What’s Up This Week: Setting Up the New Digs, Crying Over Toilets, and Prepping for Baby PLUS: Damaged Goods Galore

Holyyyyyy moly. What a whirlwind the past few weeks have been, getting things unpacked and settled while simultaneously prepping for the new baby to arrive, celebrating some birthdays, wagging our fingers at appliance vendors, and occasionally bathing our pre-existing children. And why does everyone always want to eat? Like, every day?

What’s Been Happening

Unpacked and Unhinged

Since we still have our old place to abandon some old stuff store things until we’re ready, we’ve been slowly finding homes for everything that comes into Charlotte House and figuring out what we still need to get.

We absolutely love our new kitchen rugs, for example, but are still working on the perfect algorithm of keeping the damn things in place. So far it looks a little something like this:

rug + rug pad x (vacuumability – tripping hazard) + (carpet tape) = functionality

It also seems that we are not destined to have a microwave around here. The first one we ordered didn’t work where we’d planned in a base cabinet. After much discussion on placement, we ordered another, smaller model that would sit within one of upper cabinets. Unfortunately, that one seemed to piss off the FedEx guys, because they beat the crap out of it and dropped it off without a signature.

It’s been two weeks of silence from the supplier, but we just might have finally gotten it sorted that FedEx will return to the scene of the crime to recover the corpse they left us. Meanwhile, we’ve gotten extraordinarily friendly with the new oven and this amazing little steam toaster that answered the question, “Why in the hell does anyone need a steam toaster?” (Which, reasonably, is also a question no one asks until they’re presented with a steam toaster.)

Aside from the microwave, we’re also at odds with a bath supplier for the glass panel wall we bought for our Primary shower. This one also arrived broken, and after literal MONTHS of back and forth, they decided they don’t have the item anymore and can’t help.

A New Place to Piss AND Have a Baby

But hey, who needs a shower when you have an inflatable birth tub! Yes that’s right folks, Ms. Charlotte is all set to catch her first baby (in at least 60 years, anyway) and our handy dandy birth tub is right at the center of the action.

Though the shower didn’t pan out, we were at least able to install a new click-down floor from Lowe’s to put the tub on that’s looking really good and should take us through the next few years until we’re ready to put a little more time and mullah into the en suite.

The whole vibe in the Primary is a bit more edgy, modern, and urban than the rest of the house, and we went with a darker floor to contrast the original refinished floors elsewhere, so that we didn’t have to worry about trying to match anything. It’s waterproof, was easy to put down, and doesn’t have those annoying “Hi-I’m-a-fake-wood-floor-made-of-vinyl” lines between each of the pieces that you see with a lot of flooring.

Jack also had a disproportionately emotional response to the toilet being installed, as it was a lifelong dream of hers to have an en suite bathroom all her own. Toilets were flushed, tears were shed…all in all, just another Monday around here.

All Hands on Deck

The baby is already due, so we’re taking advantage of the mild semblance of calm around here by tying up some loose ends and attempting to get a little sleep. We don’t know when the new babe will debut, but please feel free to send us cards and cocktails at your leisure. And lunch. Because all these people are hungry again already…

Necessary(-ish) Things This Week

Steam Oven Toaster

One of those things you didn’t know you needed

Drop Cloths

Dexter the daylights out of your space – perfect for home birth!

Low-pile Kitchen Rugs

We are really digging these rugs in the kitchen

Carpet Tape

Completely necessary for keeping our rug obsessions where we want them

What’s Next…

• Have a baby
• End of List