31.5 weeks

Here's a belly shot from Thursday in the work bathroom. I don't think I look that big, but people have already started suggesting that I'm going to deliver next week. I'm up about 22 pounds but that has held steady for a few weeks now. I feel like my weight gain has been good and I hope to only gain another 8-10 before my due date. Of course if I go late, I fully expect to put on ten pounds of misery weight fueled mostly by carbs and cookie dough.

Accent belt!

While Wilson was out of town this week, I had a pretty solid scare when my regular midwife appointment discovered an arrhythmia in the baby's heartbeat. She immediately referred me to the hospital and I spent several hours hooked up to the heartbeat machine with Sam in tow, stuffing herself on graham crackers and watching cable. The diagnosis turned out to be fetal PAC, which is a somewhat common and usually benign heart thing. It will likely resolve itself before birth or shortly thereafter, but of course, now we're gonna worry about it for two months. All things considered though, I'm very thankful that it isn't something more serious. And I'm thankful that Wilson is home, hopefully for the remainder of this pregnancy. 

Laundry Room, Part One

So, apparently we're renovating the laundry room now. I just can't keep seem to keep Wilson away from demolishing things.

Our main complaints with the laundry/mudroom are mostly aesthetic, with a bit of complaint about lack of storage. Luckily we're not planning to move anything around, so this project shouldn't involve any electrical or plumbing. Normally we'd consider this a Level 1 project, but given that it will likely involve multiple trips to Home Depot, I'm going to assume it'll jump to Level 2 pretty quickly. 

Our goals are:

1. Replace the flooring - We're going to peel up the existing sticky vinyl tiles, leave the asbestos tile below and just replace the sticky tiles with different sticky tiles to the threshold between the kitchen and the mudroom.

2. Paint - Obviously, my favorite part. I still love the wood plank walls, and of course I love the white, so I'm just going to give the walls and trim a fresh coat of exterior white paint to freshen things up. 

3. Build out wall behind washer/dryer - The plumbing for our washer/dryer comes up from the basement and just basically hangs out directly behind the washer and dryer and looks awful. There's no washer connection box, and the dryer vent pipe offsets the dryer forward 6 inches from the wall. It's just a nasty space where dryer lint, unmatched socks, and spiders live, and so we're going to block it out with framing and an access door of some kind. This will also provide a nice place for a small ledge behind the washer/dryer to hold detergent or whatever.

4. Remove open shelving and add closed cabinets above washer/dryer - We'll likely get these from Ikea. I don't hate the open shelving, but I think closed cabinets would be cleaner and there's nothing special about the open shelving that makes me want to save it.

5. Add storage - This will probably also be an Ikea ordeal. I'd like to add a closed cabinet for storage behind the door, which would be modified to also serve as the cat litter depository. My vision is that it would be storage for several things that don't currently have a home, namely: swimming/pool stuff, disc golf stuff, tools we need on a regular basis,road trip supplies, and camping supplies (as if). I'd also like to add an open upholstered bench under the window with a bit of shoe storage - I plan to keep it open rather than built in, because there's a heater vent and an electrical outlet centered on the wall and I don't want to upgrade this project to a new level.

6. Build in the beer fridge - Ok, so probably I'm the only one who cares about this, but the drip tray for the kegerator sticks out ever so slightly into the door and I swear one day Sam is going to slam into it and need stitches. We need to shave a tiny bit off the window molding and then it can scoot back against the wall so the drip tray is recessed. And of course I'd also like to paint it white with appliance paint, but Wilson might kill me.

7. I have a few miscellaneous requests for the room which will be no big deal once we've got the big stuff done. I'd like a place to hang clothes/swimsuits/bras to dry. I'd like some kind of rug which will catch the leaves that blow in from the deck. I'd like to replace the storm door with a fabulous screen door to improve circulation. I'd like cornices for over the windows. 

But for the most part, this looks like some pretty basic weekend project stuff. Huzzah!