Kitchen Reveal!

It's finally here, folks!  The  moment you've all been waiting for.  The reveal of our kitchen counters.

But first,  what state do you see in our demolition?  
  

Outside

After the remodel was "done" and Grampa went back to the farm, we still had a lot of work to do.  I already mentioned the trim filling/painting that we did last weekend.  We also did the trim in the hallway.  Before that though, we did some work on the outside of the remodel.  

We had several bushes and lot of greenery on the outside wall of the garage.  It was causing the rain to head toward the house and we had some water leaking into the storage room through the rotting walls.  Nice visual.  

Brian cut the majority of that shrubbery stuff down and we are monitoring the situation.  As of yet, we have not had any water into the storage room.  But, we haven't had any huge rains yet.  

We also have had the question of the windows.  Do we leave them white and paint the three new windows we had installed last year white to match?  Or do we paint the new white windows to match the house?  

This is the only picture I could find of the windows white with the outside wall painted.  I guess I never stood back and took an outside photo once it was done.  

Not sure if you can tell, but the windows and the door really stick out compared to the rest of the house.  Soooooo . . .

We decided to paint the white windows and the door to match the house color.  We think it looks better and it blends better with the rest of the house.  

From this shot you can also see the difference in the house color.  It just goes to show that matching paint from a sample piece of rotten wood you bring to the store is not going to be 100%.  So, we still need to get some more paint for the side and back of the house.  

Someday . . .

Here are Peter and Matthew playing by the patio door.  

Cute.

ACK!! It's been over a week already . . .

It's been awhile since I last blogged.  We've been busy - as usual - but some of the kids have been sick and now Matthew and I are sick.  Not fun.  Just a bad head cold but Matthew also had a fever.  Poor little guy.  

Matthew is growing by leaps and bounds!

I snapped these pictures of him a few days ago.

In case you couldn't tell, it is a series of photos of Matthew pulling up on a chair in the living room.  He had done it earlier in the day so we put some toys up there to see if we could catch him to take pictures.  I guess he decided that sitting was overrated and he wants to head right to standing up.  Seriously, he shouldn't be doing this for a few months yet.  He crawls a little but mostly pulls himself around on his tummy and he doesn't sit on his own yet, but he's pulling up on everything!  

In other news . . . 

Our 10 yard roll-off came last Friday.  I had a couple of quotes $375 or $160.  Guess you can figure out which one I chose.  They were very prompt and courteous.  

Brian and James filled it up over the weekend with the scrap wood from the remodel.  They came yesterday and picked it up.  

I'm very glad to have it gone.  Now the kids can play in the yard again which is great because the weather has been cooler.  

Moved In!

Well, we passed our inspections with flying colors and our permit has been "closed out".  Yay!  

So, James was able to move into his room!

He played some guitar.

Brian hung up the guitar and the chord poster.

Moved in a desk, bookshelf and some clothes for the closet.  

Also put a couple of the shelves back into the storage room.  

Now we have our schoolroom back.  Yay!  

Hopefully we'll be back to school full-time next week.  We'll be busy this weekend moving more furniture and boxes back to the house.  It will be a lot of work!

The Eagle Has Landed!

Today started out early.  Like before five.  I drove Grampa to the airport in the dark.  I had never been to the Baton Rouge airport.  It's pretty small but has a cool water wall fountain thingy.  

Anyway, he had to say goodbye to the kids last night as they were still sleeping when we left.  

When I got home I was able to snag a couple of pictures of "Early Morning Andrew" for Grampa.  Since Grampa has been here, Andrew has been dragging himself out of bed early - too early - and you can tell by the look on his face. 

 Tired little guy.

It was a very interesting month with Grampa here.  I'm sure Gramma will be hearing about all of the trials again now that he's home.  

The trials continue as I waited in vain for our electrical inspection today.  Unless the guy showed up during the hour that I had to go and get James from LSU.  

So, I've been on the phone with the permit office a few times today.  The lady there knew me by my voice.  Ha!  I told them I needed my electrical inspection so that I could schedule my final building inspection.  

But guess what??

I can get the final building inspection before the final electrical.  

Who'd a thunk it?

Come on, roll your eyes with me!

*rolls eyes*

Anyway,  TGSA is over for the most part.  Grampa did a great job building James' room and the storage room.  There are several things that we will be working on.  Siding, gutters, etc. on the outside.  Not in the too near future though.  

The things we will work on this week are painting the door and closet doors in James' room, putting the door handle on, maybe touching up some of the wall paint and moving in the rest of his furniture.  He's been sleeping in there already.  He's happy!

A couple of days before Grampa left I took some pictures of him and James to show how tall James is getting.

He's going to pass up Grampa pretty soon I bet!  

Just got word that Grampa was back in MN!  After a couple hours layover in Atlanta, followed by an extra hour of sitting on the plane due to mechanical problems of the sticker variety, he finally arrived to the comfortableness of his home state.  

Thank you Grampa for all you endured for us - and Gramma for all you endured while Grampa was away! 

Now go to bed for awhile!