Preview: Baby's Room

We are without all of the nursery essentials, but here's the preview of what's to come. When we moved in, this bedroom was baby blue. Two little boys lived here before us, so it worked for the previous homeowners. Not so much for us, as baby Christensen's gender is still a mystery. So prior to Thanksgiving, we had the middle bedroom repainted. At that time, we weren't pregnant. Funny how things work out.

We chose a neutral: "cream cloak". As you can see, it has a very soft green hue. In a room without a lot of natural light, this color really helps keep a bright and light feeling. We were considering a lively yellow....and well, it was a little too lively when we got the sample on the wall. Thank goodness for paint samples.

Here's the result:

Next step will be to swap the ceiling fan with the one in our bedroom (Josh broke this one in an attempt to change the light bulb). Then it will be time for furniture and accessories. Stay tuned for the finished product. It's got to be ready before August!

...and then we sawed our bed in half.

Step 1: Remove staples and box spring cover.

Step 2: Saw box spring in half.

Step 3: Fold bed in half.

At this point, you may be wondering why we cut our bed in half.  Practice for future work in divorce law?  As a magician?  Unfortunately, the truth is not so exciting.  

It turns out that our the stairway to our basement isn't tall enough for a queen-size bed spring.  Our first thought was to build a new platform for the bed in the basement, which would avoid needing to make it downstairs.  Then, while searching for ways to make one, I came across a bunch of articles titled, "How to cut your bed in half."  I was intrigued.  It turns out, not surprisingly, that we weren't the first people to have had this problem.  

The next step was to convince Renee, as we actually had a person lined up from Craig's List to buy our box spring.  At first, I think she pictured me grabbing a chainsaw and hacking the bed in half.  But, once I showed her my plan...well, you can see the results.

Step 4: Rebuild the box spring with new boards.

Step 5: Reattach cover.

Complete!  Hopefully our guests enjoy the queen-sized bed.

Happy Birthday, Josh!

Here's an early birthday wish, babe! There's a couple dozen of these waiting for you when you get home. Love you!

Honey buns!

Nope, not talking about Josh. Here's a good recipe worth checking out for a sweet breakfast treat. http://www.marthastewart.com/354671/honey-buns

Jake update

Jake really likes soft toys that squeak. We discovered this when we bought him one of his first toys: a sock monkey. He loved this toy a little too much, and though I tried to mend Monkey several times, he's since departed the Christensen homestead. Sorry, Jake! Monkey had to go!Monkey with a mended butt.

Here's Monkey. At this point, he's lost an arm and an ear.

Here's Jake recently (underneath my feet, as usual). You can also see the banister-railing sanding project is still going on. A good improvement since September!

The inner hallway - a work in progress

You may be asking yourself, "what have the Christensen's been up to?". Yes, faithful reader, it has been sometime since we created a blog entry. That's not to say that we haven't been doing anything blog worthy; on the contrary!

The last 2 months or so have been a focus on the inner hallway, downstairs and upstairs. When we moved in, there was a beige paint color (surprise! more beige!), and perhaps one of the worst pain jobs Josh and I have ever seen. Here are the before pictures to give you a vague idea:

Now with the high walls, and an ever decreasing amount of time, we decided to call in the professionals to help us get this done. The day before the painters were to arrive, I discovered that our banister and railing "only" had 1-2 layers of white paint covering the original wood. Well, one thing led to another....

And well, you get the idea....Needless to say, we are still sanding the last bits of paint off the railing. Josh has wanted to kill me several times since we started this, but I hope that once this is done we can enjoy how beautiful it will make our home. It looks much better than this right now, but we'll post a big finale picture once the work is complete...hopefully soon.

Here's the nearly final work product: crisp, glacier white walls. Surprising that we went with white, after all, but there was something so classic and clean (and bright) with choosing white for this space.

This weekend we hung a little collection of frames. We still have to fill most of them with family photos, but we've got it started with a couple of wedding pictures and my baby picture.

Here's the downstairs entryway: nice and bright with a new rug and greeting card holder that Josh made himself (with my urging!) with a salvaged window frame. He did a fantastic job, right? Now you all know that when you send Josh and me a greeting card, it will grace our front entryway as an ever changing piece of art. Can't wait until Christmas cards start rolling in...

Josh, Renee & Jake Go Hiking!

One month ago, we were lucky to adopt a great dog from the Washington Animal Rescue League. So please welcome the newest member of the Christensen family -- Jake!

In an effort to tire Jake out, we decided to pack up the car and head out of town to the beautiful Shenandoah National Park. It's a relatively short 75 miles from DC. Little did we know, these are some serious trails! We took most of these pictures before we were dripping in sweat. One or two might even make the Christmas card this year.