UW vs. Cal State

Kitchen is almost done! Thanks to Steve who
hooked us up to gas!!

Living room with new stair rail

Guest bathroom that now has 7 different colors

underneath this beautiful color!!!

The basement with the new french doors!!

Thanks Gerald for all your help!!!

Trick or Treating in Fairhaven

AArrrrrgggghhhhh, me matey.... watch out for these tricksters or you might get webbed or have to walk the plank...

WE'RE GETTING THERE....

Look what my husband can do... The kids love skating on it and I just love looking at it!!!

Kids, Cabinets and Slate...check!!

Guess who is about sick of working on the house!?!

This is where the kids play & fight while we race to get the house done!

Finally!! It looks like we are actually making progress! We've got slate with lots of character!

This is the kind of thing my husband is capable of! Quite impressive! Maybe someday I will be able to use this kitchen....

Tme for Cabinets

Well here they sit all ready to go. Unfortunately the corner base cabinet arrived broken so a new one is on its way. It wont be here till next wed. so I will have to work around that until the new one arrives. It is really too bad I cant just snap my fingers and have it all done.

I needed to lay some of them out and get a game plan for this little task.

Here is a look at the first 2 cabinets in place. Now just 14 more to go!!!

Happy B-day to ME!!!

Well, I turned 36 on Saturday...wow, now I feel really OLD!! Cheryl got me an ice cream cake from Cold Stone Creamery and was that ever good. Of course as soon as the festivities were over we were back down to the house for more work. I think we just might be in by Christmas!!! On one good note the kitchen cabinets are going to be delivered on Friday. That will be a huge step towards moving. Cheryl and I both agreed that without a kitchen we are not going to move in!!!

Here is another shot of the living room all painted. The walls just need a little touching up by the ceiling and it will be done.


While I was gone hunting last week (I had a good time but didn't shoot anything) Cheryl cleaned the entire upstairs. Some how I have managed to cart all my tools and supplies back up stairs where they are all in the way again!

The Kitchen now just needs cabinets and a floor...OK counter tops and appliances would be nice as well

This is how the bathroom walls are shaping up. It might be a tad bit extreme but I really like it. It will be interesting how it looks with the floor and vanity in place.

finally time to paint.

This is what the living room now looks like. I still need to paint the ceiling but the wall are done for the most part. It is finally starting to look like a house again!!

I had to replace the replaced sliding glass door that I installed on the back of the kitchen with another french door. The seal looked to have been broken and I didn't want to wait till this winter to find out for sure so we just replaced it.
And since this is a family blog and not just a house blog here is Miranda on her first day of school. Wow, she is already in the 3rd grade. Hunter's first day of kindergarten is today.

whew...a long weekend!!

This picture is a bit splotchy w/ dust in the air but as you can see the dry wall is all up including the bathroom. There will be a few more areas that need some small pieces added but I can now start mudding and taping...did I ever say I hate mudding and taping? Let me just get this straight. It ranks right up there w/ pumping a septic tank! Oh the levels I will fall to to save a bit of $$!

Well after a full 7 hours of nonstop work Chery and I were able to close the door on our new french door. I must say this project really made a difference in how the living room feels. Having basically a wall of windows that looks out on Chuckanut Mt. is a definite bonus. It is kind of funny that it wasn't until after we closed on this house that I realized that it does have a view.

I wasnt able to get any drywall up this weekend due to a 4 way light circut that just drove me crazy. Tuesday night on the other hand, I was off and running. Here I am making my first cut for the ceiling.

Thursday night I was able to get most of one wall done. I plan on having all the drywall done this weekend unless I decide to replace the sliding door and install the french door and windows. I started to get that all ready on thursday night as well.

This isnt a very good picture but I have to expose the header above the windows and door and tie them together w/ metal straping. Then I can center the french door and put the windows on each side. I think it will make that wall look way better.

House update.

For those who have not had the privilege to see our house yet, I have finally got around to posting some pictures of what is going on. We signed papers on June 29 and by Friday night the house was already getting "cleaned out". We started by removing all the curtains and anything else that wasn't nailed down. We got a permit to remove the lovely popcorn ceiling which was a nasty job and then removed all the carpet. Next to go was the very low ceiling in the kitchen as well as the walls that separated the kitchen and the living room. That really opened things up!!! I will try and keep this up to date as to what I am doing on the house each week. I am hoping to drywall the kitchen this weekend. Time will tell!!!

Here is the new tub/shower combo we got. That old green/gold one just had to go!!! I had to take out a wall to get it in but I really think it was worth the work. I can already see the kids taking baths and getting water all over the place!

This is looking into the kitchen area. There will be an island just about where that middle ladder is sitting. The stove will be in the island with a drop down hood. You can get an idea of where the old walls were located by where the drywall stopped. The ceiling was all dropped down to just over the window in the kitchen. It was just over 7 feet high.

Here is a picture of how our house is right now I have added 12 can lights to the living room and kitchen. I also removed the walls that separated the living room from the kitchen. I am going to remove the sliding glass door, replace it with french doors that will be centered on that wall with 6 foot tall by 3 foot wide window on each side. That should dress it up a bit!!! The bamboo flooring from an earlier post will cover the entire living room and kitchen floors. As far as the brick fireplace goes...I will keep you posted!!! (just a hint...it isn't going to look like that forever!!!)

Floor for the new house!!!

OK, so Cheryl and I are in the process of purchasing a new to us house. I dont have pictures of the house yet but I do have pictures of the flooring we are going to use. We are going w/ a bamboo floor in the hallway, kitchen,dining and living room. We got enough for the stairs and entry way if we decide to do that as well. I think it will look pretty good. Quite a stack of flooring if I do say so myself!!!

sorry for the delay!!!

So I have not done my job I had planned on doing. That was to keep this blog updated. Sorry about that. So just a little of what we have been doing. Memorial day we went to my uncle Sids. We had a very good time. It was very relaxing. The kids had a great time playing w/ squirt guns and riding their bikes all over.

The trip from Denver

After much looking and looking Cheryl and I were finally able to find a vehicle we could both agree on. It is a 1997 Lexus lx 450. It is really just a Toyota land cruiser w/ the lexus logo. I found it in Denver for a reasonable price (you would not believe how overpriced these things can be!!) It has 75K miles was owned by a Dr. who had no idea how to sell a vehicle and became a real pain to deal with. Oh well, I wanted his car and we got through it but I know it gave me some more gray hair!!! He never drove it in the winter, always kept it in the garage, and had a meticulous maintenance record. Because of its record I made the decision to fly out to Denver Sat. morning and drive it home by Sunday night. 1550 miles in about 20 hours made for a very long interesting weekend. I really wanted to stop in Boise to stay Hi to Shanna but she was in Sun. morning meeting so it felt very weird driving through and not saying hello.

This is the entrance to the Eisenhower tunnel. I thought it was very cool at 1.67 miles long, 11 thousand feet elevation and passes through the continental divide.

Here we saw a very long and lonely train. I really think the only other thing out in that area was a few antelope that we saw trotting along.

Some cool looking cliffs in Utah

New Fire pit

Dad got in trouble with the fire dept for burning so he had to build a fire pit. We thought it was a good idea to try it out and see how it worked for roasting hot dogs and making smores. The kids had a great time!!!(We parents did too!!)

introducing lattes and x-rays...