Day 9

Great progress today! New trim went in the Living Room! It is much thicker than the old stuff (sorry I don't have a pic) and is in much better proportion with the scale of the room and the window and floorboard trim. We are very pleased! It matches the kitchen.

Also, Jeff added trim to the bathroom and hallway where there was none before. It looks so good that Cameron said when he walked in today, "I wonder if we shouldn't just have him do the bedrooms too."

The bedrooms have picture molding that I like because I can hang things from it! However, painters are coming next week so if we're ever going to do it, now is the perfect time.

We had to take apart our "bathroom kitchen" today so that trim and a vent could go in the bathroom. There was no place to put all of our temporary kitchen things besides in Turner's room so it was there they went. The dogs have been spending most of their days stuck in the front red room so that wasn't an option. It was at this point that I felt a total loss of control. Every room of our home is now officially in disarray but praise God I am able to laugh! Cameron just smiled at it all too:) I guess it is easier when you can see a light at the end of the tunnel (and when you have a week long beach trip planned to begin Monday!!).

I vacuumed the downstairs twice today and it needs it again. As soon as Jeff finishes up tonight I'm going to put this shop vac to work cleaning up the construction zone. These past couple of weeks have been my first experience with a shop vac and I have become quite a fan. It is miraculous how quickly and how much this thing can eat up.

After that, I am going to test these paint samples on some poster board and hopefully come to a decision tonight for our cabinet and wall colors. I wish there weren't so many shades of white! A HUGE thank you to my friend and neighbor, Mollie who let Turner take a nap at her house so I could run up to the Benjamin Moore store and pick out some colors. There are some things that are just not practical with a toddler and this is one of them for me.

Day's 7 & 8

Praise the Lord for air conditioning!!! We were without if for the last 26 hours and the house was 85 degrees. This might not sound too bad but when you're chasing a precious toddler around it is really hard to keep from sweating. It seems our electrical system was overloaded with all the power tools but thankfully it was all fixed today and are no longer taking it for granted. "Every good and perfect gift IS from above!"

Our carpenter, Jeff has been hard at work today and yesterday installing all the trim on our cabinets and around the ceiling and floor of the kitchen and dining room. Cameron and I are really starting to catch the vision! We look forward to him installing the same trim in our living room tomorrow:)

He also put up these brackets (there's probably a better term for them) that I snagged at the Cobb Antique Market. They will help support a 16" countertop that will rest on top. We're trying to decide if we'll keep the paint on them just the way it is or if we'll have them stripped and repainted to match the cabinets. I like how they're simple but still have a little personality. When I purchased them they came together with one being several inches longer, as you can see. I might not have originally sought out a larger one but I like the way it's coming together.

Close up

Also, I realized I hadn't shown you a picture of our floors! We were very pleased to discover there was Pine underneath the brick linoleum. It needs a little TLC but Tee seems to think they will clean up beautifully. The rest of our house has oak floors with slightly narrower planks so they will not match exactly but they will be the same color. If I weren't pregnant and it wasn't 90+ degrees outside then I might consider moving all of our things out and refinishing the entire downstairs floor but I just don't have it in me so I'm not going to sweat it. Cameron doesn't seem to think it will bother him either.

Here's a before picture of the floors thought it's not a close up:(

Oh, and when they countertop people came to make their template yesterday they said the schedule was running about three weeks. We'd surely like to have our kitchen back sooner than that so please pray it will be done a little faster. On a happy note, Sweet Turner didn't get any new bruises today. She has been very accident prone as she masters this whole walking thing. Also, our new little Baby Girl was moving around TONS and she was sticking her little bottom straight out so I really got to feel her little body. It was SO cool! She's the length of a Spaghetti Squash this week. I love her so much already!!

Love you all-
K

Day 6

Sorry I missed you guys last night. I was absolutely exhausted when I got home from the Simmons' house. They cooked us an amazing dinner and were so sweet to spoil us a little:)

Yesterday was VERY EXCITING but a little stressful as the cabinets went in. They are absolutely beautiful and just what I wanted. They have clean lines and are very simple and easy on the eyes. I don't have the imagination to picture them white but I'll get to see that with my own eyes next week. And oh the storage we will have! I can't wait for all the extra storage space so things can be more accessible instead of being stacked and piled up so they are hard to get to. Oh the meals I'm going to cook for Cameron, Turner and hopefully YOU in there!! I had hoped and expected them to go all the way to the ceiling for extra storage for those barely used items. It was a good lesson in communication for me.

