The Kitchen: A Five Year Long Remodel

Our kitchen remodel has been coming along slowly as we gathered the funds and made decisions. We had replaced the floor immediately upon moving in back in 2008 because it was, in a word, disgusting. The front hallway was chipped gray slate, the main kitchen area was greasy, peeling linoleum, and the back section leading out to the garage had a lovely covering of brown shag carpet. Needless to say I didn't even bother taking any before photos. We just ripped it out. CJ spent that Memorial Day weekend laying down snap together laminate in a pattern that resembles ceramic tile (without the side effect of cold feet!) and is a breeze to clean. Our only problem has been the slight buckling that it does every year when the humidity sets in. Putting in a whole house air conditioning unit has helped, and CJ also has been working to eliminate the problem areas by cutting and refitting some of the pieces. His other big endeavor has been to replace all of the woodwork with oak. It is a long process full of measuring, cutting, staining and nailing, but the end results are certainly worth it. Additional changes to the kitchen were the custom made bookshelf, garden window (both recently stained - will take pics soon!) and new patio door. We also updated the hardware, which was an easy way for me to contribute to the project,

 and put in a new counter top and sink. The counter top has a breakfast bar which we can start using as soon as I buy some stools.

 The final phase is to replace the ceramic tile behind the stove and install new back splash. Here's a photo of the old tile. It is all gone now and patiently waiting for a decision to be made on the new stuff. I know in my mind what I want, it's really just a matter of finding it at the store!!

Once the tile has been installed I will post finish product pics. And then the only room in the house that will need updating will be the boys' bathroom. We have big plans which involve taking down a wall and putting in an additional sink, but decided to wait until the boys outgrow the animal wallpaper. And learn how to not pee all over the floor. (Does that ever happen?)

The new and improved basement

I love my handy husband. He has recently transformed our large, junk filled basement into a glorious playroom/workout room with oodles of storage. Here are some early project pictures. He converted the front part of the basement into two rooms on either side of the stairs. To the left would become the boys new play area. As you can see, Paul was anxious to have some space away from his brother and we allowed him to play with Legos and other small toys in the back corner. Please excuse the pile of food - the pantry was in progress when I snapped this photo. To the right of the stairs would be a workout space and would close off CJ's wood shop in the back corner. Under the stairs he planned to incorporate storage - yipee! At the bottom of the stairs he built a giant pantry. Behind the playroom he put in a cedar closet and extra shelves for storing the kids' clothes. (I didn't include an after picture because I am still working on the organization as we switch over to summer wear.) On the other side of the cedar is the cat box - no more stinky smell in the basement!! Here are some shots of the final product. Paul now spends hours down there building elaborate battle scenes and John enjoys the extra space to use his ride on toys while we wait for the weather to improve.

The Floor: Before and After

Recently CJ replaced the ugly yellow carpet in our living room/dining room with beautiful hardwood floors. It was a pretty big project and thankfully he had the help of my uncle's nail gun and a noisy new compressor to help. Paul did his share of supervising from a safe distance equipped with his safety goggles and ear protection. Sadly because my pics were destroyed in the virus, the only before picture I have is one I posted a while back on the blog. But it gives you the general idea. The carpet was in better shape than the stuff we had upstairs (which was immediately removed!) but it was still old, stained and smelly. So it had to go. CJ had wanted to replace it as one of the first house projects, but other things took priority. Needless to say he was overjoyed with the results.

The latest projects

It has been a while since I posted pics of our house projects, and CJ accomplished two biggies this year. His summer project was installing a new deck. He did it all by himself (Paul helped by dropping screws between the boards and providing moral support) and it made all of our neighbors jealous. We became "The people with the big deck". Very cool. We hosted some great get-togethers over the summer (including one that got rained out - but people still hung out on the deck!) and Paul enjoyed playing in his pool and sandbox. We can't wait to get back out there in the spring!!

