots with a stencil and having my dad cut out the ears/bow from wood. I read about being using foam or cardboard for the ears but that didn't seem too sturdy. I actually found a lady on Etsy who makes a "kit". I was planning on just purchasing the vinyl dots but then decided to go with the whole kit even though it was more than I originally wanted to spend. Jamie, the shop owner, was super sweet and got my items to me out FAST despite being ready to have a baby any day. I ordered on a Sunday and had everything by Wednesday!

I worked on the applying the vinyl dots and nameplate that evening. Tim was able to apply the mouse ears as well. Unfortunately, Charlotte was already in bed by the time we got done but we were able to show her the final product the following morning. She LOVES it and I have to admit I love the way it turned out too.

Construction: Week 1

Construction started on our addition last Friday. Unfortunately, its been a pretty unproductive week since then!

Around 7:30am last Friday the crew showed up to prepare our existing back patio for the addition. I didn't take any " before pictures" but here is a shot of the back patio a while ago.

The new plans involve replacing that double window with french barn doors. The sliding glass door ( half pictured on the left) will be replaced with a single glass panel door. Our third bedroom window ( not pictures but would be to the far right in the above picture) will be filled in and will be the wall for the new closet.

We will also be getting a new roof on the entire house. The new roof for the addition will cover the entire existing slab. Most will be "addition" but some will be saved for a new screened in patio. Charlotte LOVES being outside and we really have no shaded area to take her. Currently, my car has been given the boot from the garage to allow her to play in there.

Last Friday, they came and dug for the new footers. This was pretty much wrapped up in half a day and they called for inspection. I was super excited because the roofers were even scheduled to start this week. Unfortunately,  due to issues with the inspector we didn't get a full inspection till Thursday! They were set to pour concrete this morning however due to all the rain we had yesterday, we got bumped to Monday so they could finish up the job they had scheduled for yesterday.

I am so anxious to get things moving. Because we have decided to do a lot of the finishing work ourselves, there is a ton to be done before baby #2 arrives! As of now, the forecast next week isn't looking too promising either but hopefully I will have more progress to report. Here is what we look like now.

Love it or List it?

Not too long after Charlotte was born, Tim and I started to talk about our house, space and future kiddos. We knew we wanted to have one more kid and while we do have three bedrooms, we really needed a 4th for an office/ play space. We started to look at houses locally just to get an idea. I am a *bit* more particular than Tim in that I did not want to move outside of our current school zones. This means we are limited to a pretty small area. 

I went to a couple of open houses and religiously checked the Real Estate listings. To gain a 4th bedroom and a mere 100 more square feet, we would be paying nearly DOUBLE what we paid for our house just 4 years ago. Then we started thinking about how much work we have done here and how we would need to essentially start that process all over with a new house. Only this time with a toddler running around. 

So back in October/November, we decided to get a few estimates to see how much it would cost to add a room on to our existing house. We have a 500 ft back patio and a 500 ft front patio and quite frankly we do not utilize our outdoor space. We got two estimates that were pretty comparable. We sat on it for a while, really weighing our options. We like our neighborhood, we like our schools, we are close to my parents who help our tremendously with Charlotte. We decided financially, it made more sense to stay put. 

Then in December we got some pretty exciting news... 

So we decided no time like the present, right? We started the construction plans with one of the contractors and JUST got our permit approved this week! We will be getting a new roof on the entire house, adding a room with lots of storage and getting a new back patio! We decided to do all the finishing ourselves so we have LOTS of projects coming up. They actually just started construction this morning so I am going to TRY to do a weekly update as it comes together. I am both excited and nervous for everything to come together before this baby arrives in early August! :) 

Ikea Kitchen Makeover

Every time we took Charlotte to a Birthday party or event, she would gravitate to the play kitchen... and then wouldn't leave. Tim and I both knew we wanted to get her one for the house but simply did not want something plastic. I had toyed around with the idea of making one from an old TV stand... I even went as far as to track one down for $15 at our local Goodwill. At the last minute we changed our minds. We didn't want another heavy piece of furniture in the house either.

So, we decided to pick up Ikea's basic Duktig play kitchen. However, we had NO intention of leaving it as is! The same day we brought the kitchen home, we headed out to Lowe's for supplies.

We knew we wanted to paint the kitchen, add a back splash and come up with someway to make a fridge.  That is where my dad came in. We bought an inexpensive shelving unit and asked him to make a door for it. We has a really hard time finding something that already had a door. Then we had fun with it! For the fridge, we painted the bottom portion in chalkboard paint. The freezer portion was coated in Magnetic paint. This was my first time using Magnetic paint... I purchased a quart of Rust-Oleum Magnetic Primer. I was nervous because it seemed like it got pretty bad reviews overall and a lot of people complained it simply didn't work. While it isn't an easy product to work with... it does hold our magnets perfectly! My tips would be 1) use a brush/roller/ tray you are fine with throwing away after, 2) Have it professionally mixed just before using, 3) Use multiple thin coats ( we did somewhere between 5-7 coats), and 4) Stir, stir, stir between coats! I was nervous that adding a "top coat" like the product calls for would negate some of the magnetization but it held up just fine! Once everything was dry, we added some handles and attached the door.

The remainder of the Kitchen got a thin coat of primer and two thin coats of paint. It hard to see in the picture above but the paint is called Lazy Days from Valspar's Signature Kids Collection. We opted to only paint what was wooden. We left everything that was white originally, as is. The counter was sanded down ( there was some type of thin clear coat on top) and then given a few coats of Red Mahogany Stain and some spray poly.

Next we added under cabinet lighting. Yes you read that correctly... my daughters play kitchen has under cabinet lighting and my own kitchen does not. We use one of these lights from Ikea we happened to have at home. The switch is on the side of the kitchen. I have to say, it is one of her favorite things about the kitchen! She loves turning the light on and off.  The final thing to be added was the back splash. We used the same product we used on our Kitchen Ceiling, just a different pattern. We attached it on the back with the staple gun and left a small hole in the corner to feed out the wire for our under cabinet lighting. Oh and the knobs.... this was more of a struggle than I would like to admit. We could not find real oven knobs small to fit this space. We ended up painting regular black wooden knobs and adding white stripes. We added a washer behind them so they do spin. And this is what the final product looked like.

 

She LOVES it and plays with it everyday. We picked up the utensil and pots at Ikea too. We purchased the food from Amazon since most of the playfood at Ikea is plush and we wanted plastic. So while we might of spent more than we would have on a generic plastic kids kitchen set at the toy store, we LOVE the way it turned out and that it blends in with the rest of our  house.