Side-effects of remodeling

A fine layer of powder settles daily on everything in the house. This is the downstairs bathroom counter ... which I had just dusted the day before. Seriously. Trust me, we're doing lots of vacuuming around here.

BUT it's all coming together. Wood floors are in, painters have been going nonstop, cabinets go in this week -- it's coming together. I'll dust daily if I have to. No complaints from me.

13

Christian turned 13 today. A teenager. 13. So weird. He's such a great kid. Always has been. Of course we have our little issues with him (can you just turn in your homework please?!?) but he also keeps us highly entertained and laughing most of the time. He's the master organizer of fun things (whether it's potions class in the kitchen, spy camp for the neighborhood kids or a spook alley in our backyard on Halloween). He's far more creative and talented than I am in that regard. He's a fantastic creative writer, which is also a talent he did not get from his mother. He's a fun person to be around and is getting more clever with his wit and humor. And he's grown! I'm pretty tall (5'10) and yesterday when we stood side by side, he was within a couple of inches of me. How does stuff like that happen overnight?

It cracks me up that he instantly drops his voice (which is getting constantly lower anyway) at least an octave when he answers the phone because he's tired of people saying, "Hi Misty!" when he answers. They don't mistake us for each other anymore. He loves to quote movies that I like, too -- Monty Python and Strange Brew are a couple of his favorites right now. He's a master of accents. And he loves a good movie as much as his mother, which is awesome. :)

So how do you recognize a 13 year old's birthday among his friends and classmates? Do you embarrass him or go low-key?

You embarrass him with cute girls ... which isn't so embarrassing but more extremely flattering. He didn't mind for one second, I assure you.

Easy peasy

I've always heard nightmare stories about home remodels that take sooo much longer than were expected. That hasn't at all been our experience so far. We have a fantastic contractor who has kept our remodel clipping along at an amazing pace. Here was the kitchen 6 days ago:

And here's a progression of what's been done since.

That's the outline of the island. Here's what the kitchen & dining room look like right now:

That entrance on the right is the hidden pantry. Can't even wait for that one.

This one is looking into the dining room and through into the mudroom.

All of this drywall may not look like much but I'm in shock at how quickly it's all going. Flooring goes in this week and the painters start. It hardly seems real.

She's got my back

When mom is gone and the kids fend for themselves, you hope they get some kind of nutrition into their bodies and not just junkfood, right? Haley's got it covered.

What you do if most of your toys are in storage ....

Daddy's Girls

I just gotta say...this is the best part of my week!

Posted by Mike at 12:50 PM

Lobster-diving

Our friend & contractor, Matt, has a love for these mega-creatures...

I never realized that lobsters look so much like spiders underneath. Creepy, huge spiders. It's the tail that I love so much. Matt goes scuba diving off the California coast - at night, mind you - to catch these guys. And this last trip, he came home with 11 just like this. Imagine the feast...

Elle wasn't near as fascinated as I was. She hardly wanted near the thing for a picture.

Eagle update

Remember Christian's Eagle Project? Well, here's what he's collected so far. And the donations just keep coming.

A couple of nights ago, we sorted the clothes with Grandpa & Grandma and now our front room looks like this:

Mom & dad kept saying, "Oh, they need this so much! They'll love this!" Christian said, "Wouldn't it be cool if I could go to Africa and give it to them myself?"

I'm so glad he found an Eagle project that means something to him. And I'll be so glad when it's officially finished. :)

In my next life....

I'll be a writer for Sesame Street.

Outdoors

Another fun thing about this new house is this ....

The gentleman who lived here for the past 30 years was an extraordinary gardener. His children told us that the soil in the garden is the 'best dirt in Bountiful' because he painstakingly cultivated it year after year. And it must be because check out the size of the fruits & veggies....

The pumpkin hiding in there is seriously ginormous.

Which sounds really amazing except that I don't know how to garden. Nobody tell the previous owners that because I told them I could.  Well, in fairness to us, Mike had a garden when he was growing up and we've grown tomatoes in past years but who hasn't?  Tomatoes aren't hard.  When we made the offer on this house, the only thing they countered back with was that they could come back and harvest everything that was already planted.  No problem.  And so I've gotten to know Lisa, a wonderful granddaughter of the amazing gardener, who has already taught me so much about gardening.  Mike and I were far more enamored with the size of the yard and the possibilities of such fun play space than we were with the garden itself.  So now we'll have to marry the two -- create fun play space and keep some of the "best dirt in Bountiful" to keep producing great produce.  The raspberries, strawberries, grapes and fruit trees just keep producing by themselves, which is perfect, and then we'll keep the garden to a manageable size.   Come on over to pick some fruit off of the trees, 'cause believe me there's plenty!

