New Front Window

Before

After

So far our favorite changes are #1, the walls knocked out to create the big open flow, and #2, the new window we put in the front wall. It used to be a big solid brick wall - weird and foreboding looking, if you ask me. It looks SOOOO much better now and that front room is going to look great from the inside too! I'm glad we spent the money on it. What do you think?

Btw, the krudcutter stuff that was recommended for the brick stains did not work. =( We'll have to try something else......

Not So Easy

Just a quick update to say....this remodeling thing is not so easy. Something is always going to come up, go wrong, cost more, break, or whatever. That's ok, because we expect it, but it sure does keep you busy and moving.

Our original time line was to be finished and moving in after about 4 weeks - that's what John said anyway. I'll admit I secretly laughed at that. It looks like it's going to more like about 6 weeks total. That's really not too bad considering how much John is traveling. Last week and this week both he's pretty much been non-existent around here. He is making money though so who am I to complain. Praise God for a great job! After this week his traveling will be much less.

I will do my best to post some pictures of progress tonight. I've got to go to Home Depot again now. Luckily, it will not be with four children. ;)

Don't Try This at Home

Right after work today, I went to Home Depot and Lowe's with all four children. There should be rules about this type of thing.

They climbed into the dryers and closed the doors on each other, they pushed their way through huge, hanging rugs, they hid behind boxes of tile, and they tried to use the long pieces of accent tile as drum sticks.

I tried bribing them, I tried scowling at them. In the end, I decided to just get out of there as quick as we could!

The end result was the purchase of beautiful tile for the shower floor. Hopefully, it will look good enough to be worth that tortuous trip! ;)

September 16th

We bought our bathroom tile today finally. I guess we'll still have to go to Lowe's or Home Depot tomorrow to get the accent stuff though, since they didn't have what we needed at our discount place. What we really wanted was a beautiful travertine tile, but at $7+ a square foot we just couldn't bring ourselves to do it. Especially when we found a 20x20 ceramic tile that looks and even feels so much like the travertine we wanted. It was only $1.45 a square foot! Yea!

Here's one of our workers knocking out the hole for where the new window is going in the front of the house.

I'm glad I wasn't having to do this job - it didn't look fun!

The view from the inside. I think it will be a lot better once the white pick-up is gone. And the worker too.

I forgot to take a picture of this wheelbarrow the other day. We couldn't track our big nice one down, (I think we finally figured out that John's brother has it) so Clay let us use his. He was quick to say that it wasn't that great but we were welcome to it. I'm pretty sure that those neighbors who were entertained by me yesterday in the dumpster were also entertained when they watched me transporting broken pieces of tile in this thing. I was tempted to leave the wheelbarrow itself in the dumpster! I didn't though.

September 14th

I went over today and worked while the babies were napping. I wish I could have stayed longer, but at least I got to go for a while. Jake was there too so we spent most of the time hauling out big stuff to the dumpster that he couldn't do by himself. I was feeling like quite a "she-man" doing all that big lifting. The worst part was being terrified that you were going to get stabbed by a nail when picking something up. My leg got it a couple of times and then my chest. I lived. (Obviously.)

The dumpster is filling up. See my fancy little ramp I made when I needed to dump the big trash can in there? It was sooo heavy! You should have seen me trying to turn the stupid thing over to dump the contents out. I'm sure any neighbors who happened to be watching were quite amused as I twisted this way and that and heaved and hoed and jumped and pushed, trying to get that trash can emptied.

I cleared out the living room. It's so much easier to imagine exactly what I want to do now!

We hauled out the blue counter.

Jake took down the mirror and it fell over. Oops! That should be fun to clean up.

The New Windows

The place where we knocked out weird walls and brought it out even with the rest of the house is one step closer to being done. When I walked in on Saturday and saw it, I immediately knew we had made a great decision. Our original thought was to move the sliding glass door out to that wall (it was on one of the walls we knocked out.) I sat up in bed one night and realized I absolutely did not want a door there. I wanted windows! A glass sliding door in a nice dining area just didn't sound as pretty as windows. So I went to Lowe's and there you go.

Are you confused as to where this window is? The picture below shows the end of the kitchen area. To the right would be the three walls we took out. There were three walls that formed a rectangle shaped patio area right outside. We took out the walls and made a new wall even with the rest of that side of the house. It meant a nice open flow from kitchen to dining room to living room. Not cheap, but probably one of the best changes we'll make.

September 12th and 13th

We are so relieved the rain has finally stopped! It wouldn't have been so bad except that they were in the midst of digging for the sprinkler system so there was dirt everywhere. That dirt turned to very slippery mud that covered our sidewalks! Very messy and very dangerous.


The dumpster in all its glory. It's pretty huge. And that red car? That belongs to a friend - it needs a little work done on it and they don't have anywhere else to park it right now. So we're not even living there yet and we've already got a junker car in the driveway. Awesome.

Bye bye ugly 70's green tile. John David made sparks when he was helping to bust it out with the hammer!

You're next, blue counter top. Don't forget, if you want your own bit of "Piece" history, become a "Piece Partner" today! =)

The tile in the hall bath will soon rest in peace in the dumpster.

The master bath is preparing to be beautified.