Final house renovations

Okay so I can wait until our house is completely clean and ready, or I can just show you what we did to our house when it is super close to being complete, but not completely clean. :-)

If you forget what our house looked like before the reno, I have a few pictures on this post and a few more on this post. I also posted updates throughout the renovation here and here. And if you are feeling extra bored, you can go to the "house stuff" tag on my sidebar and read all of the posts since August 2012 detailing what we have done so far.

Without further ado, our new and improved house! We'll start upstairs and make our way down.

First up- our new master closet. It was just one door a few months ago which meant that CP's stuff on the right hand side was getting lost. We had the contractor re-do the door frame and put on two doors so that we both have access to the closet- my stuff on the left, his stuff on the right.

Not a super exciting change, but it makes CP's life a lot easier.

Next up, the second floor bathroom, our only full bathroom in the house. We made a few changes to make the room feel bigger (raised the ceiling above the shower- it used to be curved), shortened the closet to the right of the shower so that it is flush with the tub instead of sticking out, and moved the door so that it now swings out into the hallway. A few things make this room feel bigger even if the footprint did not. Plus it's soooooo nice to not have a black bathtub anymore!!

I wish we had room for a larger counter, but we try to put most of our stuff in the medicine cabinet.

Now down to the first floor where we knocked down the entire exterior fireplace because it was a disaster. If you have brick, please don't paint it. Not only is it bad for the brick but then it makes it impossible for contractors to figure out where there are problems. So instead of worrying about our fireplace falling over in high winds, we now have a lovely new one outside!

Inside there was a problem with the actual firebox (or something- I didn't quite understand what was going on) so we had to get one of these firebox covers/faces (the black thing). I think that it will actually work out well because it is a bit of a hybrid and while it burns real wood, there is a fan that circulates the hot air into the room, potentially heating up more than just the 5 foot area around the fire. Because the white mantle wood came too close to the black box we had to get new stone to surround it as well as you can see below. I love the way it turned out! (Now we don't love the red tiles surrounding the fireplace but that is not a high priority right now.)

Next up our first floor half bath. We moved the wall that juts out on the left back a little bit so that when you sit on the toilet you are not as closed in as before. Whomever put up the walls of the bathroom did not use drywall or plaster so in order to fix that we had to totally rip everything down and start fresh.

Next up is CP's favorite new room, the new and improved kitchen! We totally gutted the old one and bumped out the back of the house about 8 feet to create the new open kitchen that we love! I love how open the room is with both the dining room and the new family room. Izzy loves sitting at the island on the stools to eat.

Hard to see in the picture but the island is a dark blue and there is some blue in the countertops as well.

CP's new baby- a Wolf commercial oven/stove. We had a different backsplash but happened to come upon this awesome Ann Sacks concrete tile (thankfully not expensive) and decided to go for a big pop instead! I love it (hard to see but it is blue).

A bookshelf for all of CP's cookbooks!

The kitchen opens up into the new family room which is also a few feet bigger than the old one. We still need some shelving, curtains, and at some point, a sectional instead of the couch and armchair but the latter isn't financially feasible right now.

The new larger opening between the dining room and the family room:

The new larger opening between the dining room and the new kitchen:

Next we head down to the basement. We walled off the mechanical stuff and now have a large space for shelving and storage, but at least we have separate rooms now. Here is the new hallway with new flooring and a painted wall which leads to the new  basement. Clearly we haven't unpacked the kids' toys just yet. :-)

My new laundry set up which is just okay.

The new basement (it resides under the expanded part of the kitchen and the new family room). It two will eventually house a sectional, cubbies for the kids, and of course, my lovely new treadmill (pictured).

Outside is where most of the final work is to be done. The contractors ripped up most of our patio so every time it rains this area is a mess. I'm not sure where the big pavers have gone so we might just have to make do until the spring when we can hopefully cobble together enough money to get the patio done.

The new back part of our house (they still have to fix the driveway).

Other than that we did mainly not-so-fun things like revamped our HVAC system to install another zone on the second floor, installed another sump pump and battery backup for the new part of the basement, etc. Can't wait for the entire project to be done!

