my MIL is funnier than your MIL.

Mark's grandfather had surgery last week to fix a deteriorated disk in his spine. Over the weekend, we got an update when we saw Mark's mom:

M: how's everything going?
C: well, Pop didn't make it...

*pause*

C: ...in time to come to church this morning.

we about died laughing. her ability to spread news and rumors simultaneously is a true gift. see also another recent incident:

C: have you heard Mark and Amanda's big news?
*pause*
C: They passed their PE exams!


**not pregnant. just to be clear. our big news really is that we passed the exam, its just the presentation of the information that may lead people to believe otherwise.**

half way to one hundred.

41. whoever dreamed up the color run.
42. warm afternoons in November.
43. knees.
44. my knee brace.

45. tennis shoes.
46. my husband: he is encouraging, hard working, and fun!

47. warm showers.
48. shoeboxes full of presents.
49. coupons.
50. Christmas cards.

be grateful.

this is one of my favorite family holiday traditions - listing 100 things i am thankful for in the month of November.

i had 'jack-o-lanterns' on the list, but then took it off after i realized that its been in my 'top 10' every year just because i like to share pictures of our carved pumpkins. but i realized that i have PLENTY of other things to be thankful for and i can share pictures without necessarily using it as list-filler. this year's was a collaboration between me and Mark, and i'm kind of really proud of it.

This year, i am thankful for:
1. making it inside before the torrential downpour.
2. laughing with my husband.
3. Friday afternoon phone dates with my Mom.
4. my BFITW Julie. (let's hang out sometime soon?)
5. haircuts.
6. date nights.
7. that my sister didn't get hurt in the car accident.
8. my community group.
9. God's saving grace.
10. tacos.

"be grateful. what you have may not be exactly what you want, but it is a lot and it is yours."                                              -Leah

**as always, these annual november thankful lists are not in any sort of meaningful order other than the random order my brain spits things out.**

 

three.

three years is supposedly the leather anniversary. unless its the crystal/glass anniversary. depends on whether you are traditional or modern.

 

one bears testament to the strength of a marriage that lasts until year three, since leather is strong, long-lasting, and gets better with age.

 

the other is fragile and easily broken.

 

so i think i'll stick with leather. 

happy third anniversary to us!

catching up.

so. its been a while since i wrote much of anything of substance around here. if pressed for an excuse, i would have to tell you i've been busy. but if you ask me whats new? i would say 'not much.' which is kind of oxymoronic - how can i be busy, but have no new stories to share?

so today i am going to share:

- Mark has started a new project. normally i would say that WE have started a new project, but this one is totally him. he is building us a brand new storage bed, which is to say he is building a queen sized bedframe with a dresser built into it. so far, he has brought all of the material home, and has spent the past two weeks attempting to get all of the pieces cut while dodging scattered showers in the backyard. i swear, as soon as he decided to do all of his woodworking on the back deck to minimize the sawdust mess in the basement, it has done nothing but rain. my only contribution to the project was the first day when i attempted to help cover the stack of plywood with a tarp and ended up dropping the entire thing on my knee and his ankle. i havent even done so much as take a picture since then, to minimize my jinxing effects on the project.

- I have not started any new projects. i blame this on that whole "being busy" thing i've been doing for the past two weeks. this summer has my creativity at a standstill, and i'm having a hard time thinking beyond work, dinner, dishes, laundry. sigh.

- Action Camp was last week. it was awesome. and exhausting. the church does their week of 'camp' for a few hours each evening, so that the maximum number of people from the church will be able to volunteer. this year i was the group leader for the youngest group, the 4-5 year olds, all 25 of them. i had some AMAZING helpers who kept us all sane as we laughed, danced, sang, played, crafted, snacked, learned about our amazing God, and kept tears to a minimum (from both the kids and the adults!)

- we went to the beach last weekend! by the time we got there late on Friday night (after the last night of Action Camp) i was pretty much asleep on my feet. but the beach was just what my exhausted little self needed to unwind and recharge over a long weekend. the beach was sunny, the water was amazing, and i only faceplanted into the sand that one time, and its only because that wave hit me right in the head. apparently getting out of the ocean is difficult, ok?

i felt compelled to take a grand total of 9 pictures at the beach.  and one of them was of my dinner. i have no regrets - that fish was downright thrilling.

