Catching up on Pictures!

Our old roof came down and the new one went up! For those of you that fretted with me a year ago over what color to paint my house (it had been painted mauve and country blue and because of the roof , shades of white and gray were the only colors that would work...believe me, we tried everything!) you know what this means...new trim colors! Anyone up for a trip on the color wheel?

This is the view of the "floor" third floor. It is going to be my studio space until the kiddos take over! The next pixture is of the huge truck trying depserately to remove a dumpster and replace another empty in our skinny driveway ( remember the last driver they sent knocked down our basketball goal!) We got some news today about that driveway...good news is that we can remove it all and replace it with a sloped entry and we can add 3 feet to its width. Bad news is...the estimate came in triple of what we had budgeted. oops!

What About That Party?

I have some catching up to do - so you will notice several blogs published with the same date! When you are trying to work from an offsite computer, it gets a little harder to keep up. Here is the update...
We had my sisters shower here a couple of weekends ago and it was great! I can't wait to post some pictures because it was so funny what we had to work with! We placed a big canvas drop cloth on the dumpster out front with Welcome spray painted on it. I dressed up the walkway with some iron stands I use for wedding and swedish ivys with little blue bows. The front porch had chunks of tiles missing right in front along with parts of the house address (missing!) so I got cheap striped rugs from Target and used carpet tape to tack them down into a runner right up to the front door. When you walk in, the areas to the right is boarded up with plywood ( that is the gutted kitchen behind the plywood) so we painted it with chalkboard paint and wrote scripture on it. The food had to go on the table in the family room, so to make more room for people, we moved a lot of the furniture from that room out onto the lawn. Then we strung a clothsline from the tree outside to the side of the new part of the house ( it was a disaster in more than half of the backyard area) and we hung cute polka dot curtains to block the disaster. I have always heard "define your space!"...so that is exactly what we did. I covered some extra tables with the same fabric and tucked chairs around them. Then I grabbed anything and evrything around the house the had birds or nests on it and used them for centerpieces. (the invites had a nest and bird on them and it said "come see who just flew in!")
Clint brought this power AC untit for outside - it actually felt pretty nice out there with his extra efforts. And with the help of my mom, my aunt and my intern - the party came off without a hitch. Everyone enjoyed seeing baby Will and everyone was so gracious to "overlook" the disaster. So, no more excuses ladies...you can have people over no matter what state your house is in! Just work with it!

This is where it gets uncomfortable!

ok. We knew it had to come sometime and here it is. We are hot. And uncomfortable. And to top it all off, with the power on and off, wiring here and there and everywhere, well, we have had a few hiccups. The other day, they got us enough power ot at least have lights upstairs ( we try to get up there for necessities and out as fast as we can because it is reaching 112 degrees up there!) So, it helps to have lights and not have to spend any more time searching for items. So, as we were applauding their efforts, we could smell something burning. Here it goes again, or should I say off again! Now, here is the kicker...when they got it all worked out (1 1930's home completely rewired!) we realized that that burning smell was the computer! The monitor came on but nothing else...it fried in the power surge. Geek guy confirmed the news and I was off to Frys Electronics in Arlington, because apparantly they are the only ones who carry an "external harddrive case with usb port...40 pins" Its all I can do to take the pictures on my camera and download them to the computer, so what you are thinking is correct...I have no backup! I was burning them to cd's until the cd burner went out about a year ago. Really, its no love lost on the computer. We had big plans for an upgrade in the near future. I think our computer was actually celebrating its 112th birthday this month in computer years. But...I have to have my pictures! So I spent $40 in gas to drive out to get the case, 2 hours on the cell phone with the "free" tech support (yes, folks, our home phone was through our computer internet...also fried)
to finally get instructions on how to import my pictures from the old harddrive to the laptop...SUCCESS! Yea! All pictures accounted for. However, now I can't get them to downlod to my blogs when I publish posts. I have written before now and tried to post pics, but it erases all my work. So, until the bugs are worked out - my lengthy verbage will have to do.
So, this is officially the worst week of our project. It should go up from here.

