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 blogged about this a few days ago, but the more I watch, the cooler it gets. Go check out my friend Hugh's Mother's Day Gift to his wife on her first Mother's Day. Specifically, watch the video. It'll get you. And if you're able, please make a donation for Breast Cancer.

To summarize: Hugh's wife Amy was born in 1980. Her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer when she was pregnant with Amy, and was told she wouldn't survive if she didn't terminate the pregnancy. She refused, giving birth to Amy. She celebrated Mother's Day that year, but died of breast cancer the very next day.

My Mom later told me that she knew Amy's Mom and was on her floor in college -- described her as a darling, fiesty girl whom everyone adored. Small world, eh?

As a Mom, I can understand how you can love your child so much that you would give your life for theirs. In honor of Amy's Mom who gave her life, in honor of my own wonderful Mother, in honor of my wonderful Mother-in-Law, in honor of my Grandmothers, in honor of all the other amazing women who have influenced my life -- I share this link and request with you. Please go check it out!

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. :)

Well...

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!!!