Clogged (update)

Our bathroom drain has always been a bit slow to drain, but lately it has been almost completely clogged. We have tried practically every drain cleaner out there and nothing seemed to help. Well I decided to give good old fashioned baking soda and vinegar a try. While it definitely loosened up some of the gunk, the drain was still slow.

And then I began seeing something weird. Little worm like things. Gross. Worms in my sink drain? I don't know how they got there but I want them gone. It seemed like every time I flushed the drain with vinegar another worm or two would show up.

see it crawling up the sink?

zoomed-in as far as I could on this tiny little creeper

 I told Adam and he did some googling and found out they are actually the larva of 'drain flies' (which explains the random little flies I had seen before). Yes there is an actual name to these things in my sink, and they are apparently common.

The info we found said that vinegar won't actually stop the problem because it drains to quickly to kill all the larva. What we needed was a cleaner with enzymes that would eat away at the organic material stuck in the drain where the flies breed.

I had to go to one of the organic markets, but I picked up Biokleen.

It is thick like a normal drain cleaner, but is safe for pipes and the environment. I just poured some around the drain, will wait a few hours before using the water, and repeat in a couple days. Hopefully this not only gets rid of the flies/'worms' but also opens up the drain.

I had never seen or heard of drain flies before, have you?

**Update**5/30/12**

After telling my mom and dad (who had never heard of these flies) about the issue, my mom bluntly said "Just get some Draino and pour it down there." Having explained that we tried and the info we found said that we needed to use something that would actually break down the matter. Oh no, she explained. I just needed to pull out the stopper, pour some drain cleaner, and flush it with hot water.

Well, I can't remove the stopper, I said. I've tried. I've gotten as far as disconnecting the stopper from the lever that pulls it up and down in the sink, but I couldn't pull it out of the drain. Then she explained how:

Remove the small metal pole from the lever, then unscrew the pole from the drain. Pull out the stopper, and screw the pole back in (this is important, b/c if you don't, anything going down the drain will spill out under the sink; go ahead, ask me how I know...).

So with the stopper out, I could see that the biokleen had worked for the most part. There was plenty of gunk still in the sink but it wasn't attached the the stopper (I will spare you the image of the nasty build up, but if you're not sure how bad it can get- and how I imagine my sink was- look here). I used the stopper itself to scrape out as much as I could, poured some Draino down, waited the 15 minutes, and flushed the sink with hot water.

Success!

I will continue to use the biokleen regularly to keep the build up in check so we don't have any more issues with flies and worms (especially because Adam has asked to shave upstairs again).

I hope someone out there finds this helpful, I know I would have when this issue first started.

Progress

They came, they saw, they took away...

(Most of) my living room furniture has been hauled off to a new home in a friend's basement. YAY! They'll have to come back next weekend to get the sofa, but I am just happy that they were willing to take it. All that;s left in the living room now is the sofa, the arm chair (which no one wants..) and the little IKEA loveseat that was stored in the nursery (still need to find a home for  that one).

After moving the loveseat out of the nursery, I started thinking about what my mom had said- why did we need to get rid of the  dresser? If it could fit in the room with a twin bed, it can fit with a crib. So I got to thinking about how to arrange the dresser, glider, and crib (which we don;t have yet). I even got Adam to help move it around. I didn't think it would work, but a little shifting and tucking the glider into the corner, I think everything will fit just fine.

crib will go along the back wall

I was set against having the dresser- we don't need it, at least for now anyway- and I didn't need it for a changing table since I have always changed babies on the floor. But Adam pointed out that the dresser was the perfect height to change the baby, and there was no way he was going to change a diaper on the floor. So for now we keep it. We'll possibly remove the mirror, scrape off the tile (that I applied when I was about 16), sand and paint it. But we'll see. For now I'm just glad I have a few less things to worry about before baby arrives.

Rearranging

Since moving my craft things/office to the basement, and the guest room into the office, so the old guestroom could become the nursery, Adam and I have started talking more realistically about changing the living room into a real dining room. We hardly use the living room (I sit there and listen to the radio as I wake up in the mornings) and our dining room is actually only a little nook between the front door and the kitchen. We have big plans to open up the kitchen doorway and remodel the kitchen- bringing it into the dining nook- giving us more cabinet/counter space.

