Wow.

What an insane past 5-6 months. In February I received a promotion. In March the kids and I moved. In April, May, and June, Jon commuted. In July, we finally closed on both houses - one to sell, the other to buy.

I will say with complete honesty, it has been some of the most excruciating 5 months of our lives. Neither of us have faced a string of challenges such as we faced during the relocation. Truth be told, everything is not yet resolved, but it's getting there. I won't detail everything that went wrong... but suffice it to say that literally everything went wrong.

Yet.... without question, without hesitation... God absolutely showed up.

And that gave me peace.

And that's what I *will* share.

I hear so many people tell me that God had a hand in their move -- He answered prayers to sell their house, find a house, find a job -- just smoothed the way for everything. I don't doubt that -- not one bit.

But.... what about when the way isn't smooth? What about when every little thing goes wrong. What if there's a battle waiting to be fought at every corner? Does that mean God's NOT in the move? Does it mean we're not acting in accordance with His will? I will say it's easy to let your mind wander down that path. And it's probably a good thing to ask Him -- to be sure that you really are on the path He intends.

My short answer: Just because you're in God's will doesn't mean He promises a smooth path.

Look at Job. I'm quite sure that book of the Bible was written to remind me during the past few months that God's there even in challenging times.

But here's the beautiful thing: despite the ridiculous challenges, God showed up in ways that were unquestionably Him, and undeniably assuring us we're going the right way; doing the right thing.

With every single move we've made -- and that includes 7 states now -- it has taken us a minimum of 6 months to find a church. Our last place we never did find one. Here... the first week.

When we lived in NY, we had a pastor who I just loved. I didn't even know the guy; it was a huge church. But for the first time, I couldn't wait to go to church on Sundays. He was a teaching pastor, and He made the word absolutely come alive, gave it context, helped me see it in ways and more deeply than I ever had. As we scoured websites looking for churches in our new city (I literally googled "church city" with our city inserted), I randomly came upon a site for a church who interviewed its staff and asked them various questions. One of the questions was "Who is your mentor."

I about fell off my chair when the lead pastor listed as his mentor... our pastor from NY. No way... half a country away.

We woke up that next morning and visited the church, shared with the pastor how we found it.... and we've been back every Sunday since. That was in March.

Not 2 weeks later... they changed their website. That survey and the reference to our pastor in NY is gone. If that's not God saying, "Hey guys, I know you need a place to plug in. I know you want desperately to find a good church, and that's what I want for you, too -- come over here."

In late May or early June, we finally found a house that we felt we could call home in a neighborhood we felt would be a wonderful place to raise our kids. A couple weeks later, Jon's sister called sharing that her husband has an overseas opportunity -- and can they come for Thanksgiving so that during the 6 months he's gone, they can all get together once to see each other.

The house we chose has a guest suite and living room over the garage. The house was never on the market -- our realtor just knew about it. We suggested that his sister and her 3 kids just live there for 6 months -- it's closer and hopefully they can see their daddy at least once a month.

God is a God of relationships. I very much believe that He worked out those details so that we can nurture our relationship with our extended family, and so that their precious family can maintain their relationship during a long 6 months.

Life isn't promised to be easy or without hurdles. The saying "God doesn't give you more than you can handle" I believe to be a bunch of bunk. During the past 6 months, I have been given more than I can handle more than I'd like to admit. But it's when I'm weak that His strength is shown -- not just to me but to those who see me. At least I hope it is. His grace covers me, covers my family.

God showed up bit in the "Faith" and "Family" category, which gave me peace through the turmoil. I'll admit to losing it a few times at the end. I did hit my breaking point. But God didn't. God is always faithful. We made it through to the end.

As I said, there are still a few loose ends that are frustratingly not yet tied up. There are several hundred boxes yet to be unpacked.

But...

Church friends from our new church have volunteered to help out with the kids.
We've got 5 happy and healthy kiddos giggling together, excited to have cousins to play with, love, and get to know in a way most cousins never do.
More people have stopped to say "welcome to the neighborhood" than the number of neighbors we had in our last place.
And last night when the kids wanted to swing out in the front yard... it took only a few minutes before 10 kids were out there playing.

Thank you, God.

This weekend I had the opportunity to go home to visit my home town, my home state -- in the NORTH.

You see, about 2 years I officially moved "south." I guess technically I did that several years ago when I moved to Baltimore, which is south of the Mason Dixon line. But Baltimore just didn't feel "south" to me. Nor did Cincinnati. Arkansas, on the other hand, feels "south." And to be honest, I've had a bit of a hard time adjusting to southern living.

