basically *finished* half bath and some others!

We have one almost *completely* finished room! The half bath! All we need left to do is hang blinds, pick out/construct a mirror, get a light fixture, and a few random touch-ups. I actually have often forgotten that it is done and run up the stairs to the bathroom and then remember. That's a real bummer.

I shared in my last blog my inspiration for this bathroom. We were planning to just put the hardwood floors we have downstairs in the bathroom but one day we were shopping at home depot and ran into this awesome vintage looking black and white floor. We both fell in love and are actually really glad we went with tile in here instead of wood....we will be potty training soon- enough said.

Here are some before and after pictures of the bathroom:

BEFORE:

AFTER:

So we kept the original shelf above the toilet because we thought it was charming! Seth built some built-in shelves to go above the toilet- I feel like they look like they've always been there- which we were trying to make it look original. 

First room with crown molding!!

Also the first room with baseboards!
We found a matching toilet flusher to our faucets on clearance, which was just fun.

I still need a mirror and a light fixture. We found a light we both LOVE, just need to budget it in. 

I love my tile floors!

Porch Demo:

I think I posted a few pictures of our porch demo on facebook, but I'll post a few more on here. We really liked the idea of having a sunroom off of the dining room, but it just wasn't in good enough condition to keep. There was also a deck on top of it that was attached to the master bedroom- also a really fun idea, but it had rotted through so we wouldn't have been able to safely step foot on it. Someday we miiiiiight rebuild a sunroom and add a master bath/closet on top. Maybe. But for now, there is a door from our master bedroom leading to nowhere. Yep, we are that house. We had amazing help from family and friends at church- thank you thank you so much, you blessed us tremendously!!

This was the porch before we took it down, it was being used as Seth's wood storage shed.

Another view. We also took down the awning and plan to take down the rest, eventually. 

Our cute little helper, she didn't want to miss a thing. 

The awesome team taking it down.

Thank you to our awesome Dad B. for letting us load down your truck!

Getting closer...

Last beam to come down!

Seth doing a bunch of patch work where the porch was attached to the house. Since then he has patched it in quite a bit more. We will eventually get a glass patio door to replace the awesome turquoise door so we can walk out from our dining room to our awesome new patio. Next summer (maybe) Seth is going to build us a table, but for now we will enjoy our pair of chairs :). Oh, also, notice the door on the second floor. Yeah, be jealous your house doesn't have this :).

Furniture business:

Seth has been dreaming of starting his own furniture business for years now. He has built quite a few pieces of our furniture in our own home in his dad's shop, or on our apartment balcony, etc. Now that we have a house with a workshop in the basement and a garage to work on projects it is finally possible. That is, after he finishes building our house ;). Picking a name for his business has been sort of like picking a baby name (which, no, we still don't have one)...it has to be perfect. There is one he pretty much loves, but we will reveal it once it is official. Anyways, he did take a little time to make a bench for a friend who was surprising his wife. And I personally think it is awesome. It is made out of old barnwood. The legs were those huge beams in the barn- really really solid. Keep him in mind for all your custom furniture ideas :)

Pregnancy:

I am a little bit over 29 weeks and it honestly is going too fast. I am just not quite ready for this little man to enter the world yet. We don't even have a name picked out yet. We definitely don't have a room for him yet. I have a bin of some random garage sale boys clothes I've been buying, but not enough for how much a newborn goes through. A lot of our baby stuff is sprawled out in the spare unfinished room, basement in multiple places and a closet. This boy will probably be using pink blankets and maybe even pink onesies if I don't get moving. 

Gracie:
We have been hitting defiance with Gracie like never before. I know she's not even two yet so i'm sure we have a way to go. It.is.exhausting. We were in home depot the other day and she flat out threw herself on the ground screaming. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. We both looked at each other and said we have no idea what to do with this child, and who in the world is she?! Her own sin nature is coming out very loudly and it is honestly hard to know what to do at times. Balancing grace with discipline with consequences with not sparing the rod with i'm-exhausted-and-just-ignore-the-tantrum. And she's only 21 months. All you parents out there- you're amazing. I've never appreciated you as much as I do now. Oh, and we worked at FamilyLife for 2 years, shouldn't we have a resource on this somewhere? probably, but by the time I deal with the tantrum, i'm ready for a nap. There really is so much to love about her spunky and sweet personality, we just have to help "shape" it....

