Yes, once again I find myself thinking that I need to apologize for not keeping up to date better on the progress that has been going on. But dang it, life is crazy and it hasn’t been a priority!

Last night husband and I were out working kind of late and I just really wanted to go to bed and sleep out there. So I decided that tonight I am going to! I packed up a few necessities like my pillow and told husband that tonight is going to be our official first night staying over at our new place. I am really excited! We will have to come back into town to shower before work and stuff but I don’t care. Enough is enough and I am going to start kind of living out there. :)

Things that have been going on – the upstairs electrical is now all hooked up and working. We have a million switches to get figured out but I think we can handle it. We are also trying out some LED recessed lighting in the bedroom. I like it a lot except for the delay when you turn on the switch. We’ll see how we adjust to it though. Husband is just finishing up the last of the sealing on the shower. I am so excited – he did a really awesome job installing the tile and it looks really really great. We now have to get the glass people to come out and measure for a glass wall and door. It will be fun to see that part done – it looks good now but I know that it is going to look really awesome once it complete! Here is the what the shower looks like right now – so beautiful!

I have been cleaning non stop it seems like. Messes keep appearing and it is an endless job. I am also in the process of painting the floor. Since we haven’t decided on flooring yet we will just go ahead and paint so at least we can clean up easier. That buffalo board never feels clean so hopefully the paint will help with that.

It is back to school time again and husband started workshops today! Yikes – did we seriously just spend the whole summer working on our house?! Crazy!

We are headed way up north this weekend to take pictures at a wedding. My niece is going to be a flower girl in it so that will be interesting as she is crazy little dirt ball! :) We’ll also getting some camping in with sister #1 and her family so I’m looking forward to that as well. Also hoping to stop in and try on a pair of authentic MukLuks in Ely!

The nights have been cooling down which is a sure sign the fall is around the corner – I am looking forward to those wonderful nights of sleeping with the windows open and waking up to the crisp fall air – it will be even better this year because it will be fresh country air instead of stinky town air! Oh the excitement – I can’t wait! I love fall!!!

It’s true – there is something wrong with my face. It won’t stop SMILING!

Why? Well because I have had one really amazing week and life is so good right now I simply can’t believe it.

I am now officially 28 – my birthday was on Tuesday and I had a really awesome birthday. Best one in a long time. Not that others have been bad, this one was just really great! I got to work and my awesome co-workers at my new job had decorated my office and I had presents and treats on my desk! How amazing to have co-workers that are friends too. It blows my mind – I feel incredibly lucky at my new job. Or should I say career as I also got promoted on my birthday! !!! It was really a surprise to me, there had been talk about transferring my position to a different department…I’m a graphic designer and I was under the Sales & Marketing Department which was kind of a weird fit…and it is happening along with a promotion! I’ll be hiring a designer to report to me (WHAT?! crazy, I know!) and I’m also going to be moving offices because a few others here are hiring as well and we are running out of space.

So now I am part of the Corporate Communications team which at this point consists of two other young ladies who rock my world! yay yay YAY!!!

In other world rocking news – our house is progressing along leaps and bounds. AMAZING! The sheetrock work is done. Yes, you read that correctly and no, it is not a typo. DONE! They got done a day early because they are wonderful and amazing and it looks really good. We did a really simple, small orange peel on the walls, a light knock down on the ceiling, and chamfer corners and I love it. LOVE IT!

Well, the pictures don’t look that amazing – come out and see it and you’ll better understand the awesomeness of it.

I am SO excited for the entry way – it is going to be the perfect sized space for an entry. Larger than most, but I like that because I HATE being crowded at the door. Love it – love it already – can’t wait to clean up!!!!!

Other progress has been made as well – husband rounded up his awesome co-workers and they tackled the garage door situation yesterday. They put in some serious labor and the results speak for themselves and I can’t thank them enough for helping out!

Isn’t it going to be super amazing?! There is some black hardware that will get installed on them as well – they are the “carriage” style doors so there are strap hinges and handles. And I’m going to have window boxes under the two garage windows as well as the small window by the front door. And it is going to be cute and perfect and we will love it and live happily ever after the end.

Also! We ordered carpet for the bedroom and that is going to be installed on Saturday afternoon which was a huge stroke of luck as it is usually 7-10 days after the carpet gets in (which was yesterday) before they can install!

So can you sympathize with my face condition after hearing all of the amazing news?! CAN’T STOP SMILING!

So, I would like to end with a should of joyment and say HOORAY, CHEESE DAY!

I find it a little hard to describe the things we have changed with the layout so I made some really fancy diagrams to help. They are impressive I must say – you will barely be able to tell the difference between professional blue prints and these diagrams I whipped up.

Here is the layout before:

Ooops, forgot to put a compass rose on that bad larry – well, the top is North. Easy enough.  SO! The things that bothered me that I really wanted to change -
1. The entry way. I hate not having a place to put your things down and sit down and take your shoes off. They sat on the steps to do that, but I would really prefer to have an actual seat of some kind.
2. Having to squeeze through the kitchen area to get to the dining area. Also hate the over head cabinets that seperated the kitchen/dining area.
3. Two small bedrooms that don’t fit much more than a bed and small dresser – for just hubs and I it seems silly when we could have one larger more functional bedroom.
4. Windows on the north side. They were PUNY. The wetlands, grove, and backyard are all to the north and I want to enjoy that view!

Actually, that really is all that I wasn’t crazy about. So, you know the story by now that we ended up having to completely redo EVERYTHING and this is the layout that we are going to end up with.

The entry issue was solved by taking out the closet and building it into the garage. We also put a window in next to the door. It is SO much roomier and more functional in there now! We also opened up the stairwell and some genius people had the idea to move the header thing in the stairwell back and it looks a million times better – it was something I would have not thought to do.

We are swapping the dining and kitchen setup. A “U” shaped kitchen works much better in a U shaped space! Also, we took the wall that is between the steps and dining area down to about hip height so we have a clear view across the whole house. And we put two  long windows in above the countertops – the view is AWESOME from the kitchen. Husband also got a taller window for the dining area and I am so glad he did!

The living area is now the bedroom and we took out the storm door, put a closet on that wall and then replaced the picture window with a sliding patio door. The south window stayed the same size – it was already nice and big and we will do built-in cabinets around it with a window seat. We also plan to make the deck a bit smaller and possibly take out the staircase that goes to the lawn and have it be part of the master “suite”.

Bathroom layout is staying the same but we will do a walk-in shower instead of a tub. We also moved the window over and increased the size of it.

For the new living area, we took out bedroom 2 closet and there will be a fireplace in that general area. And the very best part of the remodel – the windows on the north side! They are crazy big and I am so glad we went for it and got them huge! The one on the east side of the north wall is 10′ wide and 6′ tall. I really wanted the windows to come down close to the floor – I love the look of it and it adds so much light to the room! The other window on the north side is quite big as well and we might possibly do a window seat under that one. The small window that was on the west wall in bedroom 1 is now beautiful, big french doors that will eventually lead out to a screened in deck complete with a ceiling fan. I was very specific to get wiring done for the ceiling fan out there. :)

And I guess that is kind of it!

Whew – what a ton of work – and what a difference!