Discoveries

This new house has brought some new discoveries:

New hiding places ...

A secret passage between ours and the neighbor's back yard. Our kids have been back & forth continuously ever since.

The perfect Elle-sized bathtub. I guess that it's technically called a 'soaking tub,' where you soak your feet while sponge-bathing? None of the rest of us can fit but Elle thinks it's fantastic.

The entry and kitchen floor make great scooter/bike paths. Until new flooring is in, I'm letting the kids go for it.

The completely empty front room makes for some great soccer games.

The best discovery of all and top selling point of this house for our kids... the drinking fountain.

Reemergence

We.Have.Internet! Here, in our house. Didn't realize what a gift that was before. Granted, I've had my iphone all along but I can't blog pictures from my phone. Yay for Comcast for finally hooking me back up.

Where to start? Moving day a few weeks ago was some good times. We moved on the morning of the Utah/BYU game and Mike insisted that we book a UofU moving van.

It was pretty cool. The movers had our house loaded up into the van fairly quickly and then deposited it all here ...

The garage at our new house. The picture doesn't even really do it justice. It's a relatively deep garage and we filled every inch of it -- boxes 6 deep in some places. I was pretty meticulous about packing all of the boxes, writing what was in each box and which boxes we needed easy access to, but the movers got ahead of us and pretty soon it was deeper than we could wade through. Finding everyone's buried bedding several days later was quite the experience. 

Why did we move into the garage, you ask? At this point, we actually hadn't even closed on the house yet. But the sellers were very understanding that we didn't want to have to move everything twice (from a storage unit to the house later that week) so they gave us early access. We spent a few nights at Grandma's (thank you, mom!) and then finally moved in. We officially sold our home on a Monday and closed on this new home the next day. After 4+ years of looking and "almost" buying  6 different homes and/or lots (which included many ups & downs and more than a little impatience on my part), this one finally happened. And we couldn't feel luckier. (Couldn't feel more lucky? Which one should it be, Erin the Grammar Nazi?)

Here's the before pictures with the previous owner's stuff in it. Can you see the potential? Cause we certainly could.

The new kitchen will combine the old dining room and kitchen, centering it onto the family room. Finally a great room/kitchen combo with lots of entertaining room! I'm pinching myself that I get to plan out the new kitchen. I can't wait for the before & after pictures.

We moved just the bare essentials into the upstairs while Matt, our amazing general contractor and great friend, and his crew started remodeling the downstairs. It hasn't quite been 2 weeks yet but the basement is done and we started moving furniture down yesterday. Nothing changed structurally downstairs, but it's amazing what new paint & carpet will do for a place. The new moldings & doors are my favorite.

Even without furniture, the kids were more than excited to get the tv hooked up. No internet, tv or phone for 2 weeks have been "awful!" (their words) or "wonderfully quiet" (my words).

That is Haley's room. I have wanted moldings like that for forever. It took the guy maybe 30 minutes to put it up. Which means that he'll have to do the other girls' rooms, too. And the dining room. And anything else I can think of.

There's still a ton to do and we're still 80% in boxes. Our family theme these days is "It's in a box." Hey mom, where are the Barbies? In a box. Have you seen my (fill in the blank for just about everything)? It's in a box. But we're making some progress and I can't wait for the finished product.

I can't thank everyone enough for helping us get moved and semi-settled. Great women came on moving day and took my kids to play, brought me Diet Cokes, helped to clean and move the final stuff, loaded up their cars with artwork and framed photos, have brought us meals and other goodies since we don't have a working kitchen, etc., etc. We have been lovingly taken care of and I'm so grateful.

I'll keep taking pictures and posting the progress. We'll update the exterior someday, too. But in the meantime, come see us if you're in the area. A steady stream of visitors has helped in the transition for all of us.

Back to unpacking. Maybe I'll finally find the silverware so we can stop using the plastic stuff. :)