Getting the hang of things...

Things are settling down, and we are settling in with our new little guy. The basement is humming along. We have the largest crew of plumbers down there right now. I think there are 5 guys in our basement. Should be lots of progress today. The electrician is coming this afternoon to go over our lighting/electrical plan... which involves outlets EVERYWHERE even in the ceiling. I really dislike not having enough outlets when you are in the middle of a project and having to use splitters and extension cords. The ceiling outlets will go over our work table, so cords will go up and out of the way rather than across the table and through the project.
And on an exciting note... Doctor Who season two started last night! and it was a double feature! Woo Hoo!!! We've been waiting all summer. Ewan slept through both episodes, so it was kind of a date night for the spouse and me.

Some sisterly loving...

I thought this picture was very darling of Miss Elsie and her new brother.

Tomorrow we will test Ewan's ability to sleep through construction noise as we will have the plumbers, the framers, and the furnace crew here. Should see some fantastic progress on the basement. The wonderful spouse is at his father's house with my dad making the counter for the bathroom. They are taking an old head board from a bed, cutting it up, and reassembling it as a bathroom vanity with legs. I will post pictures once it has been installed. Hopefully it will be as good as we envision.

No longer waiting....

Our little man arrived Thursday morning at 2:38am.... meet Ewan...




... note his lovely hand knitted accessories.

Just waiting....

Still here and still pregnant. Several times over the weekend, I had some strong contractions that raised my hopes, but they never amounted to more than three or four at a time. So here I sit... huge and tired. There are lot of things that I want to do, but just don't have the energy. I did some cleaning this morning and did some laundry. Just maintaining the house is overwhelming, let alone managing all the projects going on. Luckily my parents will be here tomorrow to help. I have a doctor's appointment tomorrow afternoon. So if I haven't had the baby by then, my doctor will schedule an induction (inducement?)... maybe even that night! Yay! The light at the end of the tunnel is shining brighter.
For now here is the basement progress...
Here is the before, taken in January....


and the current state of things...


and our new stairs...

you can kind of see how things are coming together with the bathroom. We had to move the furnace and will be replacing quite a bit of the duct work. The plumbers are coming today to move some supply lines and then the furnace guy comes on Wednesday to reinstall the furnace. Hopefully the framer can come Thurs or Fri and finish the framing. And somewhere in all this, we will be having a baby!
Here is the little stroller/car seat blanket I've been working on. It's about 21" square, so just big enough to cover, but not drag on the ground.

I was using it as a chance to practice picking up stitches. That is how the rib border is attached to the body. I think I should have used a size smaller needles for the rib. It's a little big and wavy, but the whole blanket is very soft, so it sort of works. I'm working on another small blanket now. They are good for using up bits and pieces of yarn.

Fall is in the air

There was definitely a crispness to the morning today. Summer is ending and a new season is starting. I cut this bouquet for my desk....

I love the color that hydrangeas turn as fall approaches... all these great muted colors. I'm running out of blooming plants. Watering has again not been a huge priority over the last week. My dahlias are in between flowers, so I cut what roses I could find to add to this bouquet.
The framers have been here all morning ripping and tearing. We can now walk upright down the stairs. YAY!

I have plaster dust everywhere, but am not complaining. I no longer have to fold myself in half to get down to the washer and dryer.
Dave and I dug out our vintage doors that we will be using in the basement- a mostly glass one for the laundry room and a panel door with a window that will lead from the studio into the work shop. Hopefully the windows will allow some of the light to travel around from room to room. I dusted them off and washed the windows... they look so good! They came with the house when Dave bought it and have been stacked in the basement for over 10 years. Now they will finally have a home. We just have to figure out how to put them in a door jamb. Apparently the framer just frames the opening and does not hang the doors. Always something to learn.

We have stairs.... sort of

This is the current state of the stairs as they were left on Friday....


