Cary is at an event tonight with his small group.

This means I get to do some more packing. That is until about 8:00 when I take some time to myself and have a much needed phone date with a very close friend.

Until then. I'm sitting in our office (which is FREEZING by the way, b/c Cary keeps the back, "unused" bedrooms like 50 degrees) packing up our desk.

I have to write a thank you card to our new neighbor, Mary Martha for the Christmas present. I wasn't sure if my fingers would work because it's THAT cold in here. So I decided to warm them up by typing a quick blog post!

I'm not going crazy...

I finally figured it out last night.

I figured out why I feel like I have nothing to show for all the WORK I do during the day.

Why it feels like I'm running around this house 15 million times but getting absolutely no where and it looks like I've done NOTHING.

It's because I spend the morning, "cleaning up" (loading/unloading the dishwasher, laundry, etc.) and spend the afternoon packing - emptying closets, creating piles of "stuff" to take here & there.

By the time the day is done I have nothing to show for my hard work, other than new piles in corners that I just finished cleaning.

This revelation is such a relief! I'm not going crazy!!

I also have to add that I'm very thankful Cary is the type of guy who is happy to eat cereal for dinner and does not require a full home cooked meal every night of the week.

Cause right now, I only have enough counter space in my kitchen to feed Ellery!

Unexpected Gift

Our new neighbor across the street gave us a Christmas present!!




I thought this was so cute and so thoughtful. I haven't met Mary Martha yet, but I'm looking forward to visiting very soon.

Sheetrock

We have sheetrock going up this week. Cary has been working like a mad man this past weekend and even today, getting everything ready for this crew. They should be complete by Friday, which means we'll be painting next week!



You might notice the new column! One thing that Cary, Kenny and my dad worked on this weekend.


This is the master bedroom wall between the kitchen and bedroom. I told my dad this afternoon, "Now that the sheetrock is going up the house is transforming from HUGE to smaller." It's one of those transitions that renovations go through.


Here is one of the master bedroom closets.


I took this picture to show the new hardwood floors being woven into the old hardwood. But I just noticed you can see the stilts the sheetrock installer wears all over the house.


I have to tell this story of how God met us, when it came to the hardwood flooring. I mean the Lord has really shown Himself to us pretty much every single day of these renovations, but this is just what I like to call a Divine Appointment.

So when we renovated a house last year, Cary found a hardwood flooring refinisher on Craigslist. He did a great job. He had recently moved to VA because his father was ill and he needed to take care of him. Cary tried several times to contact him when we realized the scope of flooring work we needed done in this house. But after 3 attempts and constantly getting a wrong number signal we figured something must have happened and Man moved back north. Well last week Cary stopped by the flooring store (a company that only sells to contractors but somehow because our job is so small we were able to buy a few pieces of wood from them) and was waiting for the sales clerk, alone at the counter when a man walks in. He looked very familiar and Cary really thought he was our original refinisher, but wasn't 100% confident so he decided to wait a few seconds to hear his voice. That confirmed for Cary that this guy was indeed our "man" and long story short he has been out just installing the new wood at incredible speed. MUCH faster and less expensive than if we tried to do it ourselves or have our carpenter work on it. Thank. You. LORD!!!

Here is Little Miss. Very sleepy but determined to learn how to install sheetrock onto the ceiling.






Since the ceilings are plaster and have lots of the classic plaster cracks, we decided to laminate 1/2" sheetrock onto the ceilings so we wouln't be constantly trying to repair cracks for the rest of our lives.

Now I have to pick paint colors.

Other good news! The kitchen cabinets are ordered and it seems like we might have them delivered to the house before we move in. That in itself is a miracle because we were convinced they wouldn't arrive for at least a week or two after we were in the house.

I have to give credit to Cary. He is working SO hard on this house. He knows how important it is for it to be as close to finished as possible before we move in, and we are working on a tight schedule. He is pouring his heart and soul into managing all the people and making this project work smoothly with in our very small budget. I am so proud of him. This is not an easy time for us, but like I said earlier, God has been so faithful. We can't go one day with out praising Him for bringing us through another day and showing Himself to us. Amazing.

Chaos

I should NOT be blogging right now.

I should be staying focused and packing while Ellery sleeps.

But I need a break.

There is junk every where I look.

Outside of Ellery's room.
This is just on ONE SIDE of the path into her nursery from the Man Room.


Spring/Summer clothes.
Clothes for Goodwill.


Clothes for consignment.


I opened the door to the guest room (where all of our Christmas decorations are hidden) and found this!
At least the cats can find contentment somewhere in this mess!


This is what I was just working on.
Handbags and shoes.


1 more month of this....

