Takin' Care of Business

It seems like everyone I know had amazing weather last weekend - either 80 degrees and sunny or, on the flip side, 20 degrees and snowing up a storm (for all those skiers out there). Everyone except us here in the Bay Area, that is. I think it was colder and rainier here on Saint Patrick's Day than in Ireland itself. So, what's a girl to do on such a chilly and dreary weekend? Housework galore!

See, we moved into a new apartment two months ago, but you'd think it was only two weeks ago with all the boxes still unpacked and walls still left bare. I'll spare you the before pictures, but it wasn't pretty. With this baby on the way and time speeding by towards our due date - just under 5 months now! - it was high time we set about settling in. There's a ton of work to be done in putting together the nursery, but before we dive into that project, we'd like to at least have our home put together for us.

So, Saturday morning, my sweet hubby, begrudgingly cheerfully tagged along for the ride as we scoured Craigslist and scoped out many a rainy garage sale in search of a bunch of furniture items we need. Our loot for the day? One single, lonely coffee table waiting for a comfy chair, some end tables, shelves, and a rug to keep it company in the living room. 

Breaking in the coffee table with dinner and a movie: tacos, salads, and "The Kings Speech". 

 I kid, but in truth we were pretty psyched to finally have something to set our wine sparkling cider on as we kick up our feet at the end of the day. (Our last home was an insanely small house with space for a couch and a TV in the living room, but really not much else.)

Our old living room, set up here as a guest bedroom.  Look at our cute little house guests!

We feel like we're living in a palace now with a 1100 sq ft apartment, but it's definitely taking some time to find the furniture to fill it up. We could just buy something new, I know, but we're finding out quickly that getting ready for a baby (much less raising it) is no inexpensive task. So we've decided to save and buy used dressers, night stands, coffee tables and the like and do our best to fix them up as needed. Some DIY projects are definitely in our future, so check back to see how things pan out!

One thing we were adamant about buying new? A new guest bed that will actually go in the nursery. Yes, that's right, potential visitors...you will no longer have to crash on the couch or camp out on the air mattress that was squeezed into our old 5' x 11' "guest bedroom". You may have to bunk up with a crying infant, but at least you'll be doing so on the comfy brand new, all natural mattress that we picked up this weekend. Check! There goes another item off our list. 

Next up? Tackle the garage. More details to come on that in a later post. Suffice it to say, this whopper of a project definitely left a certain pregnant lady knocked out on the couch for a good chunk of Saturday evening.

Sleeping Beauty...ha!

After recouping on Saturday night, we spent Sunday unpacking some boxes, cleaning the apartment, rearranging furniture and…finally hanging a few things on our walls!

Behold! Our walls have gone from this:

To this!

And this!

We’ve definitely got a lot more frames to hang, but it’s a start at least. It’s  amazing how just getting a few of our own things on the walls suddenly makes the place feel more like home.

So, that was our weekend. I bet those of you that spent Saturday and Sunday enjoying summer weather and fun St. Patty’s Day festivities are ever so jealous! I definitely feel like I need a weekend to recover from my weekend, but hey – at least I feel productive!