apartment = 34785 house = 0

Reasons the upstairs apartment was way better than the house:

#1 No one ever woke me up mowing their lawn at 6am

#2 No bugs (this one gets credited 34784 points)

we are unpacked

Not a little unpacked. Or kinda unpacked.

But totally and completely unpacked.

This was the last box.



A perfect box to end on because it demonstrates exactly how we moved. Which went something like this:

grab shit. throw it in a box. move to new house.

And we didn't even technically use boxes. I bought 6 or 7 big rubbermaid totes from Target and those with a combo of the Ikea storage boxes (like you see above), and some CSA boxes and then we just made trips. Fill up. Dump. Repeat.

We moved trash, ya'll.

Seriously. Not a single purge or organizing day occurred before moving day. It was a cluster.

But now?



Ahhhhhhhh clean and empty surfaces. Totally my jam. Some people see that dresser and think "put stuff on it! Fill that baby up." Me? No. That is perfection for me. Clutter makes me crazy. No really, it does. I get nervous ticks and start foaming at the mouth. Okay, maybe not that intense, but I don't like it. I like empty.

Freely walk into our bedroom.



Because you can now.

It wasn't really an option before.



(bonus points if you can spot the baby in the clutter)

We even organized the office to have the Wii and some netflix at the ready for visiting guests. Mostly in the 1-9 age bracket.



(bonus points if you can identify what we were watching)

And p.s. I am not holding my husband captive and forcing him to work. He thought it was funny to make it look like this is some kind of sweatshop. Well, I mean... it isn't. Right? Whatever. It had to be done.

And Justin if you're reading this, get back to work!

4 weeks + 1 day = done. Now, onto more important things. Like, fixing my master bathroom so I might actually enjoy stepping foot in it.

we have rose bushes

And they are going crazy right now.

I clip bunches off every few days and then a few days later, BAM! the bushes are covered in blooms again.



I love these plants.

Adore them.

When you walk up to my front door you smell roses.

In the backyard my citrus plants are flowering and holyfreakingohmygod they smell good.



Our bathrooms have fresh flowers, our mantle has fresh flowers and my nightstand has fresh flowers. Constantly.

(and ha! yeah, I use baby bottles as vases. they are perfect. plus they remind me of my wee babe. win win win win)

exploring the career options for a vandal

I really like spray painting.

I had no idea this passion lived inside of me.

Apartment living isn't conducive for the finer art of spray painting crap.

But garage?



Did I scare you off?

Come back. I promise no more pictures screen shotted from "Hoarders."

The garage (insert disgusting picture here), is a spray painting sanctuary. So much so that I am unpacking just to find more things to spray paint.

Truth.

I started with this big wooden "R"



Which I paired with an Ikea frame and a piece of scrapbook paper, and BAM! Mantle art. Hung by me. Using a rubber mallet. No bean can.

Next up?



I love them.



And the brown beast as well.

My love for spray painting is only matched in ferocity for my love of lime green and lemon yellow. I might need an intervention.

i'm married to the hulk

After watching Justin literally push nails into the wall last night to hang my made over mirrors, as to not wake the baby, I figured I could do the same today.

No. No I certainly cannot push nails into the walls with my bare hands.

I also cannot locate a hammer.

I have tried a can of black beans.

Fail.

I am determined to get my homemade mantle art hung today. It's on the to-do list, which means it MUST get done.

Pictures to come. If my hands aren't too bloody to operate the usb cord for my camera.

hard floors

We had been living with shocklingly filthy, cheap, dirty apartment carpet. I tried to pretend it wasn't there. I vacuumed all.the.time. but it was still the grossest crap ever.

Two human people. One giant beast of a very sheddy dog, and a baby who epitomizes "little boy" do not do good things to cheap carpet.

But now..HARD FLOORS. Hard floors that I can clean twice daily. Because dude, baby. dog. human people.

Morning and night. Zip zip zoom. Clean! Gorgeous.

Thanks to this little guy.



Cordless but mighty powerful. Came with two rechargeable batteries. Does hard floors and low pile rugs.

Best part? The removable and cleanable filter. And the canister.

Ohhhh the canister.

Warning: gross alert:


There is something highly satisfying about dumping loads of dog hair, crumbs and dirt into the trash twice a day. Perhaps I need to add more hobbies to my resume. Because seriously, opening up that puppy and seeing what garbage was lurking in the corners? Highlight of the day.

Certainly I need more hobbies.

Second member of the "I have amazingly gorgeous clean floors" team?



I love him.

No chemicals just badass steam that kills any germs hanging out. Kills them dead. Then mops them up with a washable pad. And again, comes with two. Sanitizes. LOVE.

I love the team. The team leaves zero balls of dog hair in corners. Or crushed cheerios under the high chair.



I'm typically not a fan of whoring out products but seriously, these two products are qual-to the-ity. And my sisters have hard floors. And dogs. And sweeping sucks. So Megan, stop sweeping.

the boy in the bubble....or...ummm, the boy not allowed in the bubble

I snuck into the bubble tonight. Well, I didn't really sneak. Really fabulous Mold guy said we could sneak in but NOT to mess with the zipper on the outbreak door, something about air pressure collapsing the wall they built. So I went through the garage.



So much for sneaking.

The mold was the toxic black, really bad stuff (stachybotrys) and some other not so cute but not nearly as scary kinds, and it was living in the walls like WHOA. When rad mold guy showed the camera that was led through the wall I wept. I wept hard and ugly. The blackest, black, disgusting mold was growing in mounds in that wall. In that wall where my itty bitty slept. In the wall that contains his clothes, stuffed animals...diapers.

And here is where I preach about trusting your mama gut. TRUST IT. Trust it like the Pope or Oprah. Because when Gabriel wasn't shaking that cold/cough I couldn't shake the mold outta my head. No! My head isn't moldy, we knew about a leak from the old hot water heater and knew there was some mold. We were also under the assumption it had been tested (it hadn't), so Justin kept shushing me "No. It's fine. It's not bad mold." And I do what I always do and bully him into pursuing it. Mold had never been tested. Mold then got tested. Mold = very bad.

TRUST YOUR MAMA GUT.

Is it likely Gabriel is sick because of the mold? Probably not. But, perhaps. An allergy or sensitivity to the spores is what the pediatrician and pediatric respiratory specialist think is the case. So he gets antihistamines as well as the treatment for croup (steroids and inhaler), that he was already rocking out on. Oh, and no more living in mold :)



So taking out walls, rebuilding them, and getting rid of all the damn mold for good has been happening all up in this biiizzzznatch.

He doesn't get to go in the bubble.



I'm thrilled to have fabulous mold guy in our corner. And true professionals like our real estate agent, who are making sure we are being taken care of every step of the way.

Tonight we have hot water. And tomorrow we will have exhaust fans installed in our bathrooms. Super cool mold guy has no interest in any chance of another mold infestation so he is hooking us up with bathroom ventilation free of charge. No joke.

I think it's Gabriel. The kid smiles and people start being way nicer than they used to be. Perhaps because my face is surly and sour. But Gabriel? His face is all "please nice man, don't let me breathe in mold spores!" And BAM! Shit gets done.

Exactly 3 weeks living in our house and I thought we'd be unpacked, decorating, getting to the fun stuff. Nope. Not yet. And I'm ok with that. The adventure of peel and stick vinyl will just have to wait. Until the toxic garbage is gone anyway.