Laundry Room Cathedral

Lucky people that we are, we now have the luxury of impressive cathedral ceilings in our temporary laundry room.  Technically that's just because they've torn out the old master bedroom floor to prepare for tying in the second floor of the new addition, but for now we can pretend we requested this.

The water heater on the left there has been moved to the right about six times now, which is making it increasingly difficult to make it over to the washer/dryer while holding a full laundry basket.  Then again, at least we still have access to free laundry for now so we don't mind a little navigational inconvenience.

 Follow the link for 2 more pics...

Addition Progress (March 31-April 15)

House Picture Catch-up Day continues with pictures of the new back of the house over the past few weeks.  The framing is done for the basement and the first floor, and the second floor is partially complete.  It's been sidetracked a bit because of the crappy weather here recently, but now that things are finally starting to clear up a bit we'll probably see this start going forward much faster.

Addition progress on March 31.  Basement is done for now, the subfloor is in place for the first floor and framing has started for the new kitchen.

9 more pictures for your viewing pleasure after the jump.

Excavation in the Original Basement (March 29 - April 27)

With all the bad weather we've had out here lately, Larry and the boys have been focused on getting things moving along in the old basement.  It's been progressing along down there for a while, and they've gotten a lot more done in the last few weeks.  The main things to do in the basement are create new footings and move/replace the support posts (done a few weeks ago), tie into the new basement in the back of the house, and redo the plumbing/drainage system.   It's the plumbing work that's the reason for the basement being so torn up right now - the original plumbing was poorly laid out which was giving us weak water pressure and slow drainage.  The plumbing still isn't completely finished but we've already seen a huge improvement in both of those areas throughout the house.

Excavation on March 29, digging out a trench to access the old drain pipe under the basement floor

Click "Read more" to see lots of pics of the progress in the basement over the past month.

Pinhole Kitchen

With the wall full of holes covered by plastic sheeting in the temp kitchen, Emily and I noticed something pretty cool that happens on sunny days.  The size of the holes and the distance to the house next door make the perfect conditions for a sort of pinhole camera effect, where an image of the window from the house next door is projected onto the plastic inside our house in front of each of the holes in the wall. 

Changes in the Temp Kitchen (Mar 28-Apr 4)

Over the past few weeks the temp kitchen has been changed around a bit, with cabinets coming off and going back up, walls and ceilings being torn out, and temp drainage pipes being run through the open space.  Part of this has been to prepare for plumbing changes, both down in the basement and for the future new bathrooms upstairs, and part has been to start tying in the new back of the house into the existing house frame.

The same weekend the sisters were in town, we came home to find that the walls and ceilings in the temp kitchen had been torn out, and a new (temporary) drainage pipe had been installed alongside the big pantry cabinet

More pics after the jump...

Belly Mapping

Last weekend Alan and I started looking into 'Belly Mapping'. It was something the teacher in our childbirth classes mentioned and you can only do it in your last two months. That makes us the tiniest bit early, but we figured we'd try anyway.

I learned quite a bit, like what I thought was his head and would often pet is mostly likely his butt. Whoops. At least I got his little arms and legs right!

We thought we'd be able to feel him out because he isn't in the normal 'birthing position' yet with his head down, facing my back. Our little one won't settle for normal and instead usually lies crosswise in my belly, with his head on one side and his butt on the other and his tickly little hands and feet facing either up or down. He rolls a lot still and is big enough to give me a lurch when he abruptly changes position. When he's changing position, he's moving from that horizontal position to the far right side of my belly. Apparently that is the place to be. Often I'll look down at my belly and find it completely lop sided. When I touch my belly there's a rounded, hard spot (his butt not his head!) in the upper right just under my ribs and then a longer solid part down my side (which is his back). On the left side there is no baby, so it is soft and you can push your fingers into it a bit.

His little limbs have gotten long enough to poke into my back a bit and up and down. Sometimes I'll find a little foot (or hand, I can't tell them apart yet) poking at my back and you can feel it from the outside! That of course is always only on my right side.

As a side note, all directions are from MY perspective.

Baby Development Facts

There are so many fascinating things related to baby development and pregnancy, I thought I'd post a couple of the things I'm learning here.

• Breast fed babies have a lower rate of childhood obesity. The theory is that they have to work for the milk where a bottle fed baby essentially gets milk poured in.

• At 29 weeks (where we are) the vocal cords are completely developed, but the baby can't make any noise in the womb because he's breathing in the amniotic fluid (getting those muscles ready for air!).

More after the jump...