- we got rid of cable. we talked about it, and decided that we could live without it. fingers crossed that we actually make it through the end of baseball season without any major withdrawl. and dont even mention football season.

- i partially cleaned my bathroom last night. you dont even want to know how long it had been since i last scrubbed it down, and since i DO know how long it had been i probably shouldnt be proud at all of a partially clean bathroom...but there it is. this is my life.

- i have babies on the brain. this does not mean that i am having babies, or even trying to have babies, but i am thinking about them, and talking about them with my husband. of course some of our conversations are like the one last night, when Mark and I were discussing the merits and possibilities of long distance, virtual babysitters: he thinks that if we knock down some walls to create a more open concept living area, and we get a camera for the tv, we can just have the grandparents skype in to keep an eye on our future kiddos. seems legit, right?

there. now you're all caught up on the must-knows and even the probably-didnt-really-need-to-knows too. we should do this more often.

meal plan tuesday: august 6.

so yesterday was... how should i put this... crap-tastic. emphasis on both the crap AND the (fan)tastic.

i left my house at 6:30am and didnt make it home again until 9pm. thats 14.5 hours, for those of you can't be bothered to do the math for yourselves. everything inbetween was non-stop action and excitement, whether it was a full day at work, or discovering the joys of a speed trap when you're already running late, or being late on your first night of being the lead herder for 20+ four-and-five-year-olds at Action Camp. (love those kids. highlight of my day by far) and then when i thought i had already crammed in as much fun as possible for the day, i wrapped it all up by dropping a giant stack of plywood on my knee. once the swelling goes down a bit more, i have a feeling that this is going to be quite a spectacular, long-lasting bruise.

needless to say, there was zero time for meal planning yesterday. hopefully the rest of the week will be a little less action packed, but since i am still going to be working during the day AND brushing up on my cat-herding skills heading up the PreK-K group at Action Camp in the evenings, i have the feeling that (hopefully minus the cops and the bodily injury) the rest of the week is going to be pretty much the same kind of crazy.

i'm very thankful that they're feeding me every night at Action Camp this week, but since Mark couldn't be a helper this year he's on his own for dinners. good thing he has an awesome wife to at least point him in some semblance of a direction:

Monday: leftover potatoes.
Tuesday: leftover soup.
Wednesday: frozen raviolis in jar sauce.
Thursday: taco night.
Friday: egg sandwich.
Saturday - Monday: beach time!


PS if you think of it, be praying for Action Camp this week - this year is the biggest year yet, and there is a lot of work that goes into effectively sharing God's good news with all of these kids, which is something that the enemy is going to do his best to prevent!

he's famous.

text i got at work last week from the hubs:

"I just ate a 1 pound burger.

I didn't know they put your picture on the wall :)"

yup. he ate an entire pound of beef, all the fixin's, AND a milkshake for lunch that day, just because his boss said "hey lets go out for lunch today." i'm so proud. all he got was a picture of him with a giant stuffed cheeseburger hung up on the wall, but now he keeps reminding me of how "famous" he is. so even though he's not one for resolutions of any sort, i have a feeling that if he were to start now, his non-resolution list for this year would look something like this:

1. get picture hung on burger joint wall (be famous).

2. get picture on 'repeat offender' section of the wall.

back to reality.

i just want to keep writing about the beach. because not so secretly, i kind of want to live at the beach. i want to be able to wake up every morning and walk there: to feel the wet sand between my toes and listen to the waves crash and watch the seagulls fly. i want to have more pictures to share of waves and sand and my favorite people having fun in the sunshine. i want to live with salty air and perpetual beach hair.

but that's not my life. and it might not ever be. i may be a beach bum at heart, but i live in farm country, where the air is fresh but not at all salty, and i have to put effort into making my hair not look like a tangled wet mess. instead, i've got the smell of fresh cut grass in the air, and hair that is currently stuck in a perpetual state of growing out. for serious - i think this is the slowest my hair has ever grown. when i was getting regular haircuts in an attempt to keep it short, it was all "whee! look at how fast i can grow back! what fun!" and now that i'm actually attempting to grow it out to about chin length, its all "you know? i think i need to slow down and enjoy the ride. i'm just gonna go ahead and hang out here around your ears for a while." the nerve.