Local 5K

A few weeks ago I decided to sign up for a local 5K just for the hell of it. I have been running all summer now and while I would rather spend the money to run a 5 miler or 8K race these days, I went for it because it had been a while since I had run a race.

Going into it, I had no idea how I would run. I have slowly been getting faster since I started back running in May, but not by that much. 

In May I ran 5 times and averaged 12:52/mile for 12.84 miles.

In June I ran 11 times and averaged 12:39/mile for 26.11 miles.

In July I ran 12 times and averaged 12:19/mile for 27.79 miles.

So far in August I have run 11 times and averaged 11:53/mile for 28.68 miles.

Mid-month I was able to complete a two mile run at a 11:03/mile pace which had me pretty excited that I almost ran under an 11 minute mile. All this to say....I'm still pretty f*cking slow. So I didn't have high hopes for the day since the last time I ran a 5k distance it was at a 12:29/mile pace and that was just earlier this month.

Spoiler alert- I did much better than I thought I would! I had some nervous energy (as I always do) so I started off faster than I should have. I ran the first mile in 10:15 which according to Nike+ is the fastest 1 mile I have ever run while using the app (first run was on May 19, 2008 with the app!!). Of course as soon as I heard the app tell me that, I was then worried about the next 2.1 miles.... I stopped at every water station and every .5 mile I took a brief walk. My next mile was 11:06 and my final 1.1 miles were finished in 10:54. I even had enough in the tank to sprint the final .08 or so when a woman tried to come up beside me.

Final chip time- 33:18

Overall finish- 157/341

Gender finish- 50/166

Age group finish- 11/26

Average pace- 10:42/mile

YAY ME!

I'm pretty excited about that somewhat-respectable average pace. I know that I am never going to get down to the crazy people that run 8 minute miles but maybe if I work hard enough (and lose some weight) I can start running in the 9s? And of course this had me more excited to run the upcoming 5k with my co-workers next month. I'm so weird and so competitive for no reason. My boss and a friend of mine at work are both runners and for pride reasons, I need to run a respectable time, even though they are much faster than me. I know that long distance running is NOT something I excel at...my body is made for power and sprinting. But I do feel as a former Division 1 athlete in two sports that I need to do at least an okay job to "prove" that I am still a good athlete. This probably doesn't make any sense to anyone else but me, but I do put pressure on myself when doing anything athletic that I am not allowed to look like a dope. I'm weird.

Anyway, now that I know I can run a bit faster, hopefully I can do more of that in my training runs so that I can run even faster next month!

Buster update

CP and I continue to do research on what (if anything) we can do to make Buster's life a little better for the time we have left with him. 

• We are going to continue to give him a nerve blocker pain medication just in case he is having some pain because I don't want him hurting and the medication is safe for long term use. 
• The steroid treatment isn't doing anything so we are slowly starting to wean him off.
• Buster never got a lot of people food except when the kids threw food on the floor but these days, that rule is out the window (he is pretty happy about this change).
• After checking out blogs and websites on DM, a lot of owners get their dogs boots. I asked the vet about it and he said that they are a good idea for walks so that Buster stays active, but doesn't come back with bloody paws from scraping his paws on the sidewalk/pavement. I try to keep Buster on the grass as much as possible, but we do have to cross streets and driveways on our walks so this should help. The boots arrived yesterday and Izzy and I took Buster for a walk last night to see how he tolerated them. Previously he would have tried to get them off his feet, but did just fine (maybe he can't really feel them?).

Buster in his boots

I was worried that not eating was a symptom of DM because Buster wasn't finishing his meals for a few days, but after calling the vet he said that Buster likely had an upset stomach from the steroids. Thankfully Buster is eating again and that shouldn't be an issue that we have to deal with.