Bye Bye Blue

Do you notice anything different?












No more blue carpet!!!
Recessed lights!!!!
Lots of dust!!!!!!

The house feels so much larger already with out the blue carpet. I'm so excited about the lights. The heat and hot water are all set up now. Since the chimney was removed we've been out of heat and water.



I just noticed the wallpaper on the wall by the door. I guess we'll have to remove that some time soon. After walking through this house a million times it's easy to look over these kinds of things!


We took the coat closet out and moved the walls a bit so we could add a half bath at the entry. I'm so glad we decided to do this!



These sliding glass doors were almost the end of Cary and his dad, Walter. Just the other night they picked them up from Lowe's and it took 4 men to load them into the truck. When they got to the new house it was dark and just the 2 of them. Well, I don't know how they did it but somehow they hoisted them off the truck and left them hanging out in the front yard; we are very grateful for a safe neighborhood!



Here is where the sliders are going in the sun room!




Here is the shower wall! Not much to see right now, but there will be a 4' wall with glass on the top, a glass shower door and then full wall, this is where the shower valves will go.





Ellery is pleased with the progress thus far.

So. This week we've been working on finalizing the kitchen cabinets. I went to place the order today but the sales associate wasn't working. I selected the light fixture for the Master Bath and we are trying to find the perfect mirrors for the Master Bathroom. Since there won't be as much cabinet space available as we currently are used to I'm thinking of maximizing every inch I can with the use of medicine cabinets for mirrors.

Sorry Folks! I don't know where my brain has been but I just realized today that I haven't updated ya'll on the progress as of late.

Well, the chimney is gone! There again, I could have sworn I had a picture of the rooms with out the chimney but when I opened my camera tonight I realized I do not. So I will be sure to get that taken and post it very soon.

In the mean time, here is that mysterious master bathroom!



The construction of tile bathrooms in the 1950's was pretty major. 3/4 of this room was concrete and some heavy duty metal mesh. We do have a jack hammer but that doesn't seem to be making the demolition go any faster.

Yesterday my dad and I put together an initial construction schedule. IF (and that's a big if) everything goes according to our estimations we would be finished with the project by Jan. 22. Our move in date is Jan. 15. Construction schedules flex a LOT so I'm not going to let it stress me out. Although I will say that even visiting this site this morning I found myself saying "Okay Kenny. I'm not going to keep you any longer because there is a LOT of work to do and we are on a very tight schedule so get on back to tearing out that shower!"

Cary is out purchasing the framing materials this evening. Hopefully by the time we get back into town this weekend we'll have a bathroom wall and some closets! And hopefully we'll still be on schedule!!

The Chimney

Little Miss and I stopped by the house this morning for a brief moment. Cary took the day off work to get the chimney demo started and to just get his hands dirty. I think he is the type of man who goes through "dirty hands" withdrawal if he stays away from his projects for too long.

I wanted to go through my lighting design and confirm the switching locations with Cary as well as check out the demo progress.

Looks like Kenny got the entire wall removed and left our dear brick friend standing.



The door in this picture is the existing entry into the master bedroom. It will stay, but the HVAC duct work you see in the corner, that will have a closet built around it!



Here's my man getting ready to build the platform needed to safely remove the chimney from the roof.






I wasn't able to make it by later this afternoon but I'll stop by tomorrow and get more pictures. It should be completely gone by then! Good bye curve ball!!!

Still More Demo

Here's the demo of the paneling room!

The future purpose of this room is to be combined with the existing Master Bedroom to make our Master Suite! It felt so good to see that dark old school paneling go away.



This wall is supposed to be completely torn down. Oh but wait!

What is that brick thing in the middle of the wall?
No.
It's not.
It CAN'T be.
A chimney?!!



Oh but it is. I can't help but chuckle thinking back onto the conversation Cary and I had (and are still having) about this little surprise.

So in the basement of the house there is a new furnace and hot water heater which happen to be vented up through this brick chimney all the way up through the roof.






See...right there...



How did I miss this? I can't say that I'm upset really because working in construction for over 10 years I'm fully aware of the many surprises that can spring up any time during a project. But it's just frustrating.

Our options are:
1-remove the chimney. How much is that going to cost and how long will it delay the current work? That's what Cary and I are working through right now.

2-redesign the master suite to keep this wall or try to "accent" the brick chimney. Not really an option that we want to pursue. As it stands right now with the current design this chimney is right where Cary's feet are when he's in bed. I don't think he would appreciate rough masonry exfoliating his toes when he sleeps.

3-make the paneling room an office and use the room we planned for Ellery as the master suite. Again, not very good because this room is so small it will be difficult to have guests stay comfortably.

