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!

Saturday PROGRESS!

We had a VERY productive Saturday!
My goal - tear out our entryway, coat closet and first floor bathroom tile... easy, right?!
The brilliant installer who put this tile in just tiled straight up to the toilet & then grouted around it, rather than lifting the toilet and tiling underneath. Frustrating!
After my first few lines of tiles, I quickly realized it wasn't going to be as easy as I thought.
A view of the tile from the front door ~
Fortunately, we bought some knee-pads awhile back that came in VERY handy!!
Tile is all up in the entryway and coat-closet...
Except for one minor detail! They screwed the concrete backer board into the sub-floor... hence, 100's of screws that need to be taken out now. (By this point my back and hands are SCREAMING at me)
Now, time for the bathroom. It's a small space, won't take long... right?
Wrong. After some much appreciated help from my hubby, we got the tile all up only to discover there was linoleum underneath. Lovely! The black dots all over it are the screws they had used to fasten the concrete board to the linoleum. More screws to take out... except these HAD to come out before I could work on peeling up the linoleum. (The others in the sub-floor I had left and figured I would remove later)
At 11pm we decided to call it quits for the night... here's how the bathroom looks as I scurry off to bed. I'll finish it up tomorrow.
Meanwhile, Peter worked some more on prepping the kitchen and ducting plenum for reframing/new drywall and eventually cabinets! He also rewired the outlets so they'd be in the right places for our new appliances.
Here's a close-up on the framing he is doing around the plenum. This will raise the ceiling about 4 inches... sounds like such a little amount, but it really makes a big difference!
Another view of his work~
Meeting tomorrow has been canceled due to 30" of snow... so we'll work some more on our place. :) For now, we need some sleep! Adios!

Snow Update ~

First things first, Dozer says "hi".
Peter went out to investigate our elusive fence... turns out, nobody ran into it - a tree fell and tore it down! :(
We had a beautiful sunset tonight. The snow stopped about 6pm - Our final count is 30"! Incredible!

You'd think we live in Minnesota!

Here's what we woke up to this morning. :) 19" of fresh fluff ~ AND, it's still coming down! They expect up to another 12" today. Whew. I think we'll stay hunkered down inside.
Mmmm, the perfect way to start our Saturday morning. Those may or may not be my pink Rudolph pajamas in the background. :-)
This is why I don't go out in public before 10am. :) It's a good one of P. tho!
Kitty likes to watch... from inside. That particular snow hump you see in this photo is 24" deep. (5" is from snowfall we had earlier this week)
Someone ran through our fence last night! We totally missed all the action. Went to bed with 100% fence, woke up to 60%. It might be a little while before that gets repaired!
My favorite tree. It's directly in front of our house and looks SO pretty with all the branches covered in snow ~ pictures don't do it justice. Maybe you should just come and see for yourself!

Goodbye ugly walls!

Meeting was cancelled tonight on account of too much snow... So, P. made the most of another evening!
Here's what we started with tonight ~
Tearing out the wall by the fridge ~
Now it's gone! Remember from yesterdays post - the red wall that separates the kitchen and the living room will soon be gone also. Instead hanging cabinets w/glass doors on both sides will be there. :):) Maybe you can't tell... but I'm REALLY excited about this!!
P. tore out the overhead and lower cabinets and counter to the right of the fridge tonight too.
Here's how it looks now! :)
We have an appointment with the cabinet guy tomorrow - hopefully we can finalize our order and then purchase the flooring on Friday!

Kitchen Demolition

It's D-Day! Let the dirty, dusty, demolition begin!
Our kitchen remodel is officially in process... we'll finalize the cabinet order this week, purchase the flooring this week, tear out one wall of cabinets & re-frame the plenum. YAAHOO!
This section of the wall used to be my pantry... key words...
"used to be". :)
Now, imagine the wall on the left side of the photo... gone! Now imagine cabinets hanging from the ceiling, with glass doors on each side. I'm SOO excited!
Stay tuned!