How is it already the end of February? I had all these grand plans to get a blog post up last week and then with another one today, but now that Chase is crawling and hates being confined to his exersaucer or my lap, the only time I have to write is during his morning nap. And really, I'd much rather take that 45-60 minutes to catch up on my sleep, as well. (In defense of my apparent laziness: Chase is still waking up 1-2 times/night, and my perpetual exhaustion isn't good for anyone in this household.) So we'll make the most out of this single post.

1) First and most important (drum roll puh-lease): We have finally finished the living room wall! F-i-n-a-l-l-y.

You may recall that it all began like this:

Not only was the paint ugly (Seriously, pink and yellow? Did an 8-year-old girl pick the colors?), it was bubbling out from the wall, so we started to peel it:

But that task was more than my fingernails could handle, so mom and dad were kind enough to strip it for us while we were in Florida (no, not at Christmas) ... last summer. When we got home, I primed half of it. So it looked like this for a while. A loooong while:

Eventually I mustered up the energy to prime (because, dear previous owners, that is what you need to do to wood paneling so that the latex doesn't peel straight off. Idiots.):

Two coats of primer and two more coats of paint later, and we've got:

Yay! We even installed the coat rack! So we don't have to keep our jackets in the same closet as the litter box!!

2) Erik installed the sink/cabinet in the upstairs bathroom! So now we're down to just one huge, unopened box in the office/guest room: the dishwasher. Because every good office needs clean dishes. Anyways, let's focus on the positive: the bathroom looks about 10 times better without the old pedestal sink. Here's before, from when we first moved in:

During the reno, we unearthed some 50s-chic turquoise tiles (just in case you weren't disgusted enough by the peach paint):

And after (Please ignore the mess reflected in the mirror. That's obviously some sort of parallel universe, not my pristine bathroom.):

3) We did a little baby-proofing! First, I installed a baby gate at the top of the stairs (no pic because it's super-boring). Second, I (again, finally) organized the bookshelves in our living room and made the kid-level shelves kid-friendly. I'm very happy with the results, and with the organization - alphabetical by subject, natch:

There's a lot more to share -mostly back-log projects that I never posted because, well, we'd get about 85% done and then decide that was good enough- but Chase is up, so they'll have to wait.