our grass is moving along

Heavenly Greens came today and is putting in our puppy proof lawn. Here are some photos of the progress that was done today. We're hoping that it will be done tomorrow.

the room is getting closer

Jim and I emptied the pod this weekend (mostly Jim) and he put everything in the cabinets. It all seemed to fit. The cabinets also have doors and handles now.

Jim's new room is taking shape

Jim's new office is taking shape. The cabinets are in (minus doors) and he's starting to unload his old room and pod.

the garage now has a faux-wood floor

Thanks to lots of hard work today by Jim (and some by me too), the garage now has a faux-wood floor. It's looking more and more like a real room. Once the floor was down, Jessica tried to help out with clean up (one of her favorite activities).

Jim's garage room is painted

Jim's garage room is now painted. On to the floor tomorrow and then cabinets. Hopefully, it will be complete in the next few weeks.

almost done with the laundry room

We are almost done with the laundry room. All that is left is the countertops. The cabinets are in, the doors are hung. It's starting to get back to normal (in that room at least). On to the room in the garage next.

more construction progress

Jim has made more construction progress this weekend. The laundry room is trimmed and painted. Plus, cabinets are installed and the sink is in. We're almost in the home stretch (at least for that room). Jessica got in the action this weekend by checking out the progress and playing in the cabinets.

Goodbye garage -- hello extra room

Jim and his dad made lots of progress this past week. The garage now has a new room off the laundry room and a small garage area by the garage door. It's not finished yet, but the walls are up and we're on our way.

More Contruction Progress

Ding dong the witch is dead! After a few days of chipping and grinding, I can officially say that there is no more pink tile in my house. The laundry room was the last remaining spot of the previous home owner's fondness for pink everything and it is finally gone. Now, we just need to disconnect everything so we can lay the new floor. Oh, and I should point out that hole in the wall near the door is an "oops" by Jim while putting in a light switch for the laundry room in the kitchen. Oops is right. More drywall to repair cause we don't have enough of that :-)

Construction Day 2 -- Some Progress to be had

After the water heater got moved on Saturday, Jim had to tackle knocking down the rest of the laundry room wall, moving electrical wires, and putting the wall back up. Before he could get to any of that, however, he had to fix the doorbell, that somehow got disconnected the day before. Jessica figured that one out early on Sunday morning as we were coming back from the grocery store with eggs for pancakes. She has to ring the doorbell on her way into the house now, and it just didn't work much to all of our surprise. One hour later, Jim had fixed the problem. Because he was working on that, I made breakfast. The good thing is that the doorbell works (although with Mousse and his barking at the doorbell, no doorbell might be a nice change). The bad thing was that I cooked breakfast. Not my area. I screwed up pancakes. I can't even tell you how I did that. Jessica was the only person who ate them. Anyways, people wonder why construction goes overtime. It's because of little unexpected things like the doorbell. Anyways, here are some pictures from the Sunday progress. The laundry room wall has been knocked down, the frame is about 2 feet back (yeah! that gives me room for cabinets), and the electrical is a work in progress. I really love navigating through the hanging wires to do laundry.

Construction Day One

Today was the first day of real construction. There are many projects in the queue, but the first one is to move the water heater to get more room in the laundry room. The walls were off this morning. Can I say I am tired of taking dry wall on and off? Anyways, the guys are still working on moving the water heater this evening. Construction always takes longer than you think.

Jim builds Jessica an activity table

One of things that I have been wanting to get Jessica is an activity table. That way, she will have a place to do arts and crafts, play with trains, etc. One of the nicer ones on the market is from Pottery Barn. It is a low table with carts that go underneath for storage. The colors of the Pottery Barn table didn't really work in the space we were thinking of, so Jim decided to build one over Labor Day weekend. Now we just need to make room for it and the rest of the large items Jessica seems to be acquiring these days.

our deck is finished

Our deck is finally finished. Here are some photos of the seating area, dining area, and new bbq / bar area as well as Jessica's animal table. We just installed the lights and had some friends over last weekend. Thanks to Jim's dad for making the deck possible.