Note the clearance between the landing and the wall... about 2.5 feet. Now imagine a 37 week pregnant lady stuffing herself down these stairs... funny, huh? We feel like we have our own Winchester Mystery House. The framers will be back tomorrow to do the demolition of the wall and create an open stairwell. In the meantime, we have discovered that the furnace is going to have to move... something we had hoped not to do, but really needs to be done. I'm waiting for a furnace guy to show up and provide his insight into our aging duct work dilemma.
My wonderful, wonderful friend, Ilena, flew into town Thursday night and helped me finish some cleaning and sorting. We have a good start on turning the upstairs bedroom (my studio space) into a little girl's bedroom. Here is the before...

... this is the only picture I have. And then after sorting, cleaning, moving and piling for 3 hours, we managed to have everything cleared out...

... and started the prep for painting.

I found this picture in a magazine...

... of this darling little alcove with drapes and a chandelier. We are going to do something like this for Miss E.
Lot's of activity going on....

Quiet day....

Miss Elsie started preschool on Tuesday. She goes three mornings each week, so that gives me some quiet time to rest. This morning I finished Elsie's green socks...

She saw me knitting the little ones for the new baby and wanted some for herself. She picked out the green yarn, because she doesn't have any green socks. So I spent this morning tucked in my chair with my feet up, watching Cabaret and knitting. Very restful and my ankles and feet (recently known as cankles) are not as swollen today as they usually are.
Last night I had some seriously strong contractions about 4 minutes apart and thought we might be heading to the hospital sometime during the night. Alas, that was not the case. So I thought I should just rest today since I kept waking up at night every couple of hours.
My best friend is arriving in one hour to help me for a few days. YAY! She is going to help me clean and sort some things and finish up some projects before the baby arrives. I am so thankful. She is an absolute gem, and I'm just plain excited to see her anyway... even if we don't get many things done.
The framers will be back tomorrow at 8am sharp... hopefully I will have a staircase by the end of the day.... that would be nice.

Dahlia's for the Day

Here is the current bouquet on my desk...

The purplish ones are Voodoo (I think). The spiky fuchsia one on the lower right is a Juanita- one of my favorite cactus style dahlias. It is usually a prolific bloomer but the plant had an accident this summer and is still recovering. The orange ones are Swan's Olympic Flame. The rose buds are from Jude the Obscure- a David Austin English Rose.
There was a slight misunderstanding on my part with the plumbers. Apparently they were coming yesterday just to pick up their tools and NOT do anymore work. I had them at least hook up the utility sink, so we have running water down there for clean up etc. They will not be back until the framing is done, so for now we have two water heaters in the basement and few things unfinished.
The good news is that the framer arrived this morning at 7:45am and will be ripping out the stairs today. So we have a big sign on the basement door....

I like to get an early start on things, so the framer and I are going to get along perfectly. He is currently out buying lumber. I will post pictures as things progress.

Let there be light... and no more piles of dirt

Today the last two windows were installed in the basement. The new one lets in so much more light. When you look out all you see is my cutting garden which is mostly green due to the mermaid camelia and the passion flower which is blooming.... just lovely. Also the floor is complete once again. The plumbers are coming back tomorrow (at 8am and they are punctual) to finish up.


We still have the old water heater in the laundry room. They will hook up the new one which is in a new location and cart the old one away.


This will give me more space in the laundry room to have a table and other things. The laundry room will have a wall built across the end separating it from the workshop and the sawdust. We want to put a glass door in, so all the light from the laundry room will shine into the workshop. We are not doing much to the workshop, so it will be the darkest part of the basement for awhile.
I can't wait for things to be finished.

Flowers for the day....

I think I've finally found the best room in my house to use for pictures... the bathroom! All the walls are white, so there is lots of indirect light....

This is a Papageno dahlia. Usually they have a bit more brownish and orange streaks to the petals, but this blossom broke a few days ago and has been pointing straight down. Without the sun on the blossom, the colors do not develop fully.
Good news! Dad is coming home from the hospital today! He had a small heart attack, but there appears to be no lasting damage. They did not have to put in stints or do any surgery. They should be back at the farm by early afternoon, and he will be okay to travel in two weeks. We are all very relieved.