All the big plans are not happening for a while, but after moving around some furniture, we decided to make the dining room transition now. We wanted to donate the furniture but I was left on hold for over 20 minutes with the Salvation Army, and Goodwill schedules furniture pick up 3 months in advance (kind of wanted it out before baby came). So I posted my frustration on facebook and immediately had some interest in the living room furniture. An old friend/ acquaintance from swim team has a new home they need to furnish and they are coming by to look at it/ possibly pick it up tomorrow.

That meant I cleaned up the room so it looks like this:

but that also means the dining area looks like this:

And the guestroom looks like this:

and of course the nursery still looks like this:

I can;t wait to get the furniture out and start getting the baby gear in. Only 10ish weeks to go!

At It Again

I guess I am nesting. And since we have no baby related things to clean/organize/set up yet I worked on completing the change from my office to our new guestroom.

I thought it would be fine to have both in the same room, but after Adam's suggestions of turning the living room into a full size dining room (which we have been discussing for a while) and moving my 'office' downstairs (where the baby will play) it made sense to make the room just a guestroom.

Last week we moved my desk downstairs, and that convinced me even more that it would be a smart choice.
So, while Adam was away on a work trip, I began clearing out the shelf in the living room, which was to move into the guestroom. This is basically our liquor cabinet. Totally not child proof. So by putting it in the guestroom we can shut the doors and not worry about baby stybs climbing the shelf or grabbing any glass objects.

I realized that we have way too many shot glasses for the amount of shots we take (which is 0), so they may have to go when we donate all the other furniture that has to go too.

We still need to get rid of the circle table, move the old office shelf to the basement, and donate the excess furniture (couches, dresser, coffee and end tables). That means calling for a truck pickup, and finding a time when we can get some strong people over to help get the stuff out.

I really want to get everything set up so I won't have to worry about it anymore, but I still have time... 11 weeks.. eek!

Some May Call It Nesting

But I call it: "I'm bored and want to organize"

What was I organizing?Well I was actually re-arranging furniture. The current guest room is going to become the nursery. So the bed needed to be removed. My office is going to become the guestroom/ my office. My office is small (with 2 entry doors, a closet, and a large window limiting the arrangement of furniture) but I knew it would be enough room for a twin bed and a tiny desk.

Guest room pre-baby

Office desk area

So I started stripping the bed and then slid the furniture from one room to the other. After a while I got the bed and the (new and smaller) desk into place.

 The bed is where the desk used to be. I think I'll keep the gallery wall. It still works, I think. And Adam thinks the bed looks like a day bed (which is what I was going for) so I'll probably just throw a body pillow on there across the back.

Where the small couch was is now the desk. I got an extremely cheap desk from Ikea ($20) and moved it over to its new spot.

pardon the mess

 With the bed out of the soon-to-be nursery we finally have room for some of the baby furniture (glider/crib) we will be getting. The glider will go in the corner where the bed used to be.

And the crib will go where the big dresser is. We will be getting rid of  (donating or trashing) the big dresser since it is old, bulky, and we don't need it. We will be keeping the tall narrow dresser for now, so there will be plenty of storage for baby Stybs.

Of course, since we don't have the baby furniture now, the nursery is kind of a dumping ground. The poor little couch from my office is awaiting its new home (hopefully in my sister's playroom).

I can't wait to have the nursery complete, and am glad that we still have the option of a guestroom on the main floor, but it feels like it is taking forever. But in the same thought I can't believe I'll be half way baked in a few days! only 20 more weeks to go until we bring home baby Stybs. Hopefully to a finished nursery :)

Summer Organizing

Every now and then I get the urge to clean things out and reorganize. This time it was the linen closet. Our tiny little hall closet had accumulated way too much stuff. Even with the baskets to hold small things it was somehow still cluttered.

 So I emptied EVERYTHING out of the closet and out of the baskets.

I tried to group like-things together: shower stuff, cleaning supplies, medicine, etc...

top- bath sheets; middle- towels and wash cloths; bottom- cleaning supplies and rags

top-personal hygiene; middle- hair care; bottom- scale

Now I can take a towel out and not worry that everything is going to fall out!