Over Thanksgiving break CJ decided he had had enough of the ugly carpet in the den, ripped it all out and put down hardwood floors. It was hard work, but the result is certainly worth it. We can't wait to show it off during the holidays!! Next on the agenda... the upstairs bathrooms!! We were going to start this fall, but the referral put things on hold for a few months. Stay tuned.

A room fit for a wild beast

Being three (going on 13), the boy wants to do everything "ALL BY MYSELF". In order to accommodate this, I have been working on upgrading his room to a more preschool appropriate space and shifting all of his baby/toddler things into the guest room as it will eventually be the baby's room. The first thing I did was remove the too-tall dresser that I worried would one day crush the boy while he struggled to remove underwear and socks from its top drawer. I replaced it with a small piece I bought at our church's rummage sale for $2 and jazzed up with some blue paint and new hardware. It's basically a cheap piece of junk (as the hubby says, "Ya got what ya paid for") but it serves its purpose. Now underwear, socks and pajamas can be easily, safely and independently removed. The next step was a new bed. CJ took apart the crib and stored it in the basement (so that guests can still enjoy a full sized bed until the baby arrives) and I found a wooded bed frame on Craigslist for $32. Paul was thrilled to have a big boy bed and tried to cram every single stuffed animal in his collection under the covers. Sadly, there was no room for him at that point and we needed to compromise on who would stay and who remained in the basket. The first few nights in the new bed were a little rough, but he has adjusted quite well to the openness of it all. In the meantime I also brought in the larger bookshelf to accommodate his large collection of reading material. The boy loves his books. Funny side story: the other night I went to check if he was sleeping and found him on his belly, head propped up in his hands, reading by the light of his nightlight. It was too cute.
The last step was completed last night. CJ installed a closet organizer that allows Paul to reach his own clothes and return the hangers without assistance. He was so excited at the prospect of picking his outfit that he picked and re-picked at least a dozen times. And look at all the room we cleared out for MORE CLOTHES! Yippee!! As you can see, the boy is very happy with his new room.

Party at the van's!

Pardon the clutter, but I wanted to put a picture of our new deck here for anyone too far away to visit. My darling hubby worked his butt off over Memorial Day weekend - he is apparently making a habit of celebrating the fallen by taking on massive home improvement projects. Last year he installed the kitchen floor, this year the deck. I digress. The deck is HUGE and very awesome. It still needs a railing, so we are careful to keep Paul and any small visitors away from the edge. Paul thinks it's great. He loves helping daddy build it and has only lost a small handful of nails down the cracks.

One more step

My handy-dandy husband has completed another home improvement project!! Once again I neglected to take any "before" pictures, so for those readers who haven't been to the house, let's just say that our stairs were UG-A-LY. The spit-up colored carpet was totally worn out, stained and fraying. CJ ripped out the carpet, tore out the stairs and replaced them with oak. He did it all this past week and was able to get the stain on over the weekend. We stayed with my folks while everything dried and are now happily back home enjoying the beautiful new stairs.

Are you going to finish that?

Anyone who knows me knows I am a wicked procrastinator. I have these great project ideas that typically take several months (years) to begin, and then once started are often abandoned mid-project, leaving behind a mess that does not get cleaned up for weeks. Eventually things get done, but it generally takes a whole lotta external motivation. Some examples:

• The summer we began discussing adoption (2005), I decided to refinish my childhood dresser for our future child. I dragged all of the pieces out onto our back deck, stripped the old finish and began to sand. We had to go somewhere that day so I neatly stacked the pieces in the patio, and they sat there... for an entire year. In the summer of 2006 we got our referral & I realized that I best finish the project. I managed to get the dresser sanded and stained and even found new hardware on ebay after months of searching for the right size. CJ couldn't believe he no longer had to stare at the dresser drawers out of our family room window.
• In 2003 CJ went on an eight month deployment. I dutifully collected newspaper articles and saved photographs and other memorabilia from that time period, purchased a scrapbook, and had every intention of putting together a nice album. And I did... it just took me five years. In the fall of 2007 I finally finished the scrapbook, motivated by the fact that CJ refused to pack up and move the stacks of newspapers.

