Tile, tile, tile, as far as the eye can see!

Here it is!


You can see some paint swatches there on the wall -- that's what we're going with for the kitchen/mud room/pantry.

Isn't it cool? We love it!

Someone requested that we paint her name on the wall. Can you guess who? Hmmmm... (Also? That heart there is the color of the family room & 1/2 bath.)

Sara's look here pretty much sums it up for all of us!

My Heroes

I love these guys, and I don't even know all of their names. Rob totally understands.




Many thanks to Dan & Brian and all the other guys I haven't met who've been busting out MY FREAKING GORGEOUS NEW KITCHEN FLOOR!!!!!!!

Wow -- am I behind!

My father-in-law not so subtly told me this evening that I am woefully behind on updates. I thought for sure he was wrong.

Oops.

So yes! Updates!

How about this for a start?

This is our new porch light. It's attached to our new porch...

...right here. Isn't it nice? I think so, too. Rich did all of it: designed it, cut out all the dental work and molding, built it -- the works. We love it and think he did an awesome job.

Perhaps you might also notice our new front door. It seems to have the power to make people swoon. Don't get me wrong, I like it very much, but it has yet to make me swoon. Perhaps when I walk through it for the first time to go home for good. Yes, I suspect it will make me swoon then.

But wait! There's more!

Much of the work that Rich has been doing (at least the stuff that I'm really into -- I'm sure there is some other "structural" stuff, as if that matters) can be boiled down into these two pictures:

Bee-utiful stairs. These are the stairs from the main staircase, which Rich restored, stained, and sealed. They shine like the top of the Chrysler building! He has also built stairs going to the basement (utilitarian, and though not so lovely -- sorry, Skip, I call 'em as I see 'em -- no longer a death trap like the old originals) as well as stairs going down into the family room. Those have also been stained & sealed, and while I would be happy to post photos of those as well they would, um, look remarkably like what you see above. Shiny and new and lovely.

And then there's this:

What's this? Crown molding and paint! Everywhere we turn! Sara's room is done (pinkalicious) as is the hall bath (purplerific, because I am a sucker), the laundry room (pictured above in a super fun color called "Jack Frost") and the upstairs hall and stairwell. And much to my surprise and delight, the master bath is painted as well! See?

The tub surround and shower are tiled too, as you can see here. Tile on the floor is next, then we can install the loo and sinks.

So, yes -- there has been progress. Slow but steady wins the race, right?

I promise I'll try to do better with the updates!

Nesting

My mother always said that rain brings good luck.

We have had a remarkably mild summer this year, but for the past few days August has tried to make up for this by offering up a particularly uncomfortable run of hot, humid days interspersed with rain showers and thunderstorms. Personally, I love storms and the energy that they bring -- but the muggy, hot days I can do without.

Similarly, day-to-day life over the past week has been particularly uncomfortable as well: Running in too many different directions for too long, trying to meet the needs of most everyone but myself. Yesterday I finally hit the wall. I was done. I slept for more hours than I can remember sleeping in a long, long time.

And then today I woke up better rested, and the weather finally broke too. The rain is still here but has brought with it cooler breezes and more of these pleasant but unusually mild days. So, before Sara woke from her nap this afternoon I decided to take advantage of the time and the weather by sitting outside and swinging under my sister's tree. There was a heavy grey cloud blowing our way and I knew another shower was coming but I didn't care; in fact, I thought it was perfect.

Just after I sat down I noticed an abandoned nest at my feet, blown out of the tree during one of the storms earlier this week. It was a sweet little robin's nest, still perfectly intact despite the elements. I thought about how much work that bird must have put into building it's small home, and what a good job it did for it to look so perfect even after it's unceremonious eviction from that tree.

And then it started to rain.

It was hard to ignore the parallels to our own nest, the one we've spent so long working on but that will be beautiful and well-built when it's finally done. I took it as a sign that we would find our home there soon -- maybe not as soon as we might like, but soon nonetheless.

I'm going to keep that nest, and fill it up with wishes for all the things I hope to find in our own: peace, good health, happiness, love. And it will be a reminder of the time, effort, and patience it took for us to get there, and of the storms we had to weather to finally, finally, come home.

The rain blessed me today. Good luck, indeed.

I think you've waited long enough

The problem is that editing pictures of drywall (yes, drywall!) is not nearly as fun as hanging out with the drywall itself. But anyway, here you go -- the latest & greatest!

This is...  well nothing, really.  It is probably only meaningful to the select few who had to tromp around in my parent's attic over the last 50 years.  This is the attic floor, probably seeing the light of day for the first time since they moved in in 1959.  Welcome back to the world, attic floor!  

And now for the good stuff:  dry wall!  This shot shows the new upstairs hallway, looking from Mom & Dad's old room to the new master bedroom. The alcove on the left is my laundry closet. 

And here's the kitchen!  This looks from the new dining room doorway all the way back to the no-garage door.  The steps on the right go down to the family room; the windows on the left are where we'll have our kitchen table.  My desk will be in that corner next to the steps, & on the other side of that wall (there's a wall now!!) is the mud room.  The two doors in the far back/left are the pantry & 1/2 bath.  And that big shovel there?  Right -- it's a big shovel.

The family room!  This was taken the next day, after the drywallers taped.  I couldn't believe how fast they got all this done -- two days to put up all the drywall & do the first go round with tape/mud.  Those undocumented workers are crazy fast!

Obviously, there's our new gas fireplace at the end; built-ins will go on either side.  The stairs there under the French doors go into the existing living room.

More of the family room.  Just cause I can.

Moving out-of-doors...  here is the final trim on the new windows.  I like!  Can't wait to see how good they look when all the nail heads are filled in & the house is painted.

And finally, here's the addition before the bricklayers came...

And here it is after!  The bricks aren't a perfect match, not that we expected them to be, but they are pretty close -- and look even better in person than they do in this picture.  The plan was (is?) to white wash them to match the original even more.  I am in favor of this, I'm not sure Rob is.  We will see how it pans out.

So, there you go!  We have settled on/ordered our kitchen cabinets (knotty alder in "Cinnamon"), backsplash (slate - love!) and countertops (my beloved soapstone), and have decided on our appliances though they aren't ordered yet.  Master & hall bath tile have also been selected, and I think we picked out carpet a long time ago.  Stone for the fireplace, done.  Faucets, also done.  We still have some flooring decisions to make (with an eye toward economy, though not at the expense of the project) and I need to figure out which version of white -- there are 100 of them you know -- we are using for the exterior paint.  I will need to have several drinks in me before I begin to contemplate lighting.  I am still thinking that candlelight may be the way to go...  after all, they're green and economical!

Hope this was worth the wait.  I am getting so excited about turning our project into our home!

Eh? Say again?

What's that you say? You want what?

Rickshaws?

Tinctures?

What?

Oh -- PICTURES?

Well, yes. I actually took some new pictures last weekend that are patiently waiting for some editing.

But now, with the big doins happening today, well... I just might have to take some newer pictures when I get home!

Looks like you're going to have to wait now, doesn't it?

So sorry!

I'm only a month behind

SO.

There were many trucks at our house yesterday.

Big, noisy diesel trucks.

Loaded up with materials.

Like bricks.

And drywall.

And -- well, I don't know. Other construction stuff.

And all of this was great -- I was happy.

BUT!

Today?

Swarms of men around my house.

I could enjoy this for many, many reasons.

But I actually only enjoy it because they were there to LAY BRICK AND HANG DRYWALL.

Oh, sweet bliss.