Home Sweet Home.

Well, we had a bit of a leak at our house.  After much searching and many hours (and dollars) by the plumber it turns out a pipe associated with our washing machine had cracked.

 At first the plumber said it was in the ground, marked out where it was and since he knew Chance was pretty handy around the house suggested that Chance dig the hole himself to save some money.  Chance, by the way, thought the leak was in the wall.  Anyway, Chance went out and rented a jack hammer and tore up the laundry room floor.  NO PIPE.  There wasn't a pipe where the plumber said it was.  The plumber came back out and after more searching (and more dollars) and a consult from another plumber with the same company who Chance knows from way back when, they determined the cracked pipe was in...get this...THE WALL!!!  Perhaps the plumber should put Chance on the payroll.

 After all this my mom asked if homeowners insurance covered any of this.  I called and it turns out they do.  So...here we are, three days later and in the demolition process.  They need to clean inside the walls and under ground since the pipe was connected to the main line and it may contain yucky stuff (my words, not theirs).  The TV room is blocked off and in the process of being deep cleaned and decontaminated.  After all of this is done in a few days we begin the process of putting it all back together.  Fixing the holes in the dry wall, replacing the carpet, replacing the floor in the laundry room, paint touch up, replace tiles in the bathroom...anything else that needs to be done.

 So, what do you do when all this is going on around you?  Make banana muffins.  What else is a girl to do?

Dad, you may want to give me a call about your upcoming visit :)

There's a WOLF in our kitchen!

This is the old stove. I'm not sure what kind it was, but it came with the house and was very well used. It looks so wimpy compared to the new one.

The new stove is shiny and definitely not wimpy. It works very well and I love the window feature. There is even an oven light. And a broiler. Oh, how I've wanted to brown the tops of so many cheesy, bread crumby dishes over the past 10 years. Can you believe we've lived in this house for 10 year? Amazing.

Look, a browned cheesy lasagne! Delicious!

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Thank you Grandma Nancy and Grandpa Jack.

What kind of cookies do you want?

Demolition

We have been talking about ripping our deck down since the day we moved in to our house (almost 10 years ago). Well, we ripped it down. I hope it wont take 10 more years to put something up in it's place. We are planning on putting stairs right off the sliding door on the left side of the picture, that's the kitchen, and having a ground level patio of some sort. We aren't sure yet what to do, flagstone? poured concrete? brick pavers? The biggest thing will be getting the stairs done. It was a lot of fun ripping down the deck. It was pretty rotted. Everyone got in on the action at one time or another. I don't have a picture of the deck completely down but I will take one and post it later, along with the pictures of us jack hammering out some old concrete :) Happy Demoliting!

We backed the truck through the fence and on to the lawn and loaded up all the old wood. I wish I had a picture of that too...it was a lot of wood.

I like orange!

This room makes me smile. Everytime I walk by or look in from another room, I simply grin. This is our new laundry room. And it is nearly finished. You might think that we are running out of rooms to complete, but no. This house is like the whac-a-mole game. Rooms that need re-doing keep popping up. I guess that's what happens when you live in a house. This is the room before we put in our new cabinets from Ikea. The wall color is more accurate in the above picture, I think.
Here it is with the wall system installed. The walls are less yellow and more cantaloupe color in real life. The floor is lemon yellow marmoleum and can be found here.
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I wonder which room we'll conquer next? The kitchen could use a new coat of paint, same goes for the living room.

Another clean new room!

Yup, we spent another weekend painting. It is so wonderful to have another finished room. We don't have many unfinished ones left. This is the green Henry chose. Yikes. Fortunately, he also chose yellow. I was a bit worried because this color is awfully bright.
But look! Not awful at all. I really like it. The other three walls are yellow. Fresh!

It is such a warm sunny room. Next up: laundry room. I'll give you a clue about the color. It is the only common citrus fruit not seen above. Any guesses?

Rainbow colors

As you may have heard, it is raining here. Still. This morning we ventured out to see some stormy aftermath. Didn't find much except 5 boats washed ashore, palm fronds all over the place and lots of muddy waves. Pretty cool. We all got in the van in our pajamas (at 11:00 this morning and yes, I'm still wearing mine) for a beach tour.

It is not grey around our house! Here is the new kid's bedroom. It still needs some finishing touches, but I really like the colors.

A few flowers in the front yard.

What?! You don't arrange your sweaters in color order?

I have no idea what these are, Mae chose these the last time we went plant buying. She's good!

And here is a real rainbow, right outside our door. I'm hoping for a lot more sunshine in the coming days, but I think we're in for a few more days of rain. On the bright side, it sure makes pulling weeds easier!

Busy rainy days

It has been raining, really raining here for 2 days straight. We even had some thunder and lightning today. Weird. It is not supposed to stop until after the weekend. That means I'll have some quality indoor time to bake, knit and crochet, maybe even read. This is the view out our bedroom window. The orange tree is covered with nearly ripe oranges. We bought a manual juicer last year for this very tree. Can't wait to use it again.