Don't get me wrong -- the people are wonderful. It's never about the people. It's customs and traditions that I just can't quite wrap my head around - nor do they really fit my personality.

Here are a couple of examples:

- Many southern women will choose to dress up for sporting events. I'm more likely to paint my face! I wouldn't be caught dead in a dress at a game -- and definitely no pearls!

- While we're on the subject of dresses, many southern women love to dress up, and always look perfect when they leave their house - not a hair out of place. I'm envious of those women because they do make it look effortless, and they do always look good. But while being slightly envious of their seemingly effortless perfection - I have no desire to attain that! I'd MUCH rather go out in a pair of sweats and flip flops than heels and a skirt. If I hadn't chopped off my hair, I'd be most happy in an unshowered ponytail. :)

- China patterns and monogrammed everything is big down here. Admittedly, a wee bit of monogramming has wooed me in. But China, ugh, no way. We didn't register for China simply because I knew I'd break it!

- My latest -- the kids didn't go outside to play yesterday for long because it was too hot. It was 90. And in the winter, they don't go outside because it's too cold. It was 30. When I was a kid (aside from walking up hill both to and from school), 30 degrees was a balmy winter day that didn't require a face mask and snow pants! Seriously though - let the kids go outside. Fresh air and running around is GOOD for them!

While I was home last weekend, here are a few things I realized I miss about the north. Or at least my little corner of the north.



The daylight hours last forever! I always thought that summer seemed to last an eternity. Summer holds some of my fondest memories, and I think I entered a brief depression each year as it ended. I was excited for school to start, but summer was magical. I do think the number of daylight hours have a lot to do with it. It's still light at 10pm!



Look any direction and you have an unobstructed view of the world. The rib on SD is that there are no trees. And I do love trees. But the glory of being able to see forever is amazing there. You see the lush fields (OK, this picture shows cattails in a slough), the green prairie, God's beautiful blue sky. You realize just how big the world is. There is no feeling of claustrophobia when you have this much wide open space.



Rhubarb! Seriously, I didn't realize how much I loved this fruit until I left it. I tried unsuccessfully to grow it in both Baltimore and Cincinnati. Not going to waste my time in Arkansas. Each time my parents visit I request that they bring a bunch. My mom made this incredible dessert (not hers pictured above - but similar). She made a cheesecake and topped it with rhubarb sauce. More than one of us helped ourselves to 3rds of dessert that night. It was DIVINE. It's tart goodness cannot be matched. My Dad's cousin who joined us that evening for dinner (and who also now lives in the south) suggested that northerners really should bottle and sell rhubarb sauce, jam, desserts -- all sorts of delicacies -- and open stores in the south. It would catch on like wildfire.

I had a most wonderful visit "home" and am now back in my southern home. I will say that from an annual perspective I definitely prefer the southern temperature. And I'm not real eager to permanently return north to move out of it. However, despite where I live, I will always be a northern girl at heart.

I just have to pause at the end of this crazy week to reflect on the whirlwind that defined it.

Wow.

I survived!

Rewind about 2 weeks. We selected granite for our house, committed to it, had it measured and cut, and we were told that it would be delivered and installed in 4-6 weeks. We told them that we would do the demolition (you can see where this is going), and also that we could be flexible to fill the void of any cancellations (now you can really see where this is going).

I have travelled for work for each of the last 3 weeks. This was my first week that I've been home, and we were looking forward to some relaxing. We also started the kitchen demolition last weekend. We were able to remove the center island countertop as well as all the tile on the back splash. That was Saturday, and we were quite proud of the effort we had made, knowing we'd continue working the following weekend.

Then Monday hit.

Jon got a call on Monday from the granite installers saying they had a cancellation on Friday morning and would be at our house at 7:30.

Gulp!

I'm SO thankful I didn't have to travel this week. There would have just been no way, as it's a two person job.

Here's a list of what needed to happen before it could be installed:
1) Kitchen countertop (not island) removed (including sink / disposal removed)
2) Laundry sink countertop removed (including sink removed)
3) Basement bar and countertop removed (including sink / disposal removed)
4) Install oven / stove
5) Remove old dishwasher and install new
6) Remove backsplash from basement
7) Remove old dry wall and replace with new
8) Pick out faucets for 3 sinks

I think that's it. I could be wrong.

So I took off work on Tuesday and bought the faucets, then set to work prepping as much of the other stuff as I could. After Jon's work audit was finished (i.e. around noon), he joined me at home. We were able to get items 2, 3, and 6 complete in the basement. We were feeling pretty good about things on Tuesday night -- felt very accomplished for our day's efforts.