but i'm not complaining one bit. i like farm country. i like the life that i am living. and i really like that i get to live it with my husband, who would be less than enthused about living at the beach year-round to say the least. i've got a good thing going here. not perfect by any means, but definitely good.

so for now, i'm done talking about the beach. i've slowly drifted out of vacation mode and i'm finally diving back into real life here in the real world where there is grass to be mowed, projects to be started and finished, and adventures to be had: exciting things like yardwork, rearranging the basement, and fish-countering (among other things). get excited. it's gonna be fun.

just beachy.

since we didnt have a ton of non-rainy time at the actual beach, i spent most of my beach time reading, soaking up rays, freezing in the water, and playing frisbee instead of playing with my camera. 

 

Mark spent most of his time at the beach wearing a hat, sunglasses, and a long sleeved shirt, seated directly under the umbrella. his goal was twofold: to not get sunburned, but also to not have to put on any sunscreen. he succeeded in not wearing sunscreen (despite much nagging from me) but since he abandoned his shady spot to briefly play frisbee and get his feet wet in the ocean, he brought home a super-awesome souveneir sunburn on his shoulders and the tops of his feet.

 

i, on the other hand, slathered and reapplied like a good girl who spent all day sunday out in the sun, and all i got to show for it was a couple new freckles and barely even a noticable tan line. 

 

as of yesterday, we have planned a vacation in August with Mark's family - another long weekend trip to the beach! i am excited to have another beach trip to look forward to, and i think Mark is mostly just resigned to the fact that he is stuck with the reality of being beach-indifferent while being married to a beach-lover. (that would be me! i love the beach!)

before i realized there were water spots on my lens.

 

ok here's just one more picture of the beach, and then i still have fun pictures of the boardwalk and a lovely sunset to share!

 

these colors remind me of my mom's beachy sign.

if all goes well, i think i can spend more time posting pictures and talking about vacation than i actually spent ON vacation...

a quick tour.

do you have two minutes? good because i only have one. but i can't let this week go by without posting about how our driveway currently looks like we're about to open our own landscaping supply business. we've got half a birdbath, some pavers, a metric ton of river rock, and mulch coming out our ears!

 

yes, we're still mulching. and yes we're still excited about it. and no, we're not still using landscape fabric underneath the mulch. mark found a different kind of weed barrier: old plan sets from work. i think he cleaned out the office recycling bin and brought it all home. so far so good, but only time will tell if it can stand up to or maybe even surpass the weed blocking abilities of the fancy fabric in the front beds.

so you want to see what mark has been up to around the house? well over the weekend, two more bushes got removed from the side of the house...

 
and that side bed got some mulch.

the bushes around the deck got to stay...

and both beds around the deck got defined and mulched.

at the end of the weekend, we still had a sizeable pile of mulch in our driveway, so mark took it upon himself to reduce the amount of grass he has to cut, especially under the trees where the grass doesn't grow well anyway. so on Monday... more mulch.

 i just want to note that carefully cropped out of these photos is the firepit area, which is currently overflowing with bushes and other yard waste that is waiting to be burned and completely detracts from any and all improvements that have been made by the mulch... anyone want to come over for a bonfire? we hear that old Christmas trees are especially spectcular to set on fire...

meal plan tuesday: may 7.

yesterday was a mess. i could go on for several paragraphs about all the frustrating, annoying, not-really-all-that-terrible-but-in-the-moment-were-the-worst-thing-EVER things that i was dealing with and muddling through and crying about, but at the end of the day that's not what i want to remember about yesterday.

instead, i want to remember that when i got home from work Mark was weeding the flowerbeds. and when he saw how upset i was he wiped my tears, made me giggle, and carried in the groceries. he worked outside until dark to make me a new flowerbed. he appreciated the dinner i made. he sat with me at the table and chatted over a glass of wine. he got me a bowl of ice cream and let me fall asleep early on the couch while he watched a replay of an O's game from last year. this morning he claimed he even carried me to bed and tucked me in, but i have a feeling he was stretching the truth a little on that one... (he told me he was just kidding, but that he would have if i needed him to)

super duper cheese alert: its nice to know that even crappy days can have happy endings.

in the midst of the mess, i somehow managed to survive the grocery store yesterday. i didnt have a plan or a list, but i bought some stuff, so here's my best guess as to how we're going to survive until next week:

Monday: chicken parmesan with angel hair pasta.
Tuesday: soup from a can.
Wednesday: but seriously, meatballs. (recipe)
Thursday: quesadillas with rice, beans, and avocado.
Friday: baked fish with vegetables.
Saturday: frozen raviolis with jar sauce.
Sunday: Mother's Day at our house. (still need to plan this)

2013: the year of the outdoors.



one of my non-resolutions for this year (which is actually one that carried over from last year) is to have pretty flowerbeds. we have lived in our house for almost three years, and in those three years we have been so focused on inside projects that we have given hardly any thought or time or energy to the outside of the house. in fact, we just barely managed to keep the grass mowed. but no more! we are finally at a good place inside (aka no big painting or drywall or bathroom projects for a while) that we can focus our attention elsewhere. so this is the year of the outdoors. the year i will finally have pretty flowerbeds. or at least flowerbeds that are filled with something other than weeds and dead things.

 

as with any good project, we're starting with demo. there were a few bushes around our house that had to go, because they just weren't doing it for me. so i made a list. and then i gave that list to the hubs and spent the weekend chillin' in New York City.

 

i didn't have have a chance to take any updated before pictures, so i went back through my archives and found these from last year when i painted our front door and weeded that one time. i even went so far as to highlight the offending bushes for your viewing convenience.

 

two bushes by the front door



overgrown lavender bush in the backyard

 

giant angry bush that would eat the entire house if we let it

 

since i was out of town, i was at the mercy of the hubs for process pictures. i got one. and i was never so happy to see an empty hole in the ground.

 

 



when i got home on Sunday, i was THRILLED to see all of the progress that had been made, and all of the things that had been crossed off the list. in addition to a few smaller items like raking up some leftover leaves and picking up all the sticks in the yard, the bushes in the front of the house were gone! its kind of wild to see just how much visual space their removal has opened up on the front porch.

 

 

and i can practically hear my works-at-a-lavender-farm sister's heart breaking in two over this picture, but that bush in our backyard was in bad shape. in fact, it didnt really have any shape at all. AND there was giant ugly grass that grew up the middle of it that was impossible to pull. mark claims that he did not see the family of bunnies that in the past has been known to live in the lavender bush and scare the life out of me by bolting out from under it any time i got too close to it with the lawnmower. i do feel a little bad about evicting them, but i'm more excited about planning something new to plant in this spot and disguise the well.

 

mark didnt have time to deal with the giant angry bush on the corner while i was gone, or maybe he didnt want to take it on by himself, but man oh man do we have PLANS for this weekend! so exciting!!

8 unmistakable signs of spring.

spring is on its way. i can feel it creeping up on us, and here's how i know:

1. warmer weather.
2. birds chirping in the morning.
3. new green growth popping up allover!
4. more sunshine.
5. daylight lasting longer in the evenings.
6. shamrock shakes.
7. adorable baby cows at the farm down the road.
8. Mark shaved the beard!!!

bring it on, spring. i am so ready.

a year in the making.

on Sunday, i finally made time to finish hand-tacking mark's tshirt quilt togther. yes, the one that my sister helped me with almost exactly a year ago that had been sitting in a mostly-finished but still unusable state of being since then. its finally all sewn together and is no longer held together with giant safety pins. but i'm thinking i should have looked into adding a thimble to my sewing kit before this project.

finish mark's quilt. totally worth the bruised thumb to get to cross it off the list.

man oh manischewitz.

so, we finished p90x.

*cue the celebratory parade, streamers, and confetti*

confession: it took us more than 90 days. at first, i was determined to follow the program completely by the book, going so far as to go back and make up the workouts that we had to miss. but then i realized that there were just some days we didnt have a spare minute (let alone a whole hour+) for working out. and then we took a couple weeks off for thanksgiving and christmas. and after that, whenever we had to miss a day i was just happy that the end was one day closer.

we actually did our last workout right before we left for the ski trip earlier this month, but its taken me a while to gather my thoughts about the whole experience.

first things first, i should probably back up a little and start with the beginning: why exactly did i want to do this crazy thing in the first place? to be honest, it was because of my non-resolution to feel good about myself in a bathing suit. simple as that. its not like i was super-obese or anything. in fact, i am blessed with a relatively tiny figure. but i am also cursed with a relatively tiny figure that tends to accumulate all its extra pounds around my midsection: in my belly, hips, butt, and upper thighs. and lets just say that this summer i had a few extra pounds of post-wedding comfort weight hanging around, negatively affecting my view of myself.

