Under Pressure

I'm taking a break from blogging about KT's room. Mainly, because we haven't done much since the last update. Okay, Jeff filled in the nail holes with putty, but I hardly think that would of made for riveting, on the edge of your seat blogging. Not that this an adventure/thrill blog, but you know, I've got to weed out some stuff.

So what else has been going on besides Colleen getting bigger (i.e. fatter) and baking the bun in my proverbial oven? Well, I had my first wedding shoot this past weekend. It was interesting to say the least...

Let's just say things didn't pan out as smoothly as I would of liked. The experience taught me a lot. Mainly... that I don't think I'm ready to shoot weddings yet (not that I had envisioned myself going in this path, but one every once in awhile wouldn't hurt). Secondly, it's a lot of pressure to shoot someone's wedding. That doesn't bode well for a person who is a huge ball of stress anyway. And while I'm outgoing in personality, I don't think I possess the suaveness of true photographers enough to mingle with the guests and get shots of groups. I think I really dropped the ball on that aspect.

And probably the BIGGEST lesson I learned was night photography is hard. Very hard. Particularly when the lighting goes from lights to darkness to sunset to dusk. I have a flash, it's true, and I mostly know how to use it. But, I could always go for more lessons because shooting on the spot and trying to get lighting just right is difficult.

So for the course of the next few days, I'm spending my evenings editing and cleaning up photos and hoping I got enough good shots that the bride doesn't strangle me and question why she hired me in the first place.

And boy, did I underestimate how hard this would be at 5 months prego (*wait* holy crap!! I'm five months pregnant!! Where has the time gone?!?) ... My poor feet felt like someone had taken a meat tenderizer to the bottom of them. I figured out that this is why pregnant women waddle. It's not the weight, and it's not the baby. It's the feet hurting so bad you have to rock back and forth quickly from one to the other.

So there, is that enough whining for you tonight? lol. Next one will be more upbeat (I hope).

KT's Room Update: Wainscoting - Part 2

Jeff did some more work on the wainscoting tonight - the vertical slats are up! Next step, painting! Lookin' good if I do say so myself.

KT's Room Update: Wainscoting

Our weekend plans to work on the nursery took a slight detour when we learned last week that Jeff's cousin, Daniel, was killed in a car accident. It was very upsetting news to say the least, particularly because he was 31 years old and left behind 2 kids and a fiancee. We spent most of our Saturday on the road to Dallas. The service was nice and there were several great remembrances from his friends, fiancee and sister. I had met Daniel only a handful of times. He was at our wedding, and the memory that I have of him is of a smiley guy that seemed like a kid at heart. He was obviously a very popular guy, if the attendance at his memorial service was any indication. My heart goes out to his family and close friends.

We got in late last night, and I decided to have mercy on Jeff and let him go golfing this morning :) - you like that? "let him" :) I hardly have that type of control, nor do I want that! But you get the idea. So when he and my Dad returned this afternoon, I decided to create the most welcoming scenario - a nice warm, chicken and dumpling meal cooking in the crock pot and some freshly baked pumpkin bread. The catch? I'm going to need some more work done on that wainscoting in the nursery. Chip chop chip (<---Gaffigan reference for the non-fans).

We still have to put in the vertical boards, but at least the top and bottom of the wainscoting is finito! Pardon the mess and also try to imagine the boards painted white. Here's some pics:

Update: Flooring Finished (95%)

It's almost done - my husband is awesome :) (note: I did not force him to do this all in one evening, it was self-motivated). But he did it, and it looks great! We just need to do a few more cuts and we've it all done.

Just a quick note on the flooring. While everyone wants a hardwood floor, we needed to be practical, particularly for the neighborhood we live in. We both thought hardwood would not be a good investment for this house, and let's face it, it's a budget buster to the extreme. So we decided to look at pre-engineered hardwood and laminate flooring instead. We finally decided on one we liked in the laminate section and we news Lumber Liquidators was having a sale in which we got an add'l .20 off a sq. ft. which was a decent discount. We also compared to flooring at Lowe's and Home Depot but just kept coming back to this one: St. James 12mm Bond Street Teak The color is actually a bit darker than the website shows, and I was pleased with all the positive reviews! I'll be posting one myself after we decide the wear and tear on this badboy!

Here are pics!

Progress

Short and sweet post - we're in the midst of installing the flooring. Well not so much we as just Jeff. I really haven't helped at all. Oh no, wait...yes I have. I handed him a board. Hey, that's helping! Anyway, here are some shots, we still have a ways to go, but maybe it will be finished by tomorrow night? And then on to wainscoting. Don't forget to click the image to see the full size.

KT's Room - The First Step

Yesterday, while Mom and I went to see Mamma Mia! at the Majestic (which was fantastic by the way), Jeff was busy ripping up the carpet and base boards in KT's room. We are planning for next weekend to be a work weekend to get the paint up, the wainscoting up and painted and installation of the flooring. That way I can move what furniture we DO have in there and we can have some room back in our garage (it's full!).