Then Wednesday night came. We were intending to get the sink removed in the kitchen, as well as the dishwasher. So I crawled under the sink to turn off the water -- but no matter how hard or which direction I turned it, the water wouldn't stop flowing. Great. We tried everything. We couldn't very well shut off the main water supply to the house, because we still had to live there and wouldn't be able to turn it back on. Wednesday night ended with us both very frustrated, as we made absolutely NO progress on our very lengthy task list.

Thursday I frantically called for a plumber to fix what we assumed was a broken valve. At the end of the day, we were very thankful that we discovered a broken valve this way and not as a result of a leak. That would have been horrible! Anyway, plumber came out, fixed the valve easily, looked at all our new fixtures and agreed to come back on Saturday to install everything. Jon and I agreed that while we're capable of doing the plumbing -- water and the potential hazzards of it are something we'll leave to the experts!

So by Thursday at 5pm, we were where we had hoped to be on Wednesday night. And we had basically 14 hours until our granite was arriving.

We worked until 1am. Good grief what a long day!

We started with removing the countertop. This countertop was ridiculous. It's L shaped and probably 8 feet by 4 feet. It's made out of particle board with a 1/2 inch layer of cement over it, followed by a layer of chicken wire (it's probably not chicken wire, but that's what it looks like), and then followed by white ceramic tile and brown grout. That beast was over 300 pounds and as ackward to carry as it possibly could be. Not to mention it was wedged into place, trapped behind the island and the refrigerator. So to maneuver it without damaging the appliances or the cabinet faces was crazy challenging. We think we made it out with only 1 "oops" which will be largely hidden under the new countertops. We're actually lucky to have made it through uninjured!

Then we installed the oven. We had spent probably 8 hours on the oven alone just before Christmas, only to discover it didn't fit properly in the hole. The ease with which we installed it last night was (a) a blessing, but also (b) maddening that we spent so much time on it the first time around! Thankfully the hole which holds the oven was plenty big, it was the old cabinet tops that were slightly too narrow for it. So it slid in easily this time around.

Then we removed all the sheetrock from where we took down the backsplash. I have a LOT of dishes to wash as a result of all that drywall falling into the counterless cabinets. Lovely. But hey, it's down! Then I went out and measured / cut the new sheetrock while Jon installed each piece I cut out. We had quite the assembly going!

The finishing touch, at 12:45am, was to install the new dishwasher. It will be SO nice to not have to wash dishes AFTER the cycle completes.

As we fell into bed, our bed fell to the floor... literally. We've GOT to put those stabilizers on the legs! HAHA!

We aren't compeletely done. We still need to tear out and replace the drywall in the basement. However, compared to what's behind us, that task seems very doable!

Sorry there are no pictures attached. While trying to push through a weekend's worth of work in an evening, I had no desire to stop to photograph the efforts. However... after today, I'll have new granite photos to share! Whoot whoot!

The workers have been busy!

Much progress has been made in our wood floors. They were meticulous in making sure everything was sanded down perfectly. The result was a slightly later start than they expected. But we'll take accuracy over speed any day!

The kids were SO excited Friday night to see the floors. They were dancing, spinning, making "snow angels" -- I think they spent an hour just playing on the floor out of excitement.

We need to polish it up real good, but at this point, we're ecstatic about the floors. When I got home last night, Amara's room is nearly done, and our room and Dominic's room will be next. Should be done by the end of the week.


YAY!

While I was gone last week, Jon called me about our floor installation. We had hoped to finish painting the ceiling and walls prior to putting in the new floors, but experienced some hiccups with the ceiling. Due to that, we wanted to push off the floors til November.

Problem: our floor installer got another contract that would tie him up through December.

We had to stick with our original start date: October 19.

That meant we had to bust tail this weekend to get the house ready. And it was no where near ready.

Friday afternoon this is what was delivered:

There were 71 of those boxes. Each one weighed 88 pounds. Thankfully there are only two stairs to climb up. Unfortunately, I am not able to lift 88 pounds like that, so I was little to no help in this endeavor. Jon and the truck guy hefted all of them.... Jon probably did half while the truck guy pulled them from the truck.

E.X.H.A.U.S.T.I.N.G.

Then we had to move all of the furniture from our bedrooms. All 3 of them. Into 2 bathrooms. We definitely need to be creative in our packing! We moved Dominic's mattress to the basement and we're sleeping on the guest bed in the basement. Everything else needed to be shoved (without damage) into the bathrooms. And they're not huge bathrooms, by any stretch.

So here's bathroom one, the kids bathroom.