may 2012                                july 2012

 

seeing these and other pictures of myself was kind of a shock to me - my overflowing love handles and prego-looking belly were not what i was expecting to look like - especially since i thought i had been doing reasonably well at living a healthy lifestyle. i worked out twice a week, and made an effort to not eat too much terrible food. but as much as i didnt want to hear it at the time, the lady at my health screening in june was probably right when she told me that even though all my numbers (weight, bmi, cholesterol, etc) were ok and within the right range, there were still more things that i could be doing.

 

so i did something. with Mark as my main encourager, we started p90x, stopped eating sugar, and i made an effort to include more fruits, vegetables, and lean protein into our diet. i didnt do it all perfectly. but i did it. and i even learned a few things along the way:

 

1. it is ok to collapse in tears, as long as you pick yourself back up again. or have a loving and supportive husband nearby to pick your sorry butt up off the ground where you fell after your legs just gave out. you can cry because its hard. you can cry because you feel like a failure. but the important thing is that you just keep going. (unless of course you are physically injured, in which case you best take a break)

 

2. i am stronger than i thought, both physically and mentally. in the past 3 months i have worked harder, sweated more, lifted heavier weights, and pushed myself harder than i ever thought possible. when i felt like i was completely spent, i did one more rep. one more exercise. and i am still standing on the other side. i have also realized that it is possible to work all day, then work out, and still have time for food, laundry, and spending time with friends and family. its a pretty delicate balance, and sometimes the dishes get overlooked, but it can be done. and it feels pretty awesome.

july 2012. i just like this picture of me, lovehandles and all.

photo credit: the talented Sarah Hurst

 

3. what you put in your body before a workout matters. allow me to set the scene for you: it's day 5 of week 11. we are in the home stretch. this particular workout is one that we have done every single week, and i have been consistently improving. until today. 'no tears, no tears, you can do this' i say to myself as i hang from the pull-up bar, willing my body to move. i manage one half-hearted (assisted) pull-up before my arms give out and the time runs out. to compare: i did eight in the very first week. why the difference? it probably had a LOT to do with the fact that spending the preceding day and a half sitting on the couch, and eating junkfood all day after staying up late with friends didn't exactly do me any favors when it came to upping my energy level for that day's workout. turns out that not all exercise cliche's are without any truth: proper feuling is important: garbage in, garbage out.

4. fitness and health cannot be measured by a number on the scale. and pounds are not directly correlated with inches. when i started this program, i had a goal weight that i set in my head. i never said it out loud, shared it with anyone, or wrote it down anywhere. 13+ weeks later, i never hit that goal weight. not even close. and yet i know for a fact that i am in as good (if not better) shape than i have been since probably high school. and that super small goal weight? i'm probably never going to hit it. and i'm ok with that. it was kind of unrealistic anyway.

day 1 vs. day 90-ish. i lost five pounds. and got a haircut.
i can't believe i'm putting these pictures on the internet.

5. encouragement is a great motivator. it helps to have someone in your life who will say 'wow, you have lost more weight, haven't you?' every time they see you. (thanks, Diane!) it takes some of the sting out of the unchanging number on the scale, even when you're eating well and working your tail off. graciously take all the compliments you can get - even the strange ones like 'your shoulders are looking really good!' they are all awesome. even the ones that probably weren't meant to be compliments. (i'm looking at you, skinny girls in the bathroom who commented on the size of my calves while i was STILL WITHIN EARSHOT. you are bad whisperers.)

so now that we made it through the program, what comes next? my goal at the moment is mostly maintenance with maybe some more progress. keep eating well, keep trying to find new good foods to incorporate into our meal plans, and keep working out. at this point, i dont think i could go back to just two nights of jazzercise per week. i'm hooked. i took a whole week off after our last official p90x workout, and by the end of that week i was pretty excited to get back to my weights again.

as far as a set workout plan/regimen, i'm still in the process of figuring out what is going to work best for me in the long run going forward. also, i think this post is plenty long enough already, so i think the specifics are going to have to wait for another post on another day.

