Bye Bye Basement!!!

We never thought it would feel so good to move up from the basement and back into the main floors of the house!! Our team of contractors worked their tails off to get the kids up into their bedrooms before school started so we could have some sense of normalcy. Then over the last two weeks the kitchen has "magically" become operational with a dishwasher that actually cleans, a new oven, and a great brand new cook top. (Thank you Cheryl at Home Depot for all your hours helping me with the kitchen plan!!!) And now that we actually have several operational toilets (including the port-a-potty in the driveway) we have made the big move out of the basement! (Good thing since we had 11 people sleeping total here just last weekend!) Most importantly we can sit as a family and have dinner, wait for the school bus on the wonderful new porch, enjoy the newly configured space with friends, and have a few beers out on the back deck.

We originally thought the project would run through to Thanksgiving, but thankfully things have moved along quickly. While there are lots of "little" things that have yet to be completed, we just don't care....life is good when you are out of the basement!

Bye Bye Basement...more pictures

Did Someone Say DRY WALL?

Who would have known that the words DRY WALL would be such music to our ears? While we know that this means that we are still far from finished with this adventure, it also means that the walls are going UP rather then DOWN. This is certainly progress! We expect that the contractors will start to get the dry wall up this week. As a result Will had his trusty buddy (and long time drinking partner) Chris over to review the wire situation over a beer. Several beers later and a trip to the VI (ok thats not true) one beer later (they are getting old) they had a plan and now will is upstairs working the wires through the walls.

The picture shown here highlights our new windows in the master bedroom. They overlook the back yard and give us a great view of the maple tree. The pictures below do now show all of the true progress that has been made, but once the walls go up we will post some more pictures with a better perspective.

At this point we are about four weeks away from being able to put in kitchen cabinets and appliances. This means Will and I better make up our minds on what we are going to do. This includes an exhaustive search on features and functionalities for a dishwasher (noise level?), fridge (photo screen? wine holders?), oven (slide in? mounted?), microwave (convection? drawer?) and Will often saying "Yes dear...I love it..." Essentially, we ran out of money for all of these things months ago but we are just going to ask if we can get our debt limit raised..that shouldn't be a problem should it?!

Finally a HUGE thank you to all of the wonderful friends and families that that have taken in the basement dwellers for extended stays over the last few months. To those that we still have yet to visit....we are coming!!!

Progress Last Month

Another Triangle

The backside of the house gets it's triangle.

Also not seen in the picture are some holes I've been digging. We want to wrap the deck around our large Maple tree but we are worried that when they dig the footers they will destroy the root structure. We know there will be some damage but we want to minimize the destruction of the larger roots. So, I've been digging by hand to see where the larger roots are so we can avoid them ("good ol' hole diggin"), FUN.

After sitting on his ass for weeks Steve feels the need to break something and the last of the green fills that need.

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