Inside are 5 tubs full of countertop stuff, clothes, shoes, etc, curtains (all in the bathtub), 3 night stands, a triple dresser, a stand-up dresser, a small dresser and the hutch that goes on top of it, a hope chest (don't worry, Mom and Dad, it's on the top not getting damaged), a desk, and a mirror. Oh, and the bathroom door, which we had to remove. I think that's it, though I easily could have forgotten something. Oh yes, 2 lamps, a air purifier, and a garbage can. And several paintings.

And here is what you can see of bathroom two. It's slightly bigger, but only because it's square, not rectangular. I'm not sure it's any larger in square footage.



Inside are 2 chairs, 3 plastic tubs, a tall thin cabinet (don't know what it's called), an armoir, a triple dresser, a tall dresser, a television, vcr (yes, why do we have that?), a DVD player, our bed frame and rails, Amara's mattress, our mattress, several paintings. I think that might be it. I don't recall what else we shoved back there. The bathroom door!

And last but not least, our kitchen. This holds the great room furniture, dining room furniture, much of the flooring (2/3 of it), and the box springs that we couldn't jam into the bathrooms.



Whew! It all fit. That was Saturday.

Sunday was tearing up the carpets, removing the baseboards, removing the carpet pads. And then the fun part: tearing up the tack strips and the staples which held down the carpet pads.

Whoever invented those things just might be evil. :)

My hands are completely raw.

I think I spent 10 hours on Sunday stooped over with a pliers pulling staples out of the floor. My pinky literally has a blister.

I've never been so happy to go to work on a Monday!

But it's DONE!

Let the floor installation begin!!!

We came home from work on Friday to discover much progress had been made in the kitchen. Actually, there's been a lot of other progress since my last renovation update -- but I've neglected to keep you updated!

So this week's progress:

This is the view from the great room into the kitchen. You can see the trayed ceiling. This used to be a large flourescent light fixture, as shown in this post. We plan to order 4-6 light pendant lighting for that area. Under it is the kitchen island, which holds the oven/stove. The tray was actually completed earlier this summer -- but I didn't share pictures at the time.

The biggest change this week is the faux crown moulding at the very top. As you'll see in the pictures from the old kitchen post, we had 12-inch soffits surrounding everything in the kitchen. We felt that the soffits made the kitchen look very dated. Granted, it was built in the 80's, so it didn't just LOOK outdated, it WAS outdated. But we felt that falsley extending the cabinets to the ceiling with the faux crown moulding would look more updated, and also be one of the easier fixes. The alternative would be to knock out the soffits and potentially raise the cabinets... or leave it open. But I've never been a fan of open-top cabinets, and raising the cabinets seemed an insurmountable (and very costly) task.

This is the view of the pantry (above photo) . Talk about awesome cabinet space, eh? You know those huge spice containers you buy at places like Costco or Sam's club? That's the depth of each shelf. It's so nice, because nothing gets lost or buried in the pantry. It's easy to stay organized -- or at least it would be if I attempted to do so! Anyway, the soffits above this bank of cabinets go into the stairs to the basement. This would have posed a different challenge if we wanted to eliminate the soffit completely -- opening the top really wasn't very possible, because I think it would have opened into the stair well.



And finally, this is the laundry room. It has all the same cabinets as the kitchen (the whole house does), but also has the same soffit. We thought it best to continue that "fix" into the laundry room. These look significantly lighter in the photo than the kitchen cabinets -- rest assured, they all match. The laundry room just happens to be better lit currently, due to the need for the island light in the kitchen. The laundry also has an old fluorescent light box, which we'll replace once we figure out what we want to use instead.

The biggest cabinet project now is to replace all the fixtures. We're not fans of the oak doors, simply out of personal preference for less striation in the wood. However, they're solid wood, and we just couldn't afford to replace them with anything that would be as high quality -- especially because literally we'll have over 100 door pulls to replace, when you consider that every cabinet in the house looks that way! So we'll just replace all of the pulls with something more contemporary, and we'll feel SO much better about our cabinets. We're definitely happy with how our new faux moulding looks! I was hesitant, but it turned out so good.

Lesson learned: trust Jon's design instincts.

We came home from work on Thursday to find that the floor support boards had been installed. Yippee! The room is starting to take shape. The kids loved to see the "ladder" of sorts that were displayed in the floor boards. Jon put Dominic in the middle of it all, so we could share his cute little face in the midst of our living room chaos.

On Friday when we came home from work, the subfloor was nearly complete. I think there's the second layer that needs to go in where you see the black paper -- that's where it stopped and needs to continue. Also notice that the ceiling's hole is patched. Yippee again!