She does have her sweet moments most definitely. And those moments that send us doubled over laughing so hard.

It took alllll summer of her hating the water, but on the last night the pool was open, she LOVED it.

"painting" :)

Happy Friday and three day weekend to most of you who get off Labor day! 

Song of the day: "How can it be" by Lauren Daigle

a few things from life lately

Whew time is speeding by. Hello third trimester and goodbye summer, basically. When did that happen?! We have been cruising along on the house trying to get as much done before baby boy makes his grand entrance as well as before we need to have a second appraisal. The whole house project/renovation/makeover/whatever you want to call it has really been consuming our time when we have free time. I go in bursts with it, some days I feel inspired, other days overwhelmed, other days just tired of working on it (rather of Seth working on it) and desperate for the season to come when we can just be a family- with only small, not-as-pressing projects and when our Friday nights aren't always "work nights" but rather the occasional "date night"....all in all though, I am loving it here in our home and each time we finish another project it feels like a new house all over again, which is sort of fun considering I love new things. The timing of how long we think things should take and when we thought we would be done has completely overturned basically all of our expectations. We now just assume everything will take longer than we think it should. It's is a lot better mentally for us and then we feel awesome when we get something done sooner :). The current project Seth is working on is our half bath....I LOVE it so far...pictures to come. (I know I know, like I haven't said that before...)

Life has been full lately as well. I got a job as a nurse again- woohoo! I work one evening a week teaching Childbirth classes (timely, right?), it's perfect right now to get my foot back in the door and not to have to find a babysitter since Seth is home then. So far it's been a blast. Though, every time I am at a class I am reminded of what is to come for me in 12 weeks......

Gracie is at a super fun age right now. She is 20 months and so full of life. She is also such a little diva. She will grab one of my purses, sling it on her shoulder accompanied with 4 or 5 necklaces around her neck and a cell phone to her ear while pushing her baby in a stroller and wearing sun glasses. I seriously love it. She is also getting much better about entertaining herself with her toys or books which is fun to watch and a welcomed break :). She is also starting to talk a ton, part of me doesn't want her to grow out of her half baby garble/ half real words. She is spirited, sweet, stubborn, hilarious, compassionate, curious and super social. Thankfully she is reallly really into babies right now, i'm hoping that is to our benefit as baby makes his arrival :).

Baby boy- we don't have a name yet, we either can't agree or just can't decide. It may come down to the delivery room at this point. Meaning is important to us when it comes to picking out a name. So we might really like a name but it has terrible meaning, so for us it's out. I really really liked a name but Seth had a hamster for two days that he returned to the store because it had a growth that he named that name so he doesn't like it. Stinkin hamster. 

We attempted a garden. But it actually looks more like a jungle right now. It's really pitiful actually, but we have harvested a few zucchini, tomatoes and green beans. Better luck next year....

This past weekend I was in Knoxville, TN for a training for Deeper Still (I have a whole other blog I've been crafting on this that i'll hopefully post soon)...it was an awesome weekend away with a group of women I call my "unlikely community"- only God could have crossed all of our paths and brought us together. 

Here's a few pictures of life lately:

This is our half bath currently, Seth just finished painting the planks on the wall and the beadboard and we have a really cool vintage black and white tile floor to hopefully go in this weekend! I can't wait to have a bathroom on our main floor!

This picture is our inspiration for the half bath, found on pinterest. We will also have a pedestal sink in ours :)

My awesome "unlikely community"...oh how I have been abundantly, deeply blessed by these dear souls.

This was a week ago at 27 weeks when I *almost* failed my glucose test, thankfully my doctor uses a more forgiving scale and I barely made it in the "safe number" parameter!

Some of our garden yield. These look look A LOT larger in this picture, they were tiny. But we were thrilled, nonetheless!

My boy and I at David and Heather's wedding, Seth was a groomsman- it was a gorgeous wedding!

FINALLY got pigtails in this girl's hair! We have made huge progress with her letting me put her hair up! This mom is happy about that :)

Seth texted me this picture when  was gone last weekend, I love my little family.

                           Just a normal day in our home, G loves to talk, I personally think it's adorable :)

I LOVE this. It was in the home of a very dear woman in Knoxville, TN. I couldn't not take a picture.
"Your beautifully, messy, complicated story matters, tell it"