Sneak Peek

We've been hard at work!! Or should I say Tyler has been hard at work!!! This man amazes me. He works his 10 hour shift at work, then his 6 hour shift at his second job, then works on the house projects for 4-5 hours a day, which leaves him about 3-4 hours to sleep...which he usually ends up crashing on the courter top in the picture below or in his truck. I am so grateful for his willingness and desire to work hard for his family. We go help him on the weekends and the kids love it. We finished all the demolishing. Now we are trying to rebuild. Here a few sneak peeks of what we've been up to.

Ripping out carpet, tile, linoleum, baseboards, doors and cabinets. Prepping the new doors and baseboards and priming all the walls.New outside lighting.We took off all the old nasty electrical covers and this was hiding behind a plate in a bedroom...Seriously some sort of drugs right!?!? What a great place for a teenager to stash it right?? I asked a couple people I love which happen to have a slightly rebellious history and they laughed at me and said it wasn't! Haha! Tyler says it's caterpillar poo. But the leaves were rolled so perfectly with some sort of black powder in the middle! I swear it's some kind of teenage 70's drugs! Lol!This house just isn't new and updated like what I'm used to. It had such weird walls. It had this shelf wall that just felt like it was sticking out in the middle of the room. So Tyler framed it up and drywalled it. Which he has never done and did so perfectly! So much better!The kitchen had some old school panel lighting and a drop down ceiling over the dining area. I could touch the ceiling it was so low. I've never been able to touch a ceiling in my life. Even when I jump. It made it feel so crowded. So my hero demolished the ceiling which is where the pitcture of the kitchen full of insulation comes from. Tyler says the walls of this house are insulated better than any house he's ever seen. He worked in construction for years. Every door and window was lined with some sort of weather stripping too. Anyway, so he drywalled and textured which he has never done before either. And we had a friend who does electrical work put in can lights. Thanks Jake!! It feels so much more open and updated! The bedrooms were fairly easy. They just needed a little wall repair and some new baseboards and paint and lighting. Next on the list is flooring and blinds. We chose gray because I think I'm sticking all 4 kids in here! Gray was a good boy & girl color. I got so sick of all the color in my old house. So this house I am doing mostly neutral colors throughout. But my office is the one place I wanted to be a bright happy space. I had a few shades of teal in my hand and had Tyler pick one. I laughed and said we can't paint that one! It's called Mermaids Treasure!! Haha! We ended up picking one just a shade darker which was called Peacock Feather. That sounded a little more grown up :)Bathrooms are Tyler expertise. He did plumbing for like 10 years. We put in a new vanity and countertop & light which already helped dramatically! Tyler replaced the tub fixtures and faucet. I have been loving tile walls in bathrooms. I hate baseboards behind the toilet. I'm so tired of scrubbing little boy pee off of the wood. So he did a tile baseboard and wall. He did such an amazing job! The kitchen was/is the hardest!! For the first several weeks we left the original cabinets because the face of them wasn't too bad and we didn't want to spend money on new ones. So Tylers buddy tried painting just one door black distressed and it turned out pretty cute {see below during pic}. But it was the inside I was most worried about. Every shelf in this entire house, pantry, laundry room, bathroom, bedroom closets was lined in this nasty wallpaper. We tried using chemicals and stripping it and it was awful. I wanted to get a sledge hammer and destroy these cabinets! And they smelled awful! The smell of the house is going away but any wood anywhere in the house has absorbed it and reeks. I don't even know what the smell is! But its so strong. We couldn't make up our minds what to do which was frustrating because I didn't know if they were going to be brown or black or white so I couldn't pick paint colors or wood floor color or countertop color. My head was going to explode. So Tyler made the final decision and decided to start taking them out to get painted and cleaned up and as he started pulling them out they just fell apart. It was so gross. There was mold on the one by the sink. Ick. So.....we destroyed them and bought new ones! Yay!! They are beautiful! Now I need to pick some cute hardware and countertop. The kids seriously have worked hard too. It's crazy how big they are and how much they can do to help. On Fridays the littler kids will fall asleep at Grandmas and we will work til 2 or 3 in the morning then go sleep there too. She lives alot closer to our new house than we do so it's easier than driving back and forth. Then we wake up and do it all again on Saturday. Branson likes to come with us though. He has been such a champ and loves working and asks tons of questions about how to do stuff and has lots of his own creative ideas. One night it was about 1:30am and got pretty chilly and we were finishing up and he fell asleep right here in the hallway all bundled up in Daddys jacket. They get so exhausted but they love seeing it get closer to being ready to live there.

It's so nice to finally see progress. Tyler and I waste time just hanging out and talking in the rooms that are almost done. We like being in there and seeing the finished work. I can almost walk through the house without feeling like I have to shower right after :) That's progress!!