Jon spent ALL day on Sunday tearing up the cement floor where he's standing. For some reason, they laid about a 1.5 inch layer of cement UNDER the porcelain tiles that were in the entryway. So not only did he have to tear up porcelain tile, he also had to tear up concrete! It was a long and dusty process. Look at our table in the foreground of the photo -- all that dust was just from that day. You can even see where my cell phone had been laying. I'm quite sure we should have been wearing a mask. I came out from folding laundry, and my comment to Jon was, "I just made cement in my mouth." Literally, the dust combined with my saliva, and I felt like I had just licked the driveway! GROSS! And very unhealthy, I'm sure.

Another observation I made (several times) during the day: a garbage can full of concrete rubble is HEAVY. Very. And it's even heavier when it's in dust form rather than in the bigger chunks. And the 5th barrel is much heavier than the first one -- even if it's not as full. My biceps are burning today!

That said... I'm sure Jon's in pain! He's the one who slaved over it. He commented at the end of the day that "weak in the knees" is a saying that he can identify with completely. He wasn't certain his knees would support his weight. He was just plain wiped out. Mission accomplished though, and we're excited to see the next step!

We walked into the house on Friday to this!!!

Amara saw it, stopped dead in her tracks, gasped, and said, "Look Mommy!" It's even better than we thought it would be with the wall gone. We're SO excited to get to this point, and can't wait to get the floor built up so we can put in hard woods.
Jon had some work to do this weekend -- he finished pulling up the rest of the tiles in the entry way. We also need to pull up the carpet in the dining room. Actually... we need to pull up the hardwood in the living room, and the carpet in the hallways and bedrooms too. But we'll get to that. For now, we're happy that the walls came a-tum-ba-lin down. Yes -- I'm singing "Joshua Fought the Battle of Jericho." Sing it with me! :)

We had a full weekend of parties. Amara had a birthday party for one of her friends, Malea, who turned 5. We went to a bounce house place with a bunch of her day care classmates. She wasn't too keen on the big one they're sitting on -- it was too big and too fast. But she loved the place as a whole, had a blast, and has declared that she wants her party at "Jump Stone" -- it's actually Jump Zone. You can see her in the photo below in the back left with the pink and teal striped shirt.

For Mother's Day, we didn't have wonderful weather, but the rain didn't hit too much. We were going to go outside to have a popcorn picnic -- actually, I needed to clean the van, and that's how I bribed the kids to come outside with me (they wanted to watch "Backyardigans.") Of course, at the time we were ready to start our picnic, that's when the sprinkles started. So we had a picnic in the back of the van. The highlight of our picnic is our neighbor's dog, aka Penny puppy, came back. They have been wintering in Florida until just recently, so the kids haven't seen Penny since around November. They were SO excited to see her again. She's even better than having a dog -- because we can play with her, she greets us with kisses and a big ol' wagging tail, yet we don't have to clean up after her, pay for her food or vet bills, and we can send her home at the end of the day! Dominic actually cried when we went inside because he missed Penny puppy and didn't want to leave her.

That was it for our weekend. It was definitely full! We missed our Moms and wished that we could have spent the day with them. Happy Mother's Day Moms and Grandmas! :) Love you!

I saw a "Kitchen Tour" on a few blogs this week, and thought it would be fun to join in the fun... except (1) my kitchen is hideous, and (2) it's under construction.

So rather than show you exactly what it looks like, I'll show you what it's GOING to look like.

A bit of history: The house was built in 1982 by a couple who moved here from California to retire. At that time, their money went a long way, so they basically did everything right when they built the house. They spared no expense. She had beautiful taste as well -- however, it was the taste of a 60+ year old in the 80s. Needless to say, despite being "perfect" then, it hasn't been updated since, so we've got our work cut out for it.

When we toured the house in December '07, we fell in love with it. Truly, the bones of it and the location of it are about as close to our dream house as we can come without building it ourself. We saw the HUGE potential, but also realized it would (and will) be a lot of work.

The work, as you've seen in posts past, has begun!

Here's what our kitchen looked like when we toured it.

Notice the "beautiful" wallpaper. That's all gone. The hanging lamp is gone, as is the fan, replaced by a much nicer one from Restoration Hardware. The tile is just ridiculously gross -- white tile with brown grout. Yuck! Also, the porcelain tile floor. It's very nice, but it's also very boring. Below are examples of what we'd like to do to change it up.

