Rocking Chair Redo

A few years ago, I bought a glider rocking chair and ottoman off of Craigslist.  It was only $10!  The fabric was worn and old, but it worked just fine.

Remember this?  Worn out green fabric and a lumpy/flat seat cushion.

When I was getting Andrew's room ready for his arrival, I came up with a plan for the glider.  I was going to recover the cushions with much better/cleaner/newer/prettier fabric!  As I thought about it though, I realized that I needed help.  I also realized that the seat cushion needed to be replaced completely- it was just so flattened and flimsy.  Also, I didn't think my sewing machine would be able to handle sewing through the foam on the back cushion.  And I needed a staple gun.

Well, it just didn't happen before Andrew was born.  In March, there was a sale on home decor fabrics so I went fabric shopping with my mom and sis-in-law while Aaron, Austin, and my dad stayed home with the kids.  We found the perfect one for my glider and it was super cheap too- if I remember correctly it was under $30 total.

Over General Conference weekend, my mom and I tackled the project.  We ended up buying new foam for the seat, as well as some more foam to supplement the back.  We also decided not to sew though the foam, like it had been on the old cover.  Anyway, we finished the cushions that weekend, so all I had to do was make straps with velcro for fastening the cushions to the chair, and the ottoman.  I borrowed Dad's staple gun and brought everything home to finish up.

Well it took me a few weeks.  I decided to make the straps by hand because I didn't want the hassle of getting out my sewing machine for such a quick job.  It turned out to be not such a quick job because of it.  Sewing by hand takes a long time!  But finally I finished the chair, after watching a lot of Netflix during Andrew's naps while sewing with a needle and thread.

I was always afraid to use the staple gun while Andrew was asleep- I didn't want to wake him up and that seemed to be the only time I had to work on projects like this.  Eventually I sucked it up and did the ottoman after he was in bed for the night.  I listened carefully to the monitor for the first few staples, but he didn't stir at all.

So FINALLY my project is done- just in time for me to not need it in the middle of the night anymore...  of course.  I still use it occasionally, but most of the time during the day I nurse Andrew in the living room.  Oh well, it is much more comfortable now and much more attractive too!

Total cost for this project: about $55 for chair, fabric, and foam.  I already had the velcro and thread, and I borrowed the staple gun and my mom's skills :)  I think that's pretty great, considering these chairs go for over $100 new.  And I even have a bunch of fabric left over, so I think I'll be making some throw pillows, or maybe a big floor pillow to match.

Baby's Room

I think our baby's room is finally ready (except for a few little things, like a laundry basket and diaper disposal) so Gummy Bear can come any time now!  Not that he'll even be sleeping in his room at first... he'll be in a bassinet in our room for the first little while.

Before we know his gender, we planned two color schemes for the room.  It would be turquoise and orange if he turned out to be a boy, and turquoise and pink if he had been a girl.  So we were able to start getting turquoise things for the room pretty early on.  And we went with white furniture (more details about the changing table here, in case you missed it), so that the color would really come from the accessories and bedding.  We painted the room a neutral-ish blue ("Quiet Rain") when we moved in and decided not to repaint for this baby.  It's probably not the best wall color for the color schemes we chose but it's not the worst either.  Too much work to repaint, since we're hoping to not be in this rental apartment long term.  And the curtains we have in here don't match the new color scheme... oops.  Maybe we'll get around to changing those.  But maybe not.

View from the door.  His room is also the computer room.

View from the rocking chair.

View from the crib.

The changing table.

The crib.

My mom made this awesome quilt too and I think it ties the room together really well!  Thanks Mom!

The quilt.

*Update:  I redid the glider rocking chair so it would look better and be more comfortable.  Click here to see it.

From Entertainment Unit to Changing Table

We finally finished our changing table project last week!

When we moved into our apartment over a year ago, my parents gave us their old entertainment center.  They had upgraded to a flat screen TV, so the unit no longer worked for them.  We still had a tube TV, so it worked.  But when we upgraded our TV too, the unit became a storage center in our second bedroom.