Which brings me to today. When we moved into our previous house (2004), I purchased some mismatched curtains with the intention of creating window treatments for our living room. We had this massive picture window and I somehow figured I would sew the curtains together to create a swag. Ha. Me, sew. (To be fair, I did sew two roman shades in our WA house AND a bed skirt with the help of my friend Susanna.) Needless to say, it did not get done. We moved here, and when I chose the paint color it was partially based on the curtain remnants that I still had. Yesterday I went out and bought curtain rods. CJ refused to hang them until I had actually sewn the curtains. (External motivation) Well, I dug out the machine & after breaking the sewing table and cursing the bobbin that refused to wind properly, I managed to hem the curtains. HEM THEM. All this time and all I needed to do was cut the fabric in half and HEM them. Honestly, is there a twelve step program for procrastinators? I'll sign up tomorrow.

Tour of the van's pad

Over the weekend (in between watching women's beach volleyball & water polo), CJ transformed our hallway closet into a mudroom. I snapped some photos & then decided it might be time to take pictures of the rest of the house. Many many posts ago I recall promising such a thing. We (meaning CJ mostly) have done a lot of work so far with more projects to happen in the fall. Here's a quick tour, starting with the new mudroom.

Previously, there was carpet running down the hallway between the kitchen and the laundry room (and including the closet). CJ ripped out the carpet, continued the laminate from the kitchen into the hallway, and did ceramic tile in the closet. Eventually he'll tile the laundry room too. Then he removed the large shelf, cut it in half, painted the walls cream & the shelves red & rehung the shelves. We added baskets, a bench & a bunch of hooks for coats & bags. Tada!

The kitchen has seen the most work (with more to come once mommy is fully employed again). The floor in the front hallway was this awful, dark, chipping ceramic tile (circa 1980s), and the kitchen was linoleum. CJ replaced it all with laminate made to look like tile. It took him all of Memorial Day weekend and he ended up with cuts & bruises all over his knees, but it is beautiful & we love it! The refridgerator was originally sitting inside a little alcove & messing up the flow of traffic, so CJ happily tore down that wall, blocked a doorway that led to the den, and moved the fridge closer to the rest of the appliances. The orginal microwave & oven were in the wall and didn't work. We replaced them & CJ built a shelf unit for spices & cookbooks and added an additional cupboard next to the new range.

Here are a few more shots of the house. Every room has been painted except for the family room and laundry. When we got here, everything was beige, or some variation of beige. It was depressing. We are very happy with the chosen colors (the living room is much more mauve than pink, despite the way it appears in the pic).

The den and living/dining rooms

Paul's bedroom & playroom

Home at last!

We are finally in the house. All of us. The humans moved in early last week & the felines joined us on Friday. YAY! Then a heat wave hit. Mom's house has AC. Ours does not. Bad timing. For the first few nights Paul asked to go back to "Papa's house", but he seems to be adjusting to life without grandparents. Not that he doesn't see them every day, I mean - they have AC remember? The cats handled things pretty well too. We were worried that they would be lost without grandma & KC (her cat), but after a few hours of sniffing around & Mia crying, they were back to their old routine. Sleeping. There are still a million things to do at the house and the heat is not helping my motivation. But we are slowly unpacking and getting back to normal. CJ plans to do some serious painting while the boy & I journey to California to visit my brother & his brood. Stay tuned!

Buzz buzz

In preparation for our trip to Disney, I have given Paul a lovely buzz cut. It is not the best haircut that's for sure - but it should help to keep him cool. It was a little sad watching his soft silky hair pile up on the ground below (and a little frustrating trying to remove it from the chair with all of its static clingy power), but he seems happy with the result. And I can't stop rubbing my hand over his bristly head. Our Memorial Day weekend has been a mad dash to get the house ready for moving in post-Disney. CJ spent the majority of his waking hours installing our new entryway/kitchen floor. It looks really nice & I am very excited. Our pre-trip move in was thwarted by the fact that our master bedroom carpet had to be reordered (after they half ripped out the old one - oops!) which has been a pretty big disappointment. We concluded it would probably be best for Paul to transition after vacation anyway. He is excited about the "Brown. House." and cannot stop talking about going to Disney to see "Mi-mouse. Airplane. Sky." His language is evolving toward sentences although there is a gap in between each word and sometimes between multi-syllabic words. My favorite: "Bater (water). Melon." Oh & "Home. Depot. Car." (We spend a great deal of time there & he loves the car carts.) It is exciting to watch him soak everything in and repeat back his version.

