Levav's Room

One month and a few days into our new house adventure and most of the rooms are kind of done. Done enough that there's nothing really terribly offensive (not you kitchen and bathrooms, you are terribly offensive), but still there are things everywhere I look that I want to change big time (just a start, our room needs a headboard,  the entryway needs an upgrade from an accident-waiting-to happen glass shelf to a proper console, the guest room needs built ins demoed and needs nightstands, the dining room needs a side table, the kitchen needs a table, the living room needs paint - I can go on, really). Except the boys rooms. Those are mostly mostly done. And, somehow, of all the rooms in the house, the room that is the most finished is occupied by the person that notices that least. 

Other then evenually updating the blinds and getting a new ceiling fixture, Lev's room is all set, from the big things, new carpet and wall color, to the little, painted picture frames and little set ups on the built in window credenza.

If only this room wasn't the host of daily "please don't make me go to sleep mommy" nighttime melt downs. Sad face so you can get a taste of what it means to put this poor sad sack to bed.  In short: it's so sad!

Goodbye Golden Girls!

In the house, we each had our "most hated" wallpaper. Mine was the flowery vines in Eitan's room that made me feel like I was going to be attacked by it- something out of Little Shop of Horrors.




Ami's was definitely the "Golden Girls" textured pink and seafoam beauty that was all over our big living room wall and entry way.

The bedrooms de-wallpapered first because new carpeting was coming in there and we didn't want to have little shreds of it all over our fresh carpet, so the Golden Girls beauty got a few extra weeks before being evicted. 

Ah...the look of fresh, clean, ready to paint walls! And three trash bags FULL of wallpaper. 

Now we're just paralyzed with paint color choices. So not like us, right? But this is a big room that doesn't get very bright despite the huge windows, and we teeter between wanting to go bold and being scared...at least nothing as scary as the GG wallpaper haunts us anymore!

Band Practice

We had a great day a couple Sundays ago with a visit from the Levins and a stop by from the Vanderwaldes. Loved watching our kiddos play together with all sorts of musical instruments, especially Molly's repeating to us "quiet on the deck" so they could perform.

Poor little Levavi did not get an instrument, but here's the former DC gang band:

Molly Levin on Blow Piano

Will Levin on Ukelele

Caleb Vanderwalde on Piano/Xylephone combo (genius!)

Eitan Rozmaryn  on Bongo Drum

You'll thank me later for NOT posting the melodies these children produced...

Brothers

Taking a break from house related updates to share photos of these two silly guys. 

Recently, after so many "maybe he's cranky because he's teething" false starts, the baby guy has a little tooth dagger coming in!! Hooray for teeth! Boo for teething!

Moments after Eitan comes up to poor unassuming baby and rips the toy out of his hand.

Hooray for hair pulling! It's about time this boy learned how to fight back from Eitan the menace!

And so it begins. Brother on Brother violence both ways. Look at those mischievous little faces!

Stereotype Much?

Looking through pictures that I took the last week or so I noticed two big stereotypical mom/dad moments, even better if I put them together in one post...

Eitan using his tools with Daddy and Uncle Elan- updating the 29 (!!!) outlets in our house from two to three prong- so they have grounding and are safe. Also so we can plug in computers and other such things. Look at that little tough guy with his matching tool box!

Aaand, baking challah with Mommy! For our first Shabbat in our new house, I broke out the bread machine, and for the first time since October 2011, when he was just a year old, and Levs wasn't even a thought,  we made challah. Eitan was my best helper dumping ingredients in and then dutifully watching the machine spin the dough. Levs was a helper by not screaming and chomping away at pretzels. Unfortunately for them, when the time came to braid the dough and bake it, they were were napping, that's the real fun part. Next time..

Yes, that is a Passover Vacations apron. See you in 2011 at the Fairmont Mayakoba!

A DIY Baby

I mean, we did make him ourselves, but it's increasingly obvious that this little fella lives in a house that is under construction:

Exhibit A: He got to the sliding doors in the living room before all the trim paint fully dried. Whoops. That white paint made the CUTEST mustache though! 

Exhibit B: Power tool boxes= baby's best friend

More on the steamer in a couple of days, but as a sneak preview, the beautiful wallpaper behind the little fella, thanks to a 9pm "I need to rip down this right now" itch and that steamer now amount to a clean ready-to-paint living room!

Cleaning up, up on the roof

Here we go. Home improvement up on the roof. The roof of the house had little leafy things all over it, and our gutters were so clogged in one section that plants were growing out of it. Awesome.

Up on the roof went Ami to sweep and clean out:

New House- Week 1!

Just a week ago the moving truck was pulling up to the house with furniture and our stuff that we hadn't seen in a year and a half.

Since then, we have spent every single day working to turn it into our home. Ami's the chief do-er, I'm the creative director and cleaner-upper, and so far, we're getting there.

We're focusing on a little bit in all the rooms we really use- the three downstairs bedrooms and the den, and doing a bit everywhere instead of working on one room at a time and completing it soup to nuts. Before we moved in we had new carpeting in, our room was wallpaper stripped and painted and the boys rooms had the wallpaper stripped.

So here's where we are!

Eitan's room: down came the wallpaper, up came the hot blue carpeting, in came new paint and carpet. I painted that little table that I got at a thrift store for 5 dollars (and still need to find more chairs/stools) and have some things in frames that need to go up on the wall.

The nightstand was mine from my room growing up, and was also in Eitan's nursery in our DC condo. The bed was left to us by our sellers (and there's a matching second one that we have in storage too). I'm thinking about painting the headboard in that navy shiny paint to match the table.

Eitan LOVES his big boy bed! He gets so excited to get in there and thankfully (poo, poo, poo) hasn't rolled out yet.

Levav's room: down came the pink trellis wallpaper and up came the hot pink carpeting, in came new paint and carpet. The furniture was all from our DC apartment in Eitan's room. The globe was left behind by the homeowners (and it's SO old with the countries to prove it- awesome), and we need to hang up lots of stuff.

Sweet boy on his rocking chair, and new blanket that matches the room PERFECTLY thank you Uncle Murray and Aunt Eileen Rothman!

Our room: down came crazy wallpaper, hot grass green shag carpeting, in came new wall color and carpet (sensing a theme?). We took down heavy floral drapes and put up new curtain rod and breezy white panels. The sellers left us that green chair (love them!), and we got the dressers off craigslist for $200 last month. We still need to build a headboard (I found fabric that I love last month) and add art and install sconce lamps on either side of the bed. Also put a light bulb in the floor lamp.

Our room is awesome because it looks into the backyard and at night the lighting bugs go crazy out there. And it's really beautiful to wake up to.

The den: we left the wallpaper for now because it's not really offensive, just textured, but put in new carpeting. I need to paint that little table in the corner there and we're thinking about staining or painting those built ins...

So that's what we've been up to this week. Sorry about the laundry bin, unmade beds, general un-done-ness, but this is what we've been up to. I promise to post more as we get more done. Oh and the other two bedrooms and living room/kitchen/dining room which are so not ready for the internet viewing public yet...