More kitchen demo ~ etc...

Peter finished the flooring in the entryway last week. :) It looks beautiful!
Here's how the kitchen looked this morning - except the oven was still in its place below the microwave & there was a piece of granite on the wall below the far left cabinets. We didn't get the camera out before we started today. :)
Peter taped and mudded the seams on the opposite wall...
...while I emptied cupboards. Notice my "new" spice rack in the background?? Bookcases work marvelously when you don't have cabinets to put things in! :)
Then we tore out the microwave, wall cabinets, lower cabinets and all the granite surrounding. WOW. That granite was HEAVY.
The floor cabinets that used to be next to the oven are now down in the laundry room! Peter's also going to hang the long wall cabinets that he took off the wall today down there. I'm VERY excited about this!!
We were able to salvage all of the granite, so we'll use that in the laundry room too for counters. Don't know what we'll do with the rest of it yet tho! :)
I posted our appliances on Craigslist, so am hoping to get some bites on them & get them out of the garage!
Our new cabinets are scheduled to arrive this week! We may have to push installation out another week as there's still a lot of prep work, but it's SO exciting to see it all coming together. I think we'll be eating out more often than not over the next few weeks! Ugh.
Tomorrow is special meeting in Winchester, so we're looking forward to that. I hope Peter gets to feeling better - he's had a bad sore throat all day... hopefully not a sign of worse to come! :(
G'night friends!

Finishing the deck~

Perfect day, perfect weather to stain and finish the deck!!
Before~
After ~
:-)
The Ipe looks beautiful! I'm looking forward to seeing what it looks like in the sunshine tomorrow. Night all!

Spring has sprung!

I had forgotten how much I enjoy this time of year! After a LONG, cold winter (which I did enjoy also!) these bright, fresh, new blooms make me smile every time I see them!
I liked this shot of the house... :)
Bright yellow smiles.
I like this one too. :)
Happy Spring!

Better catch up!

Hi all you loyal readers! Sorry for the lack of updates. :) I'll try to make up for that tonight.
Remember the wall that I complained was always in the way - separatin' rooms n' stuff? Well... no more!
Wall re-drywalled & ready for mud/tape. It makes SUCH a difference having this opened up!
(I promise, my kitchen does not generally look like this!!)
From the other corner of the living room - Peter finished up the drywall on that back wall this week - its now ready for mud and tape too! Cabinets are scheduled to arrive the first week of April... I'm SOO excited for this!
Today Peter laid the hardwood into the bathroom. We bought the toilet for this bathroom tonight, so it will be back in working condition before too long!
A view of the living room with the flooring done. It looks SO good. I'm so lucky to have such a talented husband!
(Ugh, the green and red walls make me cringe every time I see them in a picture!)
Tough cut. :)
Here's where the job ended tonight. 11pm so we decided to call it a night. :)
Thanks for checking in on us! Even amidst all the sawdust, a 1/2 demolished kitchen, no main floor bath... etc, etc, we still manged to have the workers last week! Special. We're just hoping they can come again when we're closer to completion. :)

Pictures are worth 1000 words?

So they say... :) Today was a busy Saturday around this place ~
Remember my Craigslist find awhile back? I decided to work on it a bit today! :)
First I roughed it up a bit... (which took forEVER!!)
And here's how it looks tonight. It'll need another two coats of white before it's ready... but I'm already liking it much better!!!
Drumroll....
Peter's been busting his hiney working on our hardwoods... They are looking SO beautiful! Here's a few previews for ya. :)
Another view ~
And an "aerial"shot to show how much is finished. :)
Time for some ZZZzzz's. Night all!

As promised~

I can't seem to kick this bug I've got, and was waiting until I felt a little wittier to write a somewhat interesting blog post, but alas... you'll have to put up with boring commentary!
Peter finished dry-walling the wall in the kitchen we had torn out ~
~ and started work on our hardwoods! 2700 lbs of beautiful bamboo was delivered to our door last Monday... :-) We're saving the laminate (below) to use in the basement eventually.
1/2 of the living room cleared - you can see the bamboo stacked in the background. Also, don't you love the flannel plaid sheet covering the window? It matches so well with the green and brown squiggles on the wall. Maybe we'll start a trend?
Looking from the kitchen into the living room. Peter removed the upper cabinets on this wall the other evening. The upper cabinet in the far left of the picture is gone now too. That entire wall (where the tall granite backsplash is) will be torn down to open the room up into the living area.
Rolling out the underlayment
Peter's nifty new flooring nailer. I believe he owns every nail gun known to contractor now - this one rounded off his collection! :)
Bamboo!! We learned in our 'quest' for bamboo that depending on the age and type of bamboo, some is very soft, and some is very hard... We decided since it'll be on our main floor, and likely have quite a bit of traffic that we would purchase the harder bamboo. Harder wood = more $$$, but in the long run, I think we'll be glad we did it! We purchased through BuildDirect, and the bamboo type is their 'Woven, Stranded Bamboo'. - We're happy with it so far!!
First piece! Peter is laying it on a diagonal to give the room a bit more dimension.
Nailer and hubby in action ~
With the COLD weather we've had, P's work space is on the kitchen floor!
Aaaaaand finally... I just had to post a picture of my first experiment with curry! It turned out delicious!! I used this recipe, and followed it exactly. Next time I would omit the sugar (I actually used splenda), but overall I was so pleased! It's a one-dirty-dish meal (which I LOVE ~ all I used was my wok), simple to prepare, delish with rice or vegetables, and the hubbs liked it too! I foresee this again in our future. :)
The floor has progressed along quite a bit more tonight... but I'm too exhausted to put those pics up now - they can wait! :)