I also reached out to Buster's breeder to let her know that he has DM since it is hereditary and his litter mates might have it as well. She let me know that Buster's father tested negative for the general DM marker before she bred him, but when a Bernese Mountain Dog-specific DM marker test became available (only a few years ago), the father did test positive for that. She never got the mother tested because by the time the new test came out, she was spayed (but she obviously has it). :-(

CP and I did have a hard conversation last night about when we would feel it was necessary to put Buster down. Right now he is acting like himself again mood-wise; it is just the physical symptoms that are present. From what I have been reading, generally about 6 months after diagnosis a dog is no longer able to walk. I think that this would be our breaking point because there are days where we leave Buster at home by himself while we are at work. If he can't stand up and walk to drink some water or change positions, that's not fair and not a good quality of life. The other breaking point would be when Buster becomes incontinent. *sigh*

Have any of you dealt with the loss of a pet? Izzy is not super close with Buster, but we are worried about how she is going to react when we do have to put him down.

Can't stop crying

This weekend was tough. Friday night after Buster got home from the vet and his MRI he couldn't sleep. They said that he was resting comfortably after the procedure and he would likely sleep the rest of the night, but it was the opposite. We fed him half of his normal dinner as per the vet's instructions and then when he kept it down, tried feeding the rest 30 minutes later (he wouldn't eat it). CP and I went to bed but couldn't sleep because Buster couldn't settle down. He wouldn't lay down and kept panting and whining. CP eventually took him downstairs to sleep on the couch and Buster at some point did pass out. The next morning I ended up bringing Buster to the emergency vet because we were worried that he had bloat. Thankfully he didn't, but he did get an anti-nausea shot which seemed to make him feel better and he finally started eating again. The rest of the weekend and even Monday, Buster was not himself. He wasn't asking for petting. He just laid down in the house like a lump. I'm not sure if he was just exhausted from all of the tests and vets or if he was depressed. Thankfully yesterday he seemed to perk up a bit more and act like himself.

Meanwhile, the test results on Buster's spinal fluid are in and the results are clear. This means that he does not have an auto immune disease that we could potentially try to fight with drugs or anti-inflammatories. We had the option to do a blood test to see if Buster has specific genetic markers which are consistent with having degenerative myelopathy, but decided not to. Whether he has the markers or not, it doesn't change the treatment plan for Buster.

Right now he is on a steroid for the next 18 days to see if it helps. If he has DM then the steroids won't help at all as it is a last ditch effort. If they do help then he doesn't have DM and we can search out other ways to figure out what is wrong with him. The neurologist vet is pretty sure that it is DM because Buster has all of the classic signs and issues....the only abnormal thing is his age (6.5 years old). DM is usually a disease that happens in older dogs (at least 8 or 10 years old), so for it to present this early in a dog's life is rare.

I started crying during the conversation with the vet after asking how long we may have left with Buster. He said that generally about a year after you start to notice signs, the dog loses the ability to walk and control urine and bowel movements. Trying to get some sort of wheels or cart for Buster is not an option because although his issues are worse in his hind legs, the vet already noticed issues with his front legs as well. As soon as you put a dog in a cart, you put extra strain on the shoulders and front paws and with Buster's size, that is not an option. 

I started to see a difference in Buster by at least January of this year because I took him in to the vet in February (when we found out that he had two partially torn ACLs). So we may only have a few more months with Buster which is legitimately hurting my heart right now. For those of you that haven't been around these parts as long as Buster has been in our lives, CP and I decided to get a second Bernese Mountain Dog as a present to each other on our first anniversary. We  pushed off getting a puppy until the following spring due to some bills and by then we were almost a year into trying to get pregnant and starting to get some bad news about our fertility. Buster, especially when he was a puppy, was a great distraction from all of the bad news that we were getting, so he was able to fill the infertility hole in our lives until I was able to get pregnant. I'm sure my mental state would have been worse had we not brought him home around that time, so his presence has been so helpful in our lives.

We didn't know how long we had left with Koda when she started to show signs of a bone tumor....turns out it was only 5 months later that we had to put her down only a week before she would have turned 10. I do think that with Koda, we waited a bit too long and I don't want to make that same mistake with Buster. The one good thing about DM is that it is not painful for the dog, but I do think that CP and I are going to have to make a hard decision in the next couple of months as Buster and his abilities deteriorate.

