Our little guesthouse nightmare!

So you know how on those home shows where they intend to fix one small problem but more problems emerge, eventually requiring the owners to completely gut their house?  Yup, that is happening with us, except with our guesthouse.

When we moved into our house, we noticed that the guesthouse had a funky smell to it.  Bry thought it was cat urine.  So we replaced the floors with wood laminate and that seemed to largely fix it.  However, we noticed the smell had returned (not as strongly) a month later and so we thought maybe it the walls were affected, too.  Our friend who is renting the place was out of town last week so we thought it was a good time to fix the problem-- treating the walls with a solution and then painting it.  Should take no longer than 3 days.

When Bry removed one of the floorboards to help prep with the treatment, he discovered many more problems.  So this resulted in ripping out the newly installed wood floors, ripped out the laminate that was under it, pouring boiling water all over the studio to loosen the adhesive, ripping that out, etc.  All of this required taking out the entire kitchen, which resulted in more problems being found, so we have to replace some of the cabinetry, sink, faucet, etc.

To make matters worse, he is working in 90+ degree heat in one of the worst droughts in California history.  Surely, it would not rain on all of the furniture and boxes that was outside.  Well, it started to inexplicably sprinkle today, and so he had to move everything back inside, even though the sprinkling only lasted 10 minutes.

We had a flooring specialist come out and the problems seems to be some kind of moisture problem that was deep under the flooring, so now we have to have a mold specialist come tomorrow.  The whole floor is going to be re-cemented and then we'll have to do the wood floors again.

It has pretty much been a nightmare- and a very expensive one at that.  Our friend will be staying with us in our house and we're hoping the whole project will take no longer than 2 weeks.  We're also trying to prep the place to rent on Airbnb (since our friend is only there half the year) and so we're buying furniture, light fixtures, and updating some things so that it looks like a vacation rental.  Usually I am so excited to do anything interior-design related but this project has been pretty stressful.  You would think I would learn a thing or two from design shows about unanticipated problems, resulting in going way over budget, but it it's all still pretty distressing! 

Target and more girliness

I went to Target last night around Elise's bedtime so Bryant had to put her down.  Today, when I told her that I needed to go and that Dada would put her down, she said to me, "Mama!  Why do you go to Target everyday?!"

We watched the World Cup final today at the Liangs and Elise saw a VERY fancy flower girl dress out of the corner of her eye.  She begged to put it on and Judy said that it was probably too big but that she had a whole trunk full of princess dresses that Elise would probably prefer.  So when we went to investigate them, Elise was not interested AT ALL and still begged to wear the flower girl dress.  She kept on saying it was "like Lily's" and when I told her it was too big, she replied, "Lily's dress was too big, too!"  I was dying!

When she put it on, she was literally squealing in excitement.  And then she started talking about her wedding.  "Do you want to come to my wedding?"  "I'm going to have a wedding later and I'm going to be the flower girl"   "I'm going to wear this dress at my wedding".  I told Bry that we should probably start saving for her wedding now.  At this rate, she's going to want to go ALL OUT!

She wore it the whole time and was singing Frozen songs quietly to herself while prancing around the house.  She was in heaven.  So it looks like she has enough style discernment to know that these real dresses are better than cheaply made Disney ones.  When I got home, I went on Ebay and Craigslist to look for some cheap ostentatious flower girl dresses but couldn't find any quite like this at a decent price.  I'll probably have to make a trip Downtown where they have flower girl dress galore for cheap!

Elise the demographer

(written by Margaret)

In addition to Frozen, Elise is also obsessed with all things girls vs boys and big kids vs little kids/babies.  She is very intent on establishing her identity not only as a girl, but as a big girl (and no longer a baby).  She will declare that girls do certain things that boys don't do, girls wear certain things, etc.  Just now, I heard Bryant trying to brush her teeth, but she was worried that he going to brush her teeth like a boy.  Every morning, as I do her hair, she tells me that I need to do her hair like a girl, and not a boy.  The hair thing is pretty big.

Long gown

Elise is still in full-on Frozen obsession mode.  Yesterday, she wanted to wear her flower girl dress and she realized that the bottom of the dress did not train on the floor like Anna's.  So she got creative and got a blanket and asked me to make it like Anna's.  Well, I didn't know what she wanted and I don't think she even knew how it was going to work, so she was getting pretty frustrated.  She kept asking me to make the blanket "like Anna's on the ground" so I just put the blanket flat on the ground, which of course upset her.  Then she said that the blanket needed to be a dress around her neck and so when I tied it and she saw that it did not touch the ground, she got frustrated.  Finally I figured it out and tied it around her flower girl dress ties so that the blanket dragged on the floor as she walked.  She was so happy and started seeing "Let It Go" for the millionth time.

I really need to buy her a gown, don't I?

Alternatives to Nap Time

Elise held off on her nap for almost two hours today.  The last time I went in there, she was seated in front of the suitcase, with the light on, and told me, "I want to folding some clothes."  I said, okay, but please go to bed after you are done folding, and turned the light off.  As I was about to walk away, she said, "Please turn the light on so I can fold the clothes."

Milking Nana's Love

We are in Michigan now and Elise is just eating up all the attention from all the adults.  This conversation happened just now:

Elise (to Nana): I like you
Nana: I love you
Elise: Do you want to take me to Chuck E Cheese?