House Update: Week Four

Let me distract you momentarily from the house update with a life update. We are winding down the last few days of summer and these last few days have been a doozy.  Most of you are feeling the oppressive heat that comes with a traditional Tennessee summer. We have been stuck inside for the last few days and we are all feeling the effects. Compounding the heat, we have been dealing with impetigo and a serious swimmer's ear but I am hoping we are all on the mend.  My kids now know who their teacher will be for next year and we are so excited.  I know it's going to be another great year.

Most of you know Jon and I got to get away for a little bit while the kids spent time with my parents. It was a wonderful little getaway.  Jon and I were talking about it while were driving and the last time I can recall it just being the two of us (youth trips don't count) was the night I went into labor with Thad (the first time). Yes, it has been two years! That's the last time I remember.  We both realize the importance of spending quality time together and hope to make it a more frequent occurrence because let's face it I love to have long talks and Jon is a pretty good listener. Ok, I'm getting to the house but first some uber cute pictures of my pretty cool kids.

Also, Thad is a little shoe crazy right now.  

Now for the house update.  Most of the work this week was done on the exterior. Here's a before and after and let's see if you can spot the differences. 

Yet again, some of these after pictures are not 100 percent accurate.  When we stopped by yesterday afternoon the painter was working on the trim in the back.  Let me say we have a lot of trim on this house and the paint makes is look oh so beautiful.  As you can hopefully tell the windows went in this week and Jon and I went a little crazy on the landscaping. We trimmed a few trees in the front so now you can actually see the front of the house.  

Because the crew spent all week on the windows (there are 23) very little got done on the inside.  I want my house to be very pretty on the outside but in reality I'm going to be living on the inside.  So hopefully next week they will back rolling on the interior. Today we are going to finalize the exterior paint color. I'm having second thoughts on Seafoam Storm.  Let me explain.  The following pictures show the color on two separate walls. Both of these pictures are Seafoam Storm. I really like the bottom picture (middle color) and I like the top picture but I'm afraid it's a little too dark. We are heading to Lowe's today to get a sample of the middle color on the same card as Seafoam storm. We will have a color today. Thanks for following along.

House Update: Week 3

I didn't not post an update last week because there wasn't a lot of progress. It was pretty discouraging. Let me explain. Our house was built on 1950. Nothing they did back then was done cheaply. Progress slowed greatly in the guest/kids bath. The walls and ceiling are all plaster, which means wire mesh covered in a cement substance.  They spent most of week two tearing out this plaster. Scroll down for a timeline of pictures of the guest bath. It took all week and I was disappointed to see very little changes.  Week three was much more productive. Thank goodness.

Most of the major changes in week three were once again in the bathrooms.  The guest bathroom went  back much quicker than it was torn out. The latest picture is not totally accurate. I took the picture on Thursday before we went out of town for the weekend and we went got back on Saturday it was really looking awesome. All the plumbing is roughed in and the sheetrock/green board is taped and mudded!

Before

Week One

Week Two

Week 3ish

The master bathroom is starting to shape up as well.  This week they closed up the wall to what was the old master bath.  If you remember, we are flip flopping the laundry and master bath to make it a true master suite.  They had to move some plumbing and electrical to make it more functional but we are starting to roll in this room.

Before

Week One

(opposite view)

Week Three

Speaking of electrical and plumbing, the crew has almost finished all the major changes to plumbing and electrical systems.  We upgraded the electrical panel and changed over a lot of the plumbing to some colorful pipes.  They have a name but I can't think of it.


We made a ton of decisions this week from tile to shower to paint colors.  It got a little overwhelming but the progress we will see at the end of week four will make it so worth it.  Let me give you a glimpse of what will happen this week!

Week four will have big changes to the exterior.  I am hoping after this week we will start the putting back phases but there is so much still to do.  Stay tuned!

This Is Enough.

This is enough. 

I am white. No one in my family works in a dangerous environment. I have no idea what it feels like to live in fear or feel hatred because of how I look or my line of work. My voice is not particularly strong and I have no great influence. My opinion is not right and neither is yours but I will listen to yours as I hope you will mine.  I have no overwhelming solutions to the problems our country is facing but what  I am is a Mother.  I have the power to sow seeds of fear or distrust, love or support into tiny little hearts every day. I can teach young minds that the color of your skin or the uniform you wear does not define you but the words you speak and your actions show your true heart. Mothers have the ability to change an entire generation. I pray for Mothers everywhere that we may use our influence to mold young minds to look past what we are supposed to believe and do what is brave and respectful.  It maybe uncomfortable for us but God did not ask us to be comfortable. He asked to love ALL regardless of the color or the uniform. Be Brave Mothers because This Is Enough. 

House Update: Week One

This post is a perfect example of "it has to get worse before it gets better." The following pictures may stress some of you out and if this was me 7 or 8 years ago, I would be stressed too.  These pictures were taken as of Friday morning and as you can see there have been a lot of changes.  The biggest changes are also our most expensive, new roof and central unit.  There have also been a few small hiccups (scroll down) but nothing major as of yet.


We knew there was knotty pine under the wallpaper in the family room but "they" (Jon) were planning on re-sheetrocking were it already existed.  I didn't quite understand why we would do that because I didn't love the look anyways.  So, I convinced Jon we should just save the knotty pine and paint it.  His fear was it would look dated.  So in comes Pinterest for the save, again.  I pulled up this picture and it sealed the deal.  Unfortunately not all of the panelling was in great shape-enter hiccup.

As you can see there has been some termite damage.  We haven't quite figured out what we are going to do with it just yet.  We would love to replace it with more knotty pine but that may not be an option.

We are just in the tear out phase with the exception of the roof.  Demo should be completely finished by the middle of next week and we should start on the put back phase.


The roof is the only thing that will be finished.  They are rocking and rolling on it and will finish it up completely at the beginning of the week.  I love the color and design.  Here is a before picture.  It's kind of hard to get a good picture of the roof because of the trees.

We also had a new central unit installed this week which I'm sure made the working REAL happy.  It is so pretty and along with the roof and new windows that are coming, the home should be very energy efficient.

We have also had two new doorways cut in to replace other wonky doorways.  The first picture shows the new door to the master bedroom.  The only entrance was through the original master bathroom and then through the laundry room. Since we are flip flopping those two rooms we needed to cut in a new door way and the only option was in the dining room.  It is much more functional.  

Before

After

The second door way will take the place of the awkward second entrance to the family room. With the current layout guests would have to either walk a long way around to get to the guest bathroom or go through Zoey's bedroom which is closest.  We decided to close up Zoey's entrance and cut in a second entrance on the wall that the family and formal living room share.  

This picture shows the current entrance (Zoey's room) and the new entrance.

In the picture above you can see the hallway(right) that leads to hallway and the boys room. I am including some additional pictures but as you can see most of the house is in a mess.  If you want to see what these looked like before demo began click here.

Lastly, we are trying to settling on an exterior paint color. You might have caught a glimpse of it in a picture above.  The color we have narrowed it down to is called "Seafoam Storm." It is a greenish gray and I really like it. Let me know what you think.  We will have white trim and windows with wood accents.