Trip to Vancouver, WA

Two weeks ago P. & I took a trip out to the West Coast to visit some of his family & see some friends we've dearly missed. It was such a nice time - jam-packed with visits, traveling, eating... you know, the usual!
We were so pleased to be able to spend time with most of Peter's family (we missed Fredericks and Crystie tho and Tama of course), see my bro Del & his wife who stopped in on their way back to Boise, spend some time with worker Boller, have lunch with some of our old co-workers, visit with B,K & meet baby Herman and catch up with D, J, N & baby Carson!! Not to mention some nice fellowship and studies!
However... even with all that excitement, I was a horrible photographer and took less than 10 photos during the ENTIRE week! :-S Here's a few that make me smile ~
This view on the way out to The Dalles from Portland. Mt. Hood, standing tall framed by the flawless clear blue sky. Followed soon with the drive through the gorgeous Columbia River Gorge... I miss this scenery! Don't get me wrong, Virginia has a beauty all it's own, but it doesn't include mountains like this that's for sure!
One day P. & I took a quick detour up to Mosier area to check out our property on the mountain... still as pretty as ever! Anyone want to buy? 4.77 acres with a gorgeous view of Mt. Adams and incredible East-West views up and down the Columbia River... :)
B&K Herman's little one ~ she made me smile. I just wish I had taken photos of D&J's cuties, and our nieces A&L too! :( This will suffice for cute lil' faces for now.
I have lots of photos coming to update you on the progress of the remodel... maybe I'll get them up tonight? :)

Once upon a time...

...it snowed in Northern Virginia. A certain kitty complained and complained and complained until his owners would let him go outside to explore the white fluff. These were his impressions:
Slippery.
...cold, wet, miserable.
This is better. :)
Mr. D. quickly was ready to join us back inside where he decided his WARM white fluff was a better place for now. :)

A little bit of everything from the week thus far...

Here's a quick catch-up of our week so far:
VA Blizzard 2010 version 1.0 (aka, Sunday the 7th). Our neighbor had someone plow his drive-way & he kindly did ours as well! We were ever-so-grateful... shoveling 250 feet of 30" deep snow was not how either of us wanted to spend the afternoon! :) Please note, in the far right side of the photo, you can still see the little yellow car... remember this for reference later. :)
Last night Peter started hanging the drywall around the plenum ~
Story-time: Dozer sleeps down in the basement at night since he has a tendency to want to play every.single.morning at 2am. His owners aren't too fond of that habit - so the basement has been the perfect solution! We let him out when we're ready to rise-and-shine rather than when he is. :) However, due to the current demolished state of our kitchen, the wall that separates the kitchen and the basement stairs is open and exposed. We figured, no-big-deal, he can't jump that high anyway.
WRONG. He can.
We learned this at 2am on the dot this morning.
Solution? One piece of plywood nailed over the open area.
Viola. Aaah ~ sweet sleep. :)
Peter tore out the toilet & sink in the bathroom today also. GROSS. I know I didn't HAVE to post this picture, but it will remind me of how much better things are when they're re-done! :) (P.s.: That moldy subfloor WILL be replaced. So will the cabinet.)
..just like the section below! This part of the entryway was soft and flexed a considerable amount when it was walked on. P. cut the soft section out~
~and replaced it with new! :)
Enter VA Blizzard 2010 version 2.0 (aka Wednesday the 10th). As if the weekend blizzard wasn't enough... more of the white fluff descended on us today. Remember how you could see the little yellow car in the first photo? Not anymore! Today's blizzard brought high-gusting winds (think > 40mph) ALL day, drifting the snow & piling it up next to anything in its way.
Shoveling the drive... must go to work tomorrow... :(
P. called my little snow gal "squat". I think she just has big hips. :)
I better get some dinner on the table. Send some warm thoughts our way... I'm hoping we can thaw out one of these days!