The space looking into the dining room is for the stove (which was delivered and is not being stored in the basement with the dishwasher). I hope it will be easier to keep an eye on my curious toddler while cooking.

The space to the left of the sink cabinet if for the, drumroll please, DISHWASHER!!! I can't wait to run everything we own through it!!!! It's going to run for the first several days without stopping. After hand washing everything for a few years, I'm just not convinced it's perfectly clean.

Here's a sneak peak at the sink that was set into place this morning:) It's a farmhouse sink but nothing like the farmhouse sink we had before! BTW, did I mention we sold the old one on craigslist in only three days for several hundred dollars? You wouldn't believe the stuff people will buy. I hope the nice people who bought it enjoy it as much as I enjoy the extra counter space!

I thought I'd share an inspiration photo I found this morning. I think we'll use very comparable colors for the cabinets and walls. We had already ordered this exact faucet, countertop and sink so this helps me see it all together. I don't think it could be too light or too bright for me!

Day 3-5

While T and I were away at a friend's house for a couple of days, people were hard at work at our house. Insulation and drywall went as well as some behind the scenes heating and air work.

I love our new pantry! I don't even mind that there is a little triangle in the upper left corner where to stairs are. We will be able to reach things so much better!

We had the guys add a vent to our bathroom while we had them over since we had a bit of a mildew problem when we were using this bath on a daily basis. Here is where it will go.

Thought you might like to see how we're making due without a kitchen:) Our beautiful (yet kinda dirty) new fridge is in our living room. This one has an ice maker that works. Thanks to all of you who have brought ice over in the past!

I set up a mini kitchen in our bathtub since that room has the only running water besides our master bath upstairs.

I like that I can close the shower curtain and pretend everything is normal.

Turner and the dogs don't seem to mind all this mess too much.

We're headed to Birmingham this weekend to visit Lindsey and Taylor so we will enjoy the escape from the chaos. It's really not as bad as I thought it would be and we're 1/3 of the way through it already!!!! Yay!!

Day 2

Well, it was an 11 hour day today (9am to 8pm) but it was worth it. Poor T got a total of 30min sleep the entire day during the workers' lunch break but she's a trooper and tomorrow we'll be at a friend's house so hopefully she will get her full 4 hours (we just switched to 1 long nap a day. She's growing up on us!). There were no big surprises which was a relief since you never know what will be uncovered when you open up the walls of a 70 year old house. The worst we found yesterday were some rat droppings under the cabinets. I'm just thankful they didn't find a rat.

The day began with taking out the kitchen door and walling it off. One of the most dysfunctional things about our 11 x 12 kitchen was that there was a doorway on each of it's 4 short walls. That made it impossible to get any span of counter space. By walling off just one of those doors we will be able to incorporate many more cabinets which = more counter space. Now if I could just decide on some countertops....

No more doorway:)

T and I ran out for lunch and to pick up our new sink from Overstock Kitchen and Bath in Kennesaw. When we returned they has installed the new window. I was hoping it would let in tons more light which it doesn't really do but I think we will enjoy looking out the large center window while standing at the sink as opposed to the wide piece of trim that was in the center of the old window. Might not seem like a big deal but it drove me crazy.

Window Before

New Window

Later in the afternoon they blew out the opening that was the dining room window to the deck to make room for new 5 feet wide french doors. It makes quite a difference! The bigger doors let in much more light which makes me happy.

Oh, and did I mention they removed much of the vinyl siding on that back wall and we saw the original wood siding? It is so much prettier than the vinyl even in it's sad state. The siding is a different project for a different day but I sure wish previous owners hadn't dealt with it in that way. Oh well

Close up of old siding:(

Before

After

Around 7:30 they took apart our old pantry door so they could move it to the left a foot. This will allow us to add lots of new shelving to the right side of the opening and will make it easier to access the shelving underneath the stairs. Jeff who is building our cabinets will build new, more functional shelving in the pantry later on.