When we found out we were expecting, we knew we would have to rearrange the second bedroom to accommodate all the new baby furniture, so we planned on getting rid of the unit.

But then I saw this changing table online, and came up with an idea!

We could re-purpose the unit into a change table!  It would be perfect because it would be a change table AND storage.  So I talked to my dad, who said he could help (which was good, because I needed the help).  We want the baby's furniture to be white, so this project was going to involve cutting, rebuilding, and painting.  So he came up for a day, and we cut the top, lowered it on the one side, and primed it.

Aaron and I painted it.

My dad cut and primed some plywood for a new backing to replace the old cardboard backing, and I painted it.  Aaron and I attached it just last week and the change table is officially complete!

Now I just need to order the changing pad and it'll be ready to go!

I think it turned out really well!


*Update: Click here to see how it looks in the finished nursery!

New Couch!

So up until the end of October, we were using these:

This set is about as old as me.  Now, I know I'm not THAT old, but for a couch... well, they needed to be replaced.  My parents bought this couch and chair new years ago, and until it moved up here with us, they were sitting in my parents' basement, seeing little use.

Well, we put them up on craigslist and found a new home for them at the end of October, because we bought a new couch!  (Side note, when we were moving the old set out of our apartment, we found a duplo block rattling around in the base...  how long it's been in there, I have no idea...)

I love it.  It's so comfy and pretty, and even came with the leather ottoman!  Now I just have to figure out what to put on the walls above it!  (Suggestions welcome!)

Long Post- to Catch up

I'm going to apologize in advance, because I think this is going to be a loaded post.  I keep meaning to go back and write individual posts about things that have happened since we moved here, but I just don't think that's going to happen.  The only reason this post is even happening is that my office doesn't have power at the moment, so I'm at home for the day (or however long the power is out).

So we moved in at the beginning of June.  We had driven out here with as much as we could fit in the car and everything else was left in a storage unit in Provo, knowing that Aaron's work would be moving all of our stuff for us.  So here we were, in this grand apartment... with no stuff.

Ok, we weren't entirely stuff-less.  My parents were generous enough to give/lend us a bunch of stuff.  So in addition to the stuff we could fit in the car (mostly clothes, food, computer, wii, and basic cleaning supplies) we had a couch and chair (about as old as me- I grew up with it), an entertainment unit and TV, a round folding table, 4 really uncomfortable metal folding chairs, a desk, 3 old bookcases, and the bedroom set that we bought cheap.  The china cabinet didn't come until later.

A week after we moved in, Aaron left to spend a month in Utah, working at his old job and hoping the movers would come get our stuff.  We didn't know it was going to be a whole month, but that's just how long it ended up.  Meanwhile, I was starting work at a metal recycling place, handling the exports for the company.  Also during that time, my parents came up to help me paint the apartment and I spent pretty much every weekend down in Manassas.  In mid July, hubby came home, just on time to see Harry Potter with me!  (I'm going to have to write a separate Harry Potter post, to say goodbye.)

2nd bedroom- "Quiet Rain"

 

 

Living Room- "Dapper Tan"

 

  

 

Master Bedroom- "Muted Sage"

No painting party is complete without root beer floats

At Harry Potter

However, Aaron came home... without our stuff.  The movers were apparently super booked and super understaffed, so they wouldn't be able to get our stuff moved until the beginning of August.  UGH.  So Aaron was home for a couple of weeks and then he went back out there for a few days to get our stuff loaded and turn in our storage keys.

The movers came on August 21st to deliver everything.  Let me remind you that we didn't have all that much stuff.  We lived in a furnished apartment in Provo, so we had almost no furniture.  Well, the movers came in a big tractor trailer.  We were the last ones on the load to be delivered, so it was our 4 feet of packed boxes in a 53' trailer.  Nice.  They were supposed to be there at 8am but they didn't end up at our apartment until like 10:30 or 11:00.  Anyway, it all got unloaded and carried up to our third floor apartment in a few hours.  And then the mess began.

That was a week ago.  Aaron started work on Monday, and we've spent every evening and all weekend this past weekend unpacking everything and trying to figure out where it all goes.  Well, we're finally done!  The only stuff that still needs a place are the decorative things and our board games.  Oh, and my sewing/craft supplies, which needs a desk.