when he has a bad day.

you know it's bad when:
     you have to leave in ten minutes, and he is still in bed even though you have been informing him of the time for the past half an hour. you know it takes him at least fifteen minutes to get ready. this is not a good start to the day.
how to make it worse:
     let him know that you are annoyed. passive-aggressively (but mostly aggressively) inform him that you are not going to play this game today and he needs to get out of bed right now. sigh and stomp around as he tells you not to yell at him and stays in bed another five minutes.
how to make it better:
     instead of being mad that he is going to make you late, do whatever you can to help him to speed up his morning. make his protein shake for him. grab a granola bar for him to eat in the car. apologize for getting upset earlier. tell him you love him.

you know it's bad when:
     he gets discouraged just thinking about thinking about making a decision about what to do about financial planning, retirement savings, life insurance, budgeting, etc.
how to make it worse:
     remind him that he has had the past two-plus weeks to think about this, so why did he put it off until the last moment possible? in fact, why does he put everything off until the last possible moment? doesnt he know how stressed out this makes you? (i didnt say this, but i did think it)
how to make it better:
     offer to update the budget, which you have been meaning to do all month anyway. that way, at least the first step is done and he will have a better base point to work from. tell him you love him.

you know it's bad when:
      he is getting visibly and physically frustrated with attempting to take the christmas tree out of its base.
how to make it worse:
      jump in to help. when he snaps at you, snap right back. backhandedly offer to clean out the base to put it away. end up covered in sap, bleeding, and ugly crying at yourself in the bathroom mirror.
how to make it better:
      i dont really know. i didnt do so hot with this one. it was just bad all around.

you know it's bad when:
     he said he was going to take a nap, but instead has been puttering around the house all day working on little projects in a big sigh-y funk.
how to make it worse:
     once he takes your not-so-subtle hint that a nap might actually be a good idea, (tip: say something like "why dont you just take a stupid nap already" in your most obnoxious voice) be annoyed that he is napping. decide to make as much noise as possible in and around the room that he decided to nap in, just to let him know you are annoyed.
how to make it better:
     the laundry can wait. you didnt really need to slam those books onto their shelf. and the vaccuum? really? stop making so much unneccesary noise. offer to turn off the lights for a more nap-friendly environment. pick a quiet activity to do for the next half an hour or so until he wakes up.

you know it's bad when:
     you go out to dinner (his suggestion) and he just sits silently across the table from you.
how to make it worse:
     ask him a string of random questions in an effort to spark a conversation. be sure to include "whatcha thinking?" "are you ok?" and "how's your dinner?" be disappointed in the one-word answers that are provided.
how to make it better:
     tell him to ask you a question. do not freak out when he busts out a big-deal question instead of the 'whats your favorite color'-type question you were anticipating. answer honestly. ask him a related question. be amazed at the quality conversation that ensues.

i dont really know why i feel the need to share this story. it was a really ugly day at our house - not exactly something that i'm proud of. then again, maybe thats exactly why i feel like sharing it. because we are far from perfect. and yet, here we are. two imperfect sinners brought together by the grace of God to navigate this life as a team. and sometimes bad days just happen and there's nothing you can do to avoid them completely. blame it on hormones, or stress, or the phase of the moon, but the truth is that without God all our days would be this bad or worse.

the tail end of the full moon that turned my hubs into a werewolf.

 there is no fool-proof ten-step program to successfully dealing with days like these. but thankfully, God gives us grace upon grace when we are less than graceful. and also: beautiful, brand new ,blank-slate mornings.

the sunrise opposite the moon.

 

 "...those who dwell at the ends of the earth are in awe at your signs. You make the going out of the morning and the evening to shout for joy."

Psalm 65:8

mark's first "small" project of the year.

if i were a "real" home improvement blogger, i would be splitting this project into bite-sized, pinnable, tutorial-type posts. they would be titled things like:

 

"removing a warped fireplace mantel,"

 

"the most complicated way to hide all those obnoxious tv wires,"

and

 

"mounting a tv into brick: must-have tips and tools."

 

but instead, i'm just going to throw a bunch of pictures and some rambling words in the general direction of a coherent post because thats the way i roll, yo.

