Progress

So i think i mentioned that there is asbestos under the linoleum in the kitchen. the abatement company came out yesterday to measure the space.  i am going to stop there for a second....... and go back over 10 years when we bought the house. i was at work and my hubby called me to tell me that there was a house for sale that he wanted me to come and look at. i think i remember him meeting me at the road when i pulled into the driveway and saying that i needed to keep an open mind and see the potential there. we walked into the side door that took us into the laundry room and into the kitchen. this is a little but of what it looked like over 10 years ago, and kind of what it is looking like now. we walked through the rest of the house. here are some posts from then.....and here.

to be honest the only thing that sold me on the house was the wood burning stove in the kitchen and the potential for the carpet to come up and the wood floors in the house to be refinished. fast forward back to now, on Monday night we were talking about going ahead and taking up the stone around stove so that the floor could go all the way across the room and then rebuilding the stone around it smaller than it currently is.

Yesterday the abatement team came out to measure the kitchen. they told my hubby that they were going to need to take up the stone around the wood burning stove to treat that too. so looks like we are getting that taken care of. another decision (the stone that surrounds the stove) but an exciting one. you can see how the stone went all the way to the wall. we are fine with the placement of them stove we just wish that we could have the walking space through the area where the stone is touching the wall. now we get to reclaim that space. yay yay yay.

see how the stone goes all the way to the wall? we are going to redesign it where we still have the hearth and then some of the side for wood but not that bit all the way to the wall.

so next Friday some more of the work continues.

update on Little girls room. they came in yesterday to finish taking out the floor in her room. so this is what it currently looks like.

Better view

I mentioned in my last post about the house that we had made a decision about the flooring. For the kitchen we are going with this Hickory flooring which will look like this.

in Little girls room we are going back with what she had. it is a 1 1/2 inch oak plank. the lady that we are working with has been very helpful. when we went to the store to make the decision on Friday she asked if our existing oak was white oak or red oak? we had no idea. she asked us to bring her some wood shavings from our floor and she would try to do a chemical test to see what type of wood it is.

I also had a sweet friend encourage me to enjoy the process. it is a lot to think about and i think i just don't want to make a decision about something just because i like it and it not really go with anything else. so i am thinking what we like and coordinating too. but i appreciate sweet friends that remind me of them fun of the process.

we have somewhat of a date for the cabinets too. it is the first week of March which i think is why we made the decision about going back with the original floors in Little girls room. they mentioned it taking three weeks because of the sanding and staining and then not being able to go in there for a few days because of it setting. 

decisions are being made and it is making me happy. now we just continue to wait.

Paint color is our next decision. oh and back splash. suggestions are welcome for back splashes.

Something Fun

So for Christmas this year, one of Little girl's gifts was to get her ears pierced.

We were in New Orleans for Christmas spending time with my family so i wrapped up my baby earrings that i had my ears pierced with when i was 3 months old, and told her that we would go and get them done when we got home.

despite the craziness with the house i knew that we need to get her to get them done. i got everything lined up for her to have the pierced and this was her face when i told her that we were going that day. (this all happened on January 2nd) 

we headed up to get them done. she said that she had butterflies in her tummy. she was nervous.

the lady was very sweet with her. she marked her ear to show us where they would be placed.

here she is getting the first one done.

my niece had her ears pierced a few years ago and Little girl wanted her there to watch. 

i think she was pretty pleased with they way they turned out even though it hurt.

here is what she chose. i just love her cute little ears with earrings in.

Decisions Decisions Decisions

The decisions with this kitchen remodel are going to make my head explode. sheesh

We for sure know that we want an ivory color for our kitchen cabinets with an antiqued rub.

something similar to this

yesterday our buddy box arrived

it is WAY bigger than i thought it would be.

we have yet to put anything in it but the kid think it is super cool to have it on the side of the house

another decision we have come to was our flooring choice. it has been a really hard decision. i told the hubby that i don't think the decision would be so difficult if we were just deciding about the kitchen. but since the water ruined the floors in Little girls room as well then we were having a difficult time.

here is what we have decided on. it is a hickory wood and we really like that colors and the variations in the shades.

we have always wanted to have butcher block counter tops. there were some questions that we had about them so now we have these decisions to make:

butcher block counter tops or something else

if we choose butcher block what shade of stain

what kind of back splash to choose

what color to paint the walls

on the choices and decisions

do you see how my head may explode?

any an all suggestions are accepted. maybe i need a new set of eyes on all of this.

still excited about this journey even though it looks like it will be longer than we would have originally liked. we also found out yesterday that they kitchen has asbestos under the linoleum and will have to be treated before we move forward with anything.

Rounding the Corner......

