Time

Oops, it seems I failed to keep it going with blogtober!

I've decided linkys aren't really for me anymore as I just do not have the time, and any time I may have I am often too tired to think straight let alone type anything readable.

Time is definitely something I which I could have more of right now.

I have so many tasks I would like to do.

And never get around to finishing them off properly, or even starting in some cases.

Some things that I'd like to get done are:

A photo wall

We have a lovely big plain wall on our stairs that is crying out for some artwork.

I've pinned many photos of them on pinterest, and James obviously must have remembered.

It was our 10 year anniversary (of being together not married) back in Sept and James did a bit of a treasure hunt around the house to the end present of lots of frames, and a 'let's fill them with the last 10 years' note.

After returning the original frames he bought (not because I didn't like them but because I thought Ikea ones would be easier to match year after year as we add to them) came the task of slowly trying to work through the thousands of photos on our Onedrive.

This is why the whole thing has been halted as we really do have so many photos, and we really haven't kept on top of them, probably since having Sam!

 I have literally spent hours deleting the rubbish ones, and putting them into folders so that it loads quicker, as much as I just like them all chronologically ordered year by year rather than by event!

I think I've got to about 2013/14 fully done...but it's so easy to be distracted and go down memory lane!!

DIY

We've been in this house for nearly 3 years and even areas we have done are crying out for a freshen up.

That said the lounge is a priority as we have ordered some new sofas from DFS.

 Although our current one isn't old it is just too small for us now, we bought it in our old home and it's never really fit our look or our growing family in the new house.

It will be so nice to have a bit more space when snuggling to watch a film together, rather than one of us ending up on the bean bag!

Also when we have visitors we will actually have some seating!

There's not much to do decor wise thankfully, just a freshen up and possibly paint the gloss, we have ordered new carpet from carpet right, and want some new radiators, and James being an electrician wants to change the lights as we aren't happy with what we have now.

The other room that needs doing is Zachary's, we planned on doing it before he was born but ran out of time, then thought we'd wait until we knew whether it was a boy or a girl.

Now nearly 6 months later, the room is more of a dumping ground than a babies room! I've so many boxes of baby things ready for the loft or to pass onto friends.

We've a patchy wall from tester pots and furniture than needs tweaking!

Zachary is growing out of this next to me crib soon for sure so this is something that needs doing NOW really!

Declutter

I've made headway on this already as I've sold most of my maternity clothes this past week.

I just wish the rest of the family could tidy up and sort through their bits a bit more as there's only so much I can sort through!

James has so many wires and cables for random bits of technology so I am hoping he has a good sort through it all soon!

Time to create

I've actually had a few crafting chances this past week as Zachary has slept longer.

But I do need to create more time so that I have enough stock for the 2 school Christmas markets I'm doing in Nov.

Time to write

My blog has slipped, I know that!

I feel I've missed out so many moments to record, the little things I know I'll forget.

The boys have completed a term at school and Zachary is nearly half a year old already!

Sometimes I wish I could just pause time, get all the boring house jobs sorted and enjoy our family time together!

Preparing the house for a baby: Home improvements

With the turn of the new year the focus on our 3rd baby has ramped up.

I will admit, this pregnancy I have barely had the chance to REALLY think about it all yet, I still don't think it has sunk in that we will have a newborn in the house in May!

Before Christmas we were just so busy! Apart from scans and midwife appointments, not much thought went into what we need and names etc as I just haven't had the headspace.

But now the kids are back at school, after a week and a half we have settled more into the routine again (it has been a HUGE struggle getting back into it after Christmas) I feel I have the energy and time to start making plans.

We sat down one night and listed all the things we would like to get done in each room in the house, realistically not all the things will be done before the baby comes, but if we get most of them done it will be a bonus! DIY is always hard with children, but babies wait for no one when they need something do they :)

We actually made a start on the DIY list last week by painting our kitchen and downstairs loo white. It desperately needed a freshen up, and we can accessorise and add artwork etc as and when we have the time and money (we will probably have to paint again before that time comes haha)! We bought Leyland Trade in Vinyl Matt, mainly because it is wipeable which the paint that was in here before wasn't. James really liked painting with this paint, saying it went on really well, considering he's used a lot of brands being in the trade this is a positive!

If I do actually find the energy and inspiration I might actually see if I can make some artwork and accessories for these rooms. I have a 3 photo frame I want to get some beach photos in (that I've had 2 years and has sat empty!!!) I might also make some felt fish, or beach huts for a bit of colour, we need to get our mirror back up too! The kitchen I'm not sure what I want to do along the back wall but something fresh and colourful, just need to find something that fits our budget or something I can make quickly and cheaply.