I think we are just going to have to suck it up and have the chimney removed. That means more repair to the slate roof, closing in the holes in the attic, filling in the hardwood floors in the master suite flooring (which I think we had to do anyway) and let's not forget a whole lot of mess to clean up.

It's a big "UGH" and sigh of frustration but nothing we can do about it.

I think the easiest thing about this additional project is re-routing the venting for the furnace and hot water heater to the exterior wall right next to the equipment!

Fun Times!!

In the mean time I'll be working on the lighting design and relocating those switches that are currently hanging in the middle of the living room/kitchen. I'll also be working on gather more quotes for the kitchen cabinets!

Second Demolition

The second phase of demo was to create a very open floor plan for the living area.

This is what you see as you enter the house from the front door. More likely than not we will be putting some sort of column support where you see the 2x4 studs still standing. You know, this side of the house need some sort of structural support.






If you look through the kitchen you'll see the "paneling room." Originally there was a pocket door from the kitchen to this room. In order to take out the pocket door we had to remove the plaster and other "stuff." Cabinetry will fill this wall in the future.



This is what you'll see if you were standing in the back corner of the kitchen looking into the dining/living room. Several folks have asked if we were going to have a formal dining room. The answer is no. I just don't think a formal dining room really fits into our relaxed lifestyle right now.



So. Some of our upcoming decisions/projects are:

More demo!

Cary will be installing hardwood floors into the kitchen (currently linoleum in this photo) and weaving new hardwood into the existing hardwood floors where we have removed walls. Thank goodness for YouTube and the library, which is where he's learning how to do the hardwood weaving!



I will also be determining where these light switches will go. Since we have no walls now I'll have to figure out where I want to work the lights!



I will be figuring out if we are relocating these HVAC registers or just putting them into the floor.

First Demolition

The first thing to go was the kitchen cabinets. Well, they were pretty sturdy and almost build into the walls so to remove them meant we had to remove the wall its self.



The next day Kenny took out the wall separating the kitchen and dining room.

It's starting to look brighter already!



I've changed my mind on the cabinet color and door style a few times already. But I think I've settled on white cabinets with black or dark gray countertops. My inspiration came from Ina Gartens kitchen. Any holiday decorations or colors will play nicely off of white cabinets. They are very "clean" looking and I like that they will assist in making the kitchen feel larger.

We plan to run hardwood flooring into the kitchen. That's another fun project for Cary!

Next demolition.....the living room walls!!!!

Vision

Okay, so it might not look like much now. No big surprise to me. TRUST me, it's taken me quite a while to even come close to cracking a smile when it comes to this project. BUT, thankfully I have a vision for this place and I'm married to an amazing man who thoroughly enjoys any hands on DIY project. And this, my friends, is one heck of a DIY project.

So here it goes!

Welcome to the 1955 brick rancher.



Friend: "It looks like Cary on the outside."
Leah: "Yea. Well, it might be Cary on the outside but it's going to be all Leah on the inside when I'm finished with it."

The Foyer: Yes, those are saloon doors that provide the graceful entrance into the kitchen. And they will be for purchase on Craig's List very soon...so those interested keep your eyes peeled, or you can e-mail me directly and maybe we can work some deal out. ;)



The Living Room: Immediately to your right is the living room. The classic picture window on the front of the house and a nice gas fireplace!








The Dining Room: The living room flows right into the dining room which is off of the kitchen.






The Sun Room: So our lot is sloped quite a bit and when you are in this room it's like you are sitting in a tree house. There is so much potential for this room and it's gonna be adorable!









Kitchen: A quick step back through the dining room and we are standing in the doorway to the kitchen. Looks kinda scary now, all dark and old; but don't worry, I'll take care of that!



This picture is from the saloon doors.






This is Kenny! He's one of our carpenters. He's a really good guy.



Paneling Room: Honestly I don't know what else to call this room. But it's off the kitchen and just space waiting to be used "properly."






Master Bedroom: Just scroll down and see the master bathroom! Wait, will you even be able to see it? You have to look really hard, but it's in these pictures. All I can say is that who ever used to live in this house must have been really short.









Ellery's Room: Not really any renovations going on in this room but I wanted you to witness the sherbet colored walls yourself.



Ellery's Bathroom: Aww, how cute! They made it pink just for her back in the '50's. So thoughtful!!!



Yes, there is a guest bedroom and a full walk out basement. There is nothing very exciting about the guest bedroom right now. And the walk out basement is a post all of its own.

So for now, that's the place!

Renovations have started and I have more pictures to post so go ahead and become a follower of our blog so you can see the latest and greatest fun stuff happening!