......of three weeks since our kitchen flood and the joys of not having a fully functioning kitchen. I know there is an end in sight but right now I can not see it. and crazy enough this isn't even though worst part of it. I am struggling with being patient in the waiting. for now I am relying on the delicious smells of Mrs Meyer's Pine dish soap to get me through the loads and loads of dishes that I am hand washing. and the prospect of the tallest stack of disposable plate and cups that will be purchased today. here's to kitchen remodels and looking forward to our very own demo day (because truthfully that means there is some kind of end in sight)

One week down

One week down and our 2016 flood has flowed into 2017

things look somewhat the same but very different

almost all of the heaters/fans and dehumidifiers are gone or at least off. The only one left running is under the house.

we are waiting till the beginning of next week to find out about the asbestos testing. either way the "beautiful" flooring that is currently in my kitchen is coming up.

notice the dishwasher in the middle of my kitchen. it is not functioning right now so all of my dishes have to be hand washed. I am really excited for when a dishwasher is reinstalled and I can use it again. I mentioned to Little girl that I needed to do some dishes and she didn't understand. I told her that  I needed to wash dishes and she said well how are you going to do that with the dishwasher like that. I laughed and realized we never really hand wash anything. I told her I was going to wash them by hand. she said I know how to wash dishes. you rinse the food off of them and then you put them in the dishwasher.

oh how she cracks me up. oh how I need to have them help me hand wash some dishes.

this is the zipper entrance to her bedroom. the floors in her room are half up and half down. they are coming back beginning of next week when we hear back about the asbestos to finish that.

here is my counter top covered in those "hand washes" dishes.

I need to get a picture of our living room again. we were able to clear some of it out and I am surprised at what I have thrown away and the back of my van is loaded with stuff to take to the thrift store.

I don't see when the end in site is going to be but I know that it is going to be there. we meet with someone on Monday to talk about getting started on remodeling everything.

good out of the ugly. I am trying to hold on to that even though right now is a struggle. I also know that this is nothing in comparison to what most people are going through. Focusing on the blessings in hard times and how we can get through this in one piece.

New Years Eve

Toddler New Years III

my husband affectionately came up with the name of toddler new years four years ago when we hosted the first one. We all missed one year so that is why we only have three in the books.

we joked last year that will we still be calling it toddler new years when the kids area all in middle and high school? the consensus was YES, we absolutely would. 

with the house a mess we were thankful to get out of the house for a few hours for some toddler new years.

i am thankful for my friend who has picked it up and hosted for the last two years

she does such a great job too with balloons to pop every hour and an activity counting down to the new year. we knew we wouldn't be able to make it with the kids till 12 but went ahead and went for a few hours.

6 o'clock was ice cream sundays

7 o'clock was a minute to win it game that the kids loved (check out the pictures below of them eating hanging donuts)

8 the kids did the limbo

we left after the 8 o'clock limbo.

i am sure there were some fun minute to win it games that we missed. my girlfriend does such a great job every year with this.

this girl has a song in her hear all the time and forever. she is always singing and i just love it

as the minuets ticked down to 2017 i went in and got a picture of the kids. their last picture of 2016.

Our 2016 flood

First let me say that this is going to be a picture heavy post. I mean lets be honest, it will probably be word heavy too but I will try and keep it short and simple.

after being out of the house for about 2 hours on Friday, the kids and I came home to the kitchen and part of Little Girls room being flooded.

I handed Golden Boy the key to the house while I grabbed some things out of the van. The kids were the first to see the water. I was in the laundry room and heard Golden Boy say, why is there water all over the floor. I dropped the stuff in my arms and looked and no lie, there was water everywhere. I saw that it was pouring out of the cabinet where the sink was.

 I took off my shoes and socks, handed the phone to Golden boy and told him to call daddy.

I ran to the sink intended to turn off the water but there was so much water I just couldn't see the knob. I then ran to the road and just turned off the water to the house. we started pulling out every towel we could find to stop the water from going anywhere else.

there was one air vent in the kitchen that I hear the water pouring down.

my hubby called his dad and he came over to help dry everything up. once we got the water off the floors we called the plumber and our insurance company.

this is the water bottle that broke under the sink that started this whole mess

it didn't just come loose it completely snapped all the way around

Little girls room had to be cleared out because they were going to have to rip up the floor. there was something called cupping happening to the wood. we are pretty sad about her floor being ripped up. pictures of where they started the process below

we piled most of her stuff in our living room. it is a cluttered, chaotic mess right now. we are working on finding some normal in it all 

here is a view from Little girls room into the kitchen where they started to tear up the laminate in the kitchen

when we bought the house the white linoleum was just in this part of the kitchen and the brick paver type linoleum was on the other side of the kitchen. I guess at one point the brick paver looking linoleum went all the way through the whole kitchen.

our three floors

here is looking into Little girls room from the kitchen as they start the process of tearing up her floor.

it was loud and heart breaking. I know it is just floor but it was placed in the 1960s and it is beautiful

it was so wet underneath that it seeped through the floors into the crawl space and had already started to leave some mold

the coolest find. on the bottom of the wood slats in her room was stamped that it was made in the USA in Alabama

this section an a small section in the corner is where they started to tear up the floor

and just when I thought the house couldn't get any louder......

they brought in even more fans.

this is the threshold from the hallway to Little girls room. right now it still looks like this but I know that once this process is over that it will probably never look the same again.

among the craziness and loudness of the house Golden boy found some quiet in the building of his Legos. He made a carwash for this Lego cars, complete with vacuum station

and since what was once our coffee station, is now outside and the one plug that I have on our backsplash/kitchen counter area, is being taken up with fan plugs, we relocated the coffee station to the living room, on top of the toy box. because truthfully, when you go through a flood, coffee is a must.