The bottom right photo is what we'd like to do for our floor -- it's 4 different colors of tile in a variety of sizes that will liven things up a bit. The other 3 photos in the collage are some of the granite slabs we're considering for the island and counters. We really want the slab to be a "piece of art" and not just a slab of rock. My brother has the most gorgeous slab of granite on his island -- our goal is to match him! (OK, it's to beat him...) :) Right now, we've got a long way to go!

Another thing we really loved about the kitchen is all the cabinet space. We have SO much storage, which is a common complaint. They're all oak hardwood -- no veneers, no "cheap stuff." That's both good and bad. It's great that it's all hardwood. It's bad that it's oak -- at least in our opinion.

We have heard that oak is coming back in, so we hope that's true! We do plan to replace that old JennAire stove -- still works alright, but it's actually about half the size that it appears, and I'm sure is completely energy INefficient. We've removed all that wallpaper as well, and have put a side-by-side stainless refrigerator in the appropriate opening. We MAY stain all the wood a darker color -- but realistically, there's so much in the house, that it may be a never-ending task (yes, quite literally).

Our first attempt will be to replace all the door hardware in the house with something more modern, such as the pulls shown here. Hopefully that will update them sufficiently, so that we don't have to paint the entire house.

Next is a view of the sink area. We'd like to pull out the whole soffit above the cabinets. We think it's hollow, but aren't for sure. And we're not sure how to get rid of it, raise the cabinets, paint it -- or really what to do with it. We think that the soffits make it feel dated as well (especially with the wallpaper, which is no longer there. The sink needs a good update, too. And that island, we think we may extend it into a "table" -- so add another 5 feet or so onto the end closest and put bar stools around it. We aren't positive on that, but that's where our mind is right now. Oh -- and the lights -- yes, those are going to disappear, too. Ick!!! :)

Next is the desk area. You can see it here, and I thought I'd enjoy this feature. But really, it became a junk catcher, and was never used as it was intended. If you flip through a few recent posts -- you'll see it's now GONE and you can see straight into the LR/DR area. Yippee!!!! One note on the stained glass panels: the former home owner MADE all of them. They're all over the house, and she has a stained glass workshop in the basement -- she even left us her grinder (yay for us!) We won't be using them in our new kitchen, so if you'd like them, let me know. :)

And last but not least, our favorite part of the kitchen... the view! Peace. I love coming home and just looking out the window. All the stresses and worries of the day melt away, and I'm transported into a different, much more peaceful place. There are even bald eagles that frequent those trees -- so cool!
That's it! Welcome to my kitchen. :)

Jon and I were both kind of dreading this weekend. Our big goal was to get the last cabinets removed. We knew it would be challenging and heavy.

However... look what we came home to!!! Yes -- that's the KITCHEN that you're now able to see from the front door! Yippee!

The contractors were here (steel beams were delivered yesterday), and they removed them for us! We were happy to see that we could just relax tonight. On the other hand, we'll probably end up paying them for that. *sigh* Oh well.

The only thing we've now got to be ultra careful about are the nails lying around. We haven't moved to the basement, so the kids' bedrooms are still beyond the living room (as is ours), and the kitchen upstairs just works better than the kitchen downstairs. We've already instilled a "you must wear shoes in the house" rule, but it's super important to follow that rule. I'm glad the kids don't sleep walk!

When we were removing the drywall and other cabinets, we had some missing nails, too, but we were pretty diligent to find them. Tonight, I did a once-over of the floor and found a whole handful. They were everywhere -- around the wall, through the doorways, even under the kitchen table. Maybe we do need to rethink moving to the basement.

Anyway, since the cabinets are out, I guess our project for the weekend will be cleaning up the kitchen and laundry room. And maybe pulling some weeds. One thing we discovered about renovating (or have I already said this?): there's NO TIME for cooking, cleaning, and yardwork. As if we had time for that before!!!

I'll leave you with a final photo of the cabinet-less wall. Yay! The space feels SO big. I can't wait!!!

Can I just tell you how excited this picture makes me!?!

I'm standing in the entryway, and I can SEE THE DECK DOOR from where I'm standing! Yippee!!!

Yes, there are still studs. Yes, there are still tiles to remove. Yes, there's garbage everywhere. Yes, the living room is full of "stuff."

But look -- through the studs to the left you see the living room. Through the studs to the right (beyond the brick fireplace) you can see the kitchen. The area that's still "solid" behind the studs will be removed this weekend. It's the "desk" area and broom closet, which currently is in the kitchen.

The steel beams have been ordered. As soon as they arrive, they can install them, build the support beam in the attic, and we'll be able to remove the studs. Then they'll build up the living room floor (the dip down area you see in this photo). Once that's all set, we'll pull out the rest of the carpet upstairs (including bedrooms) and put in hardwood or bamboo floors.

