Finally, Some Final Photos

Well, the project is done. We have our house back. There's a lot to say about the whole adventure, but I'll save that for a wrap-up post. for now, here are some photos in this order: Kitchen/Dining Room (night and then day), deck, master bathroom, master bedroom, upstairs hallway (formerly Katie's room, Katie's NEW room (which used to be the master bedroom), downstairs hallway/foyer (which used to have a door to the garage), the guest room, the guest bathroom and the basement rec room. There's a long list of people to thank, but for now I'd like to thank my wonderful husband for pushing very hard and really sweating the small stuff to make this happen. I've always adored you sweetie, but now I REALLY do! ;-)

More commentary when we get back from vay-cay.
K? Thx. Bye.

Early Morning Photos

I don't know what's wrong with me- I've been waking up at 5am for the past 2 days. Our AC is back on and we're loving the coolness, but somehow I can't make it it till 7am. Strange. So anyway, I used the time to take a few new photos. The time was actually closer to 6am by the time I found my camera and photo card, but it was still early. Behold!




These are the new french doors in the living room that lead to the deck...we don't have doorknobs yet so I covered the holes with blue painters tape. Don't you love the "pots and pans in the middle of the room" look? So do we!












This is the view from the new door from the garage door into the kitchen. I can barely throw a football that far!












A turn to the left and you can see the view from the new kitchen/garage door into the living room. It seems long without the furniture, but that length of the house hasn't changed.









These are new dining room windows looking out to the deck. Plenty of room for the grill, table, chairs, etc.









So that brings us downstairs to the new basement rec room. We've put in a few pieces of furniture and hooked up the TV so that the kids wouldn't kill us in our sleep.















This is the view from the new sump pump. Oooh, aaaah. The new rec room is where we eat all of our meals for the time being. It's very cool and comfortable.

Thank You For Your Patience

Here are some new photos as promised. Your patience is appreciated.


This is the living room from the above hall. Everything is covered in plastic and dust.













This is Mike's and my room right after you enter the room and look right (that's the bathroom door). My closet is to the left of the photo.












Here's another view of our room.















This is our new deck. There will be two doors: one from the dining room and french doors into the living room.










Lastly for today is a shot from where our kitchen table will live, looking toward the old kitchen. The empty pantry will soon be turned into a new door to the garage. I picked out an enormous pantry cabinet to take it's place. That's Mike in the background talking with our contractor and our loan inspector.

Patience

I haven't posted any new pictures...I plan to do that today. Post festival I went into hiding for a few days to re-calibrate and rest. Then it got crazy hot here and we started sleeping at our friends' house. Then we went to Celtic fling in PA. Now we're home, the dry wall is done (but the AC compressor hasn't arrived) but luckily it isn't as hot out. We've picked out paint, carpet, floors, cabinets and counter tops. I ordered my Celtic tiles for the kitchen back splash this morning. I need to go home and do some laundry and clean Andrew's room. I also want to take the kids to the pool but Drew is still sniffle-y. I'm trying to boost my energy with healthy high-energy fruits and veggies but I feel like I'm still running at half power. I plan to change that soon. Hopefully. Maybe a nap first. I have some books to finish too.

New Photos

This weekend is the festival. It's rainy out and I don't have to be out at Morven Park until 12:30 or so. The workers aren't here, so I'm enjoying a bit of quiet. I took the following pictures the other day but haven't had time to post them...so here. :-)

This is a shot taken last weekend. The kids play in the living room when construction is happening in the basement. They're both still in their jammies, so it's probably pretty early.




Here's Mike having breakfast in the old kitchen. It was very hot in the house last weekend.











Lots of people think they're "pirate", but you really have to have your very own plank to even be considered a pirate! Arrrrrrrr!











So ok, this used to be the wall to Katie's room. Since she's going to take our bedroom (the Princess Suite), the guys knocked out the wall to open up the corridor to our new master bedroom. The framed-in part is Mike's walk-in closet. Katie's old closet is becoming part of Andrew's huge new closet.









This is our new master bedroom. Lots of windows overlooking the woods. That's MY walk-in closet in the upper right portion of the shot. I think it's a little bigger than Mike's. ;-)










And here's the master bath. It isn't huge, but it's certainly larger than what we currently have. There will be 2 vanities to the right (up against the old wall) and the bathtub to the left.

So, that's all for now. I'm pretty sure I won't even have time to take photos until after the festival. Have a fun weekend. pkm.

Managing Construction and Festival Stress

Isn't easy. We've had to move entire rooms of #^$%, I mean stuff every day. The heat has been substantial. The drilling of the jack hammer (breaking through the concrete from the old basement room to the new and for the plumbing) has been mind-numbing. We eat dinner, do homework and watch DVDs on the laptop in our 1 bedroom. It's a little like pioneer days, but with electric fans, DVDs, high-speed internet, flush toilets (except for the day when the plumbers had to shut the water off for 3 hours), and a beer fridge in the garage (glory be!). Except for all that, it's EXACTLY like pioneer days... ;-)

So we're waiting for the inspector to arrive at 10, so that we can begin phase 72... My desk is still temporarily in the basement, The jackhammer, thankfully is quiet for a few minutes while I type. That said, 2 members of our construction team are right here measuring wood. Hi guys.

In addition to the construction, the 2-3 weeks that precede the Celtic Festival are among my most stressful of the year. I have county permits, additional applications, buckets ad buckets of publicity and development issues, ticket sales, incoming questions from the public, internal conflict, and maybe 10 or 11 other things BESIDES keeping the kids occupied and out of harm's way and boredom...plus there's a really big fly in my bedroom. Grrrr.

I really don't want to be a whiner because of course we did bring this upon ourselves and we can already see how amazing our house is going to be, and we were aware of the stress that would result, but having the festival and what seems like the construction zenith collide is wearing me the blank out.

So, I'll stop now because I'd really like to go out and run for a few minutes before it gets too warm. The kids have been taking everything in stride and Mike and I haven't yelled at each other yet, but I find that any time I have to be quiet and/or just think is like taking a mini-vacation. Here are a few pictures. Katie's room will become Andrew's larger closet and the hall to our room. This room is our nursery, and while it's moderately painful to dismantle it, neither we nor the kids need it anymore. Katie can't wait for her princess suite and Andrew looks forward to a bigger closet, a new window, and having his room back! I'll remember nursing 2 tiny bunners in this room.

"...And The Walls Came Tumbling Down"

So today was the day that the guys worked on the kitchen/dining room wall. And by "worked on" I mean destroyed. What didn't occur to me is that I wouldn't have access to the kitchen AT ALL from 8:30 (Got my third cup) until 6:15pm. Luckily I had some snacks for the kids (and me) in the garage fridge...and frozen Christmas cookies. I even had a chance to walk out into the new portion of the big new space, but I didn't have the foresight to have my camera with me. It's really nice and big...I can't wait!

So the guys finished up by 6:15-ish and I was able to fire up the grill and get my number one grill master on cooking us up some chicken. I was very close to just telling Mike I wanted to go out, but instead we pulled together grilled BBQ chicken breasts, frozen green beans and mashed potatoes (from a box- don't judge me! I bought it for nights like this!) We just finished and are thinking of scaling the ladder to check out the new room. I'll bring the camera if we do.