 

just as a reminder, this is our fireplace. in the two-plus years we have lived here, we have spraypainted over the 80's gold surround, and upgraded the molding and trim all around it. tucked away at the very bottom of our maybe-someday-fireplace-to-do-list were ideas i had about replacing the warped wood mantel, maybe painting the brick, and mounting a tv in that prime tv-mounting space.

 

mark was not 100% on board with all of these ideas. he liked the wood mantel. (so did i, but it was hard to put anything on the left side of it without it sliding off) he thought painting the brick might not actually be good for resale value. and he didnt think we needed a big tv taking away the focus in this room from the fireplace.

fast forward to this Christmas, when he had apparently finally had enough of attempting to see the score of the baseball and football games on the tiny 12-inch screen we were working with since April. enter a 40" hdtv and a blu-ray player. because why not. Merry Christmas to us!

i tried to convince him to wait until after the holidays to start this project. i think he made it 4 days after Christmas before he started in on his first long weekend of work. first up: electrical.

to keep all the wiring hidden, it was going to have to be run through the walls. by only cutting the drywall behind the baseboards, mark opened up enough space to work with, but didnt have to worry about any additional drywall work or touch up painting when it came time to put it all back together again.

 

since he is an overachiever, he decided to add a new circuit to the breaker that is dedicated to the upstairs entertainment area. there are two new outlets on this circuit that he added. his headlamp came in very handy for this part of the job.

 

next up: removing the old mantel. we were hoping to remove it in one big piece, since it was such a nice thick chunk of wood we figured we could reuse it somehow. but all the prybars and screwdrivers in the world would not make it budge. so mark broke out the handsaw. and a couple strokes in, the mantel just popped right off the old glue that was holding it on. in one nice big piece. with a nice big sawcut in it.

mark scraped all of the old glue off of the brick to prep the surface for the new mantel he was building.  oh, did i not mention that mark was building the new mantel? because he did. it was all part of his master plan for concealing all the wiring.

he started by drilling a hole through the bottom piece of the mantel and into the brick. this gave the mantel a definite centerpoint that made trying it on at different stages in the building process to check measurements were always the same, since that one hole could be lined up by sticking a drill bit in it.

and then, mark built a mantel. i dont have a lot of technical details about the how-to of this, but i know it involved some wood, some glue, and a nail gun. forgive me, i was much to busy being a giant sloth-ball on the couch and reading my way through the Lord of the Rings trilogy (which i have since finished! what a good story!) you're pretty lucky i took breaks at all to take a couple pictures of the progress mark was making.

if the angle of these pictures looks similar, its probably because i didnt really bother to move from my super comfy setup on the couch. ever. but this gives you kind of an idea of how this thing is built. like a big, long, hollow box that wraps around the side of the brick, with intermediate supports to keep it all in shape.

the top piece is the only part of the box that is not connected. yup, it just sits there. there was talk of velcro or magnets to hold it in place, but it turns out it works just fine without that extra bit of planning or hassle. it had to be removable so that the wiring inside it can be accessed if the need should ever arise.

 

once the mantel was all built and painted and attached to the brick with three giant masonry screws, there was still a little more wiring to do. mark added an outlet box inside the mantel along with a surge protector power strip for the tv. since the mantel is hollow, all the wires can run inside of it, and then down through the wall to the other new outlet under the window without ever being seen. its really pretty slick.

 

the last step in the project was to actually mount the tv to the brick. we toyed with the idea of just sitting it on the mantel, but ultimately decided it would look more sleek, be able to be tilted for a better viewing experience from the couch, and leave the mantel more open if it were mounted. so mark, armed with a borrowed hammer drill, did just that.

 

and there you have it! with just over two weekends worth of work, we have a new mantel and upstairs tv!

 

we celebrated the end of the project and tested the picture quality of the tv by watching the extended editions of the Lord of the Rings trilogy over the course of a week. (we watched them mostly on the weeknights, half-a-movie at a time.) the verdict? they were good. i liked the books better. i can cross it off my list! mark liked being able to finally watch them with me, and is in love with the upgraded technology and actually being able to read the score of the football games.

since i took that last picture, the cable guy has come and gone, the wires have all been safely stashed either in the mantel or behind the walls, and the walls and baseboards have all been reattached. there's just one more tiny piece of wire-concealing that needs to be taken care of, and then this "small" project will be finished just in time for mark to move onto his next one.