I think some of my impatience has started to rub off on Jeff (or maybe he's just excited) but he wanted to get the teal paint up on the wall's tonight, so that's what we....okay, mostly HIM... worked on. Yes family and concerned friends, I wore a mask so I didn't breathe in the toxic fumes and I took breaks when I needed too. Jeff did 90% of the work - love him!

Tomorrow he's planning on adding the top board for the wainscoting to get that ready. I'll try to document the installation of this. We actually got the idea from a google search in which I found a series of photos on a Flickr site that a couple had done for their daughter's nursery! It looked great. So I'll return the favor for some newbie parents in the future looking for ideas.

Here's a few pics from tonight's handiwork (the 2nd pic is probably the closest pic to the actual color):

this is how it started

after the first couple of strokes were up

i wore a mask - proof!

jeff putting on the finishing touches

robot voice:
painting complete. on to wainscoting.

Decisions: The Name and The Room

If you don't know by now (since I can't seem to hold a secret :P) we are naming the baby Katherine Teal but calling her K.T. (pronounced Katie).

I remember my Mother telling me a long time ago (pre-marriage, I believe) that when I had kids, I had to make sure one of them had a Saint's name. If your Catholic or know of Catholic traditions, this may make sense to you. The rest of you are probably shaking your heads. But seriously, this is something that stuck - and while I'm not a practicing Catholic anymore, I've still got the guilt thing stuck in my conscience pretty good. So all the names I've ever come up with satisfy this requirement. It was a hard decision, with so many great Female Saint names such as Ermenberga, Agathoclia, Darulagdach and Trypbaena. Personally, I thought Ermenberga Teal sounded beautiful... no? *wink*

So we decided to go with a traditional Saint's name, and chose Katherine for her first name. My first name is Katherine, but I don't really think we are naming her after me. I really just like the name and both Jeff and I agreed that it was beautiful. And hey, would you look at that, it's a Saints name. *check*

The middle name you may be wondering about - Teal!? Isn't that a color?! Why would you name your kid after a color?! But, we are actually naming her after Jeff's grandma. Her name is Lucille, but her nickname is "Teal" and I always thought that was such a cool, unique name. Interestingly enough, I knew a girl named Teal my first semester in college. So see, it's more common than you think (and also one of my favorite colors)! But the more and more I mulled over the name, the more and more I liked it. So we settled on it - the critics be damned!

So there you go, Katherine Teal Koenig - KT Koenig :) - prepare yourselves.

Now on to the ROOM! This whole decorating a girl's room has actually come a lot easier than I thought it would. I really had no idea what I was going to do a week ago. The moment that doctor said, "Girl" my mind started cranking. I am not an interior decorator by ANY means. Actually, I think I'm pretty horrible at it, but I want her to have a kickin' baby's room - so I started thinking and planning and it all came pretty easy. Behold, the storyboard (click on image to enlarge):
First off, the paint color was a given (don't you think?) - we decided on a teal color and we actually picked it out last weekend and did some sampling in the room. I've convinced Jeff to do some wainscoting on the bottom half of the room. While I LOVE the color - the entire room in it would be a bit overwhelming. So I'm breaking it up. The wainscoting will be white.

Jeff and I've had this IKEA dresser for several years but back in December we replaced our bedroom furniture but held on to this for obvious reasons. I love this dresser. It's huge and practical and the top is wide enough for a changing table. The color is black-brown but honestly it just looks black - so i built the baby furniture around that.

Mom and I visited Babies R Us yesterday while the guys were biking - and we found the most awesome deal on a crib. It's black and exactly the style I wanted and get this - 45% off - YES, PLEASE! So we bought it! *check*

Now I just need a mattress (which my mother-in-law has offered to take care of - thanks, Debbie!) and a rocker/glider or recliner and a rug (hot pink shag) which Jeff and I will get. We also bought flooring last week because the carpet in her room is just NASTY. Having 3 animals can really gross out a carpet. And while we could of had it steam-cleaned, I felt that all that hair would just weave it's way back into the carpet. We found a really good deal on some flooring at Lumber Liquidators. We looked at both pre-engineered hardwood and laminate and ended up with the latter. It actually looks really nice. I'm excited to get it installed.

Baby stuff is super cute, but I have to admit something - everything is in PASTELS. Don't get me wrong, pastels are cute, but they are not me. And since this baby is a mini-me (I can wish!) I can't see it as her style, either - so I'm pumping this room up. I want to bring in fabrics that have hot pink, bright yellow, green and oranges in rich saturated colors. I think it will look pretty awesome. I'm also planning on using taupe to balance some things out and prevent me from going too crazy!

The fabrics on my storyboard are just examples of the type of fabric I'm looking for - something that has all the colors in a pattern but also balancing it with solid colors as well.

Overall, I really like the idea - I hope we are able to make it work. I plan on taking pics along the way and documenting them either here on my blog or on my Flickr site - so make sure to check them both out!