We spent some time over the weekend fixing up our old bedroom. A new coat of paint was a must. Remember the sharpie incident? Well that is now just a memory (and a blog post). Mae picked out a lovely purple color which dried much darker and bluer than this picture shows. We did one wall in light green. I'll have to take a picture of the finished room. We got a new rug and curtain too! Very exciting. So far, Mae and Lucy are sharing that room and doing just fine. Next up; paint and new rug for Henry's room. I can't tell you how nice it is to have everyone and everything spread out. Let's just say really freakin' dang nice.

This is actually John's new hat. Mae has one of her own, so does Lucy and so do I. I'll have to get Henry to take a picture of us all wearing them.

Lucy helped me make chocolate cupcakes, or puh-cakes as she calls them, this weekend. She needs an apron for her face!

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Kind of a random post about lots of things which I guess is what this blog is all about. Snapshots of our life. Its funny how sometimes I have tons of pictures and stuff to talk about. And other times it seems like nothing is new. Maybe it has something to do with the phases of the moon. Last night was a full moon, and boy have our days been full lately. Maybe there will be slower times ahead. Come what may, I'll take 'em all!

I hope you are sitting down....

because I've got some very exciting news (and no, I'm not pregnant!). Tonight. TONIGHT! We will be sleeping in our new bedroom. Take a look. Isn't it pretty? and clean! Almost like a hotel.
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The inspector came today and said we could move into the addition. We only have a few (3) minor things to finish before we get the final okay from the city. So exciting.

One year ago

August 2, 2006. We just finished demolishing the old laundry room. The stairs are next to go.

August 9, 2006. Digging out the foundation begins. This was fun and crazy. One day, we had a crew of 14 people at our house. So much to see. And hear.

August 14, 2006. The forms are in place for the concrete to be poured.

August 18, 2006. The foundation has been poured. The new garage floor is about 3 feet lower than our backyard. The upstairs (our bedroom) is NOT 3 feet lower that the existing house.

September 26, 2006. Framing has started. John and Rafa did all of this. Very impressive.

February 25, 2007. Framing complete. Some windows installed. Deck begun. I'm sure inside stuff was going on too, but I don't have pictures of that. This was another crazy time. There were no railings or stairs. So we built a zip line from the deck to a tree in the back yard.

July 4, 2007. Deck complete. Windows and doors in. Roof on. Chicken wire ready for stucco. And a railing all the way around. Safety first. Or more accurately, very close to last.

August 29, 2007. Stucco complete. All we need to do is finish painting the railings and exterior of the house. And then there's the inside. There is still quite a bit of work left inside, but all the pieces are coming together. We've picked floors, paint colors and light fixtures. Installation is the name of the game. Anyone free this weekend?

Perfect timing

For some reason, the box of Sharpies (not just crayons or markers) ended up on the dresser right next to where Lucy was supposed to be napping. Well, she got a bit creative before falling asleep. I must say, I was impressed by her ability to color. Those brown splotches are actually stickers of ballet dancers that she colored almost perfectly on top. I peeled them off to find lovely stencils of ballet dancers on our bedroom wall (I've made a mental note of this potential craft). BUT, as I'm sure you all know, this will not be our bedroom for long. AND we were planning on painting it before the kids moved in anyway. Perfect timing.

The bummer was that she colored not only the wall. She did her face, fingers and toenails, up and down her legs (mostly purple I am happy to say!), and a bit of the sheets, a pillow, all of her dolls and animals that were in the bed with her, many of them homemade. We put her right in the bathtub, which is still tinted purple 3 days (and at least 7 showers) later.

I believe the Sharpies have been well hidden............. permanently (ha, ha, get the joke?)!

Drywall again & random snippets

Yes, the drywall guys came and nearly completed the whole putting up part in one day. Amazing. This would have taken us 4 months to complete, no kidding. Some things are worth paying for. Drywall is one of them. Sushi is another, so is a swim suit that fits and running shoes, soft yarn, oh, and good jeans.

Bean harvest! I actually blanched and then froze some of these. Gotta stock up for the winter. Did anyone see Frontier House on PBS? I loved that show. I actually cried at the end of the series. Not because the series was ending, but because they had to pack up and leave. Leave the houses that they built, by themselves from logs. Leave the gardens they planted to feed themselves. Leave the community that they created during the 7 months of the show. All the families were really sad, and so was I. Doing things like freezing home-grown vegetables makes me feel like I am a frontierswoman. I guess I would have been canning vegetables as they didn't have freezers (until winter that is), but close enough.

We had a 'princess cindebrella butterfly' in the yard this weekend. She helped me pick beans.

So did Captain Mae.

And check this out. Hours after we (John actually-for his birthday) got the ipod all hooked up, Henry was cruising his way through it as if it were as easy as reading Dick and Jane. That reminds me of the PBS show Between the Lions. It is a really great pre-reading show about books and there is a segment called Chicken Jane. Cracks me up every time. Anyhoodle, the ipod is pretty cool. It doesn't make running fun, but it makes it 10% more enjoyable. So, after doing the math, running is a 10% enjoyable exercise for me. Not my favorite.