Our home away from home

It may be a while before we can actually move into our new house. To begin with, there are several layers of filth to peel away and currently we do not have any hot water. Trying to clean with lukewarm water is only the part of the challenge, trying to clean while a mischievous toddler explores the new terrain is of course the rest. Yesterday (on Daddy's watch, not mine) he managed to pull down the curtain rod in the living room & tangle himself in the musty old drapes. Paul's version went something like this: "House. Daddy. Papa. Head." (hits himself in the head while making an appropriate head smashing sound.) With Paul, this could mean anything. I had to get the truth from Papa.

Needless to say we are making some progress in the right direction. All of the bedrooms are painted & we are waiting for the new rugs, which will hopefully be installed next Friday. Tonight we plan to stimulate the economy by purchasing all new appliances (YAY!) and (cross your fingers) a WATER HEATER. There have been hours of research and discussion regarding the water heater and whether or not it should be tankless. It seems that we do not live in a climate conducive to a tankless heater, and when CJ found out that the water can suddenly turn cold he gave it the big thumbs down. The man likes his hot showers. In an effort to reduce our "footprint", we plan to buy an efficient as possible tanked version & insulate it to death (well, not to death really, I mean we already have one dead heater on our hands!) Tomorrow CJ will be knocking down walls in the kitchen to make room for the new fridge. I plan to stay away and be nervous from a distance. It really is better that way.
Moving day has been pushed back at a minimum to next weekend while we wait for rugs and wall relocation. I'll keep everyone posted & will put some pictures up as soon as I remember to take a few.

A sigh of relief, and relief for labored breath

We have finally closed on the house. YAY! CJ has most of our stuff moved out of his parent's basement and into our new garage and has already painted three bedrooms (the man is on a mission!) We are still living at my folk's while the new place airs out, but hopefully we'll be in the house this weekend. Moving in requires some new floors in the bedrooms and several appliances. Right now we are without a refrigerator, dryer, functioning hot water tank & microwave. Luckily the government's "economic stimulus package" is just in time for appliance & flooring stores to heave some nice little deals our way.
Sadly, in the midst of our celebration of homeownership, our little one has gotten ill. He came down with a nasty cough over the weekend & we ended up in the ER last night because he could barely catch his breath. He's been diagnosed with croup & given steroids & a nebulizer. The boy is downright miserable, but with the medicine he's at least able to get some much needed sleep. Hopefully he will be on the mend soon!

One step closer to close

Hurray! Closing is scheduled for Friday. Hopefully all will go smoothly and we will be in the new house by the weekend. If so, I will try to put some pictures up so that everyone can admire our fashionable 80's pad. We are still in controversy over what to do with the downstairs floors. I am hoping that CJ bends to my wishes & installs bamboo in the living room/dining room. The last floor place we went to told us that bamboo was "a colossal waste of money" to which I wanted to reply, "Wow, what an excellent sales pitch!" I told him that I was just trying to do my part to protect the planet. Sheesh.
In the world of Paul, we have had one successful visit to the potty - although it seemed to be quite coincidental because he was rather shocked to realize what he had done (as was I)! Needless to say his success was several days ago and we have not seen any repeat performances. Not that there hasn't been plenty of time spent sitting and reading books (followed by running around the upstairs stark naked). I have a feeling that there will be a long road to a diaper free existence.

Otters, reptiles & squatters, oh my!

We took Paul on his first trip to the zoo this past weekend. It was quite the toasty day (can we say Global Warming???) and we had a great time seeing the animals. Paul seemed to enjoy the water animals and snakes the most. Unfortunately my camera wasn't working, but mom's was & she got a few cute shots. Not to worry, Paul's godparents got us a zoo pass so there will be many more trips in the future!

