Using curtain rods as drying racks in a laundry room
Years ago, my handy husband and I lived in an apartment with a laundry room down the hall. The dryer sometimes failed to dry our clothes properly in a single session, but weād stubbornly refuse to shell out another $1.25.
Our thrifty solution was a white metal drying rack that dominated our living room. Sometimes the damp clothes would be too heavy and the whole thing would collapse. More than once, I came close to piercing my eye on one of its metal arms. My mom jokingly called it āhobo junctionā during a visit, and it stuck.
These days we have a working dryer that does not accept quarters, and itās wonderful. Oh, and weāre not fancy enough to have clothes that need to air-dry.
But speaking of drying clothes, I have a fun project for you this week. My friend Melissa and her family recently moved into a new house and Iāve been helping her decorate.
Now, this house has a beautiful, bright laundry room thatās truly the stuff of Pinterest dreams: a deep white sink, farmhouse light fixtures and a washer and dryer set that give me serious appliance envy.
Itās a good-sized space, for a laundry room, but we didnāt want to crowd it with a huge fold-out rack. Luckily, there was a big empty wall that was begging for something interesting.
Melissa got the idea of using stacked curtain rods as drying racks (she loves Pinterest, too) and I was all in …
Continue reading in my weekly DIY column, My Handmade Home …
Two kids, four ears, six tubes
Our children have stuck Lego pieces up their nose and put screws in their mouth (wait, both of those instances involved our son) and for a long time there was something in their ears that didnāt belong: glue.
Specifically, ear glue. Gross, right? Apparently, when my husband and I make babies, we make ones with busted ears. The area behind their eardrum fills up with sticky fluid, which makes it harder for the eardrum to vibrate and carry noise to the inner ear.
The result? Kids that are walking around like theyāre underwater ā only hearing muffled sounds most of the time. The solution? Drain those ears and prevent further buildup with a tiny set of tubes.
Usually when a parent talks about putting tubes in their childās ears, itās because they suffered (and by ātheyā I mean the parents, too) many, many ear infections.
Neither of our kids has ever had an ear infection but they both needed bilateral myringotomies and tubes in their ears ā sometimes more than once. Our otolaryngologist explained some kids are just more prone to āglue earā because of how their ears are shaped and how their ears change as they grow.
Kids with otitis media with effusion (the medical name for āglue earā) arenāt in pain, so itās very different than an ear infection. The only real symptom is hearing loss and itās not always clear how much (or how little) they can hear, especially when theyāre toddlers.
I was worried about our sonās speech when he was a year old, but I wasnāt totally clear — as a first-time mom — how many words he should be saying. At 18 months, he was saying exactly six words and his toddler friends were chattering away with many more.
By that point, all of the baby experts agreed he should be saying at least 20 words. Uh-oh. (āUh-ohā was word No. 5 on his list, actually.)
He could sign close to 30 words in ASL, but his speech was clearly behind. We had his hearing tested and were stunned to learn he had hearing loss, although it certainly explained things.
He had his first tube surgery immediately following his second birthday and started in speech therapy, and our sonās speechĀ improved drastically.Ā
Of course, tubes donāt last forever — they pop out on their own as the childās ears grow, and you usually never even see them — and the fluid returned. A second set of tubes, when our son was three and a half, worked once again.Ā
Meanwhile, our daughter had no trouble learning to talk. She seemed like a genius because she knew so many words, in fact! I remember recording videos of her, totally in awe, because I was fascinated by how many words she could say.
āHer ears are fine!ā Iād crow to my husband. āShe hears everything!ā
Iād spoken too soon.Ā
Hearing loss struck our daughter at four, during the later stage (the four-year-old to seven-year-old stage) when the ears continue to change and grow.Ā
Suddenly she never seemed to hear us when we asked a question. She was constantly scrunching up her little face and saying āWhat?ā Iād get so tired of repeating myself that eventually Iād just snap āNever mind!ā and then get another ā… What?āĀ
As frustrating as it was for all of us, it must have been even worse for our daughter. Sheād been hearing fine for four years and then everything was muffled, like she was going through life with noise-cancelling headphones she couldnāt take off.Ā
When it was her turn for tube surgery, we were all grateful. She was still in the recovery room when she was making me whisper different sentences to see if she could hear them. Her little face lit up when she realized she could, and she happily declared her brother would no longer be able to keep secrets from her.Ā
Both kids continue to see their ENT (otolaryngologist) every three months to check on the status of their ears. Sometimes thereās fluid and sometimes there isnāt, and itās always interesting to see which tubes are still in place. The regular check-ups are well worth the long drive since we know thereās a solution available if the glue creeps back and starts to affect their hearing.Ā
Itās amazing that tiny pieces of plastic — the diameter of a piece of uncooked spaghetti — can make such a big difference.
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DIY stair organizer
When you walk in our front door, our stairs are to your immediate right. The carpet is builder-grade and I want to replace it ā thatās a discussion for another day ā but there was an even bigger eyesore: the āpiles.ā
Every time I picked up something that belonged on the top level, Iād stack it on one of the stairs near the bottom. You never knew what youād see on those stairs: clean clothes, toys, books, hair accessories. The idea, of course, was that when the next person went up the stairs, theyād snag the items that needed to go up, too.
Iāll pause here while you laugh, because OF COURSE I was the only one who picked up the items and carried them upstairs on my next trip. The rest of my family members? Theyād run up and down the stairs all day and not seem to notice the growing heaps.