One bit of good news. We took Dominic to the allergist this morning. One of the things they tested him for was dust mites. Thankfully, that's not one of his allergies, so the carpet isn't as big of an issue as we thought it might be. The trees are -- which is what we expected. But at least his home isn't making him sick!

That's the end of the demo for tonight. Jon had to go to a concert fundraiser for his agency. So my "job" is to get the kitchen cleaned up. Demo work has made us lax in the kitchen. OK, that's not entirely true -- we're always more lax than we'd like to be in the kitchen. Demo work just made it that much more challenging to clean it!

You remember the built in cabinets from a post ago? This is where they were!




















What a project! (And yes, that's a major understatement.)

This photo is taken from the living room towards the kitchen. The cabinets filled the entire floor to ceiling wall where it's all white in the photo.

When the contractor came to assess the house, he said that because the cabinets were custom built IN the house and FOR the house, it was unlikely that we'd get them removed without totally demolishing them. Our goal for the cabinets was to move them to the basement and use them in the storage room -- remaking the storage room into a media room.

Long story short, Jon is a "surgeon" when it comes to demolition, and not only are they not demolished, they're still in perfect condition. YAY! Not easy, not quick, but we did it!

We began the evening with me giving the kids a bath. As I was doing this, I heard banging and sawing and all sorts of racket in the living room. I knew he had decided to attack something, but wasn't sure what. I had a long day work, and I really wasn't intending to do any demo that night. However, he reminded me that the contractors would be there in the morning, and if THEY had to move the cabinets, they wouldn't be done without damage.

So once the kids were snug in their beds, I went out to help them. And no, I'm not sure how they sleep through banging and sawing and all the racket we were making -- a mere 20 feet or so away from their rooms. But they did. And I'm glad!

So Jon's brainstorm to detatch the cabinets -- which were nailed through the drywall and into the studs -- was to simply use the reciprocal saw and cut through every single nail. Of course, that meant we had to first get to the nails. That required one of us (Jon) to use the crowbar (or prybar?) to pull the cabinets and drywall (easily 500 pounds) away from the studs to allow access to the nail. Then I had to get the reciprocal saw into that tiny little opening and cut through the nails. Not easy -- for either one of us. Especially when there were cross bars and/or wires in the way. Each stud had a minimum of 10 nails in it -- most had closer to 15. And there were at least 10 studs (not sure exactly the number). It was probably 10pm when we finally made it through all the nails.

Due to the necessity of moving the cabinets, however, we couldn't go to bed. So Jon reached up to the ceiling (yes literally) and started rocking the cabinets down. We discovered a few nails that we had missed. We discovered places where the cabinets were glued to the walls. I'm thankful for both his height and his weight, because there was no way I could budge that thing! He finally pried the top part loose and we were able to lift it off to the side of the room. Rather, he was able to lift it, I had to simply support it. I couldn't move it at all -- it had no hand grip areas, my hands were sweating, it was nearly as tall as me laying on it's side, and it was very likely 200-300 pounds. So I talked Jon into balancing my end on a little auto mechanics type scooter chair and I scootered my end into place while he heaved his end into place. Of course, the goal of saving the hard wood floor meant we couldn't simply scoot it.

So the top part of the cabinet was off and in one piece with no damage. We knew the base would be much easier. Just as heavy, but easier to move. We discovered several more nails that didn't go all the way through they dryway, therefore hadn't been cut. That made prying it away from the wall slightly more difficult (until we realized it was attached and pulled the nails out). But from there we were able to get the bottom set of cabinets also up and out of the way. Yippee! While I was (barely) able to help move the bottom set of cabinets (they were every bit as heavy, they just had hand-hold areas) -- I'm NOT volunteering to carry them to the basement. There's absolutely no way I'll be able to do that. We may have to recruit a few men for that chore!

So here's what the cabinets and family room look like right now. The cabinet removed and nails cut means the dry wall should come down easily. YAY! I think (hope) that was the most challenging bit of the demo work. It was definitely the heaviest part of it!
















- Whew Moments: no more. I suppose "Whew" that I didn't break my back!
- Blown Fuses: 1 -- guess I didn't fully learn the lesson last time (when Jon did it) -- because I repeated the exact same thing last night. So that tally is now up to 2.
- Fights: 0! To renovate without a fight is an accomplishment. I did pray for that, and ask my bible study ladies to pray for that as well. When Jon and I go at tasks from the complete opposite angle, disagreements often come along. But none so far -- yay!

Tuesday night, I had a work dinner I had to attend, so Jon was left alone with the kids. I fully expected to come home to them eating, playing, watching a video, or something to that degree.

