My Favorite Feature

I know I'm skipping a little ahead of myself, but Chris just finished this the other night and I am SO excited about it. This is the bench seat in the mud room...

the seat lifts up and we can store shoes in there--so NO MORE SHOES IN THE LAUNDRY ROOM!!!!

anyway....I think he did a really good job! I just LOVE it!

Just a Few Cute Pictures

Jayden gave him licorice

Mykenzie's dollar store ball popped, but she was ok with it because she and chris found a new better use for it!

Jayden needed a turn

Building The Deck

We started over Labor Day weekend and I naively had the idea that it would be done just like that...oh how wrong i was! We had a lot of help that weekend from Cris, Jamie and Steve.
This is Cris making sure the dirt around the posts was packed nice and tight!

Chris cutting the joists

the kids making potions

there was a LOT of nailing that weekend...I hope everyone's wrists have recovered since.

she is reading her operating manual for her new camera. I didn't know anyone actually read those!

it's blurry...but I love when he makes this face.

the frame is all up and ready to go

pretty sunset

he is so loving all this construction. he plays in the dust and dirt all day long!

part way done

after almost 2 weeks...the finished product!

I LOVE this 45 thing he did here...it looks so nice..and the deck is the perfect height to add some more "seating" to the conversation pit...

thanks for everyone's help. it took a while, but we got it done...aside from staining it (which we'll do when we're done with everything else) the entire outside it done!

The Rip-R-Stripper

This is the machine that was supposed to make tearing up the tile easy...at least that's what we thought--until we actually used it!

Benj came over and helped us get some of this up

I just liked the name

trying to figure out if there was a better way to make it work (there wasn't)

of course he "couldn't sleep"

so he tried to help.

it took us over 4 hours to rip up about 1/3 of the tile. We had to take it out so we could build the mud room walls...We are very much NOT looking forward to taking out the rest of the tile!

...And the Wall Came Tumbling Down

the first dramatic cut

he's holding up the wall

this turned out to be a bit of a challenge to take out this header...
we've learned that your house isn't built to be taken apart!

it finally comes out

weird to be throwing away your wall...it's funny, cause it didn't look like garbage since it was painted and all

almost there

betsy chillin' in the window

I know this makes it look huge, but I'm actually standing in the front room

and just like that the wall was gone!

Insulation