The reason the baskets didn't work is because I shoved them to the sides of the closet. My thinking was that the smaller stuff would be in a basket and bigger stuff in the center for easy access. Well I figured out that the baskets need to be in the center of the shelves so they can be easily pulled out, without having to move something first. a simple switch, but it makes all the difference.

How is your spring summer cleaning coming?

Spray Paint Quick Fix

While at IKEA, picking up shelves, I also picked up a little blue-ish/purple metal tray. I had wanted to get a tray of some sort to wrangle all the things that collect on my dresser. I really liked the shape and size of this tray, but the color didn't work so well with my brown/tan/silver room.

So I got a $6 can of Krylon silver, hammered, paint from Home Depot. With just two coats the tray now matches the room well.

I especially liked that the hammered finished meant I didn't have to be perfect with my spray coverage. It also blends well with the mirror and dresser knobs and pulls.

Let's see how long my dresser looks like this before more things get piled up in the tray and start overflowing...

Black is Back

So the last time I showed you our IKEA shelves, the basement looked like this (notice the hole in the ceiling).

Saturday we Adam and our friend Joe put up a new ceiling to cover the hole. Then yesterday I decided to paint (for the second time since starting my summer vacation) the ceiling and the recessed space where the shelves were going. 

The ceiling is the same off-white as the rest of the room/ house. It blends in so well now you can't even tell we had a leak.

The recessed part behind the shelves got a coat of black paint, left over from when I painted my mom's old dining table. It only took an hour to get everything done.

 Now all that's left is to organize what's on those shelves... wait, I think I said that before..

School's Out!

With the end of the school year comes the return of the day-long projects. Friday I decided to finally finish the guest room. I had painted the trim and doors white a week or so ago, so the room was prepped and ready for the wall color. So, with my $5 gallon of Glidden paint, I painted from 10am-1pm. No breaks. I didn't even eat breakfast- I know, I know, not healthy but I was in the zone.

Here's how the room started

And here it is now

I really like Glidden paint. It is thick, covers in one coat, and the color is rich. I have always used Behr before/ even the paint and primer in one, but honestly I think Glidden covers better.It also doesn't smell as bad as Behr paint. I looked at the can and saw that is has a 'new low odor formula' so that is a plus. The new color also makes me hate my furniture less. I picked out the dressers when I moved out of my sister's room into my own room for the first time. They were the only dressers I liked so that's what I got.

But in a cream room, the cream/off-white dressers looked ugly. I hated them and wanted to get rid of them. But now they are ok, I hate them less, and now only want to change the hardware (for now).

On a side note, when I was putting the room back together I decided to wash the curtains. Well look what happens when you wash cotton curtains

Yup, they shrunk. I told Adam they were like high-waters for our windows. He didn't laugh. Oh well, I'll figure something out.

IKEA Storage

In our basement, we had some horrendous looking- home made shelves. When we ripped out the ceiling where we had a leak, we took out the shelves too. So now with a weird bump-out/recessed portion of the wall that needed something.

I believe that is Dexter on the TV, I love Netflix :)

We looked through IKEA to find something and the shelf we wanted wasn't in stock! So we decided to pick up two smaller shelves (we actually might get a third) to put there.

please ignore the hole in the ceiling--that has yet to be re-dry walled

Now we had to decide what to do with all the stuff we had on those old shelves. Were we really going to put up all the DVDs and board games and nick-knacks? We decided against it and picked up two boxes to fit in the Expidit cubes. And, just like I consolidated my teaching CDs into itunes, I took all our DVDs and consolidated them into a binder.
I didn't realize how many DVD's we had:

that's over 6 feet of DVD cases...

More specifically, how many start with 'S' (Yes, I am slightly OCD and needed to alphabetize the DVDs- don't judge me...)

Anyway, once I got them alphabetized I loaded them into the binder. Not including our TV series and special edition collections, I almost filled up the binder (that holds almost 250 discs)!

Speaking of the TV series and spacial editions, I tucked them into those two storage boxes we picked up.

Adam's box of Star Wars and Anime

My box of Gilmore Girls and Sex and the City

Now all the DVDs are organized and essentially hidden.

Now I just need to get started on the board games and nick-knacks. Oh my...