House Project {Week 4}

We've owned the house nearly a month now....hard to believe.  The entire neighborhood is figuring out that we are the owners and we've met so many people.  Its a congested area and we are on a corner lot with houses on every side of us.  There've been so many that we printed out a map and we've been filling in the names of people as they come and introduce themselves.

One lady we met in the morning and by evening she was on the doorstep delivering fresh-baked cookies.  Who does that?!?

Much of what was done this week involved that darned plumber, so there's not too much progress happening that I can show you with pictures, although Shaun is acquiring quite the scrap metal pile from all the demo.  (He's actually a really good plumber, I just fear the bill he's going to send us....I get so used to Shaun being able to do pretty much any kind of work and its always a bit shocking when we hire out for stuff).

Early in the week we talked through the laundry room.  For the past 19 years I've had pretty nasty laundry room conditions, so I thought this would be a good time to make a decent one.  The Pinterest laundry rooms make it look like so much more fun.  :)  Obviously we made a decision because the washer hose is sticking out there.  Its going to be in the basement....two and three flights of stairs removed from our bedrooms, but not taking up valuable space.  I'm happy for the exercise and happy for the space.

It is hopeful to look something roughly like this....(without all the glass bottles, of course...it would only be a matter of [not much] time before a thrown ball would take them all out).

 ....or like this.  Mostly, I'm just excited about getting a washer that works.  Ours is truly on its last legs.

My favorite thing about all these Pinterest rooms is there is never ANY laundry!  :)

While we were talking, we looked over and saw Aiden up on the ladder with his tape measure.

Time for some demo!  This is before...

 ...ripping the ceiling out to get to some large, important drain pipes.

 the new home for my fridge.

 I went over early the next morning to clean the mess.  Sweeping up plaster and lathe brought up a whole ton of memories....19 years ago we were doing this with our first house.

 Someone had put in some pretty pavers, right down the center of the driveway.  We worked to clean it up.

This hedge row took a fair amount of wrestling, but we finally conquered it.  The six of us worked hard one evening to get all the brush loaded into the pickup.  Then, instead of paying $10 to take it to the dump, we took it to Nathan's...he'll have a large bonfire soon.

 We took a morning to spruce up the yard at one of the rental places....its just that time of year everywhere!

 This was an exciting day.  We had a designer come out to go over our thoughts and plans, primarily for the kitchen space.  We'd hashed and re-hashed the space but wanted to get an expert's thoughts on it all.

He spent about two hours with us and brought up so many good points and suggestions.  A couple big changes that came out of it:

1. we are swapping the rooms we are using for the living room and dining room
2. our bedroom is going to be on the third floor
3. we'll have six bedrooms instead of seven
4. we're keeping a bathroom on the first floor we were about to take out
5. the kitchen with stay much the way it is now
6. we swapped the floor that the boys and girls will be on

All of this means MUCH time and money saved....and its a MUCH better plan!  So grateful.

 Give us a couple weeks with a little bit of land, and already the kids are riding in the back of pickup trucks.

 Uncle Nathan strung a rope around this tree and the kids have had hours of fun swinging.

Shaun and Nathan transformed our backyard in short order.  They dug up despised holly bushes, bittersweet roots and untangled the trees from all the vines.

I transplanted English Ivy next to the stonewall...hopefully it will do what it did here....climb and thicken.

 We took a lunch break and all these seats were filled with family.  I LOVE this porch and the times we've had there already.

 Z got to use Uncle Nathan's leaf blower....boys and their power tools!

Then my two boys and I took a load of leaves to the dump.

 Yet another brush load!

 I am loving subway tiles for a backsplash.

 And also the lantern-style light fixtures.

And how fun is this for the girls room?  A little reading nook and/or sleepover space above their beds.

Project 365, Week 17

I was curious to look back on the week of pictures to see what it was, but then it seems like the week was two days instead of seven.  It was lovely to have Sunday as a buffer before we ran headlong into our week after vacation.

I'm making an attempt to have photos for 365 that do not have something to do with the house.  Not bad this week, although every singe one was taken at the new place.

Hopefully you've had a great week....doesn't the warmer weather help so much?

April 21

A slowish day after our trip.  The kids set up shop at the new house.

 April 22
While I was home with sleeping kids, Shaun and Z built this crude platform for our water heater.  The next day in the car Z said to me excitedly, So...I had some quality father/son time last night.  Wow!  That's the first time in his young life he's ever been able to say that.  He struck gold getting Shaun for a dad, that's for sure.

 April 23
My helper.

 April 24
The kids are out in the yard all the time and spent this evening riding bikes...and I didn't even need to load them in the car and bring them somewhere!

 April 25
Apparently Aiden's a professional cyclist....I'm guessing this is a Pop thing??

 ...and always thinks to pick flowers for his momma.

April 26
These girls were playing grocery store.

April 27
Mom....picture!

How is my sweet firstborn growing so fast?!?

 I'm sorry for throwing dirt at you.

Florida, Part III

We met up at Nana's to create our four-car caravan to take the 1.5 hour trek to Orlando, which we found out later, was the hottest place in the country that day.

 Classic!

 It was SO hot.  How hot was it?  It was so hot, Avery was willing to get sprayed a little by the spitting camel.

 Shaun bought Aiden a Peter Pan sword.  He was SO surprised and excited.  He said, Oh THANK YOU, Daddy!  Later after Shaun had walked away, under his breath he said, I'm SO lucky!

 When Captain Hook walked by, he noticed Aiden bravely holding his sword up in front.  As he came closer, Aiden slowly back up and up until he'd tripped over feet behind him.  SO funny!

 The third car has Shaun and Amanda.

 My attempt to take a group shot on Dumbo.

 We definitely had the best group!

 Avery's favorite part...the light parade.

After fireworks we got right on the road, around 11:30 PM.  Shaun drove until 6 AM through wind and rain.  Traffic was at a standstill for a downed tree and also the usual through D.C. and NYC, so we ended up getting home about 11:30 PM.

The kids were fabulous travelers and Shaun and I got some good time together.  We were all happy to be home and grateful for the opportunity to have good family time making forever memories.