The picture was taken of the driveway (looking out the window of the third floor) after we had already filled 2 dumpsters!

The Messy Part!

It has been a very busy few weeks! We have been without power for 2 weeks and then when they turned the power back on, our compressor for the upstairs AC went out. So we are still waiting for AC...we have a little downstairs, so we are all sleeping on the pull out couches in the living room. The first few nights it was an adventure but now we are getting to the point where the kids are fighting over where they are going to sleep and then someone is up until 11:30 every night crying. It is definitely true that we all do better on a schedule!
The framers came to begin framing...this process took forever! It was fun to see the space take shape...first the walls, then the windows...then enclosing everything including the roof. Now they are working on all that needs to go in between the walls - electrical, plumbing, ductwork, and wires for media speakers. Next will be inside walls and trim. Clint is making the door for the back since we could not find what I wanted in our price range. He is going to turn it into a dutch door. I thought I was being so original, but the past few magazines I have gotten have them in every article! On the back door, the front proch french doors, and the front door, Clint is going to build them out of wood, stained dark, and then he will weld iron pieces is a criss cross pattern to the front of the glass portion of the door.
Take a look at a few of the pictures of what a mess we have been in the past few weeks! No worries, we have before and after shots!

New Face!

By the way...did you notice how cute my page was? I found this great designer who worked on it (and she is currently working on my other 2 blogs) Her name is Jenny and her company is Pink Armchair Designs...look her up! She is very reasonable and fast. I guess I figure that even if I am not that great of a writer (the only person who really reads this consistently is my Gramma in Oklahoma...hi Gramma!) - at least I can look good in the process!
XOXO

Decisions, Decisions, Decisions!

I never knew the prep work before framing could take so long! The plumbing was a major ordeal...I had to decide where EXACTLY each sink and ice machine, etc would go before the space is laid out at all. I did kind of nose my way into the conversation...they all love it when they catch me at home! Before long we were moving windows and sinks and all kinds of stuff. And of course, all that requires city approval, so Clint threatened to send ME to the city to wait in the 2 hour line for a permit!
On my last blog, I asked for ideas for the double hung pully window...well it just so happens that it matches the size of another window in the kitchen so we are going to reinstall the original window in a new location. To open up elbow room between the sink and Range, we are moving the sink from under one window to between two windows, giving more room and counter space near the appliances. I guess I will start looking for a cool mirror or something great to go above the sink (in between the windows)...come to think of it, I may already have one hanging on a wall that will be taken out next week anyway....I will post a picture of it.
The plumbers we are using brought a camera to snake all the pipes under our house and make sure everything was looking good. It was cool ( and kind of yucky) to see how it all flows under the house. They are connecting PVC pipe to the old cast iron pipes. Thank goodness everything looks pretty good - no major issues. They are going to snake it all and clean out any roots that have grown in between the fittings of the pipes. It is just a peace of mind to know that it will look good from above AND below ground.
Today we WAITED a good portion of the day for the concrete guys to come install the rebar that lays under the concrete. They got here just in time for it to pour down rain...but they finished. Now we get one more inspection tomorrow before the concrete...pray for no rain!
We went today to look at options for sound and media stuff. All the wires for that have to be installed while they have the walls of the house open...more decisions that have to be made BEFORE you actually have the space to look at.
On Friday, I am going to a few showrooms to look at marble and tile, lighting and appliances, etc. I am excited! I am pretty sure of what I want, but it will be nice to see all the options that are out there to help confirm my decisions...decisions, decisions, decisions!

Taking Shape

Yesterday the framers came to set the forms for the space we will add on to the back of the house. And they set the forms for the front porch. The front porch does make me nervous - doing anything to the front of the house makes me nervous. Hopefully on Monday, the inspectors and surveyors will show so we can get the house framed in the next 2 weeks. It will be exciting to see it all take shape.
I will check in again when we have made some head way!