What I came home to was something completely different:
















Jon had taken down all of the shelves in the built in cabinet, as well as moved the TV. Now the cabinet itself was ready to be removed. I complimented him on that -- reiterating that I had not expected him to do any work. But thanks! He told me that was the least of what he did.

As I rounded the corner, I saw the rest.















He realized that in order to get the cabinets out, he had to pull up some of the wood floor, but that meant that he had to first get an access point to the wood floor. So he started pulling up all the ceramic tile. Not an easy project at all. I confess, it's one I'm glad he did while I was gone. I definitely wouldn't have enjoyed that part of the renovation! It's hard to see in the above picture, but there's a distinct line near the hallway door on the left, where the tile stops and the "floor" begins. The garbage can is full of broken up tile. I'm definitely not going to move that bad boy! HEAVY! And yes, those garbage bags are full of sheetrock. Ugh!

The only "bad" thing from this is that the builders, for whatever reason, put concrete down under the tile instead of just the regular wood underlayment. We'll have to lay concrete over that again, we think, in order to smooth it out to prep for the hard wood floors. I don't think that there's any way to chip through all the concrete, and it doesn't appear that there is wood underneath. Oh well.

No "Whew" or "Fuse" issues tonight. Jon did cut through his glove with a ceramic tile though and cut his finger a bit. We'll call it a flesh wound.

When we bought our house in early 2007, we loved it for it's potential. It was built in 1982 by a retired couple. Its bones were (and are) amazing. It was meticulously built; they thought of every detail. The draw back is -- it was built in 1982 -- a time of small rooms and many of them. We live on a lake -- yet you can't see it when you walk in the door. What a missed opportunity! We've got a living room (like every house of the 80's) that absolutely NEVER gets used. Ever. Then add to it the fact that it was decorated in 1982 by a 50-60 year old woman. It was done with the highest quality everything -- and was very tastefully done.... for the 80's... and by a person twice my again. So again, beautiful -- but definitely not modern.

It took us over a year, but we've started the work.

Here's what you used to see when walking into the front door (except for the mess of furntiure, which we've cleared out of the way). You walk into the living room and look at a wall. The red curtains you see through the door open to the lake. And yes -- that's a load bearing wall.















We've made progress! We took up all the carpet, padding, and carpet tacks (not a fun project!). This was done on Saturday and Sunday. I was very nervous about my ability to help Jon carry a very large piece of carpet down to the basement. We were definitely able to salvage it -- it's in near perfect condition (just needs a vacuuming and a shampoo, and it looks new). For now, we've moved it to the basement just incase we need to relocate downstairs for a short time. But we'll eventually donate or sell it.















Here's where we left off on Sunday as we headed to bed. For those of you who believe orbs to be ghosts -- don't get too excited. That's how dusty it was in our living room! Yes, we were all coughing and hacking! It was a cloud, that's for sure. We opened as many doors and windows as possible to get things cleared out. The funny thing about the dry wall -- with every bit that Jon pulled down, Dominic had to run over and said, "Good job, Daddy! High five!" He had to do it every time -- and Jon HAD to high five him every time.















And we've got daylight! The first "through the drywall" view has been made! That was a fun wall to knock down. OK... I had to take a karate kick to it at one point. Mistake -- nearly fell on my tail! But it was fun to kick the wall! :) Perhaps a bit too fun!! We can't remove the rest of the dry wall yet, because there are floor to ceiling oak built-ins on the other side. Of course, custom built IN the house. They'll be a beast to remove.




















I probably shouldn't keep this tally, because my Mom will have a heart attack if she knows the "danger" we're putting ourselves and our kids in.... But here they are:

- "Whew!" Moments: 1
- Blown Fuses: 1

Whew Moment: Dominic wanted to help, so was alternately walking around with the hammer or the broom. At one point, he had 2 hammers and begun climbing the step stool you see in the photo above. I have no idea how it happened, but I heard a bang and as I turned, he was laying with his head/face on the floor/his arm, and his feet on the top seat of the stool. I was sured I'd pick him up and see a face full of blood, because it appeared as if he landed on the hammer with his nose and/or lips. I turned him over -- no blood, no marks, all teeth were there. Whew! That could have been SO bad. He must have landed on his arm and cushioned his own blow. It was definitely loud (thanks to the hammers), and we were all scared. He was totally OK though.

Blown Fuse: Lesson learned, don't take the plug-in out of the fuse box. Trying to put it in again will result in a loud pop, a nice bit of fireworks, and a blown fuse. Scary, but again, all is well!