Phew.  Congrats.  You made it.  Next up:  Earthquake and Hurricane.

New Apartment!

So right after Natalie's wedding weekend,  Aaron and I moved into our new apartment in Odenton, MD!  I love it.

Let's compare and contrast the old and new apartments, shall we...

Old apartment:

• 1 bedroom
• 1 bathroom
• 2 windows
• Icky paint color that we couldn't change
• No soundproofing between units
• loud upstairs neighbors
• Oven 100° too hot
• Swimming pool

New apartment:

• 2 bedrooms
• 2 bathrooms
• Lots of windows- corner apartment
• Paintable walls
• Completely sound proof
• No upstairs neighbors
• Properly functioning appliances
• Several outdoor pools, indoor pool, 2 weight rooms
• Private balcony
• Vaulted ceiling in living room
• Separate dining room
• Laundry room

Is it just me, or does the new apartment sound WAY better than the old one?  :)  I'll have to put up pictures sometime.  We painted and it looks awesome.

My parents gave us some furniture, and let us borrow other furniture to hold us over until we buy new stuff.  Aaron will be starting his new job next week and we'll be able to start getting some nice new stuff soon!  We already got a mattress set from Costco, a complete bedroom set from the ReStore (only $180!), and  a china cabinet from the ReStore.  I'm so excited to get the rest of the furniture- too bad the good stuff is so expensive!

Anyway, it's definitely an upgrade from our last place and it's great!

Life Lately

Things have been a little crazy recently.  A little explanation...

You may not know, but Aaron got a "conditional" job offer a while back.  This is super exciting!  It's a government job and it's only about an hour and a half from where my parents live.  It's not his dream job, but it's in a great location, good salary, and it's a great stepping stone toward what he really wants to do.  It's "conditional" because it's not official yet- not until they finish the background check and polygraph testing and whatever else they have to do to get his security clearance.  And obviously he can't start work until that's all done, but they're trying to get it all done so he can start soon after graduation.  So the week of my birthday, the background checker was in town, talking to Aaron's coworkers, friends, boss, etc., and Aaron (of course).  And then Aaron flew out to the east coast this past week to do some more stuff for this job.  On the way to the airport, our check engine light came on.  Yikes.  So we had to get the rest of the way to SLC and I had to drive back to Provo with the light on.  We haven't noticed anything too weird though, but we took the car in tonight to get it checked out.  Fortunately there wasn't anything really wrong.  Apparently our car just didn't get as hot as cars normally do when driving under the conditions we were.  So good news!

Our apartment also got painted last week, right before Aaron left.  This was the most ridiculous thing ever.  First of all, we had to get everything off the furniture so they could move everything into the middle of the rooms.  OR we had to move everything ourselves.  Now, we don't have all that much stuff, considering this is a furnished apartment, but this is also a very small apartment, and there's just not a whole lot of room to be moving things around.  We decided to move most things ourselves since last time our maintenance guys moved our bookcase to fix something in the ceiling, they broke it.  So we have little faith in other people moving our stuff around.  So all of our stuff was in the middle of the rooms and I spent the day with Johanna and Rosie while the painters were here.  When I came back to my freshly painted apartment... It looked just the same as it did before.  I mean, the nail holes and stuff were all filled in, and all the little imperfections were gone, but the walls were still that sickly off-white color that looks like it was white once upon a time and has since faded and yellowed into what it is now.  Gross.  Ok but my main problem with this is that our apartment management decided it would be a good idea to paint every apartment in our complex between January and March.  Not only was it so cold when they started that I'm sure some of the apartments froze in their attempt to air out the space, but all of us have to live here!  I just cannot understand why they don't paint in between tenants rather than interrupting everyone's lives to refresh the nasty color.  Sorry for the rant, but my apartment is still not completely put back together from this insanity and the whole thing just frustrated me.