Also, they added a knee wall that there will be cabinets on

Phew, that was a lot! I will be gone all day tomorrow so hopefully I'll update Thursday night. Goodnight!

Day 1 was a BIG ONE

The guys were all supposed arrive before 8am but didn't end up starting until around 9:30 which was okay with me since I only slept about 4 hours last night. The other 4 hours were spent tossing and turning with my mind going about 100 mph as I got EVEN MORE excited about the project. That's just the way things go I guess.

When the guys arrived they immediately began to attack the wall between the dining room and kitchen much to my enjoyment:) I have dreamed of seeing it gone and I nearly teared up when I peeked in and saw they had removed about a foot from the bottom of the wall and I could see light pouring through from the other side. It was just as drastic as I had imagined. It took them about 30 minutes to get it down to the studs as they had to remove 2 layers of this thick cement board. I always thought we had plaster walls but it turns out otherwise. The studs took an additional 20 minutes minus a couple boards that are very strongly attached to the ceiling.

After that I ran out for lunch since my fridge was hardly accessible and scratched a couple things off my to-do list while my sweet mother-in-law had Turner for the day. When I arrived home a couple hours later the cabinets were all gone and the lack of insulation in our kitchen walls was exposed. Quite disappointing yet not surprising. I was relieved to see how spacious the space felt with the 2 rooms made into 1. We had debated about whether or not we needed to extend the back of our house to give us a bigger kitchen but we concluded it just wasn't necessary and we could make much better use of the existing space to give us what we need.

The guys took off at 4:00 which was just fine with the dogs who were excited to get their backyard back for the evening. By the end of the day I was pleasantly surprised and fascinated with the craftsmanship in which our house was built 70 years ago. The weights in the windows were visible when the trim was removed and left me in awe that people actually used to make windows like that.

Thus far, this is not as stressful as I thought it would be. We'll see how it goes tomorrow when I have my precious (and very curious) daughter toddling around this scene of destruction. I pray she'll be able to get some sort of nap in her pack n' play in our upstairs bathroom. I'll crank her noisemaker up as loud as it will go!

On the agenda for tomorrow:
1. Install french doors in the dining room
2. Replace the kitchen window with a larger, more efficient one that actually opens and closes
3. Wall off the current kitchen door

Kitchen remodel starts tomorrow!

Since the fist time we walked in our house as first-time home buyers in October 2008 we thought, "This house would be really great if it weren't for that terrible kitchen." There was no dishwasher, (which my loving husband eventually became), fake brick linoleum floor (the pine underneath will soon be exposed), about 8 square feet of counter space and the widest, shallowest sink I'd ever seen. Six weeks later we bought the house anyways, crammed our wonderful wedding dishes and gadgets into those few cabinets and made the most of it. Ever since then I have lost dozens of hours of sleep thinking of how I'd like to make it more functional and attractive. If you had told me back then that I would have had to live in it for 2.75 years before it could be remodeled I might have suggested we buy a different house. However, most days I have been content with it so much so that it could only be from the Holy Spirit. I would be lying if I said I felt that way EVERY day though:)

So tomorrow is the day that our patience begins to pay off. After tons of saving, planning, talking to dozens of contractors, designers, structural engineers and architects we are ready to begin. Heading up our project is a lifelong friend of Cameron and builder, Tee. It should be quite exciting and we'd love for you to take this journey us. We'll need your prayers while living in chaos for a month with our energetic 1 year old and 2 dogs that will have to be indoors so that contractors can come and go through the back.

Lastly, I felt Dr. Youssef speaking directly to me today as he reminded us of how Jesus never had a home or a definite place to lay His head down at night. Most nights He ended up sleeping under the stars. Here I am in a tizzy because 2 rooms of my home will be in disarray for a month. How blessed we truly are. Pray for us (especially me) not to worship "comfortable" during this time but to be filled with thankfulness for our beautiful home and the means to remodel this space to better serve our family's needs.

I plan to update you on an almost daily basis. Below are a few before pictures. Let the demo begin!!

Love, Katie