How To Survive Renovations And Not Lose Your Mind Completely

We are taking a break from renovations now and it's great. First stage of the project is complete but work will start again on Monday. It's not something I'm looking forward to but I just want to get it out of the way. The two things that bother me the most about renovating are the dust and the fact that items are displaced and I'm always looking for something.
We renovated an old townhouse before, mostly by ourselves, so I knew what I was getting myself into, however with two small kids it's a totally different experience. I don't know if there's anything worse than removing a hundred years old plaster.

1. Can you move out? Do it!
We couldn't, so we stayed. But only half of our house is being renovated, so we can still use our bedrooms and we moved our family room to our partially finished attic. It was a great move, because it's quiet and private.

2. Be realistic.
If you think you can function like nothing has changed, you're wrong! I knew there will be a mess and dust everywhere, so as much as it still bothers me it wasn't a total surprise.

3. Set up temporary kitchen.
Our contractor kept the sink and the stove working for majority of renovations. He set up temporary counter from plywood just so we have some place to put dishes away. I have to move them out of the kitchen every morning but at least I don't have wash dishes in a bathroom or basement.

4. Use plastic plates, cups and utensils.
No, not very green but it will minimize the amount of clean up you'll have.

5. Try to plan a weekly menu.
And I don't mean to put a meal plan together, because I don't even get to do that in normal circumstances but think of meals you can make that are easy and fast, that don't involve more than two pots.

6. Plan playdates.
Try to take your kids out of the house as much as you can. Go visit a zoo, museum,  a park and visit friends, most of them will understand that you can't host them at your place. For about two month prior to renovations I was inviting my friends over, so I can go over to visit them during renovations.

7. Keep one bathroom functioning and private.
We are completely gutting and redoing both bathrooms but we kept the master bath functioning until the girls bathroom wasn't done and ready for our family to use.

8. Tackle chores on the weekends.
I do laundry, clean and cook on the weekends when the workers aren't here and I know for sure they won't turn my water supply off.

9. Have everything ready early.
Tiles, faucets, cabinet, windows....I mean everything that needs to be decided on and purchased. Get it early! It will make your renovations shorter!!! This is an important one! I'm only 99% happy with some of the choices I made but when the house is falling apart I'll take 99% just to move on.

This is how our foyer has been looking for a couple of weeks.

And what used to be our living room and is living room/kitchen and dining room now.

Updated Girls Bath Design

There's so much inspiration around that I often feel my designs are going in many different directions. I love too many things and get distracted. Here's what I came up with for the girls bath and for better or worse I'm going to stick with it.

I really like keeping the fixed elements neutral and classic. That way the house won't feel dated in ten years time when fashions change. I'm planning on keeping the bath fairly neutral and monochrome with pops of color. The vanity is buttery cream and I'd like to include one accent wall with wallpaper on it. I'm in love with Anthropologie's Watercolor Peony
Anything will be better than what we have now, right?

New Chalkboard Wall

I've been really attracted to walls painted black and have been trying to push the idea for our dining but Mr. put his foot down on this one. Instead I had to settle for a chalkboard wall. This kitchen wall is what I use for organization. I was using scotch tape so far and it wasn't very practical nor attractive, so I had to come up with another way to attach photos and important notes to the wall.

 

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I had some leftover magnetic paint I used in my older daughter's room. It worked decently in her room but it wasn't magnetic enough to keep pictures attached. I made a mistake when applying it because I only shook the can and all the good magnetic stuff was left on the bottom. Of course I noticed that when I was putting away all the painting supplies at the end of the project. So when I applied it in the kitchen I made sure to stir it all very well. Here is the same wall two coats of magnetic paint later.

On top of that I applied two coats of chalkboard paint which was pretty straight forward. I used a foam roller again. The chalkboard paint takes much longer to dry inbetween coats and you're supposed to wait 4, yes FOUR, days before you can start writing on it. Well, needless to say I'm not that patient and neither are my girls. Here it is about an hour later.

It was a simple project that's a lot of fun! I've been using extra strong neodymium magnets and both the magnetic and chalboard properties work great! It's quite a bit clean up when we draw on the wall but so far it doesn't bother me.

PaperlessPOST

I'm in the mids of planning a Birthday party for my daughter who's turning 4 at the end of the month. I've always been using Evite to send out electronic invitations but this time I used PaperlessPOST and they have the cutest designs plus managing of the invitations is very easy. Here's the one I chose for my munchkin.

Quarry chronicles continued

Last weekend we kept on rocking. We moved some pavers that were used as a border and created a small patio. This year I'm using the deck mostly as play space for kids so I don't want to put the table there. With the backyard so big it's nice to have multiple entertaining spots. This project was fairly simple, we just laid some paving sand as a base and then laid out the pavers. It's not perfect but it's also not forever and for a $100 investment looks great to me!

I love the discoloration of the pavers. These are basic cement pavers and I saw them in Home Depot this weekend and they are quite unattractive when new but the patina makes them really pretty.
The work is not done yet we still need to move the stones from one area to another and plant some grass.

Rocky Road

I'm in the process of rearranging our backyard. It took me over a year to realize that I needed to simplify it. It is going to be awhile before we are able to have it professionaly redone the way we want it to be, so for now I am looking for temporary solution which will make it more user friendly with a lot of hard work and a little investing. The least expensive way is to reuse all the stones that are already there. I have a hard time believing it can be attractive, so here's some inspirational pictures to help me decide which direction I want to go.

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Beautiful, right? The last picture applies most to my design as it's basically rock on rock on rock. I will be mixing many types of stone too. The work is set to begin tomorrow, it's going to be a busy weekend!

Rain, rain go away!

Living on the river has been lovely. But my little town is known to get flooded quite often so when it rains I'm always a little bit concerned, especially when it rains a lot.
Water levels in the river were very low last couple of months. On Tuesday evening it was maybe 20 inches deep. Then it started to rain and it didn't stop the whole day and this is what happened.


This is Wednesday morning...

 ...and in the afternoon.

 

And this is now

 

Thankfully, it finally stopped raining. We are ok, our sump pumps worked hard all night but except for some seepage in the basement no other damage was done. I hope our neighbors accross the river can say the same.

Btw, it's time to start shopping for a generator. If we lost power and sump pumps didn't pump our water heater and fernus would be under water.

P.S. Sorry for the poor quality of pictures. They were taken with the phone through the window.