It will be far too soon.

13 months old

1 year, 1 month old (13 months old)

Wes being silly

Height- not sure

Weight- 26+ lbs

Diapers- Size 4 diapers during the day, Size 4 nighttime diapers

Milestones- Wesley is walking! He took his first few steps on the 5th and has become more confident in his walking skills every day since then. If he isn't walking/cruising then he is bopping around on his knees. I finally saw Wes clap and wave this past week too- better late than never!

I like to push my stroller everywhere

I also like to hold onto my sister or my parents' pant legs for balance when standing

He has no problem going up steps but wants to go head first when going down steps which is an issue. I have to turn him around all the time and grab his legs to show him how to do it. Hopefully he will get it down soon.

Language- I have mostly given up on the sign language because by 13 mos he really should be doing it himself and he continues to refuse. I think he has his first word as he points at Buster or other dogs and says "dah" a lot (doesn't seem to use that with other things that he points at). Wes thinks that it is hilarious when I say "uh oh" after he drops something. He definitely knows what the words dog, Buster, Izzy, Daddy, Mommy, ball, banana, monkey, bird, eat, milk, car, and train.

Working on mastering the art of going up steps

Favorite Toy: Balls. What a typical boy. :-)

Favorite Book: Any touchy-feely book. He is obsessed with our "Dog" book because it is about dogs and because it has different textures on the pages that he can feel. He also likes the "That's Not My (insert animal)" because of the textures too. He is more patient when I am reading a book that has textures, otherwise he sometimes tries to turn the pages for me before I am done reading the page. Ha. But overall, he loves when I read to him and will sit and turn pages of books when sitting by himself.

Sleep- Wes is a great sleeper from about 7:30pm to 7 or 8am. He naps very well at home, but doesn't do as well at daycare. Some days he takes two naps, sometimes it is only one. I don't want to jinx it but putting him to bed is seriously easy. We brush his teeth, change his diaper, put him in a cotton sleep sack, read two or three board books, sing him two songs, and then put him in bed. He immediately will lay down and sometimes grabs his monkey to snuggle with. He may cry for 10 seconds after you leave, but after that, he is down.

Clothes- 18 month clothing and on some of the shirts, his belly hangs out a little.

"Helping" me unpack after moving back into our house. Ripping paper is fun!

Eating- No more formula in our house- yay! I was worried about the transition to a sippy cup because it was such an issue with Izzy and Wes simply didn't seem to get the concept of a sippy cup. But one weekend after trying to push it at home and at school, Wes was suddenly a pro! He gets milk when he wakes up in the morning and with all meals, otherwise he drinks water.

Wes continues to be a good eater. He still mostly eats whatever we put in front of him. When he really likes something he will kick his legs in his high chair and smack his lips together.

I really enjoyed eating some of mommy's ice cream

Teeth- Wes has a lot of his teeth including two molars (one on each side). He looks like he is going to start cutting his bottom canines soon as well.

Illness- Poor buddy had a string of issues but seems to be getting better. He did have a viral rash and some weird bug bites, but has been healthier recently.

Misc- As of now, Wes is a mama's boy. He clearly prefers me over CP and although I can hand him over to CP for a minute or two. If I am still in the room, Wes will quickly ask to be back in my arms. As soon as I put him on my hip, he quickly rests his head on my shoulder to snuggle which is adorable.

He LOVES petting Buster (it's more of a tap) and has clearly learned the meaning of gentle (i.e. no pulling Buster's fur anymore).

Watching the ducks and the fish at the Botanic Gardens.

When we drop Wes off at daycare Izzy has recently wanted to give him a hug before we head over to her room. He always gives her a big smile when they hug. Whenever he is upset she can get him smiling pretty quickly (unless it is due to her taking away one of his toys and being unwilling to give it back).

He loves splashing around in baths and cries when we take him out. He also loves looking and pointing at animals- birds, bunnies, squirrels, cats, ducks, etc. As a typical boy, he is also fascinated with trains and trucks.