Baby style

On March 29, we had our baby shower at the house. Thanks to the generosity and keen fashion sense of our family and friends, our baby is going to be looking very stylish for a very long time.



Of course, being a stylish baby requires a lot of laundry.



And every stylish baby needs to have a wardrobe ready for every occasion.



No outfit is complete without shoes... even if they're just little tiny ones.

Making room for baby

With everything that's happening in the kitchen (or, recently, NOT happening in the kitchen), we finally got some time to concentrate on the nursery. It took us a while longer than we thought it would, but it's finally ready for little Ms. Saucier to move in.

In February, Andy spent a weekend scraping the windows and sanding everything in sight. In March, Lindsay came down to help paint. The light color on the top half of the room is called "Lambskin". The pink color on the bottom is called "Raspberry Parfait".







Our crib, changing table, chair and toy box were finally delivered a few days after our baby shower on March 29. Andy's mom made the curtains, bumpers and bed skirt with fabrics we picked out. Lime green and pink are the primary colors, with brown as an accent color.





(Our new glider/rocker... definitely the most comfortable seat in the house)





The baby's crib is already filled with handiwork from our very crafty family... the quilt was made by Andy's mom, and the blankets were made by Ariella's mom and Andy's sister.

More renovation news

After two weeks, the renovations in the kitchen are going great. The drywall and ceramic floor have been installed. We've got a new back door. Now we just have to paint the walls, and wait for the cabinets to be delivered next week.

And as of this weekend, our stairs and upstairs hallway have also been refinished. Of course, we had to spend a few nights with our friends Karen & Shawn while all this was being done. (Chemical fumes and pregnant ladies don't mix.)

Here are the latest photos:

New back door:



New beam between the kitchen and living room:



New floorboards where the wall used to be:



High-top bar built in the open space:



High-top bar (looking back into the dining room)



Ceramic floor installed:







Stairs re-finished:





And -- best of all -- the black crud is finally gone from the hallway upstairs!

More photos of the kitchen

The contractors are finished with the first week of work on the kitchen. So far, they've gutted the walls, ripped out the wall between the kitchen and dining room, re-done most of the electric, ripped up the layers upon layers of flooring, replaced the kitchen window, and put up drywall. Not too shabby for 5-days work.

In the meantime, we're living exclusively upstairs. But hopefully by next weekend, we'll be able to start cleaning up and moving back to the 1st floor.

Here's our upstairs "kitchen":


And here's our upstairs "dishwasher":


And here's how things are coming along downstairs:

Gutted kitchen walls...


Dining room wall removed...


New box window...


Drywall installed...


New inset lights in the ceiling...



Next week, the contractors will put the finishing touches on the wall and install our new tile floors. At the same time, we're also having our stairs and upstairs hallway re-sanded. After that, we might actually be able to move back downstairs. Hooray!

Something else ending this week...

In addition to marking the end of our kitchen, this week we're also marking the end of Ariella's second trimester.



At this point, the baby weighs almost two pounds, which (according to our weekly BabyCenter e-mails) means she's about the size of an "English Hothouse Cucumber". So you can add another "end" to this week: this is the last time you'll even hear our child compared to a European vegetable that's named after a brothel. Thank goodness.

Demolition Day!

If you've never been to see our house in person and you've been reading our blog, you may have wondered: "Why are there no pictures of the kitchen?". Well, lets just say the kitchen wasn't exactly one of the house's finest selling points.

In September we started planning, re-planning, and re-re-planning our kitchen renovation. A few weeks ago, Ariella cooked up a month's worth of food to store in our basement fridge.



Yesterday, we moved all the pots, pans and plates to the basement, took down our curtains, put a tarp over the sofa, and set up house entirely on our 2nd floor. And today (after nearly 10 months of living without a dishwasher) our contractor finally started demolition.

After one day, what was once an ugly kitchen is now... well... a really ugly kitchen. But by March, it'll be our dream kitchen. Here are some photos from day one.

Corner cabinets before:



Corner cabinets after:



View from the dining room before:



View from the dining room after:



View from the kitchen before:



View from the kitchen after:

Two big projects we're working on

At the moment, we've got two big projects that we've been working on for a while. The first, of course, is our addition to the family. Ariella is 22 weeks along, and looking more and more like an expectant mom each week.



Just before Christmas, we had our ultrasound and found out that we're having a girl! Here's a sneak peak...



The other project that's been in the works almost as long as the baby is our new kitchen.

We've been working with our contractor for several months, and have finalized our design, picked out our cabinets, and ordered the granite for our counter tops.

We chose a cherry wood with chesnut ebony glaze for our cabinets. When Andy's parents redecorated the kitchen in their Victorian in Putnam, they saved all the crystal knobs. Almost 20 years, later, we're going to use them in our Victorian.



Since we picked dark wood for the cabinets, we chose a light-colored granite for the counter tops.



If all goes well, our contractor will start ripping out the kitchen in the beginning of February. Our cabinets are supposed to arrive mid-February, which means the entire kitchen could be finished by early March.