We can never resist entering a contest (a few of you may remember our infamous Blair Witch/Home Depot video) so when we read that Houseblogs.net was sponsoring a sweepstakes in partnership with True Value we, of course, had to enter.

We’ve done so many DIY projects here at Bungalow Insanity, it’s hard to choose a favorite, but one which stands out among many is our kitchen remodel. Basically, we designed the entire kitchen around four $10 salvaged windows.

When we purchased our house way back in July of 2004, the kitchen was sporting a face-lift acquired in 1962. The cabinets, flooring and appliances were all fairly hideous, but what we hated most were the sliding aluminum windows. Totally inappropriate for an 1911 bungalow!

So, when we found these windows at the ReBuilding Center for only $10 apiece, we were ecstatic.

Of course, finding the windows was easy. Installing them was the hard part. First we had to re-frame both exterior walls.

We then had to insulate, drywall, stain and install a whole kitchen’s worth of stuff before we were ready to hang our $40 set of windows:

In retrospect, our “bargain” windows may not have been such a bargain in terms of time or money (considering all we needed to do to incorporate them into the kitchen), but we love them nonetheless. Unlike their sliding aluminum predecessors, they look as though they have always been here.

Now if we could just get around to tiling our backsplashes, our kitchen would finally be complete!

This post was written for Houseblogs.net as a part of a sweepstakes sponsored by True Value. If you would like to submit your own contest entry, visit click here or visit www.StartRightStartHere.com.

A year ago today marked my the end of my fifth week of “house arrest” (otherwise known as bed rest.)

Chloe, the older of our two daughters, was born prematurely and spent roughly six weeks in the hospital. So last May, when baby number two threatened to make an appearance two months ahead of schedule, I was advised to stay off my feet for SIX LONG WEEKS.

Being confined to bed rest in your third trimester is excruciating. Not in terms of physical discomfort (although there is a bit of that.) Rather, it’s the psychological distress that’s unbearable. Not only are you steeped in worry over your unborn child, but you’re locked in this perverse battle of wanting – or perhaps more accurately, NEEDING – to give in to the all-consuming “nesting instinct,” yet you know that your baby’s health depends on ignoring that desire/need. Ultimately, you end up glued to the couch for a month and a half, obsessing about everything that isn’t getting done.

Since climbing the stairs was forbidden, climbing the walls definitely wasn’t option. So as I anxiously waited for Ginger’s arrival (and hoped that she wouldn’t arrive too soon) I tried to find ways to keep myself occupied.

At first I decided to do some sewing – a fairly comical decision in retrospect, as I don’t actually know how to sew. I’ve taken a whopping two (2) sewing classes in my lifetime. In the first class, we learned how to make aprons. Yup – an apron. (It was a pretty nifty apron though, with an adjustable strap and a snazzy front pocket.) In the second class, we learned how to make a bathrobe. I chose really soft and lovely retro-printed fabric and even learned how to create piping. Finishing the damn thing ended up taking forever though, so I quit working on it about three quarters of the way through. Come to think of it, I don’t think I ever finished the apron either! But did that prevent me from dragging out the sewing machine and going crazy with sewing projects for the nursery? Hell no!

I guess nesting is a bizarre sort of prenatal psychosis because almost overnight, I became a sewing maniac! I made black polka-dotted valances and a tablecloth for the playroom, complete with ribbon trim and pom-pom fringe:

I also sewed rocking-chair cushions, a changing pad cover for the changing table, and curtains and a dust ruffle for Ginger’s room. (Amazingly, if you don’t look too closely at the seams, everything looks passable.)

Then it got HOT – so incredibly hot – in the triple digits for days on end! My feet puffed up to the size of watermelons and I simply couldn’t bear sitting inside hunkered down with my sewing machine any longer. (Which was OK. I was out of fabric anyway.) So, my bulging belly and I moved out to the patio where I soaked my enormous melon-feet in ice water and started painting. No – sadly – not the outside of the house (which was, and remains, in dire need of new paint) but three teeny square canvases for the baby’s room.

I’d been leaning toward trying to match the baby’s bedding with paintings of frogs and lily pads, but big sister Chloe voted for ladybugs. (She has something of a polka-dot fixation, if you couldn’t tell from the playroom.) Since I had plenty of time on my hands, I ended up painting both.

Now, I’m no more an artist than I am a seamstress, but again, the hormones seemed to kick my creativity up a notch, so if you don’t look TOO closely, the paintings didn’t turn out too badly:

I joke that I was in labor for three months because I began having contractions in May and, much to everyone’s surprise, Ginger decided to wait until August 3^rd (12 days past her due date) to join our family:

You might think that with all of those “extra” weeks between the end of May and the beginning of August we would have had plenty of time to finish Ginger’s room, but you would be, um, wrong.

Our goals at this time last year were to finish enough of Chloe’s room to allow her to move upstairs before her baby sister arrived, and to finish enough of the playroom to give Chloe a hangout to escape to when her sister was sleeping. We did somehow manage to meet those goals. But in the process, Ginger’s room ended up getting pushed aside and she wound up bunking with us for awhile. Ten months to be exact. Ten months and counting, in fact!

Our goal this summer is to FINALLY move Ginger into her own room – hopefully before her first birthday rolls around. I can’t believe that’s she’s almost one! For as unbearably long as my six weeks on house arrest seemed at the time, the past year has gone by in a blink, and our “new baby” is almost a toddler now. Where does the time go?

So, without further ado, here is a sneak peek at Ginger’s room:

Doors still need to be stained and hung, and oh – I don’t know – moving the crib and changing table into the room might be helpful too. But the closet and dresser are full of baby clothes, the curtains are hung and the stuffed animals are just waiting to be snuggled (and probably chewed and drooled upon.) In other words, after all this time, it is finally starting to look like a real nursery. Hopefully Ginger will enjoy it.

This stairway is also the only available and feasible location for running our new plumbing for the future 1/2 bath upstairs. We’ll be running the supply and drain lines over on the right hand side of the stairwell. The bottom two treads have been removed and the holes cut into the basement, but we haven’t taken an pictures yet. These “before” pictures will have to do for now. We’ll add more soon if we have time to work on it tomorrow…

If anyone has ever seen a fixture like this or knows anything about it, we’d be interested in hearing from you. Thanks.

Taking it out was a messy job, because the drain pipe had rusted so badly that it had completely sealed itself at the bottom.  Julio had to drill a series of holes in pipe and try to catch the disgusting water (if it could still be classified as such) in a bucket.  That’s easier said than done when a liquid is shooting out in a high powered stream, so most of it ended up on him.  We still have the sink but haven’t decided what to do with it.  While we love the style, the separate hot/cold faucets are the worst feature of old sinks.

The football field size cover over our back patio.  It is a fantastic thing to have in a rainy climate!