September 6th

One of our main goals for the day was to get all of the kitchen cabinets and counters ordered. In order to get some of the measurements we needed, it was helpful to take out some of the existing cabinets. I can just hear Doug from King of Queens saying "Demo-li-shi-on"! I love that show. =)

It was so great to see at least some of those ugly cabinets come out. We got our measurements and went up to the store to plot out the cabinet design only to realize that we didn't have every measurement we needed. Oops! Back to the car, drive across town and measure again. Live and learn.

The store we used is kind of like a handy man depot (a store that SA used to have). You can save a lot of money but they're not as user friendly as Lowe's or Home Depot. This store currently has no computer program to help in the kitchen design process. Lucky for us (and for the store employee) John had his graph paper and calculator and figured it all out. It doesn't seem like it would be hard, but it's like a big puzzle. The store was closed when we finished designing it so the worker man is going to call in the morning with the actual cost and then I'll go up and pay for it all. I can't even tell you how excited we are to get those cabinets in there. That's when it will really all start to come together!




Late that night, we went back to the house with John David since he had been wanting to help. I didn't have my camera with me. =( John David helped shovel out rocks from the front patio area and he helped hammer out the entry way tile. So cute! I kicked myself for not taking my camera.

Here's a video of John working. Not so very exciting, but I went to the trouble of loading it to Photobucket so it's getting posted. I have to keep taking the videos because you just never know when something funny might happen. And sorry it's kind of dark - the electricity is shut off in that room due to the construction going on.....

It's quite official now - we own our Piece!

September 4th

I was able to swing by the house for about five minutes today in between a doctor appointment for Julia and going to Wal-mart to get her prescription and groceries for dinner. It's killing me to not be over there more but there's only so much I can do. Being a momma to all the babies keeps me pretty busy!

They had made great progress in taking out those walls I mentioned in the last post. It was exciting to see such a big change!

The sprinkler system is close to being done.

We got to see a lot of it in action today!

My favorite thing so far! This picture was taken from near the front door.

That's Fernando, our contractor. (He's the one who will send you your blue counter top if you become a Piece Partner!)

This picture is taken from the kitchen. We can now see ALL the way
straight over to the end of the living room! How great is that???

The Front Room

I love the idea of this front room. I love it because I have no plans for it yet. I mean, we know what we're doing with it remodeling wise, but once we're living there......it can be anything! Formal living, play room, formal dining, office, 5th bedroom, piano room....whatever I want! It has french doors going into it and although it has one window now, it will soon have a second window that will look out into the front. It's going to be so pretty! I guess I'm just enthralled with my family of six having an unclaimed room. Very, very nice....

September 3rd

The biggest structural change we're making is to enclose what was a patio space and to incorporate it into the living area. It's not a very cheap thing to do, but it's so worth it already! We will now have the beloved "great room" feel....

What you see in this picture sits right between the kitchen and the living room -
it will soon be a dining area!

Here's the walls after they were just beginning to be stripped.

The view from the outside (which is on the side of the house).

We're not filling in the hole with brick. It will be a sliding glass door that leads to the side yard.

Big mess = Big progress
(at least in this case anyway)

September 3rd

There were some title problems (on the seller's part) that have delayed our closing to tomorrow morning, September 5th at 10:30. Regardless of the fact that we have not yet closed, we have continued to work. John leaves on Sunday for LA (he's actually staying in Beverly Hills......ooh lala!) and we just couldn't keep holding off. We aren't paying the $250 a day to be in there - not sure if that's because the seller's realize it's their fault that closing has been delayed or if the agents are just turning their heads to the fact that we're in there or what. We let them know what we were doing and we've never heard anything in response. Things are moving fast so I'll be posting lots of pictures....

This is John and his brother Matt measuring to figure out
where the holes needed to be cut for the recessed lighting.
Check out Matt's stilts! John wore them later and almost smushed me
when he took them off because he used me to steady himself jumping out of them!
All of the white specs in the pictures is because of all the stuff in the air from demolition.

Here's a hole that John cut and quickly realized there was a stud there. Oops! I guess "tapar" means "fix what the stupid white boy did" in spanish! hehehe! Just kidding....

John and Jake loading the ditch witch that we rented for four hours
from Home Depot. And you know we kept it every second we could
and then had to race it back up there to avoid extra charges!

John was proud of his little home depot flags marking where sprinkler lines would go.

Pretty ditches all dug.

Tomorrow's the Day

We close tomorrow! Yea!!! The work will finally get to really get going. We're so excited!

Today John found a great deal on a whirlpool tub for the master bathroom. It was normally $700 and we got it for $400. I think Home Depot had some other good deals too, but we had to get home because Aulora has learned a new trick and Sandy needed help! Maybe we'll go back tomorrow.

We also finalized our choices on the cabinet, granite, and tile. It's ridiculous to make a granite choice based on little 2x2 sample squares, let me tell you. But we did it. We kept second guessing ourselves over an over and finally I looked at John and told him, "Enough! This looks great! We have good taste, we do know what we're doing. We can do this." It gets a little intimidating at this early stage when there's soooo much to be selected and you know everything kind of depends on everything else. If we choose poorly in one area, it's going to be a big domino effect and the next thing we know the whole house will look like poop. I think we felt better after my self-prescribed confidence talk. And I know we'll be able to choose things better and faster once we've got some headway going on. Surely.

Let me know if anyone needs to let out some aggression in the next couple of days. We'll be sure to save you some wacks on the walls!