Despite the early rise into high 80's, I am really loving this weather! It helps that I am not in the hot classroom & instead home with my boy playing in the backyard. Sorry to all my sweating teacher friends!! I do miss it though, and have found myself longing for the mouthy retorts of preteens and the sweet smell of Axe. HAHAHAHA.

And no, in case anyone was wondering, we have not been able to get into the new house. The squatters are still there as evidenced by their piles of stuff in the garage. Yes, my husband is stalking the house (he continues to visit daily) and peering into the garage. I am hoping that no one calls the police on him. It has become quite heartbreaking to have this beautiful weather and not be out in the garden. We were so overcome with jealousy the other day when we walked out of the Depot empty handed. Dad offered to help us get out of our mopey state by handing me a broom and saying, "There's plenty of work to do around here!"

Hey buddy, can you spare a dime?

We are officially homeless. We successfully closed on the old house on Friday and have no idea when we will be able to close on the new one. Luckily the folks don't mind us hanging around a bit longer and haven't started charging rent.... yet. We walk/drive past the new house daily and grumble over the fact that we could be using this nice weather to fix up the front yard. Poor Paul, we keep telling him that it is his new house - he's probably wondering why we never go in!!

Not too much else to report; the family headed out to a local Korean church on Friday for a night of Korean food and praise music, and I had a lovely time hanging out with the girls on Saturday as we celebrated Amy's birthday (a month late).

bye bye llamas

Yesterday morning we woke up in our old house for the last time. It was nice to "sleep in" (Paul was at Grandma's) and have a relaxing morning reminiscing about our time in the house & listing the things we will miss/not miss (more on that below). Then the work began. It took about five hours to pack up the rest of the house & clean. Many thanks to Bryan & Amy, without whom we'd probably still be packing! Bryan expertly brought the truck right up to our front door (CJ most likely would have driven it straight into the house) and Amy helped clean and maintain sanity. Today we are headed to the new place to drop off our stuff. Unfortunately it may be a while before we actually move it due to the seller's death. Sigh. And we found out yesterday that her son is still living on the property. He was supposed to move out April 1. It is hard to be mad seeing as he has had a difficult week, but I am a little worried about leaving our stuff there. Of course we did not learn about this until after the truck was completely packed.

In the meantime, the weather is finally improving & we have been able to get Paul out of the house a bit. On Friday mom & I took him to the bike path, where he enjoyed enthusiastically naming everything "RIVER! BIRD! GRASS! DUCK! STICK!" and racing full speed ahead on the path. He even chased a couple of older gentleman out for a leisurely stroll. One commented that Paul was "full of life." That's for sure! He may be exhausting, but it he definitely puts a smile on the faces of everyone he meets!

Here are some things we will miss about our old home:

• when the snow lands on CJ's wall and makes it look like a Thomas Kincaide painting
• watching random creatures wander through our backyard (however we will not miss the deer eating all of our tulips, which btw they have already done, leaving the new homeowners with nothing but nubs)
• our GIANT garden (we will not miss the mosquitoes that made it nearly impossible to work out there)
• the fabulous butt workout you got from walking up our hill
• silence (we'll be in the 'burbs now!)
• driving past the llamas and various other farm animals, & listening to Paul make animal sounds
• the handful of friends that made our time there enjoyable. You are always welcome for a visit!

On the home front

The three of us are staying with my parents until our house closes. Our old house is scheduled to close April 14 (we are headed out there this weekend to move furniture) and the new house should close the next day. Well, yesterday we found out that our seller passed away. We knew she was sick and was selling because she had moved into assisted living, but her death was a bit of a shocker. The house had been on the market for almost a year and a half, so I told CJ that I am glad she was able to sell and not have to worry about leaving that burden with her children. This may seem silly seeing as we have never met them, but please keep her family in your prayers! We'll keep you posted on things as they develop & I'll post pictures of the new place as soon as we move in.