If we paint the joint playroom/office then the whole of downstairs will have been decorated in the 2 years we have lived here, the hallway we did last Easter so that leaves upstairs, which is all still magnolia. We may paint this white or the grey that is in the hallway to save spending more money on more paint, might be a little boring but I plan on picking out some bright colours for some prints or something on the walls. This will be a pain to paint though, as although it's just a rectangle room, it has so much furniture in it, a huge desk, 2 large (and heavy) Ikea Galant storage units, an Ikea billy bookcase, and a large Ikea Kallax toy shelving unit along another wall, so we will have to rope someone in to help with this room to help move everything!

We think that we will move Sam into the smallest room, I know middle child syndrome or what (feeling a little guilty about this)! But there is a logical reason for this. Our house is L shaped and the smallest room is next to Alex's room, which both boys play in regularly, and also contains the large Lego collection! I am thinking once baby is crawling we can put a stair gate in that part of the hallway, as the boys always have Lego all over the floor so would mean I wouldn't have that worry.

This photo is Alex's room, I've changed it slightly since this was taken, but as you can the Ikea Tofast unit houses all the Lego bits, the collection grew since this was taken though as this was before their birthday's and Christmas. His room is the least likely to be decorated as the other bedrooms will have to take priority the next couple of months. We'd like to lighten it up by painting the walls, getting rid of the built in wardrobe which stops a lot of light and buy a new wardrobe system, possibly white wash my old bed too (it's done a good few years that bed)!!

At first Sam was not keen on the idea of moving room, but actually has now come around to it, he never plays in his room at the moment so that is not an issue-the issue will be trying to configure the position of his cabin bed and wardrobe. It really is a small room and the only way I think we can make it work is to have the bed across the window-which won't look brilliant! The room at the moment has become a junk room since moving the office downstairs with the playroom in October, it's currently got bits for the loft, charity shop, dump and the boy's old bunk bed to sell in it! Sam wants green in his room, we might try and persuade him to have lots of green accessories and bedding instead of the dark green he would choose for the walls! I might attempt some ninja turtle canvas paintings for him too!

The baby would then have Sam's current room, which is opposite to ours, so will be more practical in the future when it will (hopefully) sleep there well!! We have some friends who are selling a cot and few other bits so will just need a lick of paint, new curtains and setting up, to be honest this could be done after baby is born, as we are planning on it sleeping in our room a fair while like the boys did.

Sam's current room

Cabin bed we bought and painted from my mum's neighbour

That leaves our room, it needs some TLC, it's walls have been knocked about a little, the curtain pole is hanging on by a thread and our en suite needs a replacement extractor fan and the ceiling re plastered! We'd love to have some more wardrobes along the wall to get rid of the almost broken chest of drawers. We currently have some Ikea Pax wardrobes in Oak and would be able to fit at least a double one in along the same wall as the others. To lighten it all up we would probably buy the mirror doors, hopefully creating a more spacious feeling in doing so too. realistically I don't see us being able to afford that any time soon though, which is a little frustrating as it's really not working how it is at the moment!

I know it might seem like it but this is in no way a collaborative post with Ikea! We just like and can afford their furniture!

Warning: grumpy hormonal post!

Recently I have been down in the dumps when left at home, I am fine when out a about (generally) but the day to day sitting around at home is really boring me!

I have had one of those weeks where everything I have tried to do around the house on our list of things to do just hasn't turned out how I had planned it too. We finally bought some wardrobes the other week from Ikea-massive flat packed ones that didn't quite fit James' Dad's van (thank goodness for bungee cords) and it has taken a while for James to get around to doing them/not avoid doing them. He 'forgot' his tools of several occasions and once the ones in our room were up it took over a week for him to move/sort out his old wardrobe due to being so busy at work. Alex's wardrobe is still resting against the hallway wall collecting dust and various objects that Alex chucks between the gaps-James and his brother were supposed to do it Tuesday and even bought the tools back from work-alas it never got done, in some ways I can't blame them as hiss brother does go back to America for about another year next week, but I was gutted as as James had promised it would be up!

Anyway Wednesday evening I was fed up of not being able to sort/do anything so I though 'why not start painting one of the lounge walls' it was only a touch up of the magnolia and I thought I'd be lucky and get away with doing one coat of paint like in our bedroom the other month, but I didn't want to use a big roller as they always hurt my arm after 5 minutes, so I thought I was being clever when I used a small roller...woke the next morning to find out that it wasn't the case at all, and was patchy as anything. When James came in from work Wednesday night he said "you must have been busy the last hour", I had been there for 2 wasted hours...fail! So I have decided that I should leave the majority of the painting to James now seeing as he can get it done in half the time and reach without a ladder-just got to wait for his day off now!