And now we're in the process of applying for an apartment out east.  We originally found a townhouse that looked good, but when my parents looked at it for us, they told us that it might not be a place we want to live for too long.  They suggested a different neighborhood.  So we found an apartment that we really like.  I haven't seen it in person, but Aaron got a chance to look at it while he was out there last week.  There's just so much paperwork and it's a little more difficult since we're not there to get it done.  All I know is that this is nothing like signing for an apartment in Provo.  But ultimately, I'm okay with that since I want to live somewhere better than anywhere I've lived here in Provo.  I just hope that things work out with this one we're applying for, because I don't want to have to start searching again!

So anyway, that's life lately for the Kimblers, and my excuses for not being good about updating the blog often enough!

Lazy Days of Summer

I have been such a bum lately.  My job at BYU ended last week.  I was sad to go, but it really was time.  I had 2 interviews last week for a job with Provo City, but I didn't get the job, even though I thought the interviews went well.  So I've just been sitting around the apartment, working on projects and reading and hoping I get some calls about other applications I've submitted.  It's actually been really relaxing, but I'm not so sure I want this much free time for the long term.

I have been making progress with my summer reading though.  Today I finished reading the Percy Jackson series.  I had such a fun time reading all five books and I recommend them to anyone who wants a fun, easy read.  I haven't exactly been sticking to my list... oops.  Today I went to the library and picked up some Gregory Maguire books and some Nicholas Sparks books that I'm looking forward to reading.

I really wanted to get out of the house last night so Aaron and I went shopping.  We went to DI and looked around, but didn't find anything worth taking home.  (I almost talked Aaron into buying a headboard, but only almost.)  Next we went to the RC Willey clearance center/outlet to look around.  We found a BEAUTIFUL bed frame that we both loved.  We found some super comfortable couches, recliners, and mattresses, along with some colorful washers and dryers and some smelly new refrigerators.  In the end, we came home having spent nothing.  Nothing!  I was so proud of us.  Our "shopping" trip turned into a free evening to look forward to and plan for a time when we actually have money to spend and a house to furnish.  And it was actually pretty fun!

I'm looking forward to the next few weeks.  Aaron's parents will be in town next weekend to bring his brother, Brent, out to BYU for his freshman year.  So we're going to get to spend some time with them, including a trip to the Salt Lake temple.  Then the next week, my brother Doug, his wife Cassie, and their son Archer will be out here to visit for a few days!  I haven't seen them in almost a year (the only time I've seen Archer) and I'm so excited.  Too bad Archer probably doesn't remember me, since he was only 5-ish months old then.

Oh, and our flowers:

Happy Thursday!

Mattress

Never have I wanted to be on Glee more than when they were all given free mattresses.

Aaron and I have both been having trouble sleeping, and even when we sleep from 10:45pm-7:45am (which is normal for us) we don't really feel rested in the morning.  I blame our mattress.

So now I really want to buy our own mattress, since we're just using the one provided by the apartment complex.  However, our old debate comes into play here.  We live in a furnished apartment.  We'll be out of here in less than a year.  We don't know where we're going to end up.  So we were hoping to postpone buying furniture until we're done with school so we don't have to move it later.

Which brings up something else.  Our rent is going up starting in September.  Yes, we're only going to be here until April, but I don't like that we're paying more for a one bedroom place than other people who have two bedrooms.  This makes me want to move, to get more space and to save money, but this likely means we'd have to go a little further from campus, which would be fine for me but hard for Aaron.  It would also mean that we would need to buy some serious furniture, more than just the coffee table and bookcases we already have.  Which means that we'll have to move it all when we leave Provo in April.

I mentioned some of this on facebook and I've already received lots of comments.  I just don't know what to do. And we have to let our complex know if we're going to renew our contract by June 5, which means we have only a week to figure out if we want to move and where to move.

And I'm going to need a new job once I finish my 910 yearly hours in August.  I don't really even want to think about that now, although I've looked at a few Provo City jobs that are constantly taking applications, and I'm thinking I'll apply for them once it's a little closer.  Really, I'd just love to stay where I am, but unfortunately I can't.  It seems a little backwards to me that graduating is losing me a great job, but it is what it is, right?  Lame.