Goodbye, MTL; Hello, TR!

Sunset over the Pont Laviolette Bridge in Trois-Rivières

Ok, for real this time, I'm doing this!

Now that I'm a couple weeks into maternity leave and at about 70% satisfaction with the way the Trois-Rivières apartment is coming together, I can try to be more serious about keeping up with this blog!

Small Update: At the end of March, a bunch of big changes happened! I left my job and life in Montréal to join Mat in Trois-Rivières, which is about 1h45 up the river from the big city. We've been living separately since last August, when Mat made a big career decision to leave civil engineering and go back to school to become a chiropractor! The only university in the province with this program happens to be in TR, so off he went - and we were back doing long-distance again like so many times before (we've really become pros at it!) But we always knew it would be just until the spring, when my contract at work ended and I'd be free to move also.

So here we are! Roomies again with my husband.

ALSO WE ARE ABOUT TO HAVE A BABY. Though that's pretty old news by now. :) The little guy is due May 12, so between when I left Montréal and the due date, I'd given myself 6 weeks to prepare the apartment (and myself) for the REALLY big change. Truth be told, here I am now with 2.5 weeks left and I don't feel like I've accomplished very much at all! 

Baby bump progress! From left: 6 months, 7 months, 8 months! Though as of today, I'm about two weeks even further along.

Originally I gave myself a deadline of this coming weekend, when we're holding a big, day-long, drop-in party for basically everyone we know in a 300-kilometer radius, to celebrate all the things! The end of Mat's first year at chiro school, our rejoining of apartments/house-warming, and of course, the coming of our 3rd family member. I wanted to have the place running at 100% functional/design satisfaction, but... as a pregnant person/not-handy-with-tools-anyway person, I find myself limited to certain projects while Mat has been in a super-rush with the end of his semester and final exams. I'm starting to realize I may just have to deal with things not being exactly as I wanted them by the week-end. OH, WELL.

He finishes his last exam tomorrow (woohoo!) but that leaves us only Friday for party-prep. We're pretty low-maintenance about gatherings for the most part, but I always overcommit myself to things I don't think will take that long, and then I wonder where my time went! Like, I want to make a big pot of chili and a hefty bowl of fun (pre-spiked) punch (that I can enjoy too!). Seemed very simple when I made this idea... but of course this means grocery trips need to be made, prep time needs to be had, and then also there's cleaning and seeing what last-minute projects I can coax a very tired, exam-fatigued Mat to do. 

I sort of psyche myself out of my own projects sometimes, from just overwhelm-ment (that's not a word).

Here's a little progress report of the apartment so far:

Living room: Before

One of the biggest undertakings was the decision to paint all the doors/windows white! We have so much brown/wood furniture that it was just too much brown-on-brown.

Living Room: 60% done

I’ve already made some adjustments since I snapped this, but at the very least, I’m happy with the white door and window borders! Now, all we need is a new couch… (blahhh). I’m so over Ikea! But my dream couch is $2000 so that is a dream that will remain a dream for now.

Dining Room: 50% done

I LOVE that Mat made this table and these benches. BUT, the stain that I put on the table is just too orange-y and matches too much the floor. Also, the benches - which were originally constructed as couches for the living room but then didn’t really work - are too low for the table, so, we need to figure out a solution. And then there’s the issue of the giant wall on the right that I have yet to tackle. It’s so overwhelmingly large! And we don’t have large scale art (or a budget for it). So, solutions still in the works for this room. But hey, at least we have a dining area that functions!

Kitchen: 90% done

I’m actually happy with how the kitchen is coming along - I like how the cabinets turned out when we took off the doors. But this long custom piece of counter we installed - again, I made a terrible choice on the stain! Way too orange, and it totally clashes with the original countertop (and also the shelf above that we installed). I want to paint it white, but Mat prefers letting the wood shine through in some way - so our option there is to sand off the stain and try again.

Kitchen: 90% (2nd view)

We lucked-out with such a cool kitchen floor! It’s always a hit or miss with rentals. Though I miss the faucet in our Montréal apartment - it was new and had the feature where you can detach the sprayer - so handy! Again - hit or miss with rentals! Though we really lucked-out with the hanging apparatus for the pots and pans - the former tenants left it!

Baby room: Crib before

I don’t have any pics of the full baby room yet, since it’s also still currently functioning as Mat’s office until he finishes his session tomorrow. But I did manage to take care of some big projects. The crib we found for free (for free!) on the Québec equivalent of Craigslist, and I found the green a little too dark. (Though Mat loved it… sorry, Mat).

Baby room: Crib after

I really like how it turned out! So fresh and clean. The general aesthetic I’m going for with the baby room - which will also function as the guest room - is basically white with colorful accents… lots of plants and green and nature elements! Since I’m of the opinion that baby areas should be pleasurable for the occupying adult (ahem, me) who actually cares about how I feel in a space, rather than a baby who can’t see further than breast-to-mama’s-face… I mean, right? Like, who are all those elephants and dinosaurs and cutesy baby things for, anyway?? I mean, once he’s cognizant of his surroundings and can communicate his preferences, we can have a conversation. (Haha). But that is so far off, and what if he doesn’t turn out to like dinosaurs?? You know, or whatever. Ok, end rant.

Baby room: Rocking chair after

I can’t find any pics of this chair before, unfortunately, (but I know I took one!). This chair was Mat’s late grandmother’s (the only one of his grandparents I got to meet!), and it’s in super great condition, but the upholstery needed serious changing. Not only was it a kind of depressing brown/green situation, it was also really old and essentially in the process of disintegrating. My super amazing friend Laure helped me recover it! (Actually, when I say “she helped me”… I barely helped her! She did all the heavy sewing while I flailed around her asking how I could help.. haha). Thank you so much, Laure, you’re the best :)

You can also see a glimpse of the closet door there, which is part of the big door/window painting project that is STILL not fully finished… that was a way bigger undertaking than I imagined! Every door needed 3 coats!

Bedroom: 50%? 60%? 40%?

Ah I just don’t know what to do in our bedroom. On the one hand, I like keeping it simple and not putting anything on the walls. Also, Mat isn’t the biggest fan of throw pillows so I try to keep those to a minimum in his high-traffic areas. My dream for over the bed is a simple shelf filled with bunches and bunches of ivy-tumbling plants (like this). The missing tools for that so far have been the labor (Mat) and the plants (also Mat… he’s the green thumb!) And I really want a nice big rug to go under the bed, to sink our toes into when we wake up! But I am SO INDECISIVE about rugs. Do I want color so not everything is white or beige? (Yes). But what colors are happy and fun enough, but not too girly? (I’m afraid of reds that seem pink sometimes, and just wary in general of creating a space that doesn’t feel like a man also lives in it.. I want it to feel like US, together). Also, the good, big rugs are incredibly expensive and what if I don’t like it?? Ahh. If anyone has any tips, I’m all ears and eyes!!

You can also see the door threshold and how it’s only on its second coat… man, that project. So. Long! So. much. paint!

Bottom line though - I really do want to use this blog to its advantage, especially with the New Adventures with Baby Bell-Genois coming up. This is such a great space to share everything, so I'm renewing my commitment to this!

(No but really... like, seriously. No really! I'm serious!!)

I'm serious.