Thursday I finally got James to sort out his clothes/wardrobe things-can't believe how much stuff he didn't want/need (I nearly jumped for joy)! Anyway when he was out at work that evening I thought 'I know I'll move the chest of draws from Alex's room in there now'. We had measured the draws, and the hallway cupboard, and after dragging it a few feet and pushing it in to the right angle I then realised it wasn't going to be a tight fit, it just wasn't going to fit at all! We hadn't taken into account that for some strange reason the builders had put skirting boards in the cupboard-taking up the very much needed few centre-metres I needed! So I dragged it back into Alex's room, and pushed it into place when I heard a big crack...my knee had gone through one of the pieces of cheap wood (the chest of draws are quite solid, just not the bits that fill in the gap between the draws), I just wanted to kick myself as they were in really good condition!

So then I thought 'Oh our old bedside units will fit nicely in there' not learning from my mistake before I just went ahead and took the draws out dragged one in and then thought, crap they aren't going to fit side by side either (again only a few centre-metres in it! So they are now on top of one another, which is not ideal but I am thinking, light stuff on the top one heavy in the bottom and there shouldn't be a problem! Thankfully the door to the cupboard doors ticks so little ones can't get in anyway.

I now have bags of rubbish, bags for charity shops, bags that I can't remember are for charity or rubbish dotted around the house and making it look messy, but will have to wait for James to have a free hour for us to get to the dump-no point in doing that until the Alex's cupboard is up though! Once the dump run is done the garage needs a sort out to put some of the un-needed furniture in, however our garage is more of James' parents at the moment as it holds a lot of their stuff as they currently don't have one, but it's all stacked on top of each other in a dangerous looking mess rather than in some order (which drives me crazy as I think I have some OCD about everything having it's place when it comes to storage)

Despite having a rubbish time in town a few weeks ago I thought I'd give it another go, I desperately needed to get some smartish maternity wear for work Sunday as they have put me on shop floor...could I find any smart trousers that didn't cost the earth with pockets anywhere...no, could I find a plainish black or white top anywhere in my size...no, could I find a shop a shop with maternity wear in the first place...not really! It didn't help that the lift was broken in New Look so had to faff about with getting the pushchair down the steps. As always Alex came back with something, a bargain pair of denim shorts in H&M for £3 to tuck away for next year! We then tried Matalan and Mothercare once James had finished college, I was tired at the point and when I couldn't find anything/things in my size I was actually close to tears-something that seems to happen very easily at the moment! I ended up buying clothes down the road from us, black skinny trouser that will hopefully be smart enough, and a top that isn't black or white but I will hopefully get away with as I'm pregnant, that was £30 I really didn't want to part with  I don't get to spend that on myself on clothes when I am not pregnant! Fingers crossed work won't have a problem with it-I am getting myself worked up over it.  I thought I might have a look out for some Christmas and Birthday gifts too, but couldn't find a thing!

And to top it off, I have really gone of the one girls name we liked and agreed on this week, so we are now down to 0 names on the girls and boys list!!

Getting very stressed out now I really don't feel organised for this baby what-so-ever, James still thinks we have plenty of time, but I am panicking that we don't, I need that new cupboard up so I can get the baby stuff down from the loft, have a good sort out, get the crib down and find out what sheets I need to buy for it. I need to buy bottles and nappies sometime (because you never know it could come early you just don't know), start getting some things together for a maternity bag, and babies bag and just generally see what else we may need to get, as I can't really remember what we do/don't have. At least we have decided on the travel system now and will hopefully be making that purchase soon, we are going to go for the cheaper Graco one, it seems to have everything we need, it's very similar to the one we have already which we have never had problems with, and it's in our price range.

I just need a bit of magic to get this place sorted before baby, preferably a month before baby if possible as it's really dragging my mood down, I'm getting fed up of wanting to do so much and not having the energy, or physically being able to do it because of baby bump. I also don't want to nag James too much as he works so much at the moment, but some days when I only see him for an hour or so the day can seem very long with a toddler (especially one who is becoming a nightmare at going to bed)!

Sorry for yet another rant, I needed to vent to relieve some stress!

Walking Zombie

That is what I feel like at the moment, although to be honest it's more like 'sat on the sofa on floor most of the day zombie'. This baby seems to be draining everything from me at the moment, luckily the sickness seems to have past, the dizziness not quite so, so will certainly be mentioning that to the midwife next Tuesday. The tiredness isn't necessarily me wanting to be asleep all the time but more just lack of energy to do anything. The house is in such a dire state at the moment, and the house work is just piling up making the jobs harder for me to do when I have the energy to force myself to do it. Surely someone must have made self cleaning houses by now?! Just think how much they could charge for that!