The stairs constantly looked terrible, so I considered different options for a while. Baskets to sit on the lower steps? I looked at special stair baskets shaped to hug the stairs, but they were expensive. Maybe Iād build something similar out of wood? Nothing seemed like the ideal solution.
It was around this time that Iād stuck our old wooden produce stand down in the basement. It had sat empty for a while in the kitchen. Not because we stopped eating fruits and vegetables, but because weād stopped storing them there.
(Our kids became obsessed with the idea of putting apples and bananas in a fruit bowl ālike in books and on TV,ā and we were worried our curious pup might try to eat the potatoes and onions in the lowest bin.)
Iād thought I might repaint the stand and use it for Barbie clothes storage in our daughterās room, but then decided it could be a makeshift stair organizer …
Continue reading in my weekly DIY column, My Handmade Home …
Our home’s tried-and-true paint shades
Some of the rooms have been painted more than once. (Ummm, like … five of them.) So we’ve learned a lot about paint colours and how to know when we’ve landed on a good one.So, in random order (well, alphabetical, because that’s the way Blogger works), here are my top 10 favourites from our home:
1. Benjamin Moore’s “Straffordshire Blue” (OR-416)
I love this rich, deep navy in our son’s bedroom. It’s been up for years and I’m not even a little bit sick of it, which really says something.
2. Benjamin Moore’s “Revere Pewter.” (HC-172)
It really is just as wonderful as you’ve heard. We now have it in our master bedroom, top-floor bathroom and part of our open-concept living room/kitchen/hall.
3. CIL’s “Bali Hai Teal” (56GG 64/258)
This used to be the colour of our daughter’s bedroom and I loved it. It was fresh, fun and looked good with so many different colours.
4. CIL/Dulux’s “Bear Run” (10BG 47-112)
Every time I post a kitchen/dining room/living room photo on Instagram, I get asked a couple of times about this paint colour. It’s a beautiful light blue that pairs perfectly with white and grey.
It actually was named Dulux’s 2017 Colour of the Year and we used it waaaaay back in like 2012, so I’m pretty smug about that.
5. PPG’s “Antique Slate” (PPG13-29)
Our ChrisLovesJulia-inspired basement bathroom uses this deep blueish-green on the lower half of the walls (with untinted white on top) and I love it. It’s dark but really muted so it’s not too bright.
6. PPG’s “Pinot Noir” (PPG13-18)
This is the current colour of our daughter’s bedroom. It’s a dreamy soft grey-purple. Oh, and the bed is also painted with PPG (“Rice Chips”), which is what I used for the chair-rail. The beadboard is untinted white.
7. SICO’s “Autumn Brown” (semi-transparent exterior wood stain)
I repaint this darn deck every summer (or does it just feel like that?!) and yes, I have used the blog in the past to Google what shade we use. Now it’s ingrained in my brain: Autumn Brown, Autumn Brown, Autumn Brown. But it really is a nice colour.
8. SICO’s “Egg Yolk” (6093-54)
This is only used on the interior of a few doors in my DIY studio, so it’s not visible on the outside of the house, BUT I would totally use it for a front door colour. I LOVE IT.
It’s not easy picking a yellow paint colour that isn’t too pale or too sickly-greenish, but this yellow is bold, sunny and perfectly warm — not too light, too orange or too green.
9. Ā SICO’s “Naples Bay” (6149-42)
One of the most recent shades to hit our home, it’s the bright turquoise lightening up my basement DIY studio — on the floor and on the oil tank. I wouldn’t pick it for walls (or even doors, likely) but it works so well in this fun space.
10. SICO’s “Red Cherry” (6053-75)
Funny story about this one. I was convinced I wanted to repaint my pale-pink home office something brighter, and I thought I was buying a really deep, hot pink shade. That’s what it looked like on the paint chip!
When Darling Husband got it up on the walls, I was dismayed to see it was just … red. Not hot pink. But considering it was the second time he’d painted that room for me, I shut up and didn’t say anything.
I like the red a lot, especially with the black and white accessories I’ve added. But … it’s not hot pink. š
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What do you think of my top paint shades? What’s your personal fave? Let me know in the comments or over on Facebook!
When swimming lessons changed for our family
I folded the towel to make a pillow for my head, leaned back in the Adirondack chair, lowered my sunglasses and let my eyes close slowly. The warm air and the lulling sound of the water were making me sleepy.
No, I wasnāt on a beach or relaxing poolside at a hotel. I was fully-clothed at the rec centre, watching my kidsā swimming lesson, but it felt like I was at a spa.
You see, our family has had a rough history with swimming.Ā
My husband and I are āpassableā swimmers but donāt really enjoy it, so itās not something weāve been very good about ingraining in our kids.
Our son failed Sea Otter what felt like a million times (three) and only passed when his little sister was old enough to join him in the level. Iād been beginning to wonder if heād be 17 years old and still blowing bubbles for his instructor in the shallow end.
While they always enjoyed swimming lessons, they werenāt willing to do everything the instructor asked. They struggled with nervousness and both disliked getting water in their eyes, ears and noses ā but I couldnāt really blame them because Iām still like that at 33.
When Iād take them to the public pool, even as recently as last summer, theyād alternate between paddling around confidently in their floaties and clinging to me for dear life. Literally all of their friends were much better swimmers.
Oh, and then there was the evening our daughterās floaty sprung a leak and she slipped under while I dashed through the shallow end to snatch her back up. Iād read a terrifying Facebook article on ādry drowningā earlier that week, so I spent a worried, sleepless night making sure she was still breathing.
This summer, however, things have been different …
Continue reading in my weekly parenting column, The Mom Scene …
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Heather's Handmade Life 