My amazing husband sent a little sneak peek today. (FYI the cabinet is sitting on a cabinet!)
This weekend was incredible in terms of progress on the house. We got so much done…I can’t believe it!
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| Jeff in the soon to be closet |
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| Riley and his gun(s) |
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| The “drywall-zillas” (don’t ask, my dad made it up) |
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| Mom cleaning the tub/shower. She’s the best at that. |
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| Hallway |
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| Josh is working on the kitchen. Some new (temporary) counter tops, a new sink and faucet. |
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| Plants are getting cleaned up, by me. |
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| Thanks Linda and Jeff for the new flag! |
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| Eric hauled all of these logs. Poor guy! |
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| Koal is content in the sawdust. |
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| One of the few pomegranates that didn’t get ruined. |
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| Like this one. They split in the heat we had (remember those two days when it was over 110?) |
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| I wish I had a picture of Nora, hard hat on, shirt splattered with red, whacking the ruined pomegranates down from the tree with a fruit picker (fruit whacker?) but my camera would probably have been covered in juice. |
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| Such a waste. |
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| Oh and the tree has HUGE thorns! |
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| D-zilla taking a break. |
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| Cleaning mom and d-zilla. |
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| In the closet. (ok if you laughed at that, get a life) |
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| Linda did such an incredible job cleaning the floors of padding and nails and staples and dust! |
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| New counter, old stove. |
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| New counter and sink! |
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| I couldn’t resist a little fall decoration! |
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| Me and brother planted these two ficus trees that had been in pots. Sounds easy, but like all house tasks, it was not. |
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| One of the potted trees had a root emerge from the bottom, bust through the bricks here and go into the ground. It took an axe and a sawsall before we got the root out! |
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| My much larger room. |
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| The green drywall is water proof. |
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| I mudded those holes! WOOO! |
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| Oh yeah. I’m going to love this tub. |
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| Linda brought some pictures from when we were renovating the condo. If you look closely (or click to enlarge), we’re doing the “American Gothic” pose. hehe. |
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| The door frames are labeled, and the doors themselves are at the finisher. |
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| This is the war room. Just kidding, it’s more of a reno headquarters and breakroom. |
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| Linda got the padding and most of the glue off!! |
While tearing out the closet in bedroom #2, Josh found a little plastic photo holder that had slipped behind the wall. The pictures are addressed to someone named Jeff, and dated 1975.
I think you all know how excited I’ve been for these babies.
Not that kind…
I can’t believe how much progress J made on Thursday night, with help from three very wonderful friends. By the time I arrived on Friday it looked VERY different. So I got to the new house on Saturday at 5:30. I set up some lights, put on my safety goggles and mask, grabbed a knife and crowbar and started to pull off the base molding in the first bedroom. Once that was off I moved on to the window, door, and closet frames. Then I cut and rolled up the carpet. Cut and rolled up (and pulled off) the padding. Removed nails from the walls. Carried said molding/carpet/padding to the truck to dispose of it. Now it’s 9:00 am and I’m exhausted. Too bad because J has just arrived from work and he’s ready to go. I move on to the second bedroom. J’s friend Brandon arrives and starts to remove door jambs. I move on to the hallway. Then I tackle the mess in the master suite we’re creating (by we, I mean J). He has torn out the walls, bathroom, some ceiling, some floor, now he’s smashing the cast iron plumbing pipes. Then he moved on to framing (all I was doing was making a mess it seemed!). Well enough description and on to the pictures…
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| Before |
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| After |
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| Before |
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| After |
Some of the wood flooring seems to be in good shape, but because they glued the padding to it…who knows?
I took this standing in what was once our master bedroom, the pipes were the in the wall between the master bath and bedroom #4 (which is being combined into the master suite) and the doorway straight ahead leads into the living room.
Opposite view from living room into master suite.
Plumbing in the middle of the room is about to be torn down…
Special thanks to: Jason, Kate, Layton and Brandon. We couldn’t have done it without you! Literally.
I always feel badly when we drive things to the dump…seeing the pile up close, and later hearing that it weighed 1.5 tons is just a little shocking. Well…see for yourself!
Walls, doors, some drywall…out with the old.
We went to the new house last night. We changed the locks and cleared out the garage. J started to put some of his tools in there and set up some shelving…well see for yourself!
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| Left wall before |
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| Right wall before |
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| Left wall (back portion) after |
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| Left wall (front) after |
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| Right wall (front) before |
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| Right wall (front) after |
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| Of course, Josh had his garage trophies ready and waiting… |
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| Looking into the garage facing the house (back wall) |
A few details from the Santa Barbara affair!
Two weekends ago I made the best chocolate cake ever. Seriously.
Yum yum yum yum yum
Please use good cocoa!
Here is the mix if you’d like to make this yourself (I recommend it). It’s really like a cake from scratch, not a mix…the box contains the dry ingredients and you add eggs and butter.
The page from Martha’s Cooking School (thanks, Kate!)
Easy Chocolate Buttercream:
6 sticks of unsalted butter
1 tsp. pure vanilla extract
3/4 C. unsweetened dutch-process cocoa powder
5 1/4 C. sifted confectioner’s sugar
Cream butter with electric mixer until fluffy. Ad vanilla. Add cocoa. Add sugar (slowly!) Whip it for a long long time. Taste some. Frost.
Josh and Korey 