Last night aside from a long list of cleaning jobs I need to do I made a list of things that need doing in the house preferably before baby arrives here's how it went:

Front door-Sand a repaint frame and door (there's been a patch of paint coming off the frame for ages but not done anything about it)

Hallway/stairs-Paint

Lounge- Paint (do you see a pattern here), and find some coloured paint for a t least one wall as I am sick of magnolia. Get a blind, we've only been here 3 years! Have a sort out and de-clutter. Get some/make some artwork for the boring blank walls.

Our bedroom- Paint, de-clutter, sort out some sort of better storage.

Bathroom- Preferably fix bath (if anyone knows of anything to repair cracks please let me know) if not replace it, and the shower that goes with it. Paint, sand and paint radiator, tile floor and get rid of the manky carpet in there (why do they put carpet in bathroom new builds anyway)?

Kitchen- A lick of paint and sort out, preferably some sort of new unit too as there is just no storage space at all (I will post a picture one day when it's less messy so you can see what it's like as I know I always complain about it).

Kids room- Find a cheap but sturdy cupboard most likely second hand after seeing how much they are to buy new (ouch), actually finish the small 4 canvasses I started painting in Jan or Feb, find a cheap blue light shade, de-clutter.

Garage- Try and persuade James' parents to get some of there stuff out (easier said than done as they will say we still owe them some money) if not try and arrange it so it doesn't take up so much room in there when they just chucked it all in. Likewise with James' stuff too as he just chucks it all in too. I NEED shelves or cupboards or something!

So this should be something to keep me busy when I do get the energy back and the nesting instinct properly kicks in-and James haha he does not have a choice!

Bursting at the seams and some TLC

No not my waist lines (well not quite, I did have to buy my first maternity shorts today though but only because I am finding anything with buttons uncomfortable...the bum literally hangs off me), I digress, I mean our house.

We live in a lovely coach house in a new development and were lucky enough to buy it from new when the market was still quite slow. When we bought it, it only had one bedroom, but an oversized lounge area so we spilt the room to make the second bedroom for Alex. We are unable to move in the near future due to costs, and James half way through an electricians course, so are probably looking at staying here for another 2 years at least. Obviously with baby number two coming along we are going to have to do some jiggling around, and some culling...

Only problem there being I am a bit of a hoarder, not the type you may have seen on programmes but enough of one to find it hard to get rid of things that could have a use of purpose some day soon. Especially if I think I can use it for some craft project that will probably never happen!

There isn't a great amount of storage in our house, and storage furniture is so much more expensive than I ever imagined, we have been looking a getting a cheap but sturdy wardrobe to go in Alex's room, so when we do have to squeeze a cot in there next year it might make it more manageable. But apparently cheap wardrobes don't exist- even ones that look like they could collapse in on themselves are still at least £60, eBay hasn't had anything what I would call cheap for something second hand either, I thought I'd try out Freecycle but have had no luck with that too!

Our house could do with a bit of TLC too, even though we have only been here 3 years come July a lot needs re-doing, every room but Alex's needs repainting (great fun to do with a toddler in tow, a pregnant bump, and a partner who would love to avoid DIY at every cost/is always working anyway), we have a nasty crack in the bottom of the bathtub that needs sorting ASAP but that means ripping the whole thing out which could affect our tiles, and means we would need a new shower as it's connected to the bath; the silicon needs re-doing and looks gross but no point in doing it until we have a new bath, same goes for the carpet on the bathroom floor ( we have had tiles in the garage for about 2 years now)! We have lived with boring magnolia walls for 2 whole years and we have barely any pictures or artwork up (mainly because I have this annoying art bug that when I see a painting in a shop instead of thinking wow that's nice, let's buy it, I think wow that's nice I could try and do that...and  never do)!

Our kitchen is teeny tiny and we need SO much more usable cupboard space in there/more cupboards, but it's pretty impossible. I HATE whoever designed our kitchen, why hide the boiler in the biggest most usable cupboard when it could have been put in the bathroom where there is a tonne of dead space the other side of the wall!

James has NO motivation what so ever to get this house sorted to some degree, and I don't think I dare get the paint out with Alex about (I can just vision paint hand print trails throughout the house on the carpet and furniture)! But I would like it sorted, well now.

Can you tell I am starting to get my nesting instinct yet?! The house was driving me mad before I got pregnant, but now I see every black mark or crack on the wall and it drives me stir crazy and add it to an ongoing mental list in my head, why can't I just get nesting in other ways such as keeping the bathroom clean and doing the dishes, or in fact house work in general?

So yes, I am stressing right now because this mental list of things that NEED doing and things I want doing is just getting longer and longer yet nothing is being done...motivation needs to come and give me and my partner a big kick up the backside...and a few extra pounds so I could afford at least one wardrobe! But hey it's not as bad as when I was 7/8 months pregnant with Alex and having building work done in the house I guess-at least I don't have all the dust to deal with this time!