Tuesday night project ~

This evening P. worked on the steps leading up to the entryway.
He attached the risers to the joists from the back-side~
Close-up of the T-brackets used to hold the Ipe planks in place
Final test of it's strength! (actually we were jumping up and down on it but decided to calm down for a photo) :-)
I'll leave you with a mugshot of our happy faces.
Days always get better after we're home from our "day" jobs! Hope you had a great day too!

Visiting family in Pennsylvania

P. & I took a quick day-trip up to Pennsylvania on Saturday afternoon. P.'s cousin lives up in a little town in southern PA with her husband and two little ones. Also, his niece Natalie just moved to Maryland, so she and her bf met us with her little girlies and came as well. We had a blast! It was sooo fun to be with all the little girls!
Myself, J. & K. They are just the sweetest little things. <3<3
Heather (P.'s cousin's) oldest. She's a sweetie, but took a bit of time to warm up to us. I love her big blue eyes!
Miss. J. was having a little trouble being "gentle" while the girls were playing so she paid a visit to the corner. It was all I could do to hold my giggles in. :)
K. & J. with their new dresses!
From L-R, Patti (Heather's Mom), Heather, Baby S. (on her hip), Baby X (in her belly), Natalie & Baby G. (due to arrive in four weeks!)
Miss. H. starting to warm up. :)
Looking forward to our next visit with them! We loved it!

Games n' celebratin'

Miss. Mary from our old Wednesday night bible study celebrated her 11th birthday on Friday night. They were kind enough to let us barge in on the party, munch on their snacks & play some games! It was great fun!
My good friend L. made some amazingly cute and delish brownies.
She also whipped up these toffee bars. Sooo, good.
We all "sang" to the birthday girl on these kazoo's. I'm as good at playing the kazoo as I used to be! (Any of the Ramey/Grow family reading this - do you remember when I tried to play "This land is your land" on the kazoo for a talent show at one of our reunions? - ha... not much has changed!)
P. & I. :)
Fun night of eating, games & lotsa laughs. Thanks for including us!

This is how we roll...

... Or rather, cook. Whatever.
I thought I'd take you on the tour of our current kitchen. It's HUGE. It spans from the entryway to the dining room, up the stairs and around the corner to the bathroom. Quite possibly the largest kitchen I've ever had! Mind you - I'm not complaining, just informing! (and maybe soliciting just a smidgen of sympathy??)
Cooking the last few weeks has been... interesting. Below is a photo of our cooking area right now - a sawhorse with a piece of wood on top. K&L braved the elements (ie: our house) one night & joined us for supper. We had some seriously delicious turkey roast...
...and Mangos - Yes, peeled in the bathroom sink. Which also doubles as the kitchen sink right now. :) Fancy dinner, eh?
Also, here's the latest and greatest dishwashing station. Very mod. HUGE sink. We're working on the garbage disposal tho - I sure miss that guy.
And our coffee stop - the most accessible, organized part of our "kitchen". It's actually right inside the front entryway - but come on, what would you rather be greeted with? A blank, empty, boring wall or our friendly coffee pot & grinder?! :)
Thanks for stopping by our kitchen... SOON it will be much smaller, and I will be oh-so-happy about that! :)

3 weeks in photos ~

I've been a very bad blogger... :( Sorry.
We have a gajillion photos documenting what's been going on around here, but rather than post them all, I'll try to catch you up real quick-like. :)
Last time we spoke, this wall had cabinets on it. Now it doesn't.
(How's that for brief?)
The drywall was in pretty bad shape & was going to require significant patching, so we decided to just cut the worst section out and replace it. (Read: neither P. or myself enjoy drywall work, so we wanted to take the easy route.)
Aaah, muuuuch better. Now there's just seams to cover.
Now is the fun part. Mud, tape, mud, sand. Mud, sand. Mud, sand. Mud, sand. I think my lungs are permanently coated with a thick layer of drywall dust. That and the rest of the house. If you come to visit within the next few weeks, I wouldn't recommend packing any black clothes.
As of tonight, all the walls have a least two coats of mud, some have three, and they are mostly finished!! Yay.
This weekend Peter poured the mini-foundation for the stairs. It's cute. :) Seriously.
Home-made forms work great. :)
Oh, and side note - the car got a bath. MUCH needed.
Tonight P. pulled the forms off and set/nailed the stair framing.
It's lookin' good! We have an install date for the cabinets... drum roll... THIS FRIDAY! That means they'll measure for the counters on Saturday & we'll have a real, live kitchen in two weeks! :):):):) EEEE, oh happy me!

LOVE Craigslist!

We sold all the appliances, except for the dishwasher!!! We decided to wait to sell the dishwasher since the nice stainless one we bought to match our new appliances doesn't work (yet). :) We purchased it broken for a steal & are hoping to get it functioning, but meanwhile we can use the "old" one.

I'm a happy